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THE
PERIENCES AND OBSERVATIONS OF AN
AMERICAN AMATEUR IN EUROPE
º
BY
3 AMES #ACKSON }ARVES
* ,-- -
AUThor of “Art HINTs,” “Art studies,” “THE ART-IDEA ; ” HonorARY MEMBER
OF THE ACADEMY OF FINE ARTs, FLORENCE, ITALY, Etc., Etc
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fºntered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1869, by
JAMES JACKSON JARVES.
in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court for the District of Massachusetts.
RIVERSIDE, CAMBRIDGE:
3 T & B E O T Y P E D A N D P R IN T R D B Y
H. O. HOUGHTON AND OOMPANY
TO WHOMSOEVER IT CONCERNS.
I owe it to myself to put forth this book as the more matured
result of studies especially directed towards the general intro-
duction and spread of Art in America, the particular scope and
aim of which were given in previous works, particularly the
“Art-Idea,” of which these “Thoughts” are intended to be an
extension and completion. Less I could not do to put my object
and position clearly before the public, although it may be already
out of patience with the theme and the advocate. I wish it to
be a final effort on my part, and to pass to abler hands, while
leaving to me the cheering retrospection of having broken
ground for them. With this expectation let us take comfort.
Some brief portions may be recognized as having appeared in
our own and English magazines this year. In conclusion I
would commend whatever there is true and lovely in Art, as
exemplified in these Experiences, to the observation and study
of my young children, to whom I most earnestly and affection-
ately dedicate these “Thoughts” as so many crumbs which
have fallen to their father from the Masters’ tables.
BoSTON, September, 1869.
%).
========
CONTENTS.
-O-
CHAPTER I.
PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONs.
PAGE
Origin and Scope of the Art-Idea.— Art a Human Want. — Style — Taste.
— Definition of Art. — Artist and Craftsman. — The True Artist. — Gen-
eric Motives. – Art as a Vehicle of Knowledge. — Nature the Fact. —
Art the Type. — Final Test of Art. – Ideas in Art. — The World without .
Beauty. — Decoration. — Conscience in Art. — Inspiration. —Temptation,
Nature of — What Art should be . . tº e e tº * ... 1
CHAPTER II.
THE PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN RELIGIOUS IDEA IN ART.
Religious and Æsthetic Ideas distinct but in Unity. — Origin of Sculpture.
— Egyptian, Assyrian, and Indian Art, One-sided Nature of — Moses
and Mohammed, their Policy, — The Hebrews. – Character of Greek
Art. — Muse of Cortona. — Raphael's Theory of Ideals. – A perfect Model.
— Beauty and Freedom of Grecian Art. – Every Greek a latent God. —
Judaea supplants Greece. —Nature of Symbolical Art. — The Scarabeus.
— Phallus and Crucifix. — False Art of Antiquity. — “Artists of Filth.”
— Polychromy. — Examples of best Greek Work. — Statue and Bust Por-
traiture. — Roman and Grecian Taste. — Sensuousness and Sensuality. —
Salutary Effects of Religion in Art. — Female Nude. — First Naked Venus.
— Disregard of Landscape. — Basis of Greek Taste . tº º & . 15
CHAPTER III.
THE ART AND RELIGION OF ETRURIA.
Etruscan Character, their Cities and Sepulchres. – Rome owed its Civili-
zation to Etruria. — Sites of their Towns. – Contents of their Tombs, –
Root of Etruscan Art in Realism. — Ideas of Death and a Future Life. —
The Volumni Sculptures. – Demonism. — A Domestic People. — Their
Supernal Images. – Furies. – Monument of a Lady. — The Chimera. —
Its Meaning . . . . . g º tº tº & tº º . 36
CHAPTER IV.
COMPARISON BETWEEN CLAssICAL AND CHRISTIAN ART.
The Art of Rome, Ancient and Modern. — Art concerns History on the Side
of its Morality — Is Office in regard to the Individual. —Where did

viii CONTENTS.
PAGº!
Paganism leave Art?—How did Christianity take it up?—Which Form
is the most successful? — Pleasure and Pain as Motives in Art. — Chris-
tian Hope and Fear, Results of, asthetically considered. — Asceticism. —
Examples in Art. — St. Francis. – Phases of Christian Art. — The Cata-
combs. – Theological. – Religious, Renaissance, Modern. — Powers's
“Panoramic Hell.” — Dante’s “Inferno.” — Range of Greek Art. — Its
Ideal Creations. – Christian Art. — Heathem and Christian Grotesque. —
Diogenes and St. Jerome. — Bacchus, Venus, Mars, Mercury, Menelaus,
and Helen. — Repose in Art. — Michael Angelo's Statues. – How good
and bad Art acts. – Christian Mythology. – Ecstatic or Love Aspect of
Christian Art. — The New Jerusalem. — Zeus and Jehovah. — Wisdom
through Suffering. -- Representative Christian Artists. – Disposition to
Idolatry of all Peoples. – Pagan Ideals contrasted with Christian. — The
Almighty as a Motive in Art. — Michael Angelo's and Blake's Treatment.
— Phidias. – Razzi’s “Eve.” — Michael Angelo’s “Eve’’ and “For-
tune.” — The Spiritual Secret of his Superiority as Man and Artist . 49
CHAPTER W.
ARCHITECTURE.
Culmination of Plastic Art. — Functions of the Architect. — Nature of
Architecture. — Civilization has no fixed Standard. — Central America,
Mexico, Peru, China, Japan. — Hindoo Architecture. — Egyptian. — Effect
of Race and Climate. — The Jews. – Turks. – Arabs. – Principles of
Primitive Architecture. —Cyclopean and Pelasgian Edifices. – The Key-
note of Grecian Architecture; Character of — Roman. — The Dome. —
‘Germs of Architecture. — Lombard, Byzantine, Romanesque, Saracenic
Styles. – Feudal Styles. – Origin, Aim, Scope, and Varieties of the
Gothic. — Its Character. — The Cathedral. — Effect of Printing on the
Gothic. — The Renaissance. — St. Peter's and other Examples. – Effect
of Protestantism on Ecclesiastical Architecture. — Rococo Styles. – Fash-
ion. — Bigotry and Infidelity in Architecture. — Honest Renaissance. —
Modern Gothic, its Uses . º g * jº & º º © 94
CHAPTER WI.
MoDERN ITALIAN ART, LIFE, AND RELIGION.
Depressing Effect of Books on Art. — Depressing Effect of Protestantism. —
Why Religious Art has died out. — Careers of the “Old Masters.” —
Connection between the Religion and Art of a People. — Failure of the
Roman Catholic Church. — Italian Traits and Character. — A “Pagus.”
— Nature of the Picturesque. — An Italian and an American Home. —
What the Christian Idea has accomplished. —Dethronement of Papacy.
— Duomo of Cortona. – Westminster Abbey, Abuses of — Monte Uliveto.
— Arezzo. — Siena. —- Mendicants of Pisa. — Razzi’s “Epiphany.” —
Hermitage of Gallicano. — Professors, as a Caste. — Old Ideas. – New
Saints. – Italian Artists, – Ussi. — Altamura. — Benvenuti. — Mediaeval
Tombs — Dupré. — Morelli. — Bastianini. — Landscape and Genre Art.
— Vela. — The “Devil’’ in Modern Art. — Failure of the Latin Races . 136
CONTENTS. ix
CHAPTER WII.
THE ART OF HOLLAND, BELGIUM, SPAIN, AND GERMANY.
PAG
Printing displaces Religious Art. — How the Popes put out Protestant Ideas E
in Italy. — Their Return now. — Artistic Capacity of the Spanish. —
Character of their Schools. – Murillo, Velasquez, Cano, Morales. --
School of Holland. — Democracy in Art. — Rembrandt. — Rubens. –
Belgium. – “Rural Fête ” by Rubens. – Art of Germany. — Compari-
Son between Books and Art. — Albert Durer. — Holbein. — Overbeck. —
Cornelius. – Kaulbach. — The Dusseldorf Artists. – Results . ſº . 17%
CHAPTER VIII.
ENGLISH ART.
General Ignorance in Europe of it. —What Englishmen have done to Civil-
ize the World. — The American in Europe. — Causes of Insularity of
English Art. — Influence of Fashion. —English Sculpture. — Chantrey.
— Gibson. – English Painting, Nature of — Coloring, Want of —
Water-color Painting. — Representative Artists. – Reynolds, Gainsbor-
ough, Wilson, Hogarth, Wilkie, Leslie, Landseer, Leech, “Punch,” Wil-
liam Blake, Millais, Holman Hunt, Dante Rosetti, Mrs. Benham Hay,
Turner, Comparison drawn between him and Blake. — Conclusion . . 190
CHAPTER IX.
THE ART OF JAPAN AND CHINA.
Character of their Art-design. — Illuminated MISS. and Books of Design. —
Boun-Tiyó and Oksai. — His Genius. – The Albert Durer of Japan. —
Analysis of Japanese Design. —Oksai and Phidias in Contrast. — Demon-
ism of Japan. — Native Humor. — Realistic Design. — Sensualism. —
Jebis, or Neptune. — God of Longevity . . . . . . . 221
CHAPTER X.
THE PAINTERS OF FRANCE.
Foreign Element. — Early MS. Illuminated. — Poverty of French Art. –Y
Clouet, Claude, Poussin, Le Sueur; their Style. — Period of Louis’
XIV. — Mignard. — Harlotry in Art. — Vamloo and the Animal Painters.
Greuze. — Joseph Wernet. — The Art of the Revolution. — School of
David. – Géricault, Girodet, Gros, Gérard, Prud’hon, Le Brun. — Salon
Carré. — H. Wernet. — Color in French Art. — The Spiritual Element. —
Ary Scheffer. — Flamdrin. — Delaroche. — Troyon. — Rosa Bombeur. —
Ingrés. – Décamps. – Fleury. — A Picture by Giorgione. — Couture. —
Delacroix. — His Genius. – Muller's great Painting. – Gérome and his
School. — Meissonnier. — The Lascivious - Pretty. — Baudry. — Boudier.
— The Obscene in French Art. — Still-life. — Desgoffe. — Fromentin. —
Domestic-Genre, — Frère, Merle, Browne. — Men of Feeling. – Jules
Bréton and Millet. — Lambron's Vargin and Child.” — The Painter of
X CONTENTS.
PAGE
Ugliness. – Ribot. — The Ocean in French Art. — Nature and the Land-
scapists. –Lambinet. — Auguste Bonheur. — Théodore Rousseau, Diaz,
Corot, the Sentimentalist. — Couture, the Realist. — Doré, Analysis of his
Genius. – Summary of the School and its Condition . . . . 230
CHAPTER XI.
FRENCH SCULPTURE AND ARCHITECTURE.
Cellini's “Nymph.”— Goujon’s “Diana.” — Pseudo-classical Work.-Por-
trait-Statuary. — Royalty as Jupiter Scapin. — Pierre Puget. — Decorative
and Monumental Sculpture. — Modern Paris vs. Old Paris: Gain and
Loss. – Policy of Louis Napoleon. — Result in Art. — Statistics of the
Parisian “New Jerusalem.”—“La Grace de Dieu.” — Assumptions of
French Civilization. — Its-Present Standard, and Causes thereof . . 282
CHAPTER XII.
ART IN AMERICA.
Condition and Needs. – Period of West. — The Intermediate Stage. — Pres-
ent Stage. — Wrong Estimate. — Average Artist as easily produced as
Average Writer. — The Average Patron. — The Mechanical and Com-
mercial Spirit of American Art. — Machine Labor. — Story's Theory. —
An Old Error in a New Shape. — Its Fallacy. — Cheap Art always Poor
Art. — Genius conceives quickly, executes slowly. — Our New-school
Men. — Leutze and the Melo-dramatists. – Effect of the Great Exposition
of 1867, on American Art. — Our Landscapists. – Raphael’s “Apollo’”
and “Marsyas.” — Mediocrity of American Sculpture. — The Sense of the
Beautiful in the Italian Mind contrasted with that of the Ridiculous in
the American. — The Lincoln Monument. — Statue of St. Alessio. — Bos-
ton Street-statues. – How to secure Better Sculpture. — Cost of Sculp-
ture. — Examples of Prices. – H. Hosmer. — Studies from Life. — Our
Equestrian Statues. – Mills, Ward, Ball, Jackson, Brown, Story. — The
American Standard of Knowledge of Art. — Style of our Architecture. —
London Criticisms. – Educational Advantages of Galleries and Museums.
— Idealists in Sculpture. — Gould, Brackett, Conolly . ſº & . 291
CHAPTER XIII.
THE MINOR ARTs. – ORNAMENT AND DECORATION.
Final Object of Ornament. — AEsthetic Repose. — Misplaced Ornament. —
Rule of Fashion. — The Gossip of Art. — Asiatic and European and
American Instincts of Beauty and Taste. — Independent Taste. — Moral
Influences of Museums. – Classical and Pagan Ornamentation. — Oriental
Porcelains. – Emamels and Straw-work. — Moresque Ornament. — Lucca
della Robbia Ware. — Palissy. — Limoges and Byzantine Enamels. –
Italian Majolica. — Venetian Glass. – Renaissant Work. — Bronzes,
Gems, Metals, Leather, etc. —Wedgewood. — Kensington and British
Museums and Schools of Design. — Our Opportunity . tº º . 320
CONTENTS. xi
CHAPTER XIV.
AMATEURSHIP.
PAGE
Dilettanteism and Amateurship, Character of — American Critics. – What
is needed to make a Sound Connoisseur. — Foreign Galleries and their
Management. — Restoration of Pictures, False and Genuine. — Statistics
of Galleries. – Their Value as Productive Capital. —AEsthetic Bottom of
Americans. – Foreign Amateurs. — The Born Collector. — His Risks and
Pleasures. – Swindling and Forgeries in Art. — Noted Instances. – The
Moreau Case, and Justice in Paris. – A Genuine Leonardo. — Letter of
Holman Hunt. — Yale School of Fine Arts. – Appeal in behalf of the
“Old Masters.” . . . . . . . . . . . 339
CHAPTER XV.
THE ART OF THE FUTURE.
Art the Material Representation of the Ideal. — Love and Religion its Basis,
— Imagination controls it. – Retrospective View of Pagan, Mediaeval,
and Renaissant Art. — Two Ways of Happiness: the Demoniac Ideal
and the Beautiful Ideal. —Spirit of our Century. — Fresh Heavens
opened. — The Old Flow of Theology. — St. Francis and the Death of the
Body. — The Pagan Love of Diversion. — Mediaeval do. — Modern Infi-
delity and Sadness in Life. — Fruit of American Institutions.— Immortal
Moments. – Theodore Parker's Theory of Use. — Its Foolishness. –
Franklin and Michael Angelo. – Rubens. – Contrast in uses between
Physical Comfort and Mental and Spiritual Welfare. — Examples. –
Ideas and Emotions. – What Fine-art accomplishes. – The Future Art
of America . tº e º te tº * * e . 365

ART THOUGHTS.
CHAPTER I.
PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS.
INCE 1852, I have studied Art, chiefly to purpose of
find out the part it has sustained in effete "“”
civilizations, and to ascertain its present condition
with reference to the future. The satisfaction de-
rived from this study amply compensates its time
and cost. But it would be incomplete, if the results might not
be made useful to others. I shall try to give a succinct view of
the subject as a whole, tracing its varied expressions to our
time, hoping to make the meaning, origin, and aim of Art more
clear to the common mind than it seems to be at present, as
well as to proffer some hints for its culture. It would be pre-
Sumptuous to offer this little work to the consideration of the
erudite of any nation. In my own country there are few who
give Art any serious attention ; fewer still, it may be, to sym-
pathize with my attempt or accept my conclusions. Yet the
topic is attractive to many. Those who are unable to study
the history of Art at its native sources may be willing to follow
me in my experiences, while freely exercising their own judg-
ments. To them, therefore, I address myself.
What is the origin and scope of the art-idea 2 What has it
done for men, and what may it still do? What are its rela-
tions to nature, science, and religion ? How are communities
made better or worse by it 2 To what extent is it indispen-
sable to our individual happiness? These questions cover all
the ground we need examine.
Our first difficulty arises from the fact that words are vague
in the ratio of their generalization. Comprehensive nouns like
Art, Science, Religion, Philosophy, or God, convey to different

2 ORIGIN OF ART.
9
minds varied conceptions. Each degree of knowledge, and
even of temperament, has its formula of expression. Thus
language is largely conventional. As minds grow, the signifi-
cance of words changes to them. I cannot, therefore, hope to
be understood by all exactly as I could desire ; but I may
make my use of essential terms intelligible to thinkers.
... . . Art has its origin deep in a human want. I would
man want, not exclude animals from a certain consciousness of its
The adeal. presence, for even they enjoy something above and
beyond physical functions, indicative of a receptive sense of
pleasure, as if they too welcomed their ideal. If man were
solely a being of abstract reason, the exercise of thought would
be sufficient to his happiness. But he has also heart and
imagination which demand gratification. Both clamor for more
than they ever obtain. This unfulfilled wish constitutes their
ideal, or that subtile aspiration of the soul which is the essence
of noble art. This it is which gives a halo to the beauty it
evokes; which fires the sentiments and exalts the intellect, im-
parting an undefinable joy as the object responds to our amor-
ous appeal: a language felt rather than heard. Our happiness
is the more complete inasmuch that it is dissociated with notions
of labor or utility. Fine art suggests neither. As with the
fragrance of a flower or the radiance of a sunset, we inhale its
Sweetness in unconscious gratitude, forming the while close
friendships with its images. No one need expect to compre-
hend art in its ultimate sense, unless he is capable of receiving
its impressions as spontaneously and supersensuously as he would
those of love; for art is first passion, then conviction. Whence
its power is not to be ciphered. Ends, not means, it affirms.
Unless we apprehend the spiritual element, our satisfaction
must limit itself to its technical and material functions.
Both science and art aspire to sublime things; the former to
discover and use, the latter to represent and suggest. Science
tells us of what salts a tear is made, but can give no insight into
its cause, as can art. Analyzing the excretions of the kidneys,
it decides with mathematical accuracy on the relative activity
of mind and muscle, informing us how much passion, thought,
or repose a man has had in a given time, and even claims that
thought itself is only one form of matter. In this way it treats
movement and character, which art also embodies in solid ma-
terial in a different fashion. We can thus understand the kin-
ship of art and science, and their diverging technical offices.
PHOTOGRAPHY NOT ART. 3
Some of these are confounded in popular apprehension by
an endeavor to enhance the credit of certain occupations.
Photography is not art, but a process of science to which art
may add grace and beauty. As commonly practiced, it is
chemical handicraft, and not to be spoken of as art, though,
under its guidance, capable of making one forget its scientific
origin in aesthetic satisfaction. Further, it is a useful servant
of the artist, in many familiar ways, besides disseminating copies
of the works of art in a cheap and portable form. Chromo-
lithography is another manual process of less importance and
truth of characterization. We should not confuse the shadow
with the substance of art any more than we do the abstract idea
with the printed word.
Cookery, hair-dressing, and tailoring, owing to the transceden-
tal importance given them in France, have trespassed on the
domain of art. In that country, tailors, cooks, and barbers are
often called artists. This misnomer may be exhilarating to in-
dividual vanity; but it does not elevate these occupations though
it does tend to degrade art, by vulgarizing its associations and
lowering its mental standard. Moreover, it is a sad commentary
on the aspirations of a people to permit any handicraft to rank
as art; for it virtually says that muscle is entitled to the highest
honors of mind, and puts the servant in the place of his master.
To cook a meal, stitch clothes, or dress hair no more makes an
artist than to blow glass or shoe horses. There is no need of
jumbling art and manual labor. One is the product of thought,
imagination, feeling; the other is work done according to rule,
receipt, or pattern, in which dexterity of hand is of more ac-
count than mental action. Art can benefit a handicraft by mak-
ing its product ornamental and pleasurable instead of plain or
ugly ; but ugliness and coarseness, as we perceive in things in
general, do not diminish their absolute utility.
An artist is called to higher functions than the Artist and
craftsman. By the same election no cook, barber, or %:...
photographer can be an artist, or else he would not *
be what he is. Whenever handicraft aspires to the ornamental,
the artist must be called in. Calling charcoal a diamond does not
make it one; nevertheless the smutty wood can be transformed
into the brilliant gem. No man of taste is taken in by names,
for ugliness does not become beauty by the addition of a lie.
I emphasize these points now, that I may not be misunderstood
later in my application of the art-idea.
4 STYLE IN ART.
As there are many artificers who boast themselves artists,
so there are many men who pass current as artists in virtue
of prodigious self-assertion, maybe deception, and turning out
work as a printer prints books. They create nothing; recast
nothing; fulfill no law of art; but execute terribly, in acres of
canvas and tons of stone, which, being called pictures and statues,
impose on the credulous by sheer nomenclature. These forgeries
abound in all countries and times; for art, being pleasanter in
garb and more readily perverted into shams, has more parasites
than science. Nevertheless there is a rule whereby to detect
the real artist. His tools are in his brain rather than his
hands. His creed is in his work, not his cash-book. Having
a detective taste for beauty in any guise, he accumulates artistic
things even less as practical hints than as objects to be enjoyed.
No matter how famous an artist is in type or lucky in “orders,”
unless he shows style in his work and taste in his home, he is
no true man, but only a shrewd guller of the public. I would
gladly omit all reference to fictitious work, for the same reason
that I would not waste eyesight on it; but some examples will
be needed to correct common misconceptions.
Style, taste, , . By style I mean more particularly that character
definition of given to the artist's work which comes of thought,
Qrt. whether new in conception and treatment, or the re-
casting of older ideas and forms into fresh life. The style of
a school is an aggregation of the forces of its masters. In art,
therefore, it is a positive, indispensable element, as character is,
to manhood. Taste enters into style in the same way that
polite manners help form the gentleman. There may be style
with but little taste; still it is essential to complete work. By
putting into harmony diverse forms and qualities, it acts as a
barometer of art-feeling and intelligence. A man without taste
is a mental cripple. His asthetic faculty being unformed, he is
virtually deaf and blind to the most refined pleasures of life.
No one will deny that the most intense and diffused of human
joys spring from the passion of love. Without pretending to
define art in precise terms, I venture to call it the love of the
soul, in the sense that science is its law. As a civilizing pro-
cess, each is the complement of the other. Practically, art is the
ornamental side of life, as science is its utilitarian ; the one
having to do with the appearance of things, the other with their
substance. Whatever is produced by man of which beauty is
the main feature, and enjoyment the chief aim, that has its origin
REALISM; IDEALISM. 5
in the art-idea ; while things of simple use are the fruit of the
opposite faculty. This is, however, only a superficial view. A
more profound apprehension of their attributes makes science the
representative of Divine Wisdom, and art the image of Divine
Love; both bringing down to the level of our senses, by a sort
of incarnation, the unseen and infinite.
Two fundamental distinctions underlie art. I call Realism and
them Realism and Idealism, from want of clearer 'đ'.
words to express my meaning. The former applies aves.
to the portraiture of the external world, and partakes more or
less of copying and imitation. It affects local and particular
truths; is circumscribed in action and motive ; inclines to inven-
tories of things in its poorer estate; is apt to be cold, pedantic,
minutely fine, or broadly rough ; and seldom rises above consum-
mate dexterity and intellectual appreciation.
Idealism bases itself on universal truths. It deals more with
emotions and ideas than facts and action, opposing imagination
to perception, on which realism chiefly rests. Inventing, sug-
gesting, creating, the former is the poetry of fine art; the latter,
its prose. How to combine perfect execution with profound
thought, and while rendering temporal and special truths to endow
them with the spirit of the ideal and eternal, is the great prob-
lem of art. Great artists ever struggle to solve it. But owing
to the bias which the mind early takes for one or the other of
these phases, and the limitations of their materials, few succeed
in combining their best points.
The motives which determine the generic directions of art are
of three kinds. They may be classed as follows, not to define
a system, but only to aid in recognizing the dominant character-
istics of an artist or period. In comprehending at a glance the
ruling motive, and placing ourself in sympathy with it, we not
only enjoy more heartily the artist's purpose, but quicker come
to sound judgment. Hence any simple rules to aid the obser-
vation of the spectator are useful. With art, as with speech,
misunderstandings arise by not promptly understanding what is
meant.
These generic motives are, first, DECORATION ; having for its
object ornament, and addressing itself chiefly to the sensuous
faculties. This is the most common, and enters largely into
food, clothing, furniture, building, manufacture, and polite man-
ners; in fine, into everything which besides its utility has scope
for beauty.
6 WHAT ART IS.
Secondly, ILLUSTRATION: teaching, representation, preserva-
tion, and reminiscence under aesthetic forms being its chief aims.
This includes more especially landscape, historical, and dramatio
art, and portraiture, whether realistic or idealistic.
Thirdly, REVELATION, in the sense of invention, suggestion,
creation, and discovery, inspired by the imagination. All super-
sensuous and supernal imagery that has no exact likeness to
things in the world about us comes under this distinction. Its
real mission is spiritual truth, but not unseldom it is prostituted
to sensualism and diabolism, for it goes to either extreme just as
it is controlled by a pure or a debauched mind.
Frequently the above distinctions commingle, but in general
one of them marks the ruling thought. Art of itself is neither
good nor evil, but passively obeys the human will, so that it
affords a sure test of culture and morals, individually and na-
tionally. I include in it polite literature, poetry, music, and the
drama, because in each, as in painting and sculpture, either
forms, colors, sounds, action, or thought are given under pleasur-
able combinations, and we are harmoniously let into the myste-
ries of nature, as Orpheus led the beasts, trees, and stones to fol-
low him by the sweetness of his lyre. Whatever, therefore, has
the power so to affect mankind, which is neither the direct prod-
uct of pure reason or science, nor is the manifest form of na-
ture itself, but suggests it or reveals the unseen in aesthetic
guise, that is ART |
The hidden force of art lies in its kinship to our desires. It
has affinities to satisfy every grade of intelligence and feeling.
We may gauge our aesthetic fullness by the stages of enjoy-
ment through which we go from a primary liking of a Carlo
Dolce, Claude, or Boucher to an appreciation of Titian, Turner,
or Leonardo ; by preferring the profound thought of Michael
Angelo to the sweeter compositions of Raphael, and lastly the
mystic spirituality of Blake to the grotesque sensualism of
Doré.
But appreciation is of slow growth. Shakespeare's plays
would be jargon to a Hottentot, the music of Beethoven an
unmeaning noise, and Buonarotti's “Night and Morning ” rude
idols. Art demands a nice discipline of eye and ear even to
learn its alphabet. If we are to get out of it anything besides
vague sensation, the physical organs must be trained to observe
with exactitude, and the mental to discover its organic consti-
tution, and to comprehend its philosophy. An experienced eye
CAPACITY OF ART. 7
is a bad critic, despite the often quoted story of the bird that
pecked at the grapes of Zeuxis. I have known one fly into a
room and try to sip honey from the wall-paper, not leaving it
until it had tested each coarsely painted flower, and got well
bruised for its stupidity, We must not estimate art by its
effects on the uncultivated. Although in one sense an instinct,
as science is a problem, few are born acutely sensible to its im-
pressions, while every one has need of knowledge to justify his
faith. The common eye sees skin-deep only into anything.
Yet art discloses the soul of artist and spectator, and expands
both if they but consent.
Few take note of its capacity to promote domestic Firs, notion,
refinement and happiness in the arrangement of house- conſised.
hold effects in accordance with the laws of symmetry, propor-
tion, and balance of parts; give heed to tone, harmony, and con-
trast in color, or obey that subtile dictation of taste which re-
sults, like concord in music, in an harmonious unity of variety.
More money is spent in perpetuating ugliness or in crude work
than would, if properly directed, secure to every town a free
school of taste in its edifices and grounds. Peoples are educated to
a disregard of aesthetic rules as palpable as would be the viola-
tion of those of grammar if all the schools taught cockney Eng-
lish. For three centuries the artistic instincts, so conspicuous
in the classical and middle ages, have been remorsely degraded,
until the feeling for color is well nigh lost, and the sense of the
beautiful in form so obfuscated as to make homeliness appear to
be the passionate choice of the nineteenth century.
Our first motions of science or art are confused and superfi-
cial. Intellect rises to the dignity of a judge only by severe
study. Taste is not the spontaneous gift of Heaven, like Wis-
dom fully armed from the head of Jove. Our instincts may be
radically pure or vicious, and aid or embarrass our progress, but
taste itself is the result of the culture of the aesthetic faculties,
as grammar is that of the rules of language. Training must
therefore precede the comprehension as well as execution of
fine art. It is a common fallacy that art has simply to please
the spectator, its works being good or bad just as they affect
him, whether he is qualified to judge or not. Besides taste, ac-
quaintance with its history and philosophy is necessary to the
critic. An artist may have excellent taste, and be wanting in
the latter. Indeed, few artists outside of their own systems
have shown themselves to be competent critics in art, or com-
8 ESSENTIAL TO EDUCATION.
plete in their work. In order to appreciate the entire func-
tions, they must inform themselves of its moral and social as-
pects in all times, and the part it has filled in history. But with
rare exceptions they devote themselves exclusively to its technical
qualities, limiting their knowledge of these to their own period
or special aim.
Art knowl- The importance of art as a vehicle of knowledge,
edge. is less appreciated, because its results are so common.
But were all its representations of objects, deeds, and men,
which are out of the range of our sight, obliterated, the most of
the globe and its history would no more exist to our material
senses than the scenery and affairs of other planets. As com-
pared with form and color, words, in the mind’s infancy, are but
an imperfect means of conveying adequate notions of things.
Art becomes an essential of education. Besides getting from
it our first impressions of whatever we cannot see, we receive
the primary lessons of a higher life than that of earth. Yet as
regards instruction its office is only initial. The earliest alpha-
bets were rude pictures or symbols. Before the mental sight
is opened to distinguish, in the artificial signs we call letters,
their hidden thought, our lessons are given either by the things
themselves or their pictorial forms. Except as revelation, its
highest function, it fulfills an inferior office compared with ab-
stract science. To this it is what the body is to the spirit, an
incarnation to meet the needs of the finite in man.
The natural world presents one aspect of divine teaching;
art another. One is the sculpture, painting, music, and poetry of
God; in fine, HIS mind let down to the level of our com-
prehension. Matter without spirit would be inert, soulless.
There would be no God in it. So with art. The matter or
vehicle must be impregnated with spirit, or the thought which
gives its being. Otherwise, we get only the dead forms of
things, which no more represent their life than clothing makes
the man. Art is the means given him to embody his ideas of
himself, the universe, and their Author. In the exercise of this
indirect, creative faculty, the artist has delegated to him a divine
function, to aid in training his fellow men for a more elevated
existence. But few recognize their credentials or compel recog-
nition of the world. Neither artist nor the world is yet ready
for greatest art. The best we have is only a hint of what may
come. It is a duty to cultivate the power of discerning eter-
nal truths. Alas ! the common practice is to seize hold of a
farthing candle, and shout, Behold the sun
NATURE, THE FACT – ART, THE TYPE. 9
The first interview with true art begets emotions not less
spontaneous than those of the natural world, when we abandon
ourselves with equal confidence to its influence. But it varies
in character, because of its more direct appeal to the intellect,
or to our sympathy with humanity. Nature incites to love and
awe of a power past finding out, though within the scope of
human enjoyment. Art talks the universal language of our
species, and, being of man's invention, is on the level of his
intelligence. While acknowledging its capacity, we comprehend
its machinery. There is therefore in our delight always a mix-
ture of the finite, which debars it from rivaling Nature's vision
of the infinite in profundity of emotional power. She brings
home to us our helplessness and consequent dependence on the
mysterious Intelligence that guides matter. Art stimulates the
faculties to a practical development. We criticise the artist
from intellectual provocation. But we worship Nature, the
teacher of art and image of the cause of all things. It is im-
portant to understand the distinction drawn between art, man’s
forms of matter, and nature, God’s forms, because the distance
between the two as regards tangible results must always be in
the ratio of the originating force of the one and the imitative
skill of the other. Any language used in trying to give just
ideas of art must be construed in that secondary scale which art
itself holds to Nature, and not as claiming it as a rival even
when most asserting its spirituality. Nature is the fact itself;
art the type of the fact.
On the other hand, beware of depreciating art overmuch in
comparison with nature. It has its origin in mind, which is the
divinest gift we yet know, and, when true, must reflect the pater-
nal features. Furthermore, in our eagerness to realize our ideal,
allowance must be made for those limitations which come of the
intractability and decay of its vehicles, and its feebleness of ex-
ecution and resources in contrast with nature. Such considera-
tions will help to a right estimate of the difficulties of art and ap-
preciation of its triumphs. We need not, however, refuse to test
its power over the heart until we have canvassed its claims intel-
lectually and technically. The first question is, What does the
artist mean us to see, know, and feel? We owe it to him to get
at once at his intent. He is most successful when we seize it
spontaneously. In beginning with art, walk humbly. Like
nature, it primarily addresses the emotions. Criticism is better
deferred until we have learned something of ourselves through
10 MISTAKES OUR BEST TEA CHERS.
the language that moves us. For our own habit of enjoyment
it is well to be more alive to its merits than defects. Bad
Final test of indeed must be the art that has no power to please.
a? t. * * * e f
%as in art. Its first and final test is its capacity to make us happy.
Tº wºrld. The foundation of appreciation is soundest when regu-
#; lated by morality cultivated to a keen sense of the
beautiful. An abrupt introduction to vast galleries of painting
and sculpture oppresses and confuses the mind. My own first
experience was the Louvre. In the effort to maintain my men-
tal equilibrium, I censured and eulogized in hot haste, hurrying
from one object to another with delirious rapidity as if the
whole were a bubble about to burst, until, with an aching brain
and unmoved heart, I gladly escaped to the outer air for breath.
Best teachers. . Still, mistakes are our best teachers. Indeed, error
is the guide board of truth ; for as we detect the false,
we draw nigher to the eternal Right. What I have to say to-
day, though not the wisest thought, is more matured than the
one of yesterday. I say it, whether it coincides or not with a
previous one, because it is the fruit of more study, and therefore
likely to be wiser. The first steps of any progress are wearisome
and disappointing. But in those of art Beauty is ever in view
to tempt us on.
In science ideas are first in sequence, and truth the object.
Art reverses this. Ideas are not necessarily included, for much
art has no other intent than sensuous enjoyment. In verity,
this is its vital purpose ; the one which inspires it to seek beauty
as means and aim. All else we get from it is a collateral issue.
Whenever it is limited to other ends, as to religion or mere nar-
ration, it loses somewhat of its true character. There is for it
a higher office than teaching, noble as that is. It was sent to
earth to adorn, charm, comfort, and rejoice human life, and with
it came that intense love of beauty which both man and nature
manifest, ever restless when deprived of its presence. If the
world would be an intellectual blank from the loss of art as an
illustrator and recorder, what a hideous prison would it be were
beauty to be completely withdrawn from nature, and man have
neither delight in God's work nor satisfaction in his own, because
he could add no grace or dignity to what he creates for himself,
or gladden it with color | Setting aside gallery painting and
sculpture, which few peoples possess, we have only to conceive
of common things stripped of whatever gives them lightness,
delicacy, symmetry, brilliancy, of all that which, besides use,
CONSOIENCE IN ART, 11
renders them pleasing to the eye and suggestive to thought; and
we can realize how much art does in the humblest ways to pro-
mote our happiness, and from this conceive of its capacity to
brighten our existence, if we would allow it full expression in all
the walks of life. The ugly utensil, a blank or vulgar in color,
betokens a mind either rude or coarse, or with its brightest facul-
ties obscured. No one who studies the natural world can fail to
be persuaded of the intent of the Creator to make mankind
happy through their instinctive capacities of enjoying what He
has created. It is a religious duty to be happy. A large share
of that duty should be exercised in carrying forward what God
has begun, and making the earth more enjoyable in little things
as well as large. He lavishly decorates the tiniest plant, and
makes glad the minutest insect with a glory all its own. Man
imitates this example as he feels his way towards civilization.
He may be a cannibal, brutal and sanguinary, every- p.
* * * & ecoration.
way; still the first dawn of intellect is shown in a crav-
ing for Decoration. This is the primary spiritual want, though
complete refinement is the last stage of progress. Tattooing,
staining, carving, and ornaments, precede clothing. However
rude the lower classes of civilized nations, they betray amid
their dirt and rags the same greed of beauty, quenched only in
the lowest degradations. Therefore, the instinct given for a
beneficent purpose, the finality of which I believe to be man's
supreme felicity, or the consciousness of being good, proven by
the perfect enjoyment of those qualities of forms and colors
which in the soul's sight incarnate goodness, – this instinct can-
not be too sedulously cultivated. But we are wise in our choice
of beauty only after understanding its highest purpose. There
is a conscience in art to be cultivated as in morals, Conscience
by directing it to the pure, noble, and true. Different in Art, ,
degrees and kinds of beauty call for corresponding #,"
differences of satisfaction. One object may be enjoyed “”
for its special attractions, regardless of use or purpose ; another
for its perfect adaptation to its end, which may be common or
even coarse, but ennobled by richness of decoration, as in some
drinking-cups or tools; and others for their delicacy of hue and
shape. Art always has its own sensuous language, irrespective
of any higher meaning. All this is enjoyable in kind, but it is
an error to stop at mere sensation. While allowing pleasurable
emotions, that begin and end with our physical being, their free
scope, we should look deeper into its mysteries until we come
12 ADORATION THE END OF ART.
into the presence of the Holy One whence it comes, and be con-
tent only as it is illumined by the Divine Spirit.
I am emphatic in asserting the right and duty of man's enjoy-
ment of art equally with nature, because of the fear which ascetic
creeds put into timid consciences — a fear which deprives them
of a precious gift of the Father, and deprives Him of the love
which every true heart feels for the Author of its happiness. It
is nothing to the point that the Christian ideal has not yet been
attained. Art has suggested its final capacity by special suc-
cesses on the sensuous, intellectual plane of the Grecian phase.
As we advance the powers already manifested under various in-
spirations and among diverse races will be shown, so that some
judgment may be formed of the limits of its attributes and func-
tions, and their final standard of execution.
The appreciation of art spiritually, as with nature, ends in
adoration, not in the garb of a ritual, but in a repose of mind
that passeth description. Now enjoyment and worship become
one. No one will accuse me of exalting enjoyment at the
expense of morality, if he will reflect that between men the
highest compliment that can pass is the enjoying of whatever
love or friendship confers. Our keenest social happiness is
based on this. Enlarge and exalt this feeling, as needs be done
when we approach divinity, and the result is that perfect use
and enjoyment of life which constitutes an homage alike worthy
of man and his Maker.
Science, apart from its material mission by which it consents
to be the servant of men, has a still nobler purpose, and talks
face to face with spirit, disclosing its knowledge direct to mind
itself. Unfolding the laws of being, it carries thought into the
infinite, creating an inward art so perfect that objects fashioned
by the hand become eloquent only as they express the abstract
truths of science. The mind rejects as base or false all that
the imagination would impose on it not consistent with the
principles and facts manifested in the creation. As nature is
God’s art, so science is the disclosure of His soul, or that philos-
ophy which, comprehending all knowledge, includes art as one
of its phases. Art, to be effectual as a teacher, must be consist-
ent with its own instructor. Otherwise it falls into isolated and
inferior truths, and, being detached from great principles, per-
verts knowledge and corrupts feeling.
While, therefore, art is valuable as an elementary teacher by
reason of its alliance with science, it exposes man to seductions
CE/IEF DANGER OF ART. 13
through the medium of his corporeal senses, on account of its
greater affinity to feeling. In the degree that the soul is
clouded by carnal desires, sensation and reason are developed in
the direction of external life, seizing upon that as the chief ob-
ject of pleasure and investigation. Ignoring the special pur-
pose of gross matter and separating it from spirit, or viewing
the phenomena of spirit only as those of matter, and calling it
the only eternal thing, it becomes the ultimate good of existence.
This is the chief danger of art, a snare to the undiscriminating;
but its force and direction depend on the will. The chief ob-
stacle to science is its inexorable demand upon pure reason, in-
volving a systematic labor of thought which few are disposed to
undertake. If art or science recognize the spirit's integuments
as the only reality in life, disappointment and debasement are
sure to ensue. On the other hand, in viewing forms as the
outgrowth of spirit and subjecting the outer fact to the inner
principle, we approach more nearly to the sources of truth and
beauty.
In one sense all truth comes of suggestion; so too, all false-
hood. One is called inspiration, the other temptation. Whence
and how ideas come and go no man may now tell. Yet these
laws which seem so obscure will in the light of future life be-
come as clear as is gravitation in the present. We may expect to
discover the principles and laws of our being, but not the source
of being itself, which all mankind spontaneously resolve into
the indefinable proposition, GOD. In this all must rest. But
while the essence of life is so mysterious that Jesus compared it
to the coming and going of the wind, yet it is palpable to all
that the quality and direction of the thought depends on our
will. God does not force Himself on reluctant minds, or charge
their faculties with ideas disproportioned to their forces; but as
they labor for good or evil, thoughts and feelings correspond,
as one flower attracts poison from the atmosphere and another
fragrance. Our minds are thus inspired, receiving from the un-
seen a spiritual nutriment, which strengthens them in the way
their desires lead. With some, thought comes orderly and with
measured progress. These are our sages and men of science.
In others it springs up in wild exuberance from wayside seeds:
great truths amid rank errors; noble aspiration chained to
vehement passion ; beauty in bondage to matter. So inspired,
speaks the artist, the poet, and the seer.
While art should be earnest and impassioned, manifesting
14 A CCORD OF FEELING AND REASON.
clearly its motives, no less should it be scientifically correct in
execution, and as a whole, clearly and harmoniously express its
meaning and functions. In this way feeling and reason are
made to accord, unity is obtained, and truth in the garb of beauty
becomes doubly welcome.

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CHAPTER II.
THE PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN RELIGIOUS IDEA IN ART.
LTHOUGH religious and aesthetic ideas .
are distinct, art has been so closely asso- ideas.
ciated with religions in early history, that they must
be spoken of almost as one. In incipient civiliza-
tions the religious sentiment controlled the imag-
ination, and made of art a mere instrument to give shape to
its beliefs. Hence we invariably find it in this stage of human
progress more intent on expressing the symbolism of the popular
faiths than asserting its own aesthetic laws.
A desire to personify the unseen intelligence which governs
the world, joined to the instinct of ideal beauty, gave birth to
sculpture. Painting, at first, was only an accessory, and more as
a type than as ornament. In Egypt and India the art-idea
was wholly dominated by the theological, which gave to its enig-
matical idols rigid and fixed forms as unchangeable as the beings
they symbolized. The intent was to impress the beholder with
awe and reverence of divine and earthly rulers, and to add to
their mystery and splendor. King, priest, and god then were
almost synonymous terms, the god often being a deified hero.
Judging from the massive largeness and unimpassioned features
of Egyptian deities, art intended them for kindly, protective,
self-satisfied beings, unmoved by the vagaries so common among
their Grecian fellows. In serene repose they look down with
a benignant smile on the world at their feet.
Assyrian art was allied to the Egyptian in mystic
grandeur of symbolism, but was more particularly devoted
to the deification of the living ruler. The art of both peoples as
well as that of contemporary India, not being based on aesthetic
principles, is interesting only in an historical or hierarchal view.
India still clings to her fantastic, extravagant symbolism ; to the
initiated a personification of its religious philosophy, but to the
masses an idolatry, but one remove from fetichism. And in
China and Japan religious art offers no better aspect. It is an
Sculpture.





16 ONE-SIDEDNESS IN ART.
exhibition of the diabolism of theology, in shapes such as im-
aginations steeped in superstitious fears conceive. Doubtless
much of this horrid imagery is due to an incapacity of appre-
hending the beautiful in the highest forms of art; while this
incapacity is largely the result of a base theology, and not of
any organic mental defect; for both races show acute percep-
tions and keen instincts in ornamentation. But the effect of
their religious art has been to enslave the minds of those that
enslaved it, and to put a bar to their civilization. Without this
false art it is inconceivable that the East should have remained
so long in intellectual and religious stagnation. Moses, and
subsequently Mohammed, took note of the misuse of art and pro-
hibited its practice. But their disregard of its right functions
left their followers in a condition scarcely better than that which
was the result of the opposite extreme. One-sidedness in
any direction hinders the development of civilization, but the
perversion of art into idolatry most of all. It then assumes
abortive, grotesque, and monstrous shapes, or lapses into sensual-
ity and superstition, converting worship into a pageant which
takes the likeness of the ignorance and wickedness that dwarfs
and poisons the art that is given to the people at large. Still
as each man contains the germ of a perfect development, so
every race has its exceptional wise men who save their country-
men from being left in utter darkness. There is no national art,
however degraded, which does not show some evidence of an
aspiration for eternal truth and beauty.
Reluctant to embody their notions of divine things, the He-
brew legislators so quenched the artistic feeling of the Jews,
that Solomon, too wise to be a bigot, was obliged to apply to
the Tyrians for common artificers to decorate his temple, as later
Herod did to Greek workmen, when he undertook its restoration.
But even the restricted latitude of decoration which these kings
gave to sacred architecture, was repudiated by Protestant sects
in their interpretation of the code of Moses. The proscription
of idolatrous images was construed as extending to all art,
which was regarded as a device of Satan to ensnare souls.
Thus a large fraction of modern civilization came to be stripped
of half of its legitimate happiness, because idolatrous Orientals
had divorced art from intellectual freedom and made it subser-
vient either to sensuality or despotism. No doubt it was an
evil in such hands, but the fault was not in itself, any more
than printing is to blame because unscrupulous writers pervert
its capacity of good into the bad.
PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN RELIGIOUS IDEA IN ART. 17
We must look to Greece for the first development of art on
a purely aesthetic foundation. Here I would observe that the
word aesthetic implies the observation and detection of the ugly
or homely, as well as a knowledge of the beautiful. Meaning of
Indeed, there can be no proper understanding of the asthetic.
* . º tº . * : * Symbolism
one without the other, as everything within the range
of human capacity must be in its nature relative, not supreme
truth. Therefore this term, which originated in Greece, means
in the sense I shall use it, whatever helps us to perceive, under-
stand, and enjoy the beautiful, and includes both the science and
philosophy of the accompanying sensations. No other word
so comprehensively and yet so particularly applies to my topic;
but it is one which is often accepted either in too restricted or
too vague a sense.
Greece also had its symbolical creations which resembled
nothing on earth, whatever the religious imagination might con-
ceive as existing beyond, or as requisite to embody the sacred
mysteries. Some of its figures were as strange and graceless
as those of India. Indeed, both Asia and Egypt, on account of
their superior civilizations, exercised a direct influence over the
primitive art of Greece, as well as that of Italy. Viewed as
art Diana of Ephesus is a grotesque monster. Chimeras, three-
eyed, double-headed, and hundred-armed statues are analogous
to Oriental image-mysticism. But in its fauni, satyrs, mereids,
and kindred creations, we perceive the growing ascendency of
the natural and beautiful, holding the symbolical in restraint,
until art finally emancipates itself from servitude to the theolog-
ical idea, and occupies an independent position. In some sense
art and religion remained one, for the highest efforts of the former
were bestowed on the mythology of the country. The artistic
mind, freed from being the mouthpiece of a rigid creed, infused
new light and life into religion itself. Creating a new and more
refined art, based on the facts of nature, and made beautiful by
poetical thought, the sculptured gods, while emblematic of spir-
itual aspirations to the philosophic mind, were brought nearer
to the sympathies and comprehension of the masses. The
word was made flesh in an aesthetic sense, as later under the
Christian revelation it assumed the ascetic shape. Grecian art
was the offspring of the newly emancipated intellect and im-
agination inspired by the homage paid to beauty. Both it and
the mythology were based on an ideal standard of humanity.
aiming at the godlike in functions and expression, by the elip-
2
18 MUSE OF CORTONA.
ination of material weakness or signs of imperfection and decay,
and in the personification of the phenomena of nature as in-
terpreted by the poetical faculty; not to produce grotesque and
uncouth symbols like the Asiatic, but taking their clue from the
beautiful in the visible creature, and exalting it by the joint
force of science and imagination hto the highest conceivable
types of beauty and fullness of meaning in harmony with their
faith.
The foundation of the earliest religions was either in ex-
ternal nature the effect suggesting a cause, or in the disposi-
tion of man to repeat his own nature with superhuman attri-
butes. This tended to a prolific mythology, which in turn gen-
erated a fruitful art. So fixed in mental childhood is the de-
sire to personify objects of belief, that even the Jews repeatedly
relapsed into idol-worship. In the main, however, they were
the Puritans of antiquity; as the Egyptians may be said to
have shown in their priestly assumption, flexibility of action,
and unchangeableness of dogma, the likeness of Romanism;
while the Greeks more resembled those nations of our time
that have substituted civil liberty for church-government. In-
spired by philosophy, they opened their minds to the widest
ranges of thought and imagination, and borrowing from the
learning and experience of all nations, their wisdom culminated
in Aristotle, Socrates, and Plato, and their art in Homer, Æs-
chylus, Phidias, and Apelles.
Although beauty was the aim of Greek art, it was
Aim of Gre- º - º
#%.” not left to the dubious guidance of feeling, but sub-
#.” ‘’” jected so skillfully to science, that their best work
º makes us forget art in its seeming naturalness.]
ex Whether their painting was on a par with their sculp-
ture is a mooted question. Doubtless it was subjected to sim-
ilar rules. If an isolated specimen can afford sufficient proof of
their equality, the so-called “Muse of Cortona ’’ offers that evi-
dence.
The “Muse” is one of those rare surprises which make the
mind realize the meaning of the poet’s “joy forever.” As the
traveller is whirled over the iron road that now bisects the Val
di Chiana in Central Italy, his eyes fastened on Lake Thrasy-
mene, thinking perhaps of Hannibal's victory, he gives small
heed to the grim hill-town on his left, looking more like a den
of thieves than the home of the fairest relic of Grecian painting
that time has kept for us.
PA GAN AND CHRISTIAN RELIGIOUS IDEA IN ART. 19
If he fail to alight and mount that long hill he will miss a
sight such as Europe cannot elsewhere offer. It is a sensation
in itself approaching awe to be within walls which were ancient
before Troy was taken, and whose massive stones, capped by the
lighter structures of mediaeval times, still girdle the town, re-
taining the same gateways through which for more than three
thousand years the human tide of Cortona has ebbed and
flowed: glum arches, commanding vistas of plain, mountain,
lake, far-off towered towns, castles, pagan and Christian fanes
and battle-fields, for which Pelasgian, Etruscan, Carthaginian,
Roman, Guelph, and Ghibelline, Pope and Italian, by turns have
fought, through the vicissitudes of a history whose light fades
away in myths coeval with man's first appearance on earth.
Cortona is so shrunken internally that one quarter of the
space within the walls is filled with ruins or restored to agricul-
ture; another quarter is taken up by narrow, foot-wrenching
streets, the grime of whose deep-browed houses makes a back-
ground of mysterious obscurity, like their own history, and
which requires all the intensity of Italian sunlight to enliven
for a fleeting moment. The remainder of the town fits well
enough into modern life without detriment to its ancient gene-
alogy.
The only existing example of Grecian easel-painting, is kept
in a little cabinet in the Museum. When opened, the sight
transports a visitor back to its best period. He sees the head
and bust of a young girl, one third life-size, holding a lyre,
painted in a wax medium on a fragment of slate. It was found
in the last century by a peasant, in the earth of his farm. Sup-
posing it to be a votive Madonna, he gave it an honorable posi-
tion in his cottage; but when told by a priest that it was an idol,
he used the slate to stop a hole in his oven. In this position it
was discovered and taken possession of by his landlord, and after
various adventures, was given to the Museum by the same per-
son who presented its other unique treasure, the famous Etrus-
can lamp of bronze.
There are sundry abrasions, and some loss of shadow and
gradation of tints, but these injuries are slight. Indeed, com-
pared with most paintings of the best Italian period, it is so
sound as to offer an argument in favor of the vehicles used and
the substance on which it is painted. At first glance its statu-
esque projection is very remarkable. Evidently it was painted
by one trained to the practice of Zeuxis, of modelling his figures
20 MUSE OF CORTONA.
in terra-cotta before painting them. No modern painting that
I have seen on similar material gives other effect than a flat and
reflecting surface. This is surrounded by atmosphere. The eye
reposes on a transparent, harmonious, grayish purple ether, in
the midst of which stands a low-browed girl, just bloomed into
womanhood, not idealized into monotonous regularity of outline,
but with the freshness, variety, and flexibility of modelling united
into an expressive whole, such as is seen only in the finest liv-
ing examples.
Masses of golden brown hair fall over the shoulders and stray
in delicate lines to the front, intermingling on the brow with a
laurel wreath. The right bosom, of virgin form and tint, is
exposed. A transparent drapery heightens the effect of the soft
carnation of the left shoulder and the delicate flesh of the other
bosom, whose sweet beauty it modestly veils. Drooping eyes
give a vestal look to features the intelligence of which corre-
sponds to their comeliness. It seems spiritually super-sensuous;
what the Venus di Milo must have been in early girlhood, with
the possibilities of the goddess-mother nascent in her ; in fine, a
handsome, healthful child of earth, whose pure instincts are as
yet untested by worldly life, leaving the beholder in rapt admira-
tion of the lovely being before him, while undetermined as to her
destiny. She might become a Sappho, an Aspasia, or a Cornelia;
no matter which There she stands more like life than any
female figure I can recall of the “old masters” or of recent
painters. In some technical details the best of them may have
done some things superior to points of execution in this picture.
But the “Muse " combines that perfect adaptation of color with
form which best expresses the complete science and inspiration
of art. And this excellence is as much owing to color as to
design. There appears to be a slight elongation of the neck,
perhaps done to give a better effect in the position that the
painter intended his work should be seen. AEsthetic law admits
local falsehood in order to attain greater general truth, in the
Sense that all art is not the truth but its effigy. A photo-
graph which is popularly supposed to render the exact fact, does
so at only one point. All the rest is diminished or exaggerated
as it recedes from it. An artist, therefore, is often obliged to
adroitly avoid exactness in detail in order to secure unity in
the mass at the prescribed point of view.
The coloring of the “Muse” is solid, broad, and emphatic,
with fine gradation of tone, and a force of chiaro-oscuro that re-
PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN RELIGIOUS IDEA IN ART. 21
calls Leonardo. Indeed the picture is a happy exemplification
of his axioms. It affects the senses like enchanting music. A
large sum has been offered for it by the agent of a foreign
museum, but as it was given on condition of being perpetually
kept at Cortona, this isolated city is likely to always possess the
sole extant proof of the equality of Greek painting to its sculp-
ture. It is a mere fragment, and may not be an example of the
best antique execution. Had we those master-pieces of which
such fabulous statements have come down to us, we might have
a clearer standard by which to adjudicate the relative merits of
classical and christian painting. The “Muse” has those quali-
ties which the best Italian masters have ever sought, and which
French art tries to realize. Painted in the encaustic method,
which was adopted in remote antiquity, it resists time and hu-
midity better than any other. The Byzantines adopted it from
the old and transmitted it, in a modified manner, to the modern
Greeks and to the Russians. There exist pictures, done in this
way eight centuries ago, perfect now. Pliny says this system
was in vogue before the epoch of Aristides. It is conjectured
that the colors were boiled with wax, into which a light dose
of oil was infused. The prices paid Zeuxis, Parrhasius, and
Apelles exceeded even modern prodigality, and indicate the
esteem in which they were held. Lucullus gave several thou-
sand dollars for a copy of a portrait of Glycére seated with a
crown of flowers in her hand. Nicias refused upward of one
hundred thousand dollars of our money, for a painting of the
“Descent of Ulysses into Hell,” preferring to give it to Athens
his birth-place. Julius Caesar paid nearly two hundred thousand
dollars for two pictures of Ajax and Médea. The fees given by
pupils to the great masters were enormous, but the course of
study in their studios was thorough. Protogenes worked seven
years on his picture of the hunter Jalysus. We cite Leonardo's
four years' work on the “Jaconda” as a wonder of patient elab-
oration. Four centuries have robbed it of its finest qualities,
while after the lapse of more than twenty, the “Muse” retains
hers — a striking contrast to the rapid destructibility or deteri-
oration of modern pigments. '
The type and treatment of the “Muse” are Grecian, but there
is also about it a certain expression that indicates study from
nature, after the manner of the Etruscans, and renders it a happy
example of the merits of both schools. Once I should have
maintained that it was an ideal head of the classical model. But
22 RAPHAEL’S THEORY OF IDEALS.
a recent experience had proved to me that the highest idealism
of art is at times excelled by nature herself, and that however
much the artist may labor to perfect beauty as a whole, he will,
perhaps, where he least expects to, find a complete model fitted
to his loftiest aspirations.
A few days before seeing the “Muse” I had met in Perugia so
beautiful a peasant girl that her memory has haunted me ever
since. Her brow was low, hair luxuriant, eyebrows dark, long,
and finely pencilled, eyes large, deep-set, and lustrous, of the
richest brown, the nose chiselled as for a Diana, and the mouth
and chin indicating a fine temperament and those qualities most
desirable in woman. The complexion showed a warm carnation
in a transparent, delicate olive, as would appear the blood of the
south seen though the fairest skin of the north. Her figure was
almost heroic in size and shape, and her untutored manners
and speech such as the best-bred lady might covet.
Here then was the original of the “Muse.” Some sister of
hers two thousand years before had been seen and painted
for our benefit by an appreciating artist, little dreaming of an ad-
miring critic from a then unheard-of world, who would now
gratefully perpetuate his name if he could.
#º Raphael writes, in explanation of his ideals, “I find
tdeals. the best form I can in nature and then avail myself
of certain ideas which come into my mind,” adding, beautiful
women are scarce, and it was necessary to see many in order to
select parts to fit into a perfect whole. This theory of selection
differs from the Greek principle, which was rather to create
anew the beautiful as an organic whole, instead of forming it
out of disconnected parts. When either has done its best, and
we are tempted to adore the art, nature steps in and discloses a
divine art, which puts man's to the blush. The adoring eyes
of Raphael's boy-angels in the Madonna del Sisto, look as if
borrowed from a celestial sphere. But in an out of the way
valley in the province of Lucca, I found the originals, dirty and
timid, of those fair-haired, prophet-eyed children. They are the
rarest of the types of infantile beauty, but the difference between
the artistic and the common eye, is, that to the former a transient
glance at the beautiful becomes at once a divine revelation,
while to the other nothing is disclosed but an unheeded fact.
Not long before in the neighboring mountains, I had met a
lithe strong-limbed peasant girl gracefully poising a copper vase
full of water on her head, supported by one hand, the other up-
PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN RELIGIOUS IDEA IN ART. 23
raised in an heroic attitude, encouraging a cow to ascend the
stone steps which led up the hill. Her pose and action were
an inspiration for an artist, heightened as their effect was by the
simple elegance of the folds of her coarse drapery, her fine,
healthful figure, and the clear ring of her voice as she sang en-
couraging words to her charge. Immediately there was re-
vealed, whence and how the ancients got their motives and mod-
els for bronzes and pottery.
Nature's best lessons are rare, but once given to the detective
eyes of art, they last decades of centuries to cheer and delight
those who otherwise might be blind both to nature and art. Keep
in mind that all art in manifesting the sublime and beautiful, is
only recording the progress of man in detecting their spirit and
forms in creation.
That the beauty and freedom of Grecian art were due to the
native genius, is proven by the early examples of sculpture.
One of the more remarkable is a bas-relief of Leucotea, Bac-
chus, and Ninfé, at Rome. We note the dawning emancipation
of Greek from Egyptian art, in an attempt to adapt the still
rigid attitudes, bound limbs, and imposing formalism of the lat-
ter — which is best expressed by the kindred qualities of granite,
porphyry, and similar minerals, and owes its character as much
to their color as to form — to the more perfect uses of marble,
its greater flexibility and capacity of expression. Later we
perceive the reflex influence of the Greek on its first teacher, in
statues like the Egyptian Apollo, which combines characteristics
of both schools. The god now walks, for his legs are unbound,
but retains the severe simplicity of his African constitution, ex-
hibiting superhuman strength joined to classical purity of form
and refinement of character.
In freeing himself from the prominent characteristics of the
Nilotic school, its stereotyped expression and preponderance of
matter as size, weight, and strength, immobility and endurance,
the Grecian not only emancipated art from sacerdotal tyranny,
but showed that an era of individual liberty had dawned on the
world. Egyptian artists were held in the same bondage as their
profession, being looked upon as image-cutters or painters of the
lowest castes, whose craft by law passed from father to son.
Yet the art of Egypt atones in some degree for its lack of free.
dom, by that mysterious sublimity which came from a broad and
majestic treatment of its imperishable materials, and the use of
colors solely in a conventional or symbolical sense ; both sculp-
24 EVERY GREEK: A LATENT GOD.
ture and painting being subservient to a gigantic architecture
which seems to be the image of Eternity looking down on Time.
Doubtless the Egyptian idol was shorn of much of divinity
to the common mind, by innovations of Grecian Origin, but to
the more cultivated race Apollo emerged from bondage had
become truly a god. The spirit of Egyptian art was formal
and unvaried from theological pressure; of the Greek free and
changeable on account of the nature of its mythology. It rejoiced
in sensuous life, and put no more restraint on the artist than on
the god, whose latitude of action was the standard also of man in
his pursuit of happiness, though inferior in degree. The art
of each nation is a picture of the effect of its faith on the na-
tional life. In this light it becomes instructive to compare one
with another. But it is impossible for us to look on a defunct
art, as did its contemporaries; to them it was both faith and
beauty. The former we can appreciate only as we do fossils,
which tell the age and condition of the planet in its different geo-
logical epochs. Nature does not repeat herself after finishing her
work, whether mental or physical. Any art not based on our
own plane of instruction or feeling, loses its primary signifi-
cance. But the laws of beauty being fundamental and uni-
versal, if understood, we can judge and enjoy art in their light,
even when not clearly comprehending its informing motive.
As every Greek was a latent god, so his art embodies its
ideal. Ours is a back view, and none but scholars can interpret
its highest thoughts, But so far as it goes, in its relation to
our common humanity and nature at large, it is complete and
consistent. In the degree that we arrive at an understanding
of its motives they appear so harmoniously beautiful, that we
readily fall into sympathy with them. We may not believe in
a nature peopled by countless divinities, or raise our imagina-
tions to that poetical height, which by means of ingenious
myths and fables, brought home to Grecian minds deep moral
and physical truths; still we can appreciate the feeling that led
them to see a god in each of the phenomena of the natural
world, and to devote their powers to making the Unseen familiar
to men in general.
For a time only did the Greek artist work in conformity to
pantheistic ideas, stimulated by a religious fervor, directed by,
more than directing, his aesthetic judgment. Then arose a phil-
OSophical reaction, which, reversing the popular opinion, saw in
symbols and dogmas merely the living of transitory ideas, and by
PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN RELIGIOUS IDEA IN ART. 25
the path of infidelity sought a way to higher truths. The phil-
osophy of an epoch, however, never represents the common
thought ; it simply affirms its possibilities. Therefore, in gener-
alizing epochs, the common mind is the main fact. The relig-
ious, artistic life of Greece was the final stage of progress
possible to evolve out of its sensuous faith, while the develop-
ment of its infidel philosophy contributed largely to that new
phase of civilization, which was born of the semi-barbarous
Jews, and planting itself firmly on monotheism, finally sup-
planted polytheism as the controlling agent of human progress.
Judaea, therefore, succeeding Greece as the instructor Judaea sup-
of religions, substituted one God for a legion of deities. #.
In the struggle of the opposing ideas, Greek art shared the fate
of its faith. The inherent vice of polytheism after it had spent
its force, shewed itself in art, in the exaltation of the sensual
over the intellectual; base forms of ornament taking the place
of higher motives, until taste was finally lost in ignorance and
low desire. Not only were temple and statue degraded and ul-
timately destroyed, but mind itself, as regarded art, relapsed into
a barbarism almost as rude as that from which it had emerged,
less than a thousand years before. Art had to begin a new
career from a fresh starting-point. Just as at first, the departed
civilization had made of it a facile instrument to symbolize and
spread its faith, so did its Christian successor. In everything
it was subordinated to the new religion. Byzantine thought be-
came completely dogmatized. Wars and politics hinged on
creeds. Even when art was used simply as ornament, it dis-
played a mystical and Sacred character. Unfortunately the
spirit and words of the founder of Christianity were so inter-
preted as to provoke subtle controversy, and excite fanatical
passions instead of to regenerate the heart and to enlighten the
mind. Hence a blight came upon art in the outset of its new life.
It was during the strifes that accompanied the transition
period of the rival faith, and the wars that were occasioned by
the gradual dissolution of the Roman empire, that all art of classi-
cal origin went to decay; the more quickly and thoroughly be-
cause of the sensuality into which it had sunk. A vast amount
of prurient examples, characteristic of the final state of pagan
civilization, have been disinterred in Campania and elsewhere.
These are now kept from the public, though they were once dis-
played without shame; and no doubt were as fruitful a cause as an
effect of heathen immorality. Indeed the current ideas and habits
26 THE PHALL US AND SCARA BE US.
of the Latin races as regards modesty and chastity may be traced
back to the free exhibition of an art which has not altogether
lost its influence, although permitted to enter no households or ap-
pear in the streets. All of these objects, however, did not origin-
ate in a libidinous art. In its primitive aspects the worship of
Venus or Bacchus was not a scandalous display of debauchery.
Among the ancients generation had a sacred significance. Acts
and objects which present morality condemns in public were
then held in esteem as emblematical of divine mysteries. Some
of the ancient emblems still survive in form though not in
meaning. To us the obelisk is only a tall and comely shaft of
stone. In antiquity it was the sacred phallus, the sun's prolific
ray, a pole and spindle of the sky, eloquent in symbolism. The
cross originally was significant of physical sources of human
life, or of life itself; now it has risen to the higher use of the
symbol of the soul’s salvation. Examples of this nature teach
that the obsolete or condemned fact of to-day was the vital
truth of yesterday. A phallus was seen or worn by refined
women of antiquity without the shame which would now attend
its exposure in the lowest of the sex. Romanism replaced it as
a symbol by that crucifix which the Puritan regards as idolatrous,
though to his neighbor it speaks only of holiness. The beetle
is not an attractive insect in looks or habits. Yet by the ladies
of Egypt and Etruria, in the shape of the scarabeus, it was
viewed as the image of the original creative power, because it
forms a ball of earth with its hind legs, in which it deposits its
eggs; the action being considered emblematic of the world as im-
bued with the divine instinct or influence. They considered it
as sacred as modern devotees do the crucifix. Like this talis-
man, it was a protective charm, having engraved on it the effigy
of their Lar, or protecting deity; sometimes that of an evil
genius, to deprecate its power ; the uglier the figure, the safer
the wearer. In time the cross will take its place in museums
by the side of the scarabeus.
Doubtless every cherished object had its origin in some legiti-
mate sentiment or want. But sacred images, after long use, lose
their spiritual efficacy, and become instrumental in degrading the
mind. We see clearly that this is the case as regards the old
mythology. The image-worship of Romanism is passing into a
like phase. In its turn this will be set aside for a more rational
ritual, and its art, like the defunct pagan, be gathered into
museums and galleries. What now concerns my topic is to note
PA GAN AND CHRISTIAN RELIGIOUS IDEA IN ART. 27
the immediate effect of the overturning of paganism by Christi-
anity.
Everything of the past being viewed with suspicion, art
shared the disgrace. Still, as it was necessary to reach the
minds of the people in some intelligible and attractive way, the
new priesthood did precisely what their condemned predecessors
had done when in power. They seized on art, and set it vigor-
ously at work to illustrate dogmas and extend authority. During
the thousand years that they controlled it, art was as cramped
in expression and stationary in condition as it had ever been
among the Orientals from a similar cause. Architecture in some
degree escaped; its necessities at times giving genius a more am-
ple scope of execution than was permitted to sculpture or paint-
ing by themselves. But the chief features of the new-born
or long dead art — for during this period it is difficult to draw
the line between the last touches of pagan styles and the fresh
ones of Christian hands as concerns execution — were ignorance
and immobility; its main object to delineate the legends and doc-
trines of the new church in rude and striking designs of almost
childish simplicity of composition; and its tendency to multiply
objects of Superstitious worship, disguising numberless pagan
ideas and habits under new names. Being thus violently severed
from the intellectual freedom which had made it so estimable in
Greece, art was thrown back to its infancy in point of science.
It swayed the human mind less as art than as symbolism and
idolatry, in either of which its influence is more profound than
in its own right, from its being made an exponent of the most
awful motives that can affect humanity. But this influence
depends on the ignorance of the spectator. In its grossest form
it shows itself as fétichism; in a little higher stage it substitutes
external rites and images for inward godliness; while in both
aspects it appeals to the lowest intelligence, or to that sophistry
which looks on matter as its god. The power over the ignorant
mind is in the ratio of its actual rudeness or hideousness, the
favorite idols of all pagan nations competing in this respect, as
among Catholics the most sacred pictures are invariably the most
primitive and ugly, like the black virgins ascribed to St. Luke.
It really seems as if an irrevocable law compels art, when pros-
tituted to bigotry and untruth, to assume effigies corresponding to
these motives: just as when animated by truth and freedom, it
embodies their forms. It will be instructive to contrast classical
and Christian art as inspired by their diverging motives.
28 PRINCIPLES OF GRE CAN TASTE.
The Grecian artist was impelled both by his aesthetic knowl-
edge and sensuous creed to aim at expressing the highest con-
ceivable beauty. Not only his execution must be perfect, but
what was his choice and treatment agreeable or noble. In
º'...' form, pose, action, drapery, and color ; in the render-
the pagan * & º
&rth St. ing of passion and even pain ; in short, in whatever
;ºr he did, he was required by the public taste, and at
Thebes by statute, to avoid the ugly, depraved, and ignoble.
The aim was to exalt humanity by keeping in view its finest
aspects. Prizes were given to handsome men and women in
public competition as models of physical perfection. Beauty
actually conferred historical fame when associated with mental
gifts. Indeed, the fact and theory of complete beauty usually
are in accord in that respect. Gerome has made familiar the
story of the courtesan Phryne, the abrupt exposure of whose
charms by her advocate to an Athenian court caused her ac-
quittal of the charge of impiety, an accusation, as the case of
Socrates shows, likely to have had a fatal ending. But that
beauty might outweigh justice was nothing strange in the race
to which it appealed.
The Greeks believed that beautiful objects fostered and raised
the standard of beauty, and even imparted their formative mag-
netism to unborn children through their impressible mothers.
Their joyous games were an incentive to manly strength, wom-
anly grace, and general elegance. Those of the Romans begot
a lust of blood and cruelty. While the Greeks grew to be hu-
mane and refined, their ambitious neighbors became fierce and
rude. Next to the moral discipline of Christian ethics as a
cogent refiner of peoples, comes the Grecian passion for beauty.
Winckelman says that the Arcadians, being compelled to study
music in order to soften their manners, changed from the most
morose and worst behaved to the most honest and urbane of the
Greeks.
There were exceptions to this heroic idealism of art, form-
ing a low school, whose disciples were nicknamed, on account of
their common and morbid motives, “artists of filth.” Aristotle
advised parents not to show the pictures of one Pyrecius to the
young, lest their imaginations be soiled by his ugly images.
Exaggeration and caricature were condemned, as was also vul-
gar artifice or any trickery to please the ignorant. Indeed,
Grecian art addressed itself to a national taste which was the
fruit of long experience and careful investigation of its funda-
PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN RELIGIOUS IDEA IN ART. 29
mental laws. Its beginnings were simple and crude. The
earliest statues were built up of different materials, the more
precious being used for the extremities. At times they were
painted to represent dress, and even clothed or bedizened with
finery and jewels, — practices still in vogue among image-wor-
shippers everywhere.
Abundance of bad and false art has come down from antiq-
uity, much of which no doubt was only intended for cheap out-
door ornamentation, or is the product of its decline. Freaks,
too, it had of gilding and coloring, but with what local reason,
or on what aesthetic principle, it is impossible now to decide.
The attempt to combine hues and forms under conflicting mo-
tives and conditions, produces antagonistic effects, and seems con-
trary to the canons of taste. For evidence, place a wax image
beside a bronze or marble bust of the same person, and then
say whether the precise imitation of complexion and shape of
the emotionless waxen effigy is preferable to the uncolored
mind-rendering material Any artifice applied to pure sculp-
ture — which relies on form alone for its power — detracts
from its spiritual significance. Marble loses even by excessive
polish or finish, though less than by tinting to give it the look
of flesh, or of painting and gilding accessories to make them
seem real. Its supremacy as an art-vehicle is shaken whenever
its purity of colorless outline is disturbed. A combination of
various marbles and stones in the same statue, as in the “Apollo”
at Naples, whose head, hands, and lyre are of white marble, and
the drapery of porphyry, destroys that unity which is essential to
the perfect expression of the fundamental thought. The eye is
attracted chiefly to the details, and the mind left in wonderment
at the ingenuity of the labor rather than edified by the idea.
In the worst period of antique sculpture, glass and ivory eyes,
inlaid lips, and similar abortive means of representing life were
rife, but their effect is as ghastly as rouge on the cheeks of a
corpse. It is a causeless falsehood, which deceives none and
shocks all. Vulgar art met with no permanent favor in Greece.
Such specimens as exist are to be attributed to the caprices
of patrons or special exigencies. The famous colossal gold and
ivory statues of Jupiter and Minerva by Phidias were made
in compliance with the popular religious sentiment, which ex-
acted that its favorite deities should be constructed of the
richest materials by the hands of the greatest artist. Elaborate
skill and taste were displayed in their details, and the effect as
30 ORIGIN OF POLY CHROMY.
a whole must have been ornately magnificent, at the expense of
the simpler and grander qualities of sculpture. Even the Apollo
made of dark green basalt, however good otherwise, disappoints
in its bad choice of a material for the god of light.
Undoubtedly the origin of polychromy is to be traced among
the Greeks as the Egyptians to the sacred significance given to
colors by the priests, while its use as ornament was continued
after its force as an emblem had been weakened or lost. That
it was largely employed in connection with gilding, sometimes
actually covering the entire statue with paint, at others as a
background or for emphasizing accessories, and with rich effect,
there is ample evidence; but how to distinguish between its use
in a typical or an aesthetic light, we cannot now exactly tell,
though it is evident that both might be, and no doubt often
were, put into harmony, to their mutual gain.
Athlete of th The ability with which the Grecian sculptor was
...” able to dignify an act in itself ignoble, is displayed in
ples. the “Lysippus,” or “ Athlete of the Vatican.” He is
represented scraping the sweat from his arm, but the faultless
anatomy, the elastic pose, and quiet consciousness of health and
power, suggest in the classical sense the “godlike.” Much of
the value of the “Modesty” in the same room depends upon its
simplicity of treatment, especially in the chaste arrangement of
the drapery and the perfect repose of the figure. So, too, in
the “Silence” of the Capitol, note how by subtlety of attitude
it impresses its motive in the spectator In these examples we
perceive the same consummate skill displayed in their secondary
as well as primary objects; putting all parts into harmony, and
thus making that complete unity which gives the highest charac-
ter to the artist's work. Even in their departures from the he-
roic style into what approaches the modern realistic, an equal
thoroughness obtains. Nothing is left to chance or the igno-
rance of the public, for the intended effect. An old woman is
rendered with pitiless fidelity of decrepitude and countenance of
crime or despair, as well as a drunken female of the same mu-
seum, with a no less forcible exhibition of her condition. In
the representation of animal life, or appeals to sympathy, the
Greek sculptor also worked as knowingly and well.
There is a bust of Æsop in the Villa Albani at Rome, the
dwarfish ugliness of which agrees with the common notion of
his features. But as statue-portraiture began about the time of
Alexander the Great, its authenticity.is questionable. It is in-
GRE CIAN STATUE-PORTRAITURE. 31
teresting, however, as showing a disposition at an early period
to give realistic likenesses. If these were wanting, the Greeks
created effigies of Homer, the Seven Sages, and other eminent
men on the same idealistic principle that Christian art did sub-
sequently of Christ, the Saints, and Apostles. In some cases
there must have been traditions which served as a general
guide, but as with the Saviour, St. Peter, and St. John, these
traditions may have been as apocryphal as the likenesses based
on them. The principle involved in the antique imaginary por-
traiture, being the very essence of idealistic art, makes it worth
our while to consider it.
Its object was the exaltation of the intellectual over the mere
physical, though keeping them in harmony, forming a heroic or
generic type, indicative of the highest qualities of the personages
represented. By this theory the mind is viewed as the perma-
nent faculty, and the body the transitory feature of life. What
is lost in outward accuracy of changeable form is gained in a
knowledge of the never dying mental characteristics. This ideal-
ism is compatible with realistic truth, for it teaches the artist to
overlook the trivial and unimportant both of spirit and matter,
and to choose only that of each which best expresses the finest
qualities of the individual in question. Titian, Velasquez, Vero-
nese, Holbein, Leonardo, and Raphael were masters of this prac-
tice. I believe that the Greeks must have been equally skillful
in refining their actual portraiture, as they are superior to others
in creating one purely imaginary. We now see, especially on
gems and medals, sometimes in sculpture, their philosophers and
heroes as they appeared to the appreciative minds of their own
race long after all personal knowledge of them had passed into
the shadows of history. Lysippus epitomizes the theory when
he says, “The older artists made men as they are; I, as they
appeared to be.” Their best is put into spiritual sympathy with
the spectator's best opinion of them. It is not necessary that
the idealism should be one of abstract beauty, but it must give
the most noteworthy characteristics of a great man in an ade-
Quate shape. Contrast the ideal heads of Plato, Christ, or St.
John of the Greek and Italian schools, with the most elaborated
portraiture in the naturalistic method of the best German and
Dutch masters, and decide which is the nobler style !
Roman portraiture was hard and literal, disguising no unwel-
come truth, but reproducing the exact thing, be it a squint,
mole, or bald head. Not even Julius Caesar's power could pro-
32 ROMAN PORTRAITURE.
tect him from its matter-of-fact practice. This characteristic of
the seven-hilled civilization was inherited from the Etruscans,
whose intellectual standard was lower than the Greeks. Roman
physiognomy is coarse and almost brutal in comparison with
Grecian. The busts of their public men indicate a predomi-
nance of animal force and strength of will. Few display much
mental refinement or evidence of a fine intellectual tempera-
ment. Many of the emperors are only gladiators in purple.
Those, like Marcus Aurelius and the Antonines, who display
superior qualities, formed their characters by the study of Gre-
cian philosophy. The realistic portraiture of the Romans for-
cibly illustrates how different was the part they filled in history
from their aesthetic rivals, while their relative culture and amen-
ity of manners is made apparent by the estimation which each
race placed on art itself.
Roman and Phidias was the honored friend of Pericles. Public
Greclan. competitions in art were instituted at a very early
taSłe. * e *
Sensuousness period in Greece, and prizes solemnly bestowed by
º Semsual- competent judges. The Social position, incentives to
####, ambition, and rewards given to Grecian artists were
ligion in art, equal to those of their greatest men in other depart-
ments of genius. During the same period in Rome, say about
300 B. C., a noble citizen of the Fabian family, who had
gained the surname of Pictor because of his skill in painting,
was ridiculed and despised by his rude countrymen. In the
lapse of centuries fashion converted contempt of art into a
restless passion for its works. When Tiberius proposed to
remove a statue of an athlete — mark how characteristic of the
taste of the Romans was the profession — from the Baths of
Agrippa to his own palace, he was obliged to desist, lest a dan-
gerous riot should arise.
Roman love of art was like the passion of a man for his mis-
tress. The more beautiful and costly, the more it stirred the
envy of rivals, and bespoke his wealth and desires. The Greek,
on the contrary, loved it for its own sake as the crowning joy of
his life. One of the most ancient of his songs thus condenses
his notions of the essentials of happiness: First, good health ;
second, BEAUTY ; third, riches honestly acquired ; fourth, social
pleasure. Beauty, which meant art, is virtually at the head of
the list, for health was indispensable to his aesthetic theory and
practice. We may object to the sensuous nature of his felicity;
but he gilded life with poetry, while the Roman defiled it by
sensuality.
FIRST NUDE STATUES. 33
Carried to extremes, sensuousness is a more subtle and quite
as sure a corrupter as sensuality, because it reduces life to sheer
sensation, and incites to selfishness in its pursuit. The degree,
not the quality, of the gratification, becomes the test of action.
While Grecian art was influenced by religion, its aim was more
to the majestic and sublime than to the sensuous-beautiful.
Phidias and his great pupils illustrate the pure period, which
lasted only from 450 to 400 years, B. C.; long enough to give
rise to the noblest sculpture the world has seen, whenever they
were free to execute according to their own judgments, as is
evinced by what remains of the marbles of the Parthenon.
Although every religion in the form of a creed restricts and
narrows art, yet it invariably exercises over it a salutary moral
control, outside of the tendency to make it subservient to super-
stition. Sometimes it even puts a restraint on it in this respect.
Numa prohibited effigies of the Divinity in human form. The
Persians also considered it indecent to represent the gods in
this way. What Moses and Mohammed enjoined everybody
knows. But we do not give sufficient credit to the pagan clergy
for their endeavors to keep art decent. Egyptian art was sin-
gularly decorous and chaste. Just as art was freed from priestly
surveillance it tended toward sensuality. Bigotry imprisoned
its spirit, but kept it clean. This we see in the case of Savona-
rola and all reformers, while unbelieving rulers, and popes of the
Borgian and Medicean stamp, encouraged in it a license utterly
opposed to religion pure and undefiled.
It was not until the time of Praxiteles, when phil- Female
osophical skepticism had greatly undermined the #, as a
pagan faith, and art was wholly free, that the naked Venus.
female figure was attempted. Even then art had its own canons
of modesty, which ennobled the nude, and long preserved it from
licentiousness. Venus and Love, being considered as the heaven-
born companions of the severe-minded Minerva, were made as
attractive as possible, but with features untainted by libidinous
desire. It was left to the debauched Romans and unbelieving
moderns to show them shameless and mercenary. In the degree
that Grecian civilization was overborne by the Roman, its art
fell from the service of gods and heroes to pandering to the
lusts of men. Praxiteles and his followers, substituting the
sensuous-pretty and the graceful-beautiful for the sublime, al-
though doing perfect work of its kind, lowered the moral stand-
ard of sculpture, and prepared the way for its subsequent deg-
3
34 PHYSICAL TRAINING OF GREEKS.
radation. For a brief period Lysippus upheld its dignity, but
could not lead it back to its noblest estate. The first naked
Venus was made by Praxiteles in connection with one draped
in the usual style. But so fixed was public opinion then in
favor of the chaster treatment that the citizens of Athens de-
cided to take the clothed goddess in preference to the nude. It
was not long, however, before the Cnedians, to whose lot the
other fell, became so fond of their statue that they refused to
part with it to the king of Bythinia in release of a heavy debt.
The physical training of the Greeks favored their art by pro-
viding it with models of strength and beauty of both sexes;
but it had its questionable side. Spartan girls exercised naked
in games intended to make them hardy and handsome. This
and similar practices’ might be justified in their aim in a primi-
tive age, if the eyes of men were proof against sensual allure-
ments. In Greece, the resistance on sanitary and religious
grounds to sensuality while in sight of temptation, was cogent
for a time; but in the end, the licentiousness which had found its
way into their art crept also into their manners, and all the more
insidiously because of its being in its beginnings justified on
reasons of faith and state. Still the intellectual refinement of the
people, joined to their delight in the beautiful, retarded somewhat
their descent into sensualism, besides making this condition less
complete and base than with the uncultivated nations. But
to this end it was sure to come with those who dedicated maidens
to the service of Venus, and made prostitution legal and respect-
able. Pindar begins an ode to these corrupting neophytes thus:
“Young girls, dispensers of pleasure, priestesses of Persuasion.”
At the fête of Apollo of Philésie, prizes were given to those
who could bestow the sweetest kiss. Competitions like this
could not have been edifying to either actor or spectator. No
wonder, then, that the artists, carried away by the popular cur-
rent, finally, as Winkelman observes, worked less to satisfy the
soul than the senses; adhering, however, to the national predilec-
tion for the human figure, and rejecting as low innovations
those landscape and grotesque motives, which at a later period
were in vogue with the Romans, to the detriment of the nobler
styles of decoration, based on mythology and history. Lucian
gives vent to his dislike of the new fashion, by saying, “I do
not look in pictures for towns and mountains. I wish to see
men, and to know by their attitudes and actions what they do
and say.” And this prejudice against, or want of enjoyment in
DISLIKE TO LANDSCAPE. 35
the landscape, as the northern races regard it, seems to adhere
to all classical art, and to have been transmitted to the Latin
races of our time. That objected to by Lucian was only a
crude sort of wall-decoration, executed with but slight regard to
truth of perspective design or local color. The basis of the
Grecian taste was its passion and knowledge of human beauty
in its sensuous-intellectual aspect. We will now inquire into
that of their neighbors, the Etruscans.

3S Ns; Sº
§Sº
Sºzº Gº
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CHAPTER III.
THE ART AND RELIGION OF ETRURIA.
MERICAN civilization leaves in the mind a sensation
of rawness and restlessness. The imagination turns
for relief to that future which looms up so impressively
s's) out of the present. There is no escaping the con-
viction, that there awaits America a material and
moral destiny, unparalleled in history, despite the aesthetic barren-
ness of to-day. But for present enjoyment of this nature we
must turn to countries whose poetry and art are mature, or so in-
terblended with the past, that like the Setting Sun, they paint the
distant horizon in impassioned purple and gold, dissolving it into
shapes that speak of transcendent things. America is the land
of promise, as Europe is of realization in art. The mystery lies
in a primeval nature which unlocks its wealth to every toiler.
There is wanted that profounder mystery which enshrouds a spent
civilization, whose arts still survive to announce its former great-
D€SS,
Of all the old peoples of Italy that have made an impression
on modern life, none interest more than the Etruscans. They
have left a written language which no one can interpret ; stu-
pendous works, which time fails to destroy ; and a rich and
suggestive art, whose preservation is due to the silence of the
grave, during nearly thirty centuries of undisturbed slumber.
Everywhere their cities crowned picturesque, impregnable
heights, rejoicing in varied views, pure air, and excessive climb-
ing as greatly as modern towns delight in the easy access, heavy
atmosphere, and confined scenery of the lowlands. Their in-
habitants were a strong-limbed, broad-headed, industrious race,
given to road and sewer making, canal-digging, and taming Na-
ture generally. They were religious too, commercial, manufac-
turing; keen in business, luxurious, not unmindful of beauty,
but preferring the strength and comfort that comes of a more
practical view of things: a people, in the end, whose hard-earned


ORIGIN OF THE ETRUSCANS. 37
riches and mechanical science failed to save their state from an
ambitious, warlike neighbor. Though subdued by arms, their
arts and polity overcame the conqueror. For centuries they
ruled the seas, and were the great wave-lords of antiquity.
English in their maritime power, they had a similar liking for
horse-racing and pugilism. Their origin is lost in the remotest
history of the East. Nevertheless, their earliest civilization was
indubitably filtered through Egyptian and Assyrian sources.
Some of their primitive work has a decided look of the Nile,
while there exist paintings and sculptures which bear a like-
ness to those of Nineveh.
Leaving the first Etruscans undisturbed in their sepulchres.
historic shrouds, we will pry into their Italian annals, Cities.
as their art may be called, because of the want of a key to the
numerous inscriptions that still survive in their tongue. Most
of these, being monumental, are an unflattering commentary on
the egotistical practice of laudatory epitaphs in general. The
Etruscan Smith is no whit the more famous for them than will
be any of their modern imitators in the eloquence of a grave-
yard literature, after the final settlement of their estates has
dropped their names, riches, and honors into oblivion. But
while our successors ages hence will have nothing to thank
Smith of to-day for in putting himself decorously into the family
vault, we owe much to the ancient Smith for adding to his corpse
the coveted objects of his life, and by painting and carving, show-
ing us how he passed his time, what he thought of the present and
future state, his favorite tastes and occupations, all of which posthu-
mous gossip fellow-sympathy makes mortals anxious to know of
each other, particularly when separated by great blanks in his-
tory. For a nation that did so much for civilization, whose gifts
to it are in use now, the Etruscans are unfortunate in fame.
The greedy Romans owed to them almost everything that made
themselves respectable, but were careful that posterity should
not know their full obligation. Indeed, the civilization of
Etruria was so completely engulfed in Roman domination, that
only antiquarians give a thought to their separate political exist-
ence. Their civil and domestic life is interesting, on account of
its beaver-like common sense and Anglo-Saxon features in some
particulars. The Yankee might call the old Etruscans his cous-
ins, on many considerations. I should bewail their loss, if I
thought Time was ever unjust in its revenges. Could we see
the whole truth, their fate would, without doubt, appear to be
38 SITES OF ETRUSCAN CITIES.
clearly the blasted fruit of their own rearing. Curiosity is legiti-
mate when sympathy would be superfluous.
Greece and Judaea are as much vital forces to-day in civiliza-
ation as when Socrates questioned and Isaiah prophesied, be-
cause their literature makes their immortal thoughts as familiar
to every generation of men as those of its own intellectual
kings. But that of Etruria is literally a voice of the dead,
being the signs of things rather to be guessed than positively
known. The names of its artists, rulers, and teachers, if found
at all, are mere blanks, or so interwoven with fable as to have
no weight in history. We gather from them that however dis-
tinguished a nation may become in trade and the common, arts,
unless it possesses a literature inspired by genius, it drops as
easily and as little regretted out of the memory of mankind as
any individual cotton-lord of Lowell or Birmingham at his de-
cease. That which can be immediately replaced has no perma-
nent, universal value.
If America, during her opportunity of material prosperity,
does not secure a high position in art and literature, in her deca-
dence she too will disappear out of history as has Etruria, leav-
ing only a great shadow on the dial-plate of time, on which an-
tiquaries only can trace a few scattered lights. No American who
inquires into the moral science of history can escape this humili-
ating conviction; for he will perceive that nowhere has there
existed a noble art and literature without corresponding eleva-
tion of thought and feeling, while the fame of Carthage, Tyre,
and the nations of antiquity renowned only for wealth and lux-
ury is as dust in the balance compared with the esteem in which
every petty town is held which was the birthplace of the gen-
ius that marks a mental epoch.
Independent of other inducement, it is interesting to make
the tour of ancient Etruria to examine the sites of her chief
marts of commerce, and to enjoy the loveliness of the landscapes
about them. Let us begin with Volterra, overlooking the Med-
iterranean, the Pisan territory, and a Plutonic stretch of coun-
try at its feet, split and warped by concealed fires into yawning
fury of chasm and savage sterility of soil. Its position marks
it for a doom as tragic as that of the cities of the plain of
Sodom, for it seems destined to be engulfed in a vast quicksand,
which slowly swallows by immense mouthfuls the mountain on
which it stands. Already the Church of St. Guisti and what-
ever was in the vicinity has disappeared, while in the north it
CHIUSI. 39
now touches the Badia, from which the monks have fled in dis-
may, leaving their venerable cloisters quaking on the brink of a
sliding precipice of sand several hundred feet in height, which
leans towards the abyss of hidden waters that are sapping the
soil above them with steady progress. Each year the distance
lessens between it and the city, fascinated by the peril. Mas-
sive walls of three thousand years’ standing may induce a
feeling of security; but after following their long circuit in won-
der at the solidity and vastness of the construction, it is start-
ling to come suddenly upon a vaster work of Nature which men-
aces at any moment to destroy them utterly, and bury the peo-
ple alive that trusted in their strength. The idea of a city
being sucked into the bowels of the earth, interred as it were at
one stroke, is awful. Yet with a stupidity that seems past be-
lief, great as is man's capacity this way, the Wolterrians refused
to permit a citizen of Leghorn to drain the quicksand while it
was possible, on condition of having the land for himself that
he reclaimed from devastation. Possibly they feared the loss
of one of their “sights,” which are food and raiment to the im-
poverished cities of Italy.
Orvieto is as firmly as Volterra is uneasily placed on a rock,
its walls in part rising directly from the perpendicular preci-
pice and seemingly several hundred feet high. Perugia vaga-
bondizes along the crests of a group of hills or terraces, evin-
cing a disposition to reach the rich valleys below. Chuisi, with
a glorious lookout over two lakes, girt with a green swell of
mountains whose olive gardens and vineyards rise and sink un-
til they dash their fragrance against its ugly walls, shows a dark
spot in a lovely background. The kingly virtues of Porsenna
are as much forgotten in his now beggarly capital as is his
tomb, once a wonder of the world. But what else could happen
in a nest of excavators whose most productive industry is rifling
graves, fleecing the visitor, and getting up antiquities for the
market. My landlord could give me nothing to eat tenderer
than the integuments, – it might have been of an ances-
tral mummy, so tough and skinny was the substance, and so in
sympathy with his own nature, — but he had to offer his Etrus-
can museum for fifty thousand francs.
The ascent to the bedrooms was guarded by a long file of
lugubrious cinerary urns of archaic rudeness. In fact, Chuisi
is neither cheerful nor tidy, but still has some genuine art
and objects of archeological interest, although its best collec-
40 THE MAREMMA.
tion, the Casucinni, has recently been sold to the city of
Palermo.
The Maremma is a vast cemetery of Etruscan cities whose
once vigorous life is replaced by pestilence and desolation.
Scarcely a spadeful of earth can be turned up without dis-
turbing the dust of their inhabitants. An equally picturesque
selection of sites obtains here as elsewhere. Cortona is the
queen in this respect, though Citta della Piéve, garlanded by
oak and chestnut forests, looks on a landscape not so diversified,
but in some details more charming.
I opine their founders had no greater liking for the landscape,
than modern Italians. Sanitary and political considerations led
them to choose the hills. Before the plains were drained and
planted, they were unwholesome. Yet in locating their towns, and
disposing their huge walls and gateways, they must have been
guided by some latent instinct of the beautiful, even in a land
where Nature is so prodigal of it that it is difficult not to secure a
share of her charms in building either villa or city. Their effects
of landscape could scarcely have been made more delightful had
their situations been expressly chosen with this end in view.
It is unnecessary to specify the antiquarian distinctions of
Etruscan art. The better way to get at its general characteris-
tics is to study the contents of the tombs. These were exca-
vated or built much like the dwellings of the living in ground-
plan, except when they took the form of mausoleums, which
were constructed on an immense scale with a labyrinthine inte-
rior. Their ruins are more like the works of Nature than man.
The walls and ceilings of towns were lavishly sculptured and
painted, and when first opened, these decorations are quite per-
fect. After an experience of the ghastly relics of our sepul-
chres, it is with pleased astonishment one enters an Etruscan
house of the dead. If it be one hitherto undisturbed, the vis-
itor may find himself as it were in the presence of the original
proprietors. Apartments opening one into another have a look
of domestic life, while the ornamentation is not confined to myth-
ological or symbolical motives, but is interspersed with scenes of
festivity, games, races, threatrical exhibitions, and whatever the
occupants once enjoyed in the flesh ; indicating that they fancied
they were entering on a new life resembling in many particulars
their old. It shows in another form the Indian notion of new and
better hunting-grounds in the lands of the Great Spirit. Still
good and evil had much to do with the reception that awaited
ETRUSCAN TOMBS. 41
them. Guardian genii, effigies of the avengers of wrong, pro-
tectors of the virtuous, symbols of immortality, occult doctrines
put into pictorial form, gazed at them from carved and frescoed
roofs and walls, which were protected from wanton hands by
figures of monstrous serpents, demons, or the snake-entwined
visage of the terrible Medusa. There were too many valuable
objects deposited in the tombs for them to be safe from the cu-
pidity of the living, unless they were made awful as well as
sacred to the common imagination. Indeed, there is reason for
believing that deposits of jewels were sometimes covertly with-
drawn by the family after publicly complying with the estab-
lished customs, or perhaps were stolen by conscience-seared
workmen, who knew how to effect an entrance into sepulchres
of their own making. Enough valuable objects have, however,
been left to stock the museums of Europe ; the fruit of a no-
tion that their owners, needing them in the life to which they
were going, kept them ever within reach.
On entering a tomb at Volterra I was surprised to see wine
and food placed on one of the urns. A flickering torch cast a
mysterious light on the pale figures that looked at me with great,
staring eyes, holding out their libation-cups as if to be filled. I
asked my peasant-guide if his ancestors still hankered for the
wine of their old farms.” O, no,” was the reply; “we put it
here to cool for ourselves.” It seems one must come to Italy to
learn best how to utilize the grave-chill in a more practical
sense than that of a moral refrigerator or ethical bugbear.
If the tomb be anterior to the Roman custom of burning
corpses, we may find the noble proprietors, male and female, laid
out in state on bronze biers or couches, looking life-like, with
their jewelry and armor on, as prompt in all appearance for
love's or war's conquests as ever. Their favorite furniture, vases,
bronzes, articles of toilet, toys of children, and engraved primers
are in their places about them, ready to be used. A few minutes'
action of the fresh atmosphere reduces the bodies to dust, but the
articles remain as perfect as when put there. The family scene
of some sepulchres is made more real by rows of portrait statues
in various attitudes on urns and sarcophagi arranged after the
manner of a fashionable reception. In those days the guests
mostly reclined at banquets. We find the figures often in
that position. If husband and wife, they are decorously embra-
cing, or the arm of the man is caressingly put on the shoulder of
his partner. Each is draped as in life with their usual orna-
42 ETRUS CAN REALISM,
ments and insignia of rank. The base which contains the bod-
ies or ashes is elaborately sculptured, and sometimes gilded and
painted; the scenes being taken from the lives of the deceased
or the current mythology.
Such tombs constitute the libraries and museums of Etruscan
history. Without them we should have known next to nothing of
it, and modern art would have lost its most graceful and precious
models of jewelry, bronzes, and vases. How abundant such ob-
jects were we may gather from the fact that Flavius Flaccus
stole from one small town, the ancient Volsumium, two thousand
bronze statues, as one part of his plunder. Some believe that
the Etruscans anticipated and were superior to the Greeks in the
working of bronze and making fictile vases. Each people pos-
sessed a distinctive art, the origin of which was equally rude
and archaic, but both were perfected in Italy, the Greek by
means of colonies in Southern Italy, and the Etruscan in the
north, until their styles so commingled, or were so interchanged
by commerce that they seem to the inexperienced eye to be the
product of one people.
Etruscan art, notwithstanding, has its root as firmly in national
ideas and habits as the Greek. Instead of a keen sense of ideal
beauty, it manifests a love of fact. Essentially realistic in spirit,
it prefers vigor and strength, and tells its story frankly and for-
cibly rather than gracefully or elegantly. Before it profited by
Greek examples, it was heavy and exaggerated in design with
an unwitting leaning to the grotesque, often coarse, but expres-
sive and sincere. Ignoring the principles of Greek selection and
idealism, it looked more to common nature for inspiration, striv-
ing to make it look exactly as it was, and not as it should be
according to the laws of aesthetics. Nevertheless it possessed a
lofty creative faculty, which at times raised its feeling to the sub-
lime. This supernal, mystical element came to it from the
Oriental blood of the race. Homer inspires alike Grecian and
Etruscan art, but radical differences in treatment and execution
of the same motive are often evinced.
Ideas of I find also an essential distinction in their ideas of
#. death and future life as seen in their sepulchral art.
#mºte Apparently the Greek was so absorbed in sensuous
Volunovi enjoyment, or his religious faith was so shaken by his
* teachers of philosophy, that he formed no very precise
notion of his condition in the next world. Vague and shadowy
it appears, though often beautifully poetical according to the in-
Gºs
DEMONISM OF ETRURIA. 43
terior sense of Some myths, but lacking the exhortative and puni-
tive character of the more stable and sterner Egyptian and
Etruscan dogmas. Respect for the gods, love of beauty, heroism,
present enjoyment, viewing the future speculatively or leaving it
to expound itself, - such was his theology. But the Etruscan
was more positive and practical in spite of its element of Orien-
tal mysticism. Indeed this positiveness may be traced to the
strong faith of his Asiatic ancestry, whose imaginations were ex-
tremely susceptible to spiritual influences from unseen powers
and whose minds were trained to reject the pantheistic notions
of the more versatile Greeks. None were more so than the
Jews and Persians. Coming down from them, this habit of un-
questioning reliance on a revealed hereafter rooted itself in the
creeds of Christendom, and most positively in the tenets of Prot-
estantism. Whenever revelation as defined by a church has
come into collision with science, religion has tried to drive the
other out of the field of inquiry, by branding it as heresy or
apostasy. It is interesting to note how far the Etruscan idea of
a future existence coincides with the so-called Christian.
That joyous reliance on his fancy which contented his neigh-
bor, evidently did not satisfy the conscience of the Etruscan.
Like the northerns whose harshest doctrines find shape in the
diabolism of Calvinistic theology, he too, must have a material hell,
with suitable demons, but with this noteworthy difference : his
final doom was adjudged, not according to his faith, but his
works. He was sentenced by infallible judges according to his
good and evil deeds, which were weighed in infallible scales.
Etruscan tomb-sculpture is much taken up by these solemn
scenes. An expectant fiend sits outside the door leading to
torment. Directly opposite is the entrance to the regions of
happiness, guarded by a good angel. The Soul on trial is attended
by the two good and bad genii, one of which was supposed to
have been its protector, and the other its tempter, while living.
As either is able to turn the scales of justice, so is the eternal
condition of their charge decided.
The demonism of Etruria is sterner and less mystical than
the Egyptian, and not so frightful as that of Christendom.
Images of terror, however, are common, and made as ugly and
repulsive as those of the opposite character are made handsome
and attractive. Typhon, one of the angels of death, is a beauty,
compared with his modern namesake, while big-eared, heavy-
limbed Charon, with his fatal hammer, is mild and pleasing be-
44 PURITY OF ETRUSCAN ART.
side Spinello's mediaeval Beélzebub. Their most successful essays
at ferocious ugliness give a grotesque exaggeration of the negro
physiognomy and human form. Serpents figure largely, both in a
good and bad sense, as a symbol of eternity. The important
truth recognized in the sepulchral art is an immediate judgment
passed on each soul at its exit from earth, and the substantiality
of the rewards or punishments that await it.
The Etruscans were eminently a domestic people of warm
social affections. Woman seems to have held a position equal to
man's. She is constantly represented as sharing his cares and
joys. The wife was highly honored, not subordinated, as in
Greece, to an accomplished class of courtesans; nor was the
relation stained by such laxity as at a subsequent period de-
filed Roman households. Indeed, Etruscan art is singularly
pure and serious, except as it borrowed from foreign sources its
dissolute Bacchic rites. But these were never very popular.
Their artists prefer exhibiting the natural emotions with touching
directness and simplicity. One favorite subject was the death-
parting of families. The husband, wife, child, lover, or friend,
as the case may be, embraces or tenderly shakes the hand of the
dying, whose features express entire resignation, while the group
about are moved with grief, but all seem animated by a convic-
tion of reunion in a future state. Children are held to the pale
lips to take their last kiss, and the pet dog watches in silent
sympathy the hired mourners perform their functions. The
dignity and courtesy manifested by the principals in these fare-
wells show that no doctrinal despair poisoned their latest hours.
They seem rather to look upon the separation as one does a call
to a long journey. A spirit-horse for the man, and a chariot for
a woman, are always depicted quietly waiting outside with their
winged attendants, until they are needed to carry the departed to
their new land. If death has already occurred, their torches are
reversed.
The Greeks loved to look on death in a sensuously beautiful
shape, like Endymion sleeping in Hylas, borne away by lovely
water-nymphs. They wished to disguise its dismal features.
It was best regarded as a sweet slumber or a delightsome ravish-
ment. An Etruscan shielded his senses by no such poetical ex-
pedients. He felt it to be a real journey to a new country, and
so represented it for good or bad on the evidence of character.
His artistic creations to people the unseen world were not simply
deified, supersensuous human beings, but a distinct supernal
TOMB OF THE VOLUNNI. 45
race, with attributes corresponding to their spiritual functions.
We have seen what his devils were. His genii, furies, and
other celestials were grand in idea, often sublime; and as beauti-
ful as he could make them. They were more elevated in con-
ception and functions than those of the Grecian mythology; fit
precursors of Giotto's, Orgagna's, and Luca Signorelli's angels
and archangels. In truth, mediaeval art had not much to change
in adjusting this phase of the antique to its own purposes. The
infant Jupiter in the arms of his nurse, of the Campagna bas-
reliefs, is the legitimate model of subsequent Madonnas. But
the most striking of their supernal effigies are the two Furies
which guard the portals of the chief sarcophagus in the Volunni
tomb at Perugia.
The contents of this family vault merit the more attention
because of their pure Etruscan character in the best time of
art, when its native strength was tempered by Grecian feeling.
Several generations are here deposited in elegant urns, all ad-
mirable, especially two that face the entrance to the principal
chamber. One holds the ashes of the head of the house ; the
other, the remains of a lady of the same name. Both monu-
ments are remarkable for extreme simplicity, pure style, breadth
of design, and refined adaptation to their honored purpose. The
man lies in a half upright posture on a richly draped couch,
with his head upraised. He is not dead, as we moderns persist
in representing our departed, as if disbelieving in the immor-
tality of the soul, and believing firmly in impressing on the
mind disagreeable images of material dissolution ; nor does he
placidly sleep, as the mediaevalists, with better taste and feeling,
represent their dead, while awaiting the universal resurrection;
but with more truth than either, he LIVES.
This vital characteristic displays the skill of the artist in pre-
serving the likeness without any loss of solemnity of motive.
The figures in question appear to be the veritable individuals
they represent; receiving us with the same dignity they would
have shown, had our call been two thousand years earlier, before
they had entered into their marble-silence. We learn from
from them that their relations believed they entered at once into
a new existence without an intermediate sleep, of uncertain dura-
tion or purgatorial probation ; ideas common to the Protestants
and Catholics. I understand the Etruscan on his coffin to say,
“I am still my identical self, called to a new part in life, but
retaining every experience which made me what I was ; any
46 ETRUSCAN SUPERNAL SCULPTURE.
change depends on processes of growth and development anal-
ogous to those which constituted my personality on earth.
Meantime I am an Etruscan gentleman, quite at your service.”
These old pagans took a more common-sensed view of the doc-
trine of immortality than moderns do. They may have overmuch
sensualized their notion, by too palpably connecting it with an
exhibition of the pleasures of this life; but as they made the
degree of enjoyment hereafter to depend on the right use of
present gifts, their test of worthiness was both salutary and
hopeful, as the moral world was then constituted.
The base of the chief of the Volunni monuments combines
simplicity of treatment with a sublime motive, the profound
spirituality of which is excelled only by Blake's design of
“Death's Door;” a similar suggestion, which to my mind is the
most eloquent composition as yet conceived by Christian art to
foreshadow the entrance of a human being into eternal life. The
Etruscan effigies do not so much express the fact as the mysteries
that attend it. On each side of the door representing the pas-
Sage from the tomb to the new existence, sits a colossal, winged
female, in whom the highest intellectual attributes of both sexes
are united, devoid of any sexual feeling. They are chastely
draped, and wear Sandals. One hand holds a burning torch, and
the other is slightly turned towards the door, with an expression
on their features as if they were about to reveal the great secret
of what comes after death. In reality these figures are not
three feet high, but so grandly treated and conceived as to im-
press the spectator's mind at the first glance with an idea of
supernal force and functions. Although sitting with their feet
drawn upwards and crossed, the sculptor has given them a self-
supporting look, as if they needed no material aid in any posi-
tion; organic will alone sufficing to put them in repose or motion.
In this subtle suggestion of the triumph of spirit over matter,
they surpass Michael Angelo, who never wholly divests his
Sibyls, prophets, or allegorical figures of their grosser material
effects as to size, solidity, and weight by thoroughly subordina-
ting them to the purely spiritual elements of their characters.
But his work in general shows so much kinship, especially in
force and depth of meaning and execution, to the art now under
examination, as to mark him as a genuine descendant of an
Etruscan ancestry of old masters whose names are now un-
known. Their spirit, like their blood, lives again in him in its
consummate power. Yet it is not until the full intent and feel-
ETRUSCAN WOMEN. 47
ing of his finest symbolical statues, as, for example, the “Night
and Day” of the Medici Chapel, flow into the mind, that an
unwelcome sense of their physical exaggeration entirely disap-
pears. The spiritual superiority of the Etruscan supernal
figures is manifested by their suggesting nothing below the stand-
ard of a lofty conception, which bursts on the senses like a pro-
phetic revelation. We share the trembling awe of the four
human shadows, in faded fresco, dimly seen issuing from the
sepulchre, looking anxiously and inquiringly at the mystical
guardians who await them at the portals of Eternity. Modern
learning calls them furies. Nevertheless, their countenances are
benevolent and welcoming. May we all meet no more unkindly
faces than theirs on being ushered into our final homes.
The less elaborate monument of the lady is as well treated in
another way. A fine head of Medusa is the only ornament on
the base. Like the rest, the cornice contains an obituary inscrip-
tion. A handsome matron in her prime, profusely and elegantly
draped, is seated in a curule chair on its top. Her right arm
is bare and upraised; and the hand with unconscious action plays
with her shoulder, as she earnestly listens, bending a little for-
ward and looking downward. One fancies her to be a judge,
accustomed to be revered and obeyed; a just and gracious lady.
Etruscan women were trusted housekeepers. They sat at
the head of the table, and kept the keys, except those of the
wine-cellars; a precaution which, with as much probability, tells
against their husbands as them. They seem to have had greater
social freedom, and were eligible to more offices, than is the
modern woman. One of the female ancestors of Maecenas was a
military commander. There is reason to suppose that our lady
of the Volunni once held a high office; a supposition all the
more plausible from the authoritative, masculine pose of the
right hand on the knee. Without detracting from the grace and
beauty of the image, it adds decision and firmness to its character.
The motive and treatment of this little monument, as a whole,
is as effectively suggestive as Buonarotti's “Duke Guliano,” mis-
called in guidebooks “Lorenzo; ” but the plates of it and the others
published by Count Connestabile fail to do them justice.
Miniature genii in terra-cotta, attached to the lamps, hang
from the roof of the tomb. They are graceful and appropriate
conceptions, on a par in sentiment with Fra Angelico's guiding
angels in his “Last Judgment.” An ecstatic character akin to his
is sometimes seen in the old Etruscan art. It cannot be con-
48 THE CHIMERA.
founded with the Grecian beautiful, for it is the result of a high-
er insight into our spiritual being. At first thought, it appears
strange that so fine a mystic element should be found in the art
of a people the chief attributes of whose supreme good or God
were Strength, Riches, and Wisdom, not Love, not even admitting
into their list of Divine credentials the much-worshipped Beauty
of their relations and neighbors, but holding to the same material
and practical view of life that the English race now do under the
specious term “common-sense.” Yet through this grosser appre-
hension of things there is ever to be detected a spiritual clair-
voyance which lingers in their blood, as originally derived from
Oriental sources. Purged of the worst traits of Asiatic supersti-
tion and mysticism, it still speaks intelligibly to us after its long
sleep.
The greatest puzzle of Etruscan art is that extraordinary
bronze found at Arezzo, now in the Uffizi gallery, called, in an-
tiquarian despair, the “Chimera.” It has the body of a lion, out
of the back of which grows the head of a goat poisoned by the
bite of a serpent, which forms the tail of this composite beast,
whose entire body is beginning to show the effects of the venom
of its own extremity. If it admit of interpretation, I should say
that the lion represented the strength and riches of Etrurian
civilization, the goat its corrupting luxury, and the reptile the
fatal sting of sin that finally cast it down into the mire, never
to rise again among the nations.

CHAPTER IV.
CLASSICAL AND CIIRISTIAN ART COMPARED.
NTIQUITY has not much to offer of aesthetic value
outside of Grecian and Etruscan art. As we have
seen, Asiatic and Egyptian art were too intimately
interest apart, or to influence modern life in any
appreciable degree. We now come to those schools, based on
the Christian faith, which have supplanted all others as a living,
positive agency in civilization.
Should any one ask What of Roman art 2 I reply, The art of
Nothing. Understanding Grecian and Etruscan, he *
knows this also. An indigenous art never grew up in Rome,
nor was any school of her own organic initiation ever established
there. Rome conquered art as she did nations, and transplanted
it matured into her own ground, subjecting it to the slavery of her
own desires, as she likewise bought and sold free-born artists as
common slaves. Art became abundant within her walls, but
this was due either to the ostentation of the rich or it was stolen
from weaker peoples. As regards my purpose, it is only neces-
sary to remember that the art of ancient Rome came either from
Greece or Etruria, or was the interblended product of their
transplanted Schools, presenting no national characteristics.
Cicero ordered statues from Athens for his villas because they
could be had there cheaper and better than at home. Fine
Greek art came into vogue in Rome because it had none of its
own. In view of the patronage bestowed on artists from the
first Caesar to the latest Pope, its collections and museums, its
atmosphere of learning and amateurship, and the stimulus given
by church, state, and individuals to every form of art, it appears
strange that no distinctive school has ever come of it all. Every
other Italian city, one can almost say village, has had its local,
characteristic, permanent style of art. I except, of course, the
magnificent architecture which was formed by and for the impe-


4
50 MO ROMAN SCHOOL.
rial institutions after the more simple and sterner Etruscan forms
had gone into disuse with their contemporary republican ideas.
But my remark is strikingly true of painting and sculpture.
Whenever an emperor or pope had need of art, he lured the
artist from more favored sites. Either the native mind is in-
capable of anything original in this direction or else the political
and religious institutions have ever been unfavorable to its devel-
opment other than in a secondary and academical form. Intel-
lectual and political freedom are requisite for noble art to root
itself firmly in any soil. These Rome has never had since she
knew the meaning of the word. If we look far back, we find
that the works and artists that have given celebrity to Rome are
of foreign origin. So, too, in mediaeval, renaissant, and recent
times. Giotto, Fra Angelico, Luca Signorelli, Perugino, D.
Ghirlandajo, Michael Angelo, Cellini, are examples familiar to all
readers, not to mention a long list of sculptors. Usually Raphael
is said to have founded the Roman School of painting. But he
no more founded one here than in Perugia or Florence, in each
of which he left paintings that influenced the styles of his contem-
poraries. When he came to Rome, his own was matured, though
subsequently modified by the study of classical art and the fashion-
able infidelity in regard to all religion. Dying prematurely, he
left less traces of himself, so far as concerns pupils competent
to further develop his manner, in Rome than even elsewhere.
Its siege and sack by the Constable Bourbon shortly after drove
away the few incompetent scholars that had remained.
Rome is a cosmopolitan capital, whither come to reside, as in
a great inn, artists of all the modern schools, with some special
purpose in view, never amalgamating with the resident population
or inspiring it with rivalry, still less arousing any native genius,
but simply making an aesthetic convenience or eligible bazaar of
the place. As it is, Rome has no more claim to any original
creative influence on Christian than it had on pagan painting and
sculpture. In summing up the latter phase, I am of necessity
limited to the forms they assumed inspired by the sensuous
idealism of Greece, or the vigorous realism of Etruria.
Art concerns history chiefly on the side of its morality. Its
immediate office as regards the individual is to confer enjoyment.
But the great problem to be solved, in both its particular and
general aspects, is the amount of good or evil it holds, as might
be said, in solution. Questions like these are pertinent. Where
did paganism leave art? How did Christianity take it up 2
WHAT KILLED PAGAN ART. 51
What was its effect on it? Which form is the most successful
one viewed aesthetically, and which the more cogent in a moral
or spiritual sense. -
Some might object that it is less important to know how others
lived than to know how to live ourselves. But if the experi-
ence of those who have passed on to their final judgment can
profit the living, by all means let us utilize it. I repeat that
the art of a nation is as correct a chart of its virtue and vice as
the taste of an individual is a veritable disclosure of his mental
constitution. He who maintains that speech and art were given
to conceal the real thought, only the more effectually discloses
himself. At all events, the causes of the rise and fall of peoples
are clearly set forth in their art. Christianity did not of itself
kill the antique pagan styles, but it interred them. They were
virtually dead and gone to corruption before the new religion
was established. The causes of this dissolution are found in
their constitutions. When it is asserted that the distinctive suc-
cess of Greek art was owing to the worship of beauty, it must
also be stated that the common mind, naturally viewing it more
in its material than ideal aspect, finally perverted its pure into
sensual shapes. Etruscan art, following the Roman bent, became
even baser in forms and grosser in thoughts. As both degener-
ated in intellectual standard, an even more marked decline took
place in their execution, so that at last each appeared as rude as
when its archaic efforts first began, without their redeeming sim-
plicity and sincerity. Decaying art steps from one low platform
to a lower in quick succession. We should be thankful that the
false and base in large measure perish with the immediate evil
they occasion. Sin by nature is transitory and suicidal, but
every noble act and idea is immortal by virtue of birthright.
We owe to the Greeks, for the examples they have given of
noble life born of their art, literature, and philosophy, an incalcu-
lable debt, which can be appreciated only as we raise ourselves
to the same intellectual height. It is not necessary or possible
to recreate their life, but whatever there was in it true and lovely
in principle, we may search out and apply to ourselves. The
crowning virtue of their art came less of the popular crowning
taste for Beauty than the aspirations of the men of ºſ
Grecian art.
letters for Wisdom. Athéne was more cherished by f*º
them than Venus. From the outset of their national tives.
& º tº • Whe Chris-
existence she was fbeir protective goddess, associated ºn hºp.
in their minds with ideas of strength, learning, and **
52 WHAT EXALTED GRE CIAN ART.
prudence that belong only to omniscient knowledge and power,
typified in Jupiter, her father. The chief desire of a cultivated
Athenian was to make every feature of life complete and beauti-
ful. Hence the splendid practical heroisms of early Grecian his-
tory; joyfully obeying to the death the needs of the state, as did
Leonidas and his companions; fighting monsters and rescuing
innocence, as did Theseus; or Socrates preferring truth with poi-
son to life denying it. This manly, large-sided, far-seeing courage
and faith, joined to a keen pursuit of wisdom, exalted Grecian
art, and even sustained its external beauty for a time after the
purer inspiration failed within. A Greek of the right stamp was
not satisfied with simply doing the right thing ; he must enjoy
doing it; and to be certain of this, he had to keep his vital
organs in that healthful condition which best fitted him to re-
ceive pleasure in their exercise, according to his understanding
of human duty. His artistic training was a help to him.
Virtually pleasure or pain in right-doing is the dividing line
between the Greek and Byzantine religious art-motives. This
radical antagonism of principle offers a clue to follow out the
comparison which they challenge. With both, art and ethics
are as inseparable as substance and shadow. If the ideal of the
Grecian motive was Wisdom, that of the Christian was no less
Virtue. The pagan trained himself to know ; the Christian, to
believe. Consequently the mental foundation of the one rested
on Instruction, of the other on Revelation, and their correlate
vices become sophistry and superstition. But the spiritual stand-
ard of Christian art is based on the celestial chorus which pro-
claimed “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace and
good will toward men.” By these words we test its quality.
Its office is to promote faith in God, and harmony between Him
and man. The best pagans saw God under the aspects of
Supreme wisdom and power, but the disciples of the Nazarene
were taught to behold Him rather as supreme Love or Sacrifice.
Both believed that the ultimate object of being was Happiness,
but with a vital distinction. The Greek held that his joy was
best won in this life, and the Christian in the next. Each
vigorously pursued the pleasurable or painful means dictated by
their faith to attain their respective aims.
Every human being requires for spiritual sustenance the hope
of immediate or prospective compensation or reward. Humanity
errs, however, in always fixing on a future period for its realiza-
tion of its ideal heaven ; not seeing that its coveted happiness
SPIRIT OF CHRISTIAN ART. 53
depends rather on present conditions of mind, and in the main is
independent of time and most material things, when those con-
ditions are in harmony with spiritual laws. Material objects
then become gracious accessories, instead of being the imperious
principals of life. The heaven man most needs is a capacity of
spontaneously enjoying the gifts of Providence, based on a self-
earned well-being and mental discipline, with a childlike grati-
tude of reception and purity of use. This is a felicity within
the reach of all who heartily accept the manifest system of
divine ethics, irrespective of the abstruse subtleties of creeds.
The heathen sage sought to secure supreme equanimity by
triumphing over matter now, while the Christian neophyte, ac-
cepting life as a perpetual offence, trial, and grief, postponed the
fruition of his hope until his spirit was released from the body.
It must be allowed that the hope of the Christian was more
comprehensive, more sustaining, more self-denying, more humane,
and more clairvoyant in its insight into the spiritual elements of
human nature than the pagan. Demanding more of man, ex-
acting loftier motives, it also conferred more transcendent happi-
ness, as is apparent in comparing Jesus with Socrates, or the
prophets and poets of Judaea with the oracles and men of specu-
lative science of Greece.
We may now trace the course of Christian art in the pursuit
of its more spiritual-minded standard, taking it up at that period
when, seeing its predecessor only in its dissolute decadence, it
began by viewing all past art with horror and distrust, but com-
pelled by the necessities of proselytism to put it to use, denuded
it of its old truth and beauty, and reduced it to a service opposed
in itself to every principle of true art, namely, Asceticism. In
another way this was quite as mischievous a falsehood as the
heathem adoration of the beautiful after losing faith in its divine
sense. The Christian error had its origin in the reaction of
religious faith and consequent art-motives to the opposite mental
extreme. Instead of vigorous heroic action as the object and
guerdon of life, the new doctrines presented an ideal Rest or con- .
templative Idleness as the supreme reward kept in store for ex-
cessive self-sacrifice by a mystical godhead whose chiefest func-
tions were vicarious salvation and retributive judgment. The
spiritual consolations which the gospel of Jesus did really offer
were largely obscured by a diabolical imagery and bodily pen-
ances invented by the new.priesthood. They poisoned the re-
ligious mind with the notion that the Deity was better pleased
54 TIIE ERROR OF CHRISTIANITY.
with human misery than its joy, and did not scruple even to
imply that a portion of the satisfaction of those admitted to their
heaven would be derived from witnessing the physical torture im-
posed on the excluded in the name of Him whose dying prayer
for His enemies was, “Father, forgive them, for they know not
what they do.” Only by abnegation of reason and justice could
such doctrines be accepted. There was no substantial warrant
for them in the language of the Founder of Christianity. By
any people of liberal culture, like the old Greeks, they would
have been rejected as degrading to their conception of the Creator,
debasing to human character, and destructive of the idea of the
parental relation by which Christ revealed God. But the world
had again become either extremely rude and ignorant, or corrupt
and Sophisticated, so that the usurpers of power had peoples at
their disposition easy to be imposed upon by imaginary terrors
or overcome by brute force. The strength of the new dogma
lay in its enforced horror of death, or rather its dreadful conse-
quences. A Christian was taught to believe that no sacrifice of
his natural desires was too great to make in order to avert the
wrath in store for an unshriven soul. Nominally he could
choose between heaven and hell; but the Church held the keys
of both, opening the one or condemning to the other according
as it was propitiated by implicit obedience and gifts. What
wholesome art, science, or literature could flourish in an atmos-
phere of such intense bigotry and selfish interests | The worst
paganism never gave birth to a more deleterious tenet than the
unqualified doctrine of hell-fire, the outgrowth of brutalizing
asceticism ; demonstrating that “man is man’s worst devil.” To
avoid damnation, men became fierce and sanguinary, tormenting
their species as if they were themselves the very fiends they
feared. In order to ensure mutual salvation, they broke every
gospel obligation of love and charity. Finally, their minds were
So obfuscated by senseless discussions on points of theology and
moral practice that they voluntarily inflicted on themselves tor-
tures and privations scarcely less painful than those in prospect
after death. It really looks as if the frightful paradox had
taken possession of the religious mind, that to become a Christian
in sect, one must be as unchristian in act as it was possible to
be. Incalculable misery to nations and individuals came of it.
Intellectual pride had done much to shipwreck the national hope
of Greece, but the cowardice, cruelty, and egoism which sprung
from the monkish notions that man was born to live by fear, and
y
ASCETICISM. 55
not by love, were most calamitous wherever they got the upper
hand. Self-sacrifice was gloried in, not because it purified and
exalted the soul, but as a passport to future reward. The surest
test of a virtuous heart was thus perverted into a deadly snare.
If a speaking example be needed to disclose more potentially
the effect of these ideas on human thought, place a distorted
skeleton of a Byzantine crucifix, made more hideous by its enam-
elled trinketry of blue and gold, beside an antique Apollo, as a
conception of a god ; a filthy, limb-distorted St. Stylus on his
column or a foolish hermit of the Thebaid in company with the
handsome youths of Greece, fresh from Olympian games ; then
compute what darkness must have entered the heart to impel
man to regard with devotional awe the false and ugly art and
false and ugly lives that so lyingly boasted a Christian parentage.
Words are inadequate to depict the actual debasement of
humanity effected by asceticism. To appreciate its depth, its
practical operation must be seen. Look at only one of the black
shadows it casts back from mediaeval times. The Sanctuary of
St. Francis is built high up a mountain ravine, a few miles from
Assisi. A visit convinced me that it is quite a different thing to
See a noted site of asceticism than to read a description of the
movement in unimpassioned print. But it is the best way to
get at the intensity of its influence in causing men to rely on
physical misery and mental imbecility as the accepted tokens of
divine favor.
St. Francis himself was not a vagabond hermit, whose sanc-
tity consisted of dirt, emaciation, idleness, and senseless bewail-
ing; but he was an efficient reformer, doing much good work in
his day. Whether his institutions were the best means then
possible of improving the lives of the people or not, it does not
concern my topic to discuss. They flourished to a surprising ex-
tent, and even now, after many radical changes, are conspicuous,
although deprived of their former rights. Our present view of
him is not that of the sumptuous, magnificent saint, laid out in
more than regal pomp among the hierarchs of the Church in the
famous convent of his own founding, glorified by art as few men
have ever been in virtue of sanctity, but of the man he thought
himself to be ; a mean, despicable being, begging forgiveness of
God for every pleasing sensation, and even instinct of clean-
liness; doing penance, as did St. Catherine, for combing his head;
and in all ways striving to impress on his soul the conviction
that his body was a dangerous and filthy-disposed thirg.
56 SHRINE OF ST. FRANCIS.
The locality was fitly chosen to battle with flesh and Satan.
Around and above, the mountain is too sterile to nourish any
green herb ; a stony desolation shutting in the sanctuary
except in front, which opens on the upper valley of the Tiber
until the view is cut off by the opposite Appenines. A grove
of hardy trees has grown up at the back of the convent, follow-
ing for a little distance the course of the precipitous ravine which
serves as a water-course after severe rains. The edifice itself,
built over the original cell of St. Francis, fits well the land-
scape. Judging by the diminutive size of the dormitories and
indeed all the offices, elbow-room was a forbidden luxury. Some
were mere caves cut out of the rock, into which no ray of sun
could enter. Even at noon-day my guide took me by the arm
to conduct me. The rough stone floors and walls were black
with the foulness of many generations of unwashed friars; the
rude furniture was equally grimy ; heavy masses of Soot en-
crusted the ceiling of the refectory-kitchen, the sole place where
fire was ever allowed ; while throughout the atmosphere was
damp and unpleasant, worsened by the odors of foul clothing
and fouler bodies.
Untidy poverty is never sweet, even in a rose-embowered cot-
tage; a rebellious sewer is expected to breed righteous discontent
in the least sensitive nose; rotten garbage rightly chastises with
fever those who permit it ; but no one is commanded to be
enamoured of them as the essence of divine things. Saints and
sinners may cordially unite to abate these nuisances. But the
old asceticism, regarding filth and ignorance as capital virtues,
came at last to robe godliness in them. I shivered with disgust
at the touch of my pilot, for it seemed to betoken impending
disease, which needs be exorcised at once by fresh air and water.
For society each friar had a cat. One of the brethren told me
he had been sent here seven years before, but felt it was no place
for him, as the long, humid winters gave him the rheumatism.
But “what would you have, sir?” he ejaculated with a sigh of
resignation, as if there were no other possibility of dutiful life.
But a fatter and more voluble brother with an ambiguous leer,
such as a dissolute satyr might have put on when paganism was
going to the dogs, did the chief honors.
He took me first to a miraculous well of never-failing water
which flowed out of the rock at the intercession of St. Francis,
and had such a capacity for healing all manner of diseases that
in some years, until the wholesale vagabondizing was forbidden
SHRINE OF ST FRANCIS. 57
by the government of Italy, fifteen thousand pilgrims visited it
from Naples alone, with gifts to the convent. It was also a pre-
ventive against sickness, and altogether too sacred for the use of
the friars, they being limited to a precarious supply from another
Source, which, however, was sufficient for their few wants of the
article. Yet St. Francis, whatever might have been his bodily
habit, had a profound poetical esteem for water. In his popular
“Canticle of the Sun,” composed for the use of the pilgrims, he
chants its virtues as follows: “Praised be my Lord for our sister
water, who is very serviceable unto us, and humble, and precious,
and clean.” No hydropathist could praise it in fewer and more
beautiful words. Those who see religious institutions only in
their decadence, miss much, both of the aroma of their pristine
piety and the reasons for those severe rules which were the basis
of their organic usefulness. With a spirit of inconsistency in
relation to this element that seems a marvel in view of the above
praise, the saint predicted great disasters in store for the Church
of Rome whenever the usually dry water-course beneath the
convent flowed abundantly. Pointing to a deep hole in the
rock close by, covered by an iron shutter, the leering friar said
that was made by the Devil, who plunged headlong down it at
the command of the saint, on being foiled in tempting him with
carnal persuasions, and he added, “The Devil has never since
been back,” which I doubted.
There was a mysterious twinkle in the eye of my ascetic
friend, but I could not make out whether it was a sign of ecstatic
faith or a feeler to probe my opinion of his stories. He exhibited
a rude crucifix kept under glass with other relics in the oratory,
which had been worn into polished shapelessness by devout
kisses. A cardinal who had been cured by it of a dangerous
complaint, insisted, so he said, on taking it to Rome, where he
hung it up at his bedside. On awakening the next morning, it
was missing, and at the same instant was seen back in its old
post, — concluding the tale with “As you see,” and several rapid
winks. Another long-armed crucifix in the chapel had boxed
the ears of a countess who was praying to it in an improper
frame of mind ; and to keep it company, there was a loquacious
Madonna, extremely ugly and archaic.
I asked if women by chance ever got inside their fold. Such
an event had occurred on one occasion, to their infinite horror,
but the sex was not discovered until the supposed friar was
dying. It was all owing to her intense desire to live in such
58 DAIRS OF THE IIERMITS.
holy company. Women can visit the cell and chapel of St.
Francis, but must not enter the convent itself. Both cell and
chapel are mere dens in the rock, the former Scarcely long
enough for him to have lain down at full length on the bare
stone floor which was his only bed, with a billet of wood for a
pillow. This sybarite couch, on which he used to lie naked at
all seasons, is needlessly protected from profane touch by an iron
grating.
On such evidence, who can doubt the sincere austerity of the
well-intentioned saint, or dispute the tendency of asceticism to
degrade the minds and dishonor the bodies of its disciples P Bad
as was the example of St. Francis, it supplanted a worse one,
as I was shown, on being led to the lairs of the hermits who
preceded him here. These were literally enlarged snake-holes
in the rocks. Some were in positions inaccessible, except by
those whose lives in the wilderness had developed in them some
of the forces as well as habits of beasts. One consisted of
a narrow inclined tunnel through which rain, wind, and snow
had free passage. A portion of the side-soil had been worn
smooth by the crouching body of the occupant, as it rested
against it when the water was too deep for him to lie at full
length on the floor. This covert was about ten feet long by two
high and three broad, rough and sharp throughout, except in
those parts made flat by running water or the calloused skin of
the hermit. Lest anything be wanting to complete human
wretchedness, solitude and silence, except of the stated prayers,
was enjoined on this holy ground. And this kind of life was,
and is now by many, believed to be the climax of Christian
progress.
Need we wonder at the erotic or hellish visions of St. An-
thony, the nude flagellations of St. Jerome, or the other vaga-
ries of diseased brains which were once so prolific an inspiration
to Christian art, keeping its types as coarse and low as the hab-
its of the misguided converts themselves | In principle, ascet-
icism was meant to be a reaction against pagan sensuality.
Christianity was right in idea, but wrong in carrying it to such
an extreme in practice. The aim of the pagan artist had been
an easier one, and his task more pleasing. The ascetic Christian
artist, in trying to portray the Supremacy of spirit over the flesh
had a holier intent and a more difficult treatment before him.
Instead of depicting sensuous beauty, he was compelled to con-
demn it, on the principle that the body, instead of being the best
PHASES OF CHRISTIAN ART. 59
friend of life, was its most subtle foe. By studiously deprecia-
ting its functions, that harmony which by right exists between
pure feeling and beautiful form, and which the classical artist
obtained in one shape, was destroyed. Ignorance Superadded
to fanaticism often turned art into burlesque and disgust. For
a time even the person of the Saviour was delineated in the
coarsest and most emaciated manner, on the ground that his ca-
reer was one of humiliation, and his death a degradation. Lit-
erally his effigy must be shown to believers as a poverty-stricken
man of Sorrows; as ignoble in looks as in condition and fortune
while living. It was not until classical forms and traditions
again began to influence art that it learned how to give more
congenial forms to spiritual aspirations. Unfortunately, before
these were perfected, art was seduced into a preference for merely
mechanical excellence devoid of any connection with the purer
and more profound motives that first inspired its technical regen-
eration. The Greek perfected his work in accordance with the
motives which inspired it, holding fast to the high standard he
had created for a prief period. But the mediaeval artist never
completely reached his aim. Before a perfection of treatment
corresponding to the Grecian had been fully attained, he passed
into a stage that marked a decided decline, both of motive and
execution. Christian art, as a whole, has been as fluctuating
and disappointing as the experience of Christianity itself. We
have yet to await their complete expression. Consequently
no entirely equitable comparison can be drawn between the per-
fected classical art and the immatured results of its rival.
Christian art has passed through three phases, and Phases of
is now in its fourth. First, that of the Catacombs. ...”
This was its infancy, when, animated by love and ºf
tº * : * * tº theological;
charity, the Christian mind was more desirous of religious ;
e * * * º & 762.0 (SSC172662 :
winning than of forcing paganism to accept its ideas. modern." '
Asceticism was still unborn. The sepulchral frescoes partake
of the more cheerful pagan view of death, which excluded im-
ages of sadness and horror. They even borrow many of the
heathen symbols. Spiritual in conception and allegorical in
feature, these are of childlike simplicity of execution, and often
So rude in design that except as an alphabetical beginning, they
can Scarcely be classified as art proper.
The second phase was the Theological, the Church having
Supreme sway over it, with what consequences asceticism shows
in the pictorial and sculptured examples of mingled ignorance
60 THE RELIGIOUS PHASE.
and superstition that still survive. It lasted from the reign of
the first Constantine to the thirteenth century.
At this period the Religious phase began. In the main, art
was devoted to the Church, but partially free in its expression,
stimulated by the intellectual activity that characterized this
epoch, which in Italy terminated with the sixteenth century.
Mind began to assert its long dormant rights in all departments
of learning, leavening the new schools of art with fresh princi-
ples of growth. Two grand divisions came of this freedom.
One took nature as its guide, profiting by the sparse examples
of good antique art then known, but confining its choice of sub-
jects almost exclusively to religious motives. The other was
later in coming into vogue. It disinterred the debased models
of antiquity to be its teachers, copying their forms without be-
lieving in their original vivifying spirit, and devoted itself zeal-
ously to the service of worldliness. In principle the new styles
were an intellectual protest against the bigotry and dogmatism
of strictly sacred art. They were particularly an incentive to
polite learning and a broader mental culture than obtained under
the narrowing influences of the dominant ecclesiasticisms. Sin-
gularly, too, they borrowed the Christian phrase “new birth,”
to characterize the enterprise of making again popular the aes-
thetic forms and associations of defunct paganism. We now
interpret “Renaissance * in a broader view, as comprising the
general advance of knowledge that began with the earliest
movement of the Religious phase of art. Practically the later
action was a fusion of pagan philosophy with modern skepticism
at the period when the heads of the Church, licentious in habits
and unbelievers at heart, turned both literature and art into in-
struments of Self-glory and sensual gratifications.
If the investigation of heathen ideas had been an honest one,
much moral as well as intellectual benefit might have come of
it. We have since discovered how much there was of beauty
and wisdom in the departed faiths. But at that time the god
Pan gave no sign of life. The revival of classical learning being
mixed up with so much hypocrisy of sanctity and the lying doc-
trine of God's elected rulers, instead of bringing clearly to light
the virtues of paganism, put foremost its corrupting influences.
Consequently, as the feeling which prompted it was largely false
and vainglorious, so the results were similar.
A salutary sympathy with the belief of another, salutary be-
cause founded on the common instincts of humanity in prying
THE LAOKOON. 61
into the secrets of futurity to find therein repose in the present,
comes as often from the untutored heart as the understanding
enlarged by cultivation. Let me illustrate this by a fact which
I can vouch for. The subject was a New England girl, not
seven years old, born of Puritan parents, and trained in the
strict manner of their sect. By chance she had found a book
which told how much loved and honored the old gods of Greece
once had been, but that now their images were looked upon as
idols, and no one worshipped them. Pitying their disconsolate
condition, she went into the woods near by, built a tiny altar of
stones, decorated it with flowers and shells, laid on it her pet
toys, and thus apostrophized the deposed chief of Olympus:
“Poor old forgotten Jupiter, I love you ; if nobody else will
worship you, I will, dear old god, and you shall have my doll,
and I will bring you flowers every day.” Jove never received
sincerer and sweeter homage from any Grecian maiden.
The fourth phase of Christian art was inaugurated with the
Reformation. What that is, will appear when I treat of the
schools nearer our own time. Meanwhile it will be apposite, to
give a few illustrations of the essential differences, in character
and execution, between classical and Christian art, in its first
three phases. The comparison is unequal, inasmuch as the
former is represented by detached or mutilated works, while the
latter has the decided advantage of having much of its painting
and sculpture still in the shrines for which they were designed,
and the feeling in which they were conceived, yet active even
in Protestant minds.
In which, as a unity, are the true spirit and purpose of art
best exemplified ?
Rightly to answer this, we must first get at the Spirit and
relative inferiority or superiority of the underlying pirpose of
idea. Next, its degree of identification with the ob. º,
ject itself. As this is exact and harmonious, and the “”
motive pure and elevated, to that extent the art is perfected.
Infants are called artless, because body and mind, in action cor-
respond so naturally and spontaneously. In the same sense, art
becomes artless, whenever the external means expresses equally
as well its inward thought.
The group of the Laokočn, is one of those rare examples of
Greek sculpture which represents intense physical and mental
suffering. Observe with what nice discrimination the sculptor
makes the moral of their death more noticeable than its bodily
62 DYING GLADIATOR.
anguish We foresee what must come of their terrible position,
but are spared any visible rack of flesh. Even a gleam of hope
arises in the spectator's mind, as he sympathizes in the father's
unspoken appeal to Heaven for his sons, suffering for his sin.
There are no vehement, muscular writhings to disturb the pity
felt for his fate, or admiration of his courageous struggle to
escape. If Max Müller be correct in saying that the original
meaning or root of the name of this heroic-pathetic sculpture is
symbolical of “sin” or the throttler, then it teaches a great moral
truth, besides being so elevated in treatment. Although violent
action is foreshadowed, the time is so skilfully chosen as to Sug-
gest a moment’s pause in the awful doom, relieving the other-
wise over-exercised emotions.
The “Dying Gladiator” of Byron, and that of the Capitol at
Rome, are two artistic creations, the former being purely ideal
and the latter thoroughly realistic art. This is simply a naked
man, dying slowly from the effects of a stab in his side. The
merit does not consist in the poet's vision, in his features of a
home on the Danube and children at play, but in its accurate
anatomy, skilful pose, and thorough subjection of every detail,
each consummately done, to the main object of truthfully ex-
pressing this form of death, in its purely physical aspect of limbs
and features. Any spiritual or poetical significance comes from
the spectator's mind, not the work itself. That so much spec-
ulation has arisen, is due to the artist's having kept his mo-
tive, a very common one in all art, so thoroughly in subjection
to the aesthetic laws, that regulated Grecian treatment of pain.
Without aiming to touch the imagination by manifest means of
mental characterization, the heathen sculptor succeeds in so do-
ing to a far greater extent than does the Christian artist, in his
ordinary representations of dying martyrs, whose forms of death
he expressly desires to impress on the spectator's mind, as con-
nected with the loftiest spiritual aspirations. And this differ-
ence is the result of managing details, with a different motive
and end in view. The Greek subordinates even horror, suf-
fering, and agony to his theory of the aesthetically pleasurable,
and scientifically perfect in art, while the Christian, keeping up-
permost in mind his ascetic doctrines, made poverty, emaciation,
torture, or whatever was repugnant to the natural man, most
apparent, as the appointed means of final beatitude. The one
wished to dignify, the other to debase the body. Razzi's St.
Sebastian in the Uffizi, in form and expression, is one of the
CHRISTIAN ART. 63
most beautiful specimens of Christian painting, but it would be
as much improved even in view of its ecstatic motive, had the
painter omitted the arrows sticking in the saint’s body, as the
Gladiator would be deteriorated, had its sculptor left a sword
buried in the now scarcely discernible wound, and the legs con-
vulsed with pain. One system appeals to the finest intellectual
faculties; the other to the coarsest material sensations. St.
Lawrence broiling on his gridiron, St. Agnes with her bosoms
flayed, or any martyrs in the moment of their extremest agony,
are certainly not suitable motives for art; nor do I believe that
their pictorial representatiens help mankind towards heaven, any
more than do public executions, torture, or slaughter of any sort.
Pagan art in this respect, in lesser matters, was more salutary
than Christian. But when we come to the grossest materialism
of the last, pagan example is still brighter. The effect of the
materialistic view of spiritual dogmas was every whit as disas-
trous to the human mind as the lowest sensualism of heatben-
dom. That terrible imagery of fiery torments, which harrows
the imagination of docile faith, grew out of it, culminating in the
Christian hell, with its countless population of indescribable
fiends of insatiable appetites, whose sole occupation was to agon-
ize through etermity whomsoever the Church refused to absolve ;
demon and sinner being under the domination of a supreme
Devil, who was the rival of God. The cruelest pagan never
conceived so prolific a world of horrors for the vilest wretch, as
did the Christian preacher, in his professed love of his neighbor's
soul. When I record this atrocious theological invention in
plain words, just as I have heard it preached from Protestant
pulpits, and seen it depicted by Catholic artists, I can scarcely
credit them myself. But alas, I have also too often witnessed its
baleful effects, in producing gloom and insanity in weak natures,
cruelty and fanaticism in the unquestioninx, and indifference or
infidelity in the strong, not to denounce any art which devotes
itself to diabolism.
Nevertheless I would not prohibit the representation of the
effects of sin, or of symbolizing the evils of vile passions, or even
of inventing an imagery to prefigure the conditions of wretched
Souls, whose shapes may be conjectured to correspond to their
varied guilt, and likewise to depict the forms of those beings in
another state with whose criminal desires their own are in affinity,
calling them Beélzebub or other appropriate name. Such art is
legitimate, and can be made morally efficacious, if it does not
~,
64 THE HELL OF POWERS.
relapse into abnormal extremes, which, materializing overmuch
the current notions of either heaven or hell, defeat its spiritual
intent, and provoke reaction against faith itself.
The sculptor Hiram Powers, about thirty years ago invented
and exhibited in America a panoramic hell of the Calvinistic
pattern, which was much lauded for its artistic ingenuity and
salutary religious influences. But it was worse than the painted
debaucheries of torment of mediaeval conceptions; for it not only
put into lively action sulphuric flames tended by horned and
tailed devils with costumes and pitchforks after orthodox pat-
terns, aided by loathsome serpents and other terrifying monsters,
but also presented the livid faces and blood-streaming shapes of
the lost, including children, whose cries appalled the visitors,
while their ears were stunned by the clanking of chains, and
whatever dire noises that could contribute to the frightfulness of
the scene. This is a humiliating fact to record for the intelli-
gence of the nineteenth century of so-called Christian life, but a
useful one in showing how art can be perverted when given into
the charge of fanaticism.
To intellectual persons, Dante's “Inferno” has an inner sense of
lofty, spiritual meaning, but to the common mind it embodies the
popular, material notions of future retribution. In this he is the
great prototype of mediaeval sacred art, just as Milton's wars in
heaven, though derived from Catholic sources, have become the
traditionary lore of Protestantism, and as the Iliad of Homer
was the bible of classical art. Protestant sects having ever
held the art of the Roman Church in the same aversion that that
held the pagan, they can show but little themselves of a religious
character. With them the painted word made flesh was an
abomination; the verbal WoRD everything. Hence, although
the difference is one of form only and not of idea, in treat-
ing religious art, I must confine my examples to the sect that
used it in plastic and pictorial shapes.
Niccola Pisano, Orgagna, Fra Angelico, Luca Signorelli, and
Michael Angelo, taught by Rome, were the chief masters who
put into form and color the poem of Dante, in so sincere and ter-
rible a manner that even now few can view their works without
dismay. What must have been their effect on those who ac-
cepted the images of hell as matter of fact! Michael Angelo
mingled, in his “Last Judgment,” some of the classical ideas con-
cerning Hades. But how feeble they seem beside the intenser
horrors of the Christian belief. What a contrast, too, between the
THE TEIESE US OF PHIDIAS. 65
chaotic movement and exaggerated limbs, and denunciatory pas-
sion of his prodigious figures, and the majestic repose and purity
of form of those of Phidias! Fettered by his ignoble belief in
the popular demonism, the great Italian becomes morbidly ear-
nest in his endeavor to foreshadow the material aspects of the
most fearful event that could haunt the imaginations of believers,
and tighten the hold of the Church on their consciences.
Although the range of Greek art was limited in comparison
with that of its successor, it was far more mindful of aesthetic
law in its choice and treatment even of sacred topics. The
Sculptures of the Parthenon, its best extant examples, mutilated
though they be, establish this fact. Theseus is a fellow-being
far on his way to divinity ; godlike in heroic intent, beautiful
strength, and latent power. It is by such chiselled sermons that
Phidias makes known the immortality of the human kind.
They are a sort of final revelation of man's idealisms or ulti-
mate capacity of beauty of form and mind; the only sort of
beatified saint recognized in Grecian mythology, of which infe-
rior examples are seen in the “Venus de Milo,” Neapolitan
“Flora,” “Apollo Belvidere,” and their like, which last unfor-
tunately has reached our times only in a weak Roman copy.
Ancient statuary of the highest order would gain in effect if left
as found ; for modern restoration of limbs or parts of members,
as is specially noticeable in the “Venus” of the Tribune, the
“Laokočn,” and the false head of the “Flora’ invariably mars
the unity of spirit and form of the original work.
Examples of those physical and intellectual qualities that
most dignify men and women, and best connect them with the
mythological ideas of divinity, are still familiar to the world in
the marble guise of a Juno, Venus, Mars, Hercules, Bacchus,
Jupiter, and the other gods of Olympus. They are supernal be-
ings, but on a different basis from the artistic creations of Chris-
tianity, which were more abstract and spiritual in functions,
more removed from human organizations, having their origin,
existence, and duties wholly in the celestial spheres; the only
exception in way of assuming the ordinary form of man being
in the case of the Son of God, for a specific purpose. The clas-
sical gods or demons are always clothed in human form, and are
virtuous or vicious according to the unregenerated human stand-
ard of morals. In fine, they were individuals to the common
mind, whatever might be the true meaning of the original myth
or conception from which their personality sprung. Doubtless
66 IDEAL OF ART – COMPARATIVE.
much of this familiar understanding of them was due to the
artistic genius which so skilfully and harmoniously interblended
the ideal motive with the ideal form, and, by means of sensuous
beauty, made it popular with the masses. The first conceptions
of divinity of the Romans, borrowed from the Etruscans, were
abstractly spiritual, as we notice in their temples dedicated to
Modesty, Honor, and the virtues in general, with the spirits they
believed to preside over the actions of men. But Grecian an-
thropomorphism finally overcame the abstract motives of Rome.
Nor can we wonder at the triumph of the sensuous principle, as
men in general conceive of things, when we look upon the finest
specimens that came of it in art. How vividly the “Antinois’
of the Capitol, in the “white silence” of his fine form, says,
“Admire me, for I am truly handsome, and beloved of gods and
men; ” not in the vulgar self-sufficiency which comes of silly
vanity, but with modest consciousness of his superior comeliness
as a divine gift. We can enjoy the subtle beauty of antique
art, independent of its religious association, which no longer
concerns the world. But so perfect is some of pagan symbolism
that the Christian fancy delights to perpetuate it. Cupid and
Psyche still live in their original garb and meaning. The list
might be extended to include other forms which have become so
integral a part of our own poetry of life that we rarely confess
our indebtedness to antiquity for them. But we cannot appropriate
to ourselves Grecian thoroughness of art. The “Torso de Belvi-
dere’’ reveals a skill that seems little short of the miraculous, so
truthful is its anatomy, so vital its aspect, and so majestic its
treatment. Although a much broken fragment, modern art de-
spairs of its restoration, and wisely leaves it in its limbless per-
fection.
Ideal art The ideal of art is, however, comparative. One
impºra. man's mastery is the far off horizon of another, be-
False art. yond which for the moment he cannot see. So, too, the
remote possibility of a second-rate mind is only the actual condi-
tion of a Superior, whose idealisms would be a sealed book to the
other. Unrealization is the bait that lures them on. Every man
persistently hopes to win his final repose by perfect work, which
always seems to be, but never is, within his reach. In this chase
of the divine, no two minds advance exactly together. If we
would rightly estimate our brother's motive and aim, this truth
must be considered. Still, though the focus of vision in individ-
uals ever varies, there are general principles applicable to all.
THE PIETA OF MICHAEL ANGELO. 67
Work may be called excellent, even if there be inferiority in
execution, if it suggests noble ideas or appeals profoundly to
the emotions, and is kept in motive within the limits of truth
and beauty. But that is false which compels the feelings to
apologize for violations of the natural and probable on some
principle removed from aesthetic choice.
Many examples of this character are forced on the sight by
theological intoleration of the beautiful, and its cumbersome, un-
natural symbolisms, such as the “Madonnas of the Bleeding
Heart,” and the “Seven Sorrows,” with their ghastly wounds, and
the various compositions known as “Pietas,” in which the dead
Christ is either represented as sitting in the lap of his mother,
or stiffly stretched out on the knees of the Virgin and saints.
Even symbolism is shorn of power when it assumes an eccen-
tric or repulsive shape. Michael Angelo's marble “Pieta” is the
finest and best treated of all these abnormal conceptions, but it
is in itself an impossible event; for no mother ever could or
would hold the naked, rigid corpse of a full-grown son, disfig-
ured by numerous wounds, in her lap in such a flexible attitude,
overburdened as she is herself with cumbersome drapery.
Contrast the mourning mother in this position, with whatever
fulness of meaning the theological idea may give to it, with the
pathetic group of Niobe protecting her youngest child from the
anger of a god, both akin in motive so far as each is made a
sacrifice to appease divine wrath according to the commonly ac-
cepted beliefs, and decide whether the ascetic feeling and pro-
found treatment of the Christian thought is to be preferred to
the touching conception and more aesthetic treatment of the
pagan artist
There are two aspects to images of deities, pagan or Chris-
tian; one external and individual, as the representation of a su-
pernal being who affects men for good or evil; the other figu-
rative or impersonal, having an ethical, symbolical, or purely spir-
itual sense. The first chiefly moves the emotions; the latter,
the intellect ; the practical difference being the distinction that
exists between abstract ideas and positive example as teachers of
morality. Grecian philosophy finally killed Grecian mythology
by constant questioning, while Christianity puts its stress on the
heart rather than the head, striving to train men to think and
do right in virtue of spontaneous faith instead of by force of
logical conviction, Keeping this distinctive action in mind, it is
not surprising, that while with paganism a decreasing belief in
68 DIOGENES IN HIS TUB.
the personality of its gods and goddesses, and an increasing one in
their abstract character, should have weakened the power of its
system of mythology as a means of moral government or of
superhuman reliance in the trials of life, leaving the pagan
mind open to skepticisms of every shade, the opposite bias of
Christian teaching, cultivating feeling to excess, should have
tended to constitute a new popular mythology, based on the per-
sonifications of the current virtues of the new religion, the wor-
ship of its saints and martyrs in their human forms, and the
actual deification of its most important personages, such as
Christ and his mother, who were made to replace God himself
in the love and adoration of mankind. This mental revolution
obeyed an organic law which was independent of creeds; one
of which certain results could be predicated, whether the theology
of the hour was derived from the Iliad, Koran, or the Bible.
Hence in analyzing art as an element of civilization, we must
not fail to observe those fundamental laws of human nature
which regulate its generic forms, in order more clearly to detect
the specific action of secondary influences; for instance, distinct
classes of religious ideas, as distinguished from the instinct of
religion itself.
Perhaps my thought may be clearer by saying that religion,
love of the beautiful, and hunger for the ideal, are virtually
common and coequal necessities of our souls, a sympathetic
trinity of aspirations begetting eternal principles of art, but
whose various shapes are simply the passing liveries of intel-
lectual fashions. Both paganism and Christianity, while doing
homage to art, have changed its material aspects for better or
worse, according to the ruling thought or desire. Pursuing our
retrospective inquiry, we find other elucidations of this state-
ment.
Liogenes. I have shown how averse Greek art was to asceti-
#..."...a cism, but the bas-relief of “Diogenes in his Tub”
Clºſiº e. forms almost an exception to the general rule. Yet
grotesque. Pa- g tº . * º -
3an visions, how unlike the Christian sentiment | The philosopher
choses a populous city, wherein to exhibit his cynicism.
Unlike the later hermit, he seeks an audience of men, not
spirits; nor does he covet future bliss at the cost of present
privation. This he assumes to display contempt of luxury and
those honors his fellow-men most esteem. Alexander the Great
can do no more for him than to stand out of his sunshine. Diog-
enes lives like a cur, to appear to be the most independent of
ST. J.EROME OF A. CARRA CCI. 69
men. Philosophy, like religion, has its fanatics; but in the case
in point,the actor did not care whether people imitated or de-
spised him. Not less an egoist, the Christian hermit allowed
them only the choice between hell-fire or doing what he did.
Compare the philosopher in his kennel with the “ St. Jerome’”
of Agostino Carracci, also at Naples, and note the gulf which
divides pagan and Christian asceticism. The saint is by himself
in the wilderness where no human eye can witness his self-in-
flicted penances. He has fled from the sight of men to com-
mune alone with his Maker, but bodiless devils torment him
nevertheless, and he can escape their sensual persuasions only
by kneeling naked on the bare rocks, and gashing his breast
with a sharp stone until his blood stains the ground, in expia-
tion of involuntary sin. He seeks no sunshine to warm his
limbs, nor does he fortify his soul's endurance by a placid indif-
ference to his fellow-men, but is so keenly alive to their spiritual
welfare that the mental contemplation of their wordliness inten-
sifies his own anguish as he wrestles with the Devil as much for
them as himself.
The composition is unusually good for its school. There is no
coarse display of suffering, which is hinted rather than expressed
by the action of the anchorite, whose head and expression are well
studied. The landscape is wild and solemn; in keeping with the
main motive, and the coloring equally in tone with its mystic
sadness.
Heathen and Christian grotesque are also strikingly opposed
in sentiment. The sensual, ludicrous, and fanciful obtain in the
former, whereas in the other, there is more of mysticism and moral
significance. One was invented as a light entertainment; the
latter for a profound lesson. Nowhere is this more fittingly illus-
trated than in a fresco of the “Fall of Adam ” by an unknown
painter in the subterranean chapel of the late Certosa Convent,
near Florence. Eve is handing the fatal fruit to Adam. Swiftly
flying towards them, upborne by hideous wings, inclining to the
woman, is a death's head with the lower jaw gone ; a frightful
image of impending evil.
Besides his devotion to beauty the classical artist had also
to inspire him a faith in the miracles of his religion equally as
sincere and well attested as the mediaevalist had in his. To
him likewise, by means of prayer and invocation, were vouch-
safed approving visions of his deities as remarkable as those
recorded by Christians. Fra Angelico was not more earnest in
70 CHASTIT Y OF ANCIENT ART.
his art and belief than many of his pagan brothers. Hercules
showed himself to Parrhasius to be painted, as Wallace and
other departed heroes appeared to Blake, or the Virgin to her
numerous limners. There is abundant evidence to establish the
fact that ecstatic inspiration has not been confined to the Roman
Catholic artist; nor is it, of any creed, without ennobling effect
on its art. In some occult way the imagination does Secure a
spiritual ideal quite above the ordinary standard of the intellect,
and in one sense out of the limits of its laws and perceptions.
Pious ancients had as severe rules to preserve their religious
art from unchaste influences as ever had the schools of Christen-
dom, except the Spanish, which was controlled by the Inquisition.
Grecian purists denounced the use of courtesans as models for
goddesses as severely as did Savonarola the painters of his day
for similar improprieties towards the Virgin. The nude or
meretricious in Sacred art came into favor in Christian Italy
perhaps with even less opposition than in old Greece. While
pagan faith remained single-minded, and was spiritually inclined,
it loved to surround its pious dead or dying with consoling
images like the “virgins ever young,” symbols of immortal youth
and beauty — pagan angels, we can call them. If the hope
of the Greek in his future was less positive than the Christian's,
neither was he affrighted by an equal fear of damnation.
We fail in adequately appreciating the pure art of Greece
less from shortcomings of its own than from the impure exam-
ples which the Renaissance has so profusely produced in classi-
cal disguise, but which in reality are the bastard productions of
debased Christian taste, and would be condemned by none more
heartily than the Greeks themselves. Modern pagan art dis-
credits the genuine all the more because of its being often mis-
taken for the antique. It is also to be seen everywhere, while
the good ancient is accessible to few, and requires culture to
comprehend. Campana’s “Opere Antiche in Plastica,” Rome,
1851, is remarkable for its illustrations of some of the finest
classical compositions in terra-cotta, which were used in the
ornamentation of Etruscan dwellings. By examining a few, we
shall the better understand the purity of spirit and execution of
the best ancient sculpture.
Bacchus. The popular idea of Bacchus or Dionysius is that
}: “” of a hilarious, indecent reveller, usually tipsy, for
#; which Rubens is largely accountable. Even Michael
enelands
and Helen. Angelo makes him the god of inebriety. In the
THE BA CCHUS OF MICHAEL ANGELO. 71
light in which he viewed his subject, that wonderful statue of
Bacchus in the Uffizi is consummate art. It is true that no
Sottish drunkenness paralyzes those gleaming limbs as the wine
he has just quaffed from the tremblingly upheld cup mounts
to his brain, but the sense-bewildering stupor is visibly given.
His head swims, eyelids droop, the lower lip falls, the body
sways, legs yield, the mind reels, and the entire being is fast
becoming the willing victim of the insidious drink. There is
nothing forced or overdone in this statue, which combines the
unity and finish of Grecian art with the vigorous naturalism of
the Etruscan school.
Now let us look at the god as the Greeks knew him. Turn
to plates 31 and 32 of Campana, Vol. II. The first gives the
youthful Bacchus fêted; the second, sleeping. Both forms are
elegant and refined, brimming with healthful joy in breathing
“the breath of life.” There is no sign of intoxication in the
countenance of that perfect youth, smiling in his dreams. A
faint touch of seriousness, as if the forecasting of life's maturer
duties cast some shadow over life's young joys, may be seen in
the exquisitely moulded features of the other. The closest
scrutiny of either fails to detect aught in their conception or
treatment that discredits man, religion, or art. While prefigur-
ing the happiness founded on conscious health and right use of
the gifts of the Creator, they appeal equally against their abuse.
Even in the plates of the Bacchic rites there appears nothing
sensual. Draped figures offer fruit and flowers to the sound of
music in gratitude to their divine bestower.
Plate 104, representing Venus and Mars, rebukes the mod-
ern handling of this delicate subject. It harmoniously contrasts
the beauty of the two sexes by a sort of rythmic flow of line and
movement, Venus being draped so as to allow her graceful
contours to be felt rather than shown, while Mars more fully ex-
poses his heroic form ; their joint attitudes being as chaste as
dignified.
The lithe “Mercury’ of Giovanni di Bologna is one of the
finest poetical inventions after the antique that the Renaissance
has produced. We have, however, only to place it beside the
Grecian “Mercury” at Naples to detect how far it fails of high
art. Not to mention the prominence given to mere muscular
effort, the conceit of poising it on the breath of a zephyr, repre-
sented in a lump of bronze, would be tolerated only in an age
which was pleased with the eccentricities of a Bernini, whose
72 MENEL.A. US AND HELEN.
facility of executing his far-fetched or superficial fancies blinded
it to his obvious faults. Without any true choice of his own,
he worked with equal zest on pagan or Christian topics, and,
eager only to gain money and notoriety, lowered the artistic
standard of both, without fitly representing the spirit of either.
One of his extravagances, successfully wrought so far as con-
cerns the telling of the tale in a picturesque manner, is the mar-
ble group of “Apollo and Daphne.” She is turning into a tree,
the leaves sprouting from her hair and fingers, just as the amo-
rous god is seizing hold of her.
See also how the story of another flying couple is told by
one of Campana's plates, No. 67. Menelaus and Helen are re-
turning from Troy in a chariot drawn by four spirited horses of
the Phidian type. The erring wife drives standing erect, with
her gaze earnestly directed towards her bridal home; the light
drapery gracefully caught up on her right arm follows the out-
lines of her beautiful figure in wave-like ripples as it is pressed
back by the rapid movement. Age and sorrow are powerless to
lessen her ever virgin loveliness. If her large, gentle eyes
seem a little Sad, they draw us closer to the repentant woman.
Menelaus, a noble, gray-haired figure, stands behind, watchful and
mournful, as he, too, recalls their past experience, with one hand
resting for security on the shoulder of his wife, while the other
presses against his side in sympathy with his severe thought.
The taste displayed in this terra-cotta must be seen, to be
appreciated as it deserves. This and similar examples should
be made commonly known, if only to make conspicuous the vast
difference that exists between the current ideas of classical art
derived from bastard Renaissant work and modern plagiarisms
and the really fine antique, the nobility of which would consign all
the false and worthless to the limbo of popular detestation. Even
in its rarer realistic motives, taste was as severely pure, telling
the story with Homeric dignity and simplicity, scrupulously
avoiding unnecessary detail, adding no ornament for its own
sake, but doing and saying much with few and simple means, the
consummate unity of which, both as to execution and expression,
constitutes their highest claim to noble art. No. 71 of the
above series, “Ulysses recognized by his Nurse and Dog,” is a
precious example of Grecian composition answering to our
genre subjects.
Repose in art. No attribute of classical art is more obvious than
ke Gºvu- -
* * its repose or reserved strength. Most modern work
DUKE GIULANO. 73
seems exhausted by the creative effort, and suggests the lim-
its of the artist's power rather than the illimitation of art
itself. This is more apparent in the later Rennaissant than
in its earliest period. Nevertheless, Christian art has some
special triumphs. One of the chief is the statue of Duke
Giulano, miscalled “Lorenzo’ his nephew, whose real statue
is that which commonly bears the uncle's name in the guide-
book descriptions of the Chapel of the Medici at Florence.
Rightly is it named “Il Penseroso,” for the stone thinks. It is
as profoundly suggestive as the finest classical work. Indeed,
the subtile idealism of this broadly treated statue lies in its
mental repose or impersonification of concealed thought which
suggests sphinx-like problems of human fate. Neither this nor
its companion are of particular value as portraits, although their
style is replete with vigorous realism. They display in a grand
way the vast resources of Michael Angelo's genius, which could
thus make out of very ordinary subjects, for neither of the
brothers was in any wise a remarkable man, monuments that
would do honor to the greatest characters. Possibly a latent
satire was intended in the contrast between the real and the
marble dukes.
The recumbent colossal figures belonging to * Mºaa A.
monuments are indeed creations of the robust, spirit- gelo's “Night
ualized Etruscan stamp, with a unity of allegorical ºn.
meaning, deeply affecting in its bearing on the tyranny “”
of the ruling family that ordered them. We miss in them
somewhat of the severe simplicity and repose of “Il Pensero-
so,” but they are in admirable harmony with its enigmatical
thought. Nothing can exceed them in intensity of enigma.
The spectator gives it a personal, historical, or abstract inter-
pretation, according to his own mood; but Michael Angelo in-
dignantly flung his riddle in stone to his betrayed, apathetic
countrymen, to be solved as they liked, while he hid its key in
his own wounded soul. Like all immortal speech, it speaks as
forcibly to-day as it did three hundred years ago, and, as time
rolls on, with vaster meaning as men rise to the level of the
artist’s mind. Meantime these effigies appear like beings of su-
perhuman origin, coffined in unsympathetic matter, half-await-
ing, half-struggling for their new birth.
Michael Angelo’s “Moses” likewise is more akin to the prim-
itive Etruscan types of ideal characterization than to the Gre-
cian. The lawgiver is an awe-inspiring being, of stupendous
74 MOSES OF MICHAEL ANGELO,
organization, wielding the thunders of Jehovah, whose messen-
ger he is to a stubborn, backsliding people. His office is to
command, not persuade. Mark that he is the rough Moses of
barbarous times, not the meek Moses of ours! Those heavy
and coarse lines, the excessive muscle, and the sternly empha-
sized features throughout, do not agree with the common notion
of the man who led the Israelites up out of Egypt; but the
sculptor rightly conceives him as the messenger from Sinai, fresh
from the thunders and lightnings of their Lord God, with the
stone commandment in his hand, and the divine threats on his
face, if his people broke them. Maybe the sublimity of the
conception is weakened by the mystical horns, denoting super-
human functions, on the head of Moses. But the Sculptor has
not the pliable resources of the palette to aid his symbolization,
which as in the golden nimbus of the older painters, or the
transfigured atmosphere of the later, suggests harmoniously with
the whole picture the celestial glory which clairvoyant eyes see
around inspired persons. Consequently the supernatural which
can be made so effective in the one may cause the failure of the
sublime in the other, because of its difference in material. The
Greeks, however, did often depart from the truths of nature to
symbolize their deities or add to their majestic look. Whether
Michael Angelo with this precedent in view to legitimize his use
of the horns, has succeeded as well in his intent for “Moses * as
they did for Jupiter, each critic must judge for himself. The
practice seems questionable in either.
Thus far the best exhibit of Christian art falls between the
twelfth and sixteenth centuries, which constitute the emphatic
period of the religious phase. In sincerity of purpose, original-
ity of expression, and loftiness of aim, it compares favorably with
the Soundest period of pagan art. It seems strange that the
beautiful art of Greece should have been succeeded in the same
race by one so sterile and disagreeable as the Byzantine. But
this goes to show that art itself is less dependent on blood or
climate than on intellectual influences. The religious idea was the
germ which made pagan art supremely beautiful while guided
by its mythological notions; the same idea made Christian paint-
ing superlatively formal and unaesthetic, when controlled by
asceticism, and finally becoming iconoclastic, utterly drove sculp-
ture out of the country in which it had risen to its highest em-
In CDC6,
THE WESTERN CHURCH. 75
Bad art acts after the instinct of the venomous a...,
reptile, which fascinates before it poisons. While and bad art
nothing is surer to avenge its own debasement because *
of its appeal to the senses, good art, with equal instinctive action,
expands and ennobles the mind. Good art, bad art, and no art,
all depend on the human will. If an authority like that of the
Eastern Church could almost annihilate it in Greece, or a Protest-
ant preacher like Fox banish it from human culture in a sect, or
a patronage like that of the Renaissance revive it only to mani-
fest its capacity of luxurious, vainglorious sensuality, we may
be certain that art only needs the right kind of stimulus with
any people to make it highly instrumental in promoting their
welfare. The Sooner we rid ourselves of the notion that art by
itself is the cause of the corruption and downfall of nations, the
better. It no more causes their destruction than it does their
existence. In either event it is a phenomenon which marks
national destiny, an effect more than a cause. If mind incline
to aesthetic culture, and be dominated by any special desires or
ambitions, it will manifest them by means of art-forms whose
moral aspects will respond to the prevailing feeling, whatever it
is. Whenever the common mind demands the indecent, vulgar,
or meretricious, it gets it in pagan or papal Rome, Catholic
France, or Protestant Holland, irrespective of the prohibitions
of creeds, unless, as fin Spain, the temporal and ecclesiastical
powers acting in conjunction have sufficient force to stifle every
manifestation of the popular will not acceptable to them. Art
may represent, and in that way aid to extend vice, virtue, or
religion, but it does not create them. Whenever impressed in
their exclusive service, it is forced just so far out of its own
legitimate being.
The Western Church took an opposite course to the Eastern,
but none the less undertook to control art, by favoring sculpture
and advising beautiful types for the Saviour. But Rome, hav-
ing lost its skilled Grecian and Etruscan artists, did not know
how to accomplish this end. For many centuries art in Italy
continued to be ruder than in the East, where there existed at
Constantinople, to the time of its capture by the Turks, a de-
generate school, which adhered to some of the traditions and
technical treatment that obtained in better days. But while the
Byzantine empire held fast to its uniform methods, there came a
reaction to Italy in the thirteenth century which gave an alto-
gether fresh appearance to its art. The new style resembled
76 THE “TERRIBLE MANNER.”
that of ancient Rome derived from Etruria, in its round,
stout forms, proneness to picturesque composition,
º” variety of detail, vigorous movement, and sturdy in-
Christian dividualism. Greek art, by sacrificing individuality
mythology. of character in detail overmuch to idealization of
form in the mass, produced, both in architecture and sculpture, a
certain monotony of executive expression opposed to the greater
latitude of method and more robust design of the indigenous
Italian schools. The Greek artist required the utmost nicety
of touch to attain those imperceptible, delicate curves, graduated
to that exact anatomical truth which was requisite to the per-
fect harmony in form and exalted intellectual aspiration, which
were the foundations of his theory of idealization ; but the Ital-
ian of the Etruscan stamp was more prosaic in his apprehension
of the requirements of art. He based his theory more on the
human-actual; his lines were harder and less flexible, more di-
rected towards the governing movement or expression, and less
to beauty of contours; his proportions were less exact ; his
Symmetry less perfect; in short, his was the “terrible manner”
of Luca Signorelli or Buonarotti, as opposed to the nobility of
style of Phidias or the seductive grace of Praxiteles. But
while the Byzantine lost his freedom in the mazes of mysticism,
his rival, feeding his knowledge anew from nature and the an-
tique, with refreshed brain and hand, gained the vacated throne
of art. With it he secured an influence almost equal to that
which his profession enjoyed in its prime in antiquity; such,
perhaps, in intensity and completeness over all classes of society,
as the world will not again see, because it can never be put back
to a similar condition.
Before the invention of printing, art was the sole literature
of the masses. They were trained by it to see as the church
and state would have them believe. The essential forces of
things, whether of religion, government, family, or the individ-
ual, were imaged in the external. Hence, authority, wealth,
and rank of every sort entered into a contest of aesthetic dis-
Play: Life was made up of lavish show and blood-stirring
rivalries on the part of the ruling castes, and of hard knocks and
intense emotions of the poorer classes. Few of the lords of
Italian towns, and not many popes of those days, if tried by
modern law, would escape death or imprisonment. Crimes
were then regarded as grand passions, uncomfortable to the vic-
tim, though a necessary perquisite of rank. Politics were a
LOVE ASPECT OF CHRISTIAN ART. 77
game of heads and property. What with a gorgeous ritual, an
equally gorgeous style of aristocratic life, magnificence of state
on the surface, and a stormy sea of passions around him, the ar-
tist had the best possible stimulus constantly before his eyes.
Although Christianity had extinguished the hostile mythology,
it did not succeed in eradicating the feeling that had given rise
to it. Before books had made general education more practica-
ble, and by teaching men to think, gradually weaned them from
inane idolatry, and consequently to a greater reliance on abstract
ideas than on images for their intellectual sustenance, it may
have been impossible for any sect to have counteracted the pop-
ular tendency to superstition. Be this so or not, a new mythol-
ogy had sprung up, in spiritual aspiration higher and in morality
purer than the pagan, but which left men as prone to idolatry
as ever. Though names were changed, their inclinations re-
mained as they had been. There was no argument a devout
Romanist could use for his rites that had not been given with
equal force by pious heathen for theirs. In either case the pop-
ular faith gave a prodigious impulse to art, chiefly in causing a
demand for sacred images, which speedily became objects of
stolid worship to the crowd. So charitable in practice was the
Christian priest to the old worship which he verbally denounced,
that he kept for his own rites a copious share of the dead forms
of paganism. This may have been a politic concession to their
adaptability to the new uses. To art it was a boon in variety
and richness of its subject-matter.
The main features of the Christian mythology in its ecstatic
or LOVE aspect, as distinguished from the ascetic, or that of
FEAR, which have been already noted, are substantially these.
As an abode for the blessed and the new deities there is a heaven,
substituted for the pagan Olympus, more vague as to locality
and with less variety of enjoyment. Morally considered, it was
an Olympus cleansed of carnality. Architecturally, a new
Jerusalem; a holy city “ coming down from God,” glorious be-
yond description, paved with pure gold “as it were transparent
glass,” and abounding in all manner of precious stones; each
gate “ one solid pearl; ” within, music, the song, water of life
“clear as crystal,” and trees that bear fruit “for the healing of
the nations.” Most lovely is this city revealed to St. John.
Can art reveal it to our senses P Surely it might do better than
its ordinary hierarchal composition, so like in arrangement to the
old notions in regard to the Homeric gods, only more formal
78 THE NEW JERUSADEM.
and orderly; singularly uninviting too, when compared with the
The art- type given in Revelation. Rows of the dignitaries
heaven. of the Church, martyrs, saints, prophets, and apostles
sitting on clouds, on each side of the Triune God, represented by
two distinct persons and one emblem, or by one form with three
faces and the god-mother; sometimes cumbersomely draped or
unseemly naked; a solemn council watching the condemnation
of sinners, and the coming of the saved to join them in chanting
praises to the Supreme and the Son who sit majestic in their
midst : such was the average idea art gave of the new heavens.
It really looks as if it could not get the old paganism wholly out
of its mind.
But there is a more original and pleasing view to the new
religious art. It had two copious sources of motives, one in the
ideas and emotions more properly belonging to the revealed faith,
and the other in its great store of legends and traditions. Bible
history in the main was of too remote a period, besides belonging
to a despised race, to possess that direct influence over the people
that the stories of their own saints had, whose images were con-
stantly before their eyes, whose lives were held up as their own
rule of piety, and the pressure of whose conventual institutions
came daily home to them. Hence, although the old Judaic
chronicles did afford to the artists some of their most important
compositions, this source of inspiration was meagre compared
with more recent sacred history, or with the physical sufferings
of Christ, which were the most popular topics, until driven
somewhat into the background by the worship of the Virgin and
the themes derived from her apocryphal biography. . Their in-
tent and spirit, however, were far more elevated than the motives
which came directly from the ordinary ascetic feeling. They
were intended to represent the unsurpassable sacrifice of the
Saviour and his deified mother, growing out of their love for
men, and by contrasting its height, depth, and degree with hu-
man ills, in the light of a glorious resurrection from the grave,
practically shown them by Him whom they crucified, but were
now able to behold as their heavenly King ; by this immense
contrast of self-sacrifice with acquired bliss as a lesson and hope
for themselves, they were to become reconciled to an existence
beset with pain, toil, and disappointment. Even the joy-loving
Greeks recognized the uses of seeming evils as guides to wis-
dom. Their philosophy was not wholly a theory of pleasure.
Hear what Æschylus says: “For Zeus leads men in the way of
THE WAY OF WISDOM. 79
wisdom ; he orders that suffering should be our best school.”
This is sound Christian sentiment, but foreign in meaning and ap-
plication to the distorted views of rigid ascetics. The great dis-
tinction, therefore, between them and those who interpreted the
ways of Providence in the sense of the words of Æschylus or
the acts of Christ, as shone by art, is particularly seen in the
diverse sentiments of Fear and Love as influencing life. Fear
provided the Hell before described. It drove men to the com-
panionship and habits of brutes in the wilderness; like the Indian
ſakirs, to court and invent sufferings and glory in them, not as
leading to wisdom, for they began and ended in folly, but to en-
sure reward. The greater spiritual insight of Love taught men
that Christ's heaven must be won by following his example of
self-denial; preferring others; by mixing with mankind, not by
avoiding them; by suffering, if it needs be, for truth and justice;
by wisely preferring, whenever called to choose, joys eternal to
pleasures temporal. This was the true “way of wisdom" that
Zeus, or God, ordained and the ordering He gave to suffering to
persuade men to enter into it.
One of the most strenuous efforts of Christian art wº,
has ever been to express in the human countenance through suf.
the consciousness of having obtained “the way of "*
wisdom" through suffering. This has given rise to a special
idealism confined to a few painters and sculptors, who felt in
their own hearts the emotions they depicted, and lived the lives
that begot them. Their cognizance of the immortal and spiritual
apprehension of men, as separated from the temporal and ma-
terial, was as complete as mortals can have. Ecstatic visions left
in their souls a lovely apprehension of divine things, which they
transferred to their art. Their clairvoyant views of celestial
imagery thus became palpable truths to the people. So beau-
tiful are their happiest efforts that we involuntarily overlook
technical shortcomings in their profound suggestion of things
beyond the sphere of earth, and of a joy that comes only from
believing intensely. As there can be no worldly standard
whereby to test them, like all creative art of the highest quality,
they must be interpreted by their own rules of composition.
It was but natural that there should be this rebound in ideas
and imagery from the attempts to familiarize the religious
mind with the material horrors of hell. In both cases the im-
aginations of artists were stimulated to portray supernatural
degrees of each. I do not know that I have seen the most
80 FRA ANGELICO.
terrifying pictures of eternal torment that Oriental art, chiefly
of Persia and India, the parent-countries of the doctrine, has
produced; but the lust of Eastern imagination in this direction,
that has met my view, frightfully repulsive as it is in its ingenu-
ity of tortures and diabolism, has never equalled the Christian.
The condition of men in the next world, as defined by the tenets
of the Church, and their experiences in securing salvation,
offered an inexhaustible variety of new and strange motives,
and also opened to art a field of action more elevated in senti-
ment and comprehensive in range than had ever been shown to
the pagan mind. Beauty was divested of earthly qualities, and
clad in a celestial garb; used not to express the pleasure of
man in himself, but as a token of the divine pleasure in him as
a being born anew through the agency of the Holy Spirit. For
the first time men were made to feel, by the medium of painting
and sculpture, that there was in store for them eternal joy and
surpassing peace.
Those who have not looked with sympathetic feeling on the
finest examples of this exceptional and short-lived art, may con-
sider as exaggerated even a tame allusion to them. I confess it
is difficult for me to view them without experiencing a rapture
akin to theirs. To those who do not appreciate their devout
spirit and singleness of purpose, they are a “stumbling-block
and foolishness.” The spectator requires to be lifted by his own
imagination into a condition of mind that with the artist, as the
seer, owes its being to direct influx from a higher world. Im-
ages of celestial things are results of affinities of the soul
drawing them down to it—an illumination of mind from the
Great Spirit itself. Earthly models become of secondary sig-
nificance. The informing life of any supernal art must descend
from above.
Fra Angºlia, Fra Angelico is a representative artist of this
Niccola, class. Others have surpassed him in certain tech-
Pisano, Ma- ". e -
saccio, Ghi- mical details, but none have carried art as a whole
###, farther in this direction. He has succeeded as none
SO?"S. other in making visible the immaculate chastity and
tenderness of the Madonna, the ecstatic joy of martyrs and the
elect as they enter paradise carpeted with fragrant flowers and
bright with the smile of God; his are the purest and loveliest
angels that welcome the saved; the most gracious and winning
archangels in their panoplies of resplendent gems: in short, his
was the eye that best penetrated the state of soul that gives to
NICCOLA, PISANO. 81
men and objects their most precious spiritual endowment. Cer-
tain of his works can only be compared to the marvellous echo
of the Baptistery at Pisa, which seems like a chorus of angels,
answering out of the spheres the cry of humanity to the
“Father who is in heaven.”
Sublimity is not the forte of Fra Angelico, neither is strength
nor force. It is only in that single-minded art which expresses
divine love and the sweetness of saving sacrifice that he excels.
His style is the exact impress of his own monastic habits and
feeling, and cannot be said to owe anything to Etruscan or
Grecian influence.
This is not the case with Niccola Pisano, nearly two centuries
earlier, to whom sculpture owes a revival in Italy, similar to
that which Giotto a little later gave to painting. They origi-
nated those schools which attained their climax in the productions
of Leonardo, Raphael, and Michael Angelo, and which occupied
themselves chiefly with the scenes and personages of the Chris-
tian mythology. Their manner was decidedly Etruscan, show-
ing that the national feeling had survived through all political
changes, and whenever the indigenous art had liberty of action
it instinctively clung to its fundamental characteristics in prefer-
ence to the Grecian. Giotto's studies were more directly from
nature than those of Niccola, who took up sculpture just where
the Romans left it when paganism began to recoil before
Christianity. In form he is guided by the antique, but his ideas
are taken from his religion, while his taste in composition is
realistic, crowding his panels with short, rounded figures, as was
the old manner, and sometimes appropriating them directly
from Etruscan sculpture.
The second great impulse was given by Masaccio to painting,
and by Ghiberti to sculpture. Both delighted in the picturesque,
giving to accessories and backgrounds their right place in com-
position, treating them with the same attention that the previous
masters had bestowed only on dominant features. This was due
to an advanced knowledge of perspective and anatomy. But
the practice which made painting a more complete and truthful
representation of objects was misapplied by Ghiberti to sculp-
ture, who sought to give to it that variety of detail, aerial
distance and foreshortening which can only be properly rendered
by the sister-art. The skill shown in the bronze gates of the
Baptistery at Florence all but redeems his innovation. Com-
pare them, however, with the frescoes of Masaccio in the Car-
6
82 DONATE/I.O.
mine, and it will be seen how unwise it is for sculpture to go out
of its own sphere in an attempt to rival painting.
Donatello's manner is opposed to that of Ghiberti. His severe
realism, broad, vigorous modelling, and effective character and
movement, apart from ideal form, make up a thorough and mas-
terly embodiment of the primitive Etruscan feeling modified to
original Christian types. St. George of Orsanmichele has no
special nobility of form, and only a rather commonplace head,
but the statue quivers with intrepid passion. Every chisel-
stroke on that soul-lit marble gleams knightly defiance to wrong.
His St. Johns and Magdalens are effective examples of ascetic
sculpture, almost repulsive in their coarse expression of life, but
truthful and earnest.
A counterpart to him in dramatic force, as shown in painting,
is seen in Piero della Francesca, whose frescoes in St. Francesco
at Arezzo are among the finest of this prolific epoch. There is
a Madonna of the Annunciation, thoroughly Shakespearian in
conception — Lady Macbeth in pose and feature; certes no woman
of tender sorrow and self-forgetting love. His legend of the
“Finding of the Cross by Queen Helena" has vigorous charac-
terization; less beauty and grace than D. Ghirlandajo's elabo-
rately varied compositions, but a greater capacity of seizing upon
the story and concentrating attention on its main points. He
composed his figures less to exhibit themselves than to do his
bidding. Ghirlandajo's practice is the contrary. Both disre-
regard local truths, and impress contemporary costumes and per-
Sonages into their service, or invent, as best suits their purpose.
In purity of form, harmony of composition, ecstatic joy, and
general spirituality, Lucca della Robbia's own works in enam-
elled terra-cotta take rank with the pictures of Fra Angelico.
For life-like realism and genuine, spontaneous action and ex-
pression, his bas-reliefs in marble of the singing boys, now in
the Uffizi gallery, are unmatched. A delightful artist of great
executive calibre was not altogether lost to the world by his
abandoning marble for the more flexible clay, — which he made
equally imperishable by the secret of the stanniferous glaze
which goes by his name, – but was obscured in a field of sec-
Ondary importance.
The imborn feeling of Raphael is for classical beauty and
grace. In this he is the greatest exception of his country.
Berugino in a weaker and somewhat ascetic way, affected the
graceful, but his is a manner that does not comport well with
LEONARDO, 83
the sterner requirements of Christian art. The impressible
temperament of Raphael made him capable of noble art in any
style. It is, however, in compositions like the “Galatea,”
“Cupid,” “Psyche,” and “Marsyas,” which are vital with the
spirit of the antique, that he is most himself.
Leonardo da Vinci best combines the good points of previous
schools, without being carried away by the prevailing tendencies
of any one. Titian and Correggio produced more splendid re-
sults from given means in color than he did; Michael Angelo
also excelled him in design and intensity of meaning, and Ra-
phael in variety and facility of invention. Each threw more of
himself into his art than Leonardo did, but Titian least of all.
Michael Angelo alone was governed by deep religious senti-
ment. The others were as readily impressed by antique or
secular motives as by those more properly belonging to the
Christian belief. When their desires had free range, they went
gladly to sensuous beauty or the expression of human life in
its worldly and sumptuous aspects. Even ascetic or spiritual
topics were by them used as occasions to exhibit their magic
coloring and power of design rather than the special signifi-
cance of their nominal creeds, which set lightly on them all,
though outwardly conforming to the established rites.
Leonardo seems to have been without any special bias. His
taste was catholic and impartial. He could paint a voluptuous
Leda or chaste Virgin with equal skill and coolness. If he
were cold to the incentives of religion, he had no more warmth
for the fascinations of love. But he did have a sagacious esti-
mate of the scientific capacity of art, and obtained in it as pro-
found a mastery over form as Titian over color. His knowl-
edge being complete and thorough, no one could better direct
its powers to a perfect delineation of an historical or illus-
trative composition, and the acute development of individual
character in a harmonious unity of feeling and action with his
central motive. He did this, not from an inward creative con-
sciousness of the thing itself, as with men of the Fra Angelico
and Michael Angelo stamp, but from observation and mental
analysis and synthesis. The “Last Supper" at Milan was as
masterly a specimen of scientific eclecticism in art as the re-
ligious period produced ; indeed, its finest. It combined the
sound elements of Grecian and Etruscan art into a new and
original whole. Probably no artist of any age ever produced a
work which, in comparison with existing examples, so nearly
84 CHRISTIAN MYTHOLOGY.
carried art at one effort to perfection in design, composition,
and character. Unfortunately, owing to the mistaken choice of
wall-surface and injudicious use of vehicles, its consummate ex-
cellence can only be suggested by mutilated remains and mod-
ern engravings. Whether in its prime it had the same power
to touch the heart that it has ever had to interest the intellect,
the world now can never know. It is sad to find that the
subtle touches which bestow on fine works their greatest merit,
which best indicate the animating thought, and confer a claim to
immortality, are those which jealous Time most quickly destroys.
These tiny signs of sounds which tell the reader this, have more
power to preserve and perpetuate the soul of things than all
the pictorial and plastic art the world has ever seen or will see :
for they convey the abstract idea direct to the imagination, which
forms out of its own boundless idealism, untrammelled by limi-
tations of material, a more complete picture than any made up
from resisting matter.
* - e. I apply the term mythology to Christianity in no
#, invidious sense, but as I would if discussing, with an
Athenian of the time of Pericles, the causes which
led to the making carved images of his national deities and
their idolatrous worship; also the origin of the extravagant and
often immoral fables which had so obscured the purer religious
notions of his ancestors. Looking back on the objective effect
of religion on the minds of those races most under the influence
of the art of Christianity, I find a condition of things not un-
like to paganism. Image-worship has a natural sequence of
rites as well as fellowship of ideas in all times. The present
fashion is to adore effigies of the Madonna and the crucifix,
keeping lamps ever burning before them. In the fifth century
the popular idol worshipped in this way was that wretched fa-
natic, St. Simone, the original pillar saint, whose statuettes were
everywhere to be seen, just as a few centuries previous were
those of the excellent Marcus Aurelius, who was likewise wor-
shipped as a household deity. The adoration paid the filthy
Saint is only one of many instances of the silliness of mankind in
Worshipping those who look contemptuously down on them,
noticing the crowd only to accept gifts and homage, in return void-
ing their excrements on the heads below, morally and not un-
seldom, as with St. Simone, actually. A fakir gazes at his
navel until he sees God in it, and the stupid multitude take him
at his word. So, too, do tyrants of the “divine right” stamp.
IDOLATRO US ART. 85
Lustily claiming themselves to be anointed of divinity, the
mean-hearted sycophants around them, for wages in kind, shout
amen, and the dirty lie gets imposed on the world as a glorious
fact.
There has been a constant disposition to multiply material
objects of worship, to substitute marvellous stories for simple
truths, to encourage popular superstition instead of popular edu-
cation, and to make spirituality in faith give way to abject idol-
atry. Nothing remains long sacred to the ignorant, that is not
invested with the mysterious or unintelligible. So-called miracles
are the only accepted divine revelations. Crucifixes walk, fly,
move. Pictures have tongues. Sometimes they wink in appro-
bation; at others they vent their griefs in tears. Decapitated
saints wander about with their heads under their arms. Pagan
fraud and credulity find Christian imitators. Finally no story
is too incredible, and no claim too preposterous, if the Deity be
invoked to sustain it. Doubtless much of the degradation of
religion was owing to the literal interpretation by the common
mind of the coarser symbolisms of faith, and rude illustrations
of art of the questionable traditions of the Church. The artist
or even the priest may have meant one thing, and the crowd
taken it for another. One fact, however, is apparent. The
Church was more solicitous to drive people into its fold than to
enlighten them afterwards. But I must exonerate the high art
of this period, both from a disposition or tendency to misdirect
the public faith. Its appeal was either to the spiritual or intel-
lectual faculties. Much instruction and happiness came of it;
much pious consolation too, undefiled by idolatrous error.
Neither peasant nor prince was ever tempted to worship a statue
of Michael Angelo, or a picture of Raphael; not even I think
one of Civitali or of Giotto. Real genius escapes this desecra-
tion. The art that was and continues to be worshipped is of
the most wretched quality, on a par with the minds of those on
whom the Church still imposes it. A similar distinction be
tween the effects of true and false art must have obtained in
Greece. While the Phidian statues were objects of wonder
and admiration to the whole heathen world for their artistic
merits, the idols of the people were of a different pattern. Sacri-
ices were performed in the open air, that their incense might
rise unobstructed to the Unseen, whose images the temples
sheltered. But as the lust of power is common to all classes,
I see no reason to think that the pagan priesthood in their
813 THE GREAT IIſ YSTERY.
generatious did any more to discourage the disposition to idol-
atry of the masses than has the papal clergy thus far in theirs.
In either case the original conception of the object of art con-
secrated to religion could not have been unknown to them ; but
history has yet to show an established church sufficiently disin-
terested to interpret truly to the world at large the word or
thing which embodies the essence of the Master's teaching, if it
conflict with its vested interests or transmitted prerogatives.
The mental infirmity which leads to multiplying intermedia-
tory divinities or intercessors between man and God, and of
late in the Roman Church between him and the “Son,” with a
decided inclination at the present time to make the “Mother of
God” the final source of consolation and appeal, is common to
our race. It has been my lot to pass several years among the
Extremes primitive Polynesian tribes, and to have seen some-
... thing of the American Indians. I find the same
barbarism, mental phenomena in respect to faith and its influence
on art in the extremes of barbarisms as in the matured civiliza-
tions of Europe, which in their turn are paralleled in the expe-
riences of the rudest and most cultured peoples of antiquity.
History invariably discloses a period in the annals of every race
when the conceptions of a Supreme Being were comparatively
simple and spiritual. If I may so express it, the first mental
instinct is to “feel after ’’ the great central truth of a universal
Creator, whose attributes cannot be fittingly personified under
any form the mind is capable of conceiving. But as time rolls
on, and men's desires take more material shapes, this great Mys-
tery becomes intolerable. God remains too far off, too little dis-
posed or capable of protecting them. “I Am" is too abstract
an idea for the mind's childhood. It does only for its unques-
tioning infancy or its complete maturity. In the interval or
its transition state from instinctive faith to confirmatory reason,
there arises a desire to reduce Divinity to its own loose standard
of thought and feeling. Consequently the original conception is
speedily lost sight of in the mazes of an unrestrained imagina-
tion. Instead of One God in all things, a god or devil is found
in everything. By this familiarizing process each deity assumes
a characteristic shape as the representative of some natural ob-
ject, passion, or virtue, and is made chiefly in the image of many-
sided man himself. This intense hunger for a tangible symbol
or absolute personality of his God springs from weakness of un-
derstanding and perversity of heart combined. We all have it
HOMER AND XENOPHANES 87
at some age or other. None have the right to condemn
Thomas for insisting on the evidence of touch. Our God must
be felt, to be proved. If humanity makes mistakes in its search,
we need not treat it as a deadly sin. On the contrary, it is a
good symptom in the soul that it tries to find out its Author.
Still, the lower the intelligence the more it clamors for the image
in preference to the spirit. Or if forbidden to manufacture
idols, it pictures to itself gods and devils, with congenial abodes,
on a material basis.
The sages of Greece denounced Homer and Hesiod for having
materialized and debased the earlier conceptions of divinity.
Xenophames, as Max Muller" tells us, quoting the philosopher,
was shocked to perceive that “men seem to have created their
gods, and to have given them their own minds, voice, and figure.”
Heraclitus, considering the Homerian theology to be flippant
infidelity, argued that Homer's poems should be prohibited. One
Greek writer even asserts that Pythagoras “saw the soul of
Homer in the lower world hanging on a tree, and surrounded
by serpents, as a punishment for what he had said of the gods,”
that is, for making them so like men.
Swedenborg, I believe, finds St. Paul in hell for similar
heresy. The chief folly of the classical mythology was in its large
admixture of immorality and sensualism; that of the Christian is
in its irrationality and asceticism. Religious retrogression was
the rule of both periods, the Greeks forgetting their original
monotheistic conception of Zeus, and the Christians theirs of
Jehovah as transmitted by the Jews; each people relapsing into
religious systems repugnant in form and idea to the primitive
germs of faith.
Christianity held true to its earlier belief so long as it was in
an inferior political position ; but no sooner did it rise to power
on the ruin of paganism, than it followed in the same theological
track which had brought its predecessor to disgrace. As has
been shown, the ruling motives of an idolatrous art spring from
the same sources among all peoples. But the quality of motives
may differ greatly in the same creed, as we perceive in the ex-
treme of Christian diabolism on the one side, and its ecstatic
love on the other. The standard by which Christian art is to
be tried, is more elevated in idea and more pure in morals than
the heathen. It proposes a more spiritual basis of character,
more definite doctrines, a broader, deeper humanity, and a loft-
1 The Science of Language, 2d series, London, 1864, pp. 386-87
88 VENUS AND THE VIRGIN.
ier conception of divine attributes and functions. Therefore
the palm of superiority must be awarded to its originating
thought over that of all others.
This truth is clearly shown in the difference between the
pagan and Christian conception of the goddess women, Venus
and the Virgin Mother, as the supreme idealization of each in
their efforts to exalt the sex, both exercising a profound in-
fluence over their respective religions; the one the embodiment
of physical loveliness, the other of spiritual graces. The tend
ency of the former was to keep woman the prey of man's pas-
sions, or at the best to esteem her as the sensual reward of his
heroisms and the incarnation of his dreams of beauty. Although
the latter in its blind devotion, also exalted her person to the
level of Divinity, the belief was of great service to civilization
by lifting woman out of sensualism, and making her coequal
with man, morally and intellectually.
Cam as much excellence be claimed for the executive skill of
Christian art as for that of paganism f This is a question each
student will decide for himself. I have already pointed out some
of the essential merits of the different styles under review. We
might indefinitely prolong the comparison. Among the minor
forms, Genii can be contrasted with Angels; Fames and Victories
with Cherubim and Seraphim; Furies, Fates, and Gorgons
with Deaths, Devils, and Demons; Muses, Nymphs, Faums, and
Graces with the St. Cecilias, St. Margarets, St. Catherines, or
like impersonations of Christian virtues and accomplishments.
After the same manner we may also test the ideal prophets,
apostles, and Saints by the side of the heroes and demigods, and
gradually ascend in hierarchal rank until the loftiest creations
of either faith are put in juxtaposition. The “ St. George " of
Donatello may challenge comparison with the “Apollo de
Belvidere” or the Ludovisian “Mars”; the Madonnas or Christ
of Michael Angelo with a Minerva or Juno of the school of
Phidias; Venus de Milo or the Dying Gladiator; a Hercules
with a St. Christopher; Castor and Pollux with Saints Damian
and Cosmas; the “Modesty” of the Vatican with a Santa
Susana; an Antinois with a St. Sebastian ; in fine, the entire
circle of figure sculpture of pagan with later times. I wish we
could extend the contest to painting, that we might put similarly
on trial those mighty creations of Michael Angelo's brush, the
Prophets and Sibyls of the Sistine, the luminous, etherealized
inventions of Correggio, and the no less distinguished works of
THE ALMIGHTY IN ART. 89
Raphael and Titian, with the noblest productions of the Grecian
painters. They worked on a lower level of art-motive; but as
in sculpture, they doubtless reached a higher point of executive
skill than their rivals yet have. The Christian artist still has
his greatest triumph to win in raising his work to the height of
his spiritual standard.
His highest effort is to represent the person of the The Messiah
Messiah, to personify the Almighty, and to depict ºft.*
Heaven. Michael Angelo's well known “Christ sus- types in Art.
taining his Cross * is decidedly pagan in style, with no sentiment
indicative of the subject. It is simply a well executed statue of
a muscular model. The colossal “Christ” of Tenerani at St.
Peter's is even less successful. Unlike the preceding, it is
draped. He is represented in the act of blessing with uplifted
hands, after the manner of the popes, for one of whose ponder-
ous figures, as seen on their monuments, this Christ might pass.
How the sculptor of the “Descent from the Cross” in the Tor-
lonia Chapel of the Lateran and the “Angel” of the Minerva,
should be so faulty in his conception of the second person of the
Trinity, is surprising. As it is less difficult to treat this motive
from its purely human aspect, we have both in sculpture and
painting masterly examples, chiefly of anatomical expression
and beautiful sentiment, of the Man of Sorrows, or nailed to the
cross. But Christ has yet to be adequately represented in his
office of Divine Judge, or as welcoming the redeemed into his
Father's kingdom. Orgagna and his school represent him as a
consuming wrath, hurling sinners to the destruction prepared for
them from the beginning. A few, following after Fra Angelico,
and Sano di Pietro in their enchanting compositions of the
“Coronation of the Virgin,” seek to exhibit the Saviour in his
aspect of triumphant love; but even with them, although the
countenance of Christ is radiant with the joy of his gracious act,
yet the real majesty of heaven is above their reach. If, then,
it is so difficult to realize the divine in man, it seems a hopeless,
if not a sacrilegious task, to attempt the Almighty. Sculpture
wisely abstains, except in relief or in a minor way, as in the
Lucca della Robbia ware. The coarse figures of the early mo-
saicists, worthy of their barbarous period, are as childish in con-
ception as they are rude in execution. Looking down from
empyrean vaults, glowing with gems and radiant with gold, their
lofty vastness gives to them a distinctive majesty, leavened with
awe. When we reflect how common this motive is in painting, it
90 GRECIAN ZEUS OR JUPITER,
really seems that some other reason than a disinclination to
attempt it on account of religious scruples, must have influenced
the sculptors of every epoch, especially as there were medi-
ums within their control, such as pure marble, the fittest thing
for spiritual expression, and granites, jaspers, porphyries, and
other adamantine rocks, particularly adapted, as the art of
Egypt shows, to suggest supernal power. Why is it that the
religious mind looks with complacency on pictures of God, and
yet shudders at the thought of statues of Him? Is it an in-
stinctive homage of the soul to a superior capacity in sculpture
to incarnate the spiritual essence of an abstract idea whose
very name must not be lightly spoken P
Whatever may be the cause, certain it is that pictures of the
Almighty, almost always in a realistic sense as an old man,
rarely as a symbol, are common. They are never, however,
made objects of worship, but are in general illustrative of sacred
history, or accessories in dogmatic or devotional compositions.
Here again is another anomaly of the human character. Pictures
of the only Being that revelation commands man to worship
are precisely those that under no circumstances do they wor-
ship, even in a representative 'sense ; while those of men, like
ourselves, whom we are expressly forbidden to adore, freely re-
ceive the adoration of the multitude of Roman Catholics."
AEsthetically viewed, the Grecian Zeus or Roman Jupiter is
a superior conception of the ordinary pictorial representation of
the Supreme God of the Christians. Jupiter is the climax of
man ; the human being perfected and incapable of change; al-
ways in the maturity of immortal power, wisdom, and beauty;
serene and passionless, yet containing all passion ; in short, the
ideal man. Misled, perhaps, too much by the literal rendering
of “Our Father,” in the light of the “Ancient of Days,” in itself
the most sublime of conceptions of divinity, the artists of Chris-
tianity, from the Byzantines down to our times, portray God
with the material tokens of age ; old in the sense of time and
paternity ; sometimes benevolent and sometimes angry ; majestic
and venerable always, but more with the appearance of a created
being than of a Being that creates all things himself.
Can art suggest this 2 Raphael’s “Almighty,” in his Bible
1 Paintings of the Almighty were not common before the fourteenth century.
To the populace they symbolized rank and greatness, and God was associated
in their minds, and indeed often represented as a Pope, Emperor, or King,
but the artistic motion was that of an aged and powerful human being.
GENIUS OF MICHAEL ANGELO. 91
Stories of the Vatican, ordering creation to appear, is ridiculous
in action and conception. Blake succeeds better in his render-
ing of the creative power under the usual form of age. His con-
ception is majestic and dignified. But Michael Angelo in his
Sistine “Creation of Adam ” reaches the actual sublime in force
of design as well as sentiment, in his figure of the Creator. He
makes a being over whom time has no power ; ever strong, ever
mature, ever self-existent, as he sweeps through the universe by
the action of his will; merely touching the dust of the earth
with the tip of his finger and lo, Adam |
It is unfortunate that the paintings on the ceiling of the
Sistine can be seen only by lying flat on the back, as Michael
Angelo did with the paint dripping on his face when he painted
them ; a position not always attainable or favorable to study
when attained." Unless the Sistine frescoes be thoroughly exam-
ined, no adequate conception of the genius of their author can
be formed. The power that conceived and placed them there
stands in the annals of art solitary and alone. Its force of de-
sign, sublimity of originating idea, and interpenetration into the
prophetic mysteries of man's religious being, is as if it had been
let into the secrets of the Almighty by a sympathetic vision
which compasses the will of the Creator, realizing to human eyes
without sacrilegious shock the visible presence of Him who made
man in his own likeness, and is equally conscious of the attributes
and destinies of the beings He has created. Phidias doubtless
surpassed Michael Angelo in amatomical idealism and repose,
but not in majesty of movement and depth of meaning. A pro-
found consciousness of the required spectacle and character passes
as by magic into Michael Angelo's brush. His work debars all
ordinary admiration or dislike. Either it rises so far above the
comprehension of the spectator as to be repulsive and unintelli-
gible, or else it lifts him into its own transcendent worlds, dis-
closing a new sense of the capacity of art to give and of his
own soul to receive.
This intense power comes of the scope Michael Angelo took
in realizing his conceptions untrammelled by the aesthetic limita-
tions of Greek art. Like Nature herself, he has not only the
1 Here I would observe that they conclusively demonstrate that his capacity
of color, in which he is popularly held to be deficient, was not inferior to his de-
sign. Their large harmony, richness, and breadth of tone, quite justify his im
patience at and disregard of easel work.
92 GENIUS OF MICHAEL ANGELO
beautiful but something of higher import to reveal. He must
put the souls of things into shapes that most truthfully and
completely express their vital presence. His human ideal rises
higher than sensuous perfection ; just as his composition was
based on laws that refused to be subservient to mere rules of
geometrical distribution, mathematical regularity of lines, and
conventional unity of design. With him each being is an in-
dividual unit, having a part to execute characteristic of his cause
of existence. Each is complete alone ; an absolute idea and
identity, worthily united when needful to others equally self-con-
scious and independent in a common motive. The sibyls and
prophets impress by their supernal functions, while Adam and
Eve are the embodiment of manly and womanly beauty; which
though consummate is made secondary to their characters in the
momentous episodes of their lives. Razzi's “Eve’ in the fresco
of the “Descent of Christ into Limbo,” in the Academy of Siena,
is a singularly pure and graceful nude woman, with a delicate
beauty, heightened by a sad memory of the misery her error
caused the world. But Michael Angelo’s “Eve” is the hale,
handsome mother of mankind in the bright morn of her exist-
ence, feeling the strong, inrushing tide of life, direct from God's
own breath, swelling her veins.
Michael Angelo never shrank from any common truth requisite
to the end in view. Hence he does not conceal clumsy strength
of youthful figure, marks of age, or soften violence of action, if
they enter at all into his motives. He, however, could make
appear natural and decorous what an inferior hand would render
absurd or exaggerated. Who but he could place a colossal
woman nearly naked astride of a revolving wheel, as is his For-
tune, with such combined dignity, elegance of figure, and beauty
of symbolism ; its realistic impossibility disguised in sheer art
skill !
The Greek artist strove in his ideal for a generic type of
beauty which, being perfect, must be immortal. This gave a con-
ventional Sameness to his figures. The great Italians, particu-
larly Michael Angelo, reserved their power more for idealism of
character than of form. One of his sonnets finely expresses the
spiritual Secret of his superiority as man and artist: —
“As when, a lady mime, with chiselled touch,
The stone unhewn and cold
Becomes a living mould,
SONNET OF MICHAEL ANGELO. 93
The more the marble wastes, the more the statue grows ;
So if the working in my soul be such
That good is but evolved by Time's dread blows,
The vile shell, day by day,
Falls like superfluous flesh away.
O take whatever bonds my spirit knows
And reason, virtue, power, within me lay.”

§
ºsº
º
ź.º
CHAPTER V.
ARCHITECTURE. "
AN has no precise patterns for his architecture, as he
has for painting and sculpture. The cave is his sole
model of a house or temple, and served as both for
an indefinite period. We can, therefore, estimate
the progress he has made in this direction by the
distance between his primeval rock-lair and the Parthenon,
Alhambra, or Westminster Abbey. Great as this is, these edifices
are not the finalities of his creative energies, but only hints of
his power in reserve,
The culmination of plastic art is architecture. Painting and
sculpture by themselves address us more familiarly as individuals:
architecture, which includes both, in a corporate sense as a
ruling mind, representing ideas or organic form in the whole.
As with the minor forms of art, rightly to interpret it, we must
put ourselves in sympathy with its life. If we do not receive
truth in the sense in which it is given, it becomes a source of
error. In art the vital thought is its life-blood. Mistakes arise
from the different acceptation of things by diverse temperaments
and intelligence. To some persons a lamb has no other asso-
ciation than mint sauce; with others it is the incarnation of in-
nocence ; while a select few see in it a correspondence with ab-
struse dogma. So a pigeon to one mind symbolizes the spirit
of God; to another it suggests a pie. If a priest administer
bread and wine in a church, they are received with reverential
awe as the body of the Son of God; but partaken elsewhere they
are simple viands. The essential difference of things, therefore,
lies in ourselves. Every distinction is true in itself, but all dis-
tinctions cannot be true at the same moment to ourselves. As
the animal or intellectual life predominates we receive in kind;
so that the same object may be a stone of offence to one, Science
to another, beauty to a third, and religion to the spiritual-minded.
Architecture is comprehensive in the same sense as Nature.
Indeed it is the material expression of the character of man, as
nature is of the mind of its Author. It first impresses us as


ARCHITECTURE LIKE NATUTE. 95
a great whole, after the manner of the landscape. The naked
bdilding is its anatomy or geological structure deter. Architecture”
mined by science. Art clothes it, as vegetation adorns ºr
the earth with sensuous beauty and spiritual signifi- Yºture.
cance. Like the structure of the globe itself, architec- tºº.
ture exhibits infinite variety of organic form and color, “
but refers all to a common cause. By its means man has ample
scope for the development of his creative faculties, at will trans-
muting rude matter into beautiful shape. Hence the functions
of the true architect are among the highest that can be bestowed
on a human being. His responsibilities are as much greater
than those of the common artist as his field is more extended,
his work more durable, and its uses and influênce more widely
diffused. The greatness of the “old masters,” is greatest in
architecture. Witness Giotto, Orgagna, Raphael, and Michael
Angelo. With such men, painting and sculpture partake of the
largeness of spirit of their more comprehensive function. Noble
architecture affects the soul after the manner of grand nature.
Like the varied moods of the ocean, mountain, or plain it thrills
the spectator with its own emotional life; and we become con-
scious of an illimitable power in the individual that inspires
us with a more hopeful estimate of humanity at large.
Nature bears toward God another similitude with architecture
to man. Both are the material evolvement of a common prin-
ciple of constructive will. Man's handicraft grows out of God's
creation through analogy; first, for use, secondly, to express
himself. Nature is constantly changing its aspect towards man,
from the twofold operation of its own self-adjusting laws, and
man's influence upon it. As we see it, therefore, it is always in
a transition state, not a final, perfect one, any more than our
present architecture is the climax of man's capacities. Both are
constantly undergoing changes, imposed on them by their respec-
tive governing forces, to adjust them to the exigencies of the
epoch. Nature obeys the divine will implicitly, without choice
of its own. Inferior to man in organic spirit, it acts by pre-
scribed laws. In this respect nature is entirely independent of
man. With or without his coöperation vegetation grows; the
seasons keep their allotted time; the chemistry of matter goes
on ; animal life responds to its instincts; the universe revolves
in its appointed orbits, and not a ray of light misses its destined
goal. In fine all that man sees, that is beyond his power to
create, is both the subject and object of an unconscious science,
96 WETY ARCHITECTURE EXISTS.
so profound in its operations, that during his long sojourn upon
earth, he has detected only the most simple of its laws. He cah-
not essentially change that which God directly cares for. His
limits would seem to be those of discovery, modification, and ap-
plication, in all that relates to the organization of matter itself.
Perhaps the most precious discovery man has yet made, is
that he is the heir of nature, promoted to free-will. The king-
dom of matter is given to him for the expansion of his faculties,
and to receive the stamp of his ideas. After endowing him with
mind, and the inestimable boon of liberty of choice between
good and evil, that he might freely seek out his own happiness,
how could God deny him the mastership of the material world,
without nullifying his own purpose 2 Therefore it is permitted
to him to control matter to his temporary purposes, under re-
strictions of organic law, equally applicable to his own physical
organization. At his bidding, light and heat burst from the
cold rock, music issues from the dumb ore, luminous color from
the dark earth, and each crude or shapeless thing moulds itself
into an object of use or beauty.
Why archi- In virtue of this function architecture exists. For
tecture ear- - - e e
ists. material needs, the plainest building would answer.
But man is not content with simple or rude shelter. His rest-
less mind must express its spiritual longings. The readiest way
is in song; the most imposing by architecture, which as it richly
develops, forms a literature in stone. Several nations once prom-
inent have left no other traces of themselves.
Overgrown by the dense forests of Central America, we find
the architectural débris of peoples that had made a considerable
advance towards civilization, without intercourse with other
races, so far as is known. Judging from the uncouth idols
that have been brought to light, their religion must have re-
mained in the low stage of fetichism: or that condition in which
men seek to avoid calamities by propitiating evil spirits, having
greater faith in their power of harm than in the ability of a
benevolent deity to protect them. Their buildings are largely
ornamented with angular designs, one of which resembles the
well-known Greek fret, which is also found in China, and seems
to be universal. But in general they do not rise above abor-
tive attempts at beauty, in diversifying broad surfaces, with no
apparent intellectual motive, and but crude carving or modelling.
Civilization Civilization has no fixed standard or definable lim-
d . &
tº its our own is apt to be taken as the best, and
MEX1 CO AND PERU. 97
others judged in its light. But the approved institution of
yesterday, is the confessed barbarism of to-day, as we see in the
fate of slavery in America; and we shall see in that of other
ideas and customs which are now respectable. Human sacrifices
were believed to be the chief religious duty scarcely three cen-
turies ago in Mexico, whose civilization, as well as that of Peru,
was so lauded by the followers of Cortez and Pizarro. These
were unlettered men, disposed to exaggerate their exploits; so al-
lowance must be made for their statements. Certainly the arch-
itectural indications now remaining are very little, if any, supe-
rior to those of their neighbors in Yucatan, Guatemala, or further
South. Even the advanced races of America were but superior
Savages, with no intellectual cohesion, advanced notions of relig-
ion, or any gifts for the common treasury of civilization. The
most interesting fact concerning them, is the pitiful ending of
their high-sounding empires, which vanished like a dream before
the assaults of a few hundred Europeans. The superiority of
race, or rather of the power which a higher civilization has
over a lower, was never more conspicuously shown. Nothing
is left of the art of the subdued Indians, except a few specimens
of a pictorial language of childish simplicity of invention, gro-
tesque drawing, but brilliant coloring and complex arrangement;
buildings of rude strength, with no merit of design ; a few roads;
a clumsy, pottery of a course texture, crudely archaic silver or
gold images, and carvings or sculpture whose ideal is intense
ugliness and distortion when based on the human form, and rude
simplicity on any other natural object. Yet I have seen things
done by the descendants of these aborigines, which indicate artistic
capacity. That light had penetrated the minds of their ancestors
is evident from some of their moral maxims and political axioms.
In their ornamentation there may be detected a latent feeling for
beauty. Parts of their work are not much worse than early
Lombard carving. Still I cannot conceive that art has lost
more by the disappearance of their architecture, than has true
religion by the destruction of their rites of worship. Cargoes
of their sacred vessels were sent to Europe to be melted into
coin. This was done when the aristocratic patronage of art
was at its height. It especially delighted in jeweller's work,
which the skill of Cellini had made so precious. Yet of the
multitude of costly articles of which the plunderers of Mexico
and Peru stripped their victims, nothing now remains. All went
to the crucible. Would this have been done if they had had
7
98 CHINA, JAPAN, AND INDIA.
artistic value 2 The contemporary art of Europe of a similar
character, is preserved as national heir-looms.
Albert But we have an eye-witness, than whom no one
Lurer’s tes- s • e
tºnomy. was better qualified to judge, whose testimony contra-
dicts my conclusion and the evidence of what I have myself seen
in the museums of Lima and Mexico. Albert Durer, in the
winter of A. D. 1520-21, visited the Low Countries, and his jour-
nal has recently been published at Brussels. He writes, “I have
seen among the curiosities which have been brought to the king
(Charles V.), from the golden country (Mexico), a sun of pure
gold a fathom in diameter, and a silver moon of the same size. I
admired two chambers full of all kinds of curiosities coming from
the same place: there were arms, harnesses, engines of war,
curious dresses, litters, and many other things, after the fashion of
that country. It is to be remarked that all these objects are in-
finitely more beautiful and rich than what we have. They are
also so precious that they are esteemed worth one hundred
thousand florins. I avow that nothing has ever excited my
curiosity so much as the extraordinary productions, which prove
how much the inhabitants of these distant countries possess an
inventive and ingenious mind.”
The architecture of China, Japan, and those races whose an-
cestors were nomads, in general lightness of form and material,
is but one remove from the tent. Its lines, even in its most
ambitious attempt, the pagoda, follow those of the canvas-homes of
the desert, ever narrowing with a downward sweep, as if reluctant
to leave the ground. Ornamentation is usually of a grotesque,
unnatural design, in which dragons figure conspicuously, and
seems intended to excite awe or fright in the spectator, instead
of any pleasurable emotions. Several thousands of years of
comparative civilization in the further Orient have failed to gen-
erate any style to which the outside world attaches importance,
or even to vary the common type, the novelty of whose fantastic
aspect alone commends it to European eyes.
Hindoo architecture is a capricious interblending of massive
strength, feminine delicacy of outlines, beautiful details of clas-
sical or Arab origin, and mazes of mystical sculpture that baffle
description. It partakes of all other styles, and is like to none.
Elaborately grand and imposing, it both fascinates and disappoints
by its curious jumble of beauty and repulsiveness in ornamenta-
tion, just as the creative fancy was free to adopt its own inventions
or was compelled to follow in the prescribed track of religious
t
EGYPT. 99
ideas. It marks the line where the two great currents of Orien-
tal and Occidental thought either come into collision or diverge
as from a common fountain on their separate missions: the one
ever tending to a materialism that runs into fetichism and the
other to an intellectualism that aspires to a spiritual cognizance
of things, – the diabolism of China opposed to the idealism of
Greece, or the deadening fatalism of Mohammedanism to the
hope of Christianity.
These conflicting elements prevent a homogeneous type of
architecture, founded on one manner of life and belief, such as
that of ancient Egypt. Here its character is more intensely
metaphysical, and its symbolism less grotesquely varied and
fanciful, less abnormal in imagination, but more grand, simple,
and profound, without being complex and horrible like the prim-
itive Hindoo. Both veiled truth in enigma as too sacred
for the profane mind. Both delighted in caves, underground
structures, or gloomily lighted edifices and vast sepulchral monu-
ments, as if the chief business of man was death, or he was most
to be honored for dying. The principal ambition of the power-
ful would appear to have been to eternize their names in matter.
Their most durable monuments were built for their embalmed
corpses, as though all went well with the soul while the body could
be kept from decomposition. Temples and tombs are much alike
in mysterious awe. No doubt much of their massive gloom and
deep shadow came from a natural desire to escape the burning
heat of the climate, which could scarcely penetrate their thick
sides and scanty openings. To enliven them it became neces-
sary to use bright colors and positive designs for ceilings and
walls. Even the immense columns which supported the roofs
and doorways were painted, history and mythology affording
the chief subject-matter. Sculpture and painting were in use
only as accessories to the architecture and rigidly subordinated
to it. When we consider the gigantic scale of the combined
whole, its unity of purpose and execution, its striking appeal to
the mystical and mysterious, the deep significance it attached to
death, and its own suggestiveness of immutable, magnificent
power, removed so far beyond the ordinary standard of men, is
it matter of wonder that it overawed and confused the common
mind, and helped keep the Egyptian fellah the helpless slave
of his rulers ?
The shadow of that deathward architecture still broods along
the Nile. As thought goes back to the first stages of man's his
100 RIGHT AND WRONG IN ARCHITECTURE.
tory, all ages seem to roll into one and the past and present be-
come identical. No idea has issued from the human brain, no
deed has sprung from the human hand, but still exists in vital
force. Somewhere in this vast universe there must be congenial
space and life for every form of existence which had its origin on
our globe; communities and persons at will repeating or vary-
ing themselves, and endowed with individuality as immortal as
mind itself. The songs and sighs that are entombed in the
monuments of the past are living contemporaneous voices appeal-
ing for sympathy or help. As we truly decide on right or
wrong we gladden the universal heart and speed it on its way re-
joicing. But if we judge contrary to love and justice the welfare
of all souls, past and present, is impeded. This magnetic chain
of sympathy which links together all sentient beings is a solemn
claim on our moral sense, for it shows us that the responsibility
which attaches to every word or action is limited neither by time
nor space. Good and evil once set in motion labor forever in
their respective spheres. Brahma, Confucius, Moses, Mohammed,
or Jesus, pass out of mortal sight, but their words remain flesh
while the world lasts, deciding here and hereafter the lot of
countless multitudes. Monuments that only record how man
darkened the understanding of his brother, shutting him out
from the light of human love and spiritual hope, wasting the
temple of his body in base toils born of pride, avarice, or super-
stition, oppress my spirit strangely. Ascending the pyramid
I do not tread on dumb stones but on souls of still fruitlessly
toiling fellow-beings, bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh.
Each step awakens the groan of some poor wretch whose sad
life was shaped out for him by no choice of his own. He cries,
“Come and help us, for we still suffer.” And believe me, as we
cultivate in ourselves nobler uses of life so shall the condition of
entire humanity be raised. Architecture has more to answer
for morally than all other art. The minor arts being in the
main the results of individual taste and election, their good or
evil is comparatively restricted. But the free will of the people
in no age has had much to do with the prevailing types or de-
ciding the special purposes of public edifices. There will be no
complete, final architecture, until the popular mind is sufficiently
instructed and its feeling sufficiently spiritualized to evolve its
forms in a spontaneous manner out of its enlarged circle of
needs and aspirations. The freer the thought, and the more
intense the enthusiasm or discontent of a race in striving for
ASSYRIA. 101
its ideal, the nearer it comes to realizing the essential truth of
the above assertion. Grecian and Gothic architecture, and in
Some respects the Arab, are genuine approaches to wholesome
types. All others have been imposed by the few on the many,
paid for by forced taxation, direct robbery, or stolen labor; had
in them no blessing for the workers; a curse, rather; or when
not the direct curse of despotisms like those of Egypt and India,
the more insidious one of sensualisms and bigotries like those of
Louis XIV. of France, Philip II. of Spain, and petty tyrants
of the Renaissant stamp in Italy. There is therefore something
else to be seen in the architecture of the past besides its aes-
thetic aspects. Something more than ponderous masses, magic
light and shadow, gorgeous ornamentation and picturesque ruin.
These are but material effects talking the language of romance
and illusions. Look awhile on realities. The spirit of human-
ity tells of its long imprisonment and torture in these enchanted
temples and palaces; of the wrongs heaped on it generation
after generation, written on the stony record it was forced to
rear. It reveals the secret of the Sphinx; how that common
humanity was reduced to the level of the unreflecting brute;
until all that was left of it really human was its face, and that
not permitted to disclose the evil that consumed its life. Further,
it denounces Egyptian art for embalming the bodies of the dead
at the expense of the souls of the living, which were changed into
stones and heaped up mountain-high over them as if to crush out
all hope of a resurrection to a happier existence. In viewing it
or kindred work we are forced either to believe that men then
were incapable of rising above the condition of slaves or that
they were kept by force in helpless ignorance.
The chief characteristic of Assyrian architecture, as we get
at its spirit from modern restoration of its designs, was man-
worship, with its concomitant principle of arbitrary power. In
general feeling it was not unlike the modern Palatial or second
stage of the Renaissant Classical, being lordly, sensual, and
vain-glorious, given over to pomp and luxury. But its orna-
mentation was more grand, while as a whole there was a
greater harmony of details, besides an originality of design and
creative force, dashed with Oriental mysticism quite beyond that.
Egyptian architecture being founded on religious feeling, still
survives, appealing to the Invisible. But of that of Nineveh,
devoted to the pride of man, in his own riches and power,
nothing remains except heaps of sand and ashes in which
Vº
102 GENIUS OF THE JEWISH PEOPLE.
were buried the few fragments of grandiose sculpture and
smaller objects that have lately found their way into the mu-
seums of Europe.
Fffect of I once supposed that race, by itself, had a decisive
..", influence on art. But a more extended view leads me
art. to reject it as of special importance. There exists
at present a certain artistic inequilibrium of development in dif-
ferent nations, most prominent in architecture, but perceptible in
every department, which at first sight might seem to indicate
some fundamental cause in peoples themselves. It is however an
effect of training, chiefly religious, and the policy or tastes of the
ruling and wealthy classes, modified by the exigencies of climate.
Recently, the genius of the Jewish race for music has been con-
spicuously manifested. Yet the old Shemitic tribes left no
monuments to prove a capacity for art. Their artistic feeling
found vent in sensuous or sublime poetry, inspired by their
monotheistic ideas. If we accept their abstract imagery and
spiritual imaginings, for instance those of the book of Job, in
the sense of high art, as undoubtedly it is, the Arab stands at
the very head of races. It was left to those foreign in blood
and hostile in religion to put their conceptions into plastic or
pictorial form. Monotheism held a firm, restrictive hand on the
materialistic development of art. By prohibiting the graven
likeness of images of the Supreme, it took away from art, as
the public taste was then, its only powerful incentive. There
was nothing left except decoration. Architecture especially,
was largely dependent on sculpture, as ornamentation, but prin-
cipally for its grandest motive, as the home of the gods. While
polytheistic nations erected innumerable and splendid temples,
the monotheistic Jews built only one, and that rudely simple,
if we exclude the futile structure of the seceding tribes; and
their nomadic relatives aspired to nothing more permanent than
a tent-tabernacle.
After the Jews lost their nationality, there was no opportu-
nity for them to develop an original style of architecture. Al-
though so tenacious of their religion, they readily accept the
civilizations of their adopted countries in other respects, excel-
ling in finance, literature, and art, which proves that training,
not blood or climate, decides the question as regards them.
The Turks are hostile to art, solely from religious scruples
hardened into fanatical prejudices, and from the virtual prohibi-
tion of any education that favors it. Yet the Saracenic Arabs
PRIMITIVE TYPES. 103
and Spanish Moors, in race akin to the Jews, and holding to the
faith of the Turks, so far overcame the sensual stupor of their
creed as to create a style of architecture which, for refined
beauty, delicate ornamentation, sensuous grace, and ethereality
of forms and hues is as lovely as it is unique. Religion pre-
scribed the limits of its decoration, forbidding the introduction
of the human figure or any realistic reproduction of natural
forms; but this restriction operated as a stimulus to the invent-
ive faculties, so that the world is indebted to them for its purest
and most exquisite varieties of architectural decoration based on
strictly mathematical rules, and scientific harmonies and con-
trasts of color. Its general masses and constructive forms
were decided by the conditions of climate, not plagiarized as is
the modern habit from other styles or peoples regardless of
their adaptability to new uses and localities.
As a general rule, the religious idea, apart from dogma, both
controls and expresses itself in the highest forms of architec-
ture, originating and developing whatever there is in it most
beautiful and spiritual. But this progress is slow and fluctu-
ating.
Its earliest development partakes of man's prim- . . . .
• * * © - Primitive
itive ideas of God, as a being of boundless power ºre,
and might. The ruling forms are ponderous, out- º
lasting all subsequent ones in which the elements of #º.
aesthetic beauty or spiritual significance are introduced. 8 e
Then mankind relied on physical strength to protect themselves
and to perpetuate their memory, just as they looked in fear
upward to an omnipotent strength. The times too were un-
certain and sanguinary. Self-defence in the shape of impreg-
nable temple-citadels was as much a domestic necessity as iron-
clads are now for national independence. But those gigantic
rock-structures known as the Cyclopean and Pelasgian styles of
architecture, of which there are fine examples at Arpino and
Alatri in Central Italy, indicate something else besides protec-
tion from enemies armed with spears and arrows. They are
partly ambitious attempts to define everlasting strength by
matter, and partly the results of a senseless desire of exaggera-
tion common to enterprising races.
In massive strength, the early Doric architecture corresponds
to the Egyptian type. It is however emancipated from sepul-
chral life into outdoor liberty, delighting in space, rejoicing in
light; and, as at Paestum, severely grand and noble, with a
104 GRECIAN ARCHITECTURE.
natural richness of color, inherent in its material, heightened
by the caressing warmth of the atmosphere, a background of
purphe mountain, and a foreground of blue rippling sea, into
which the sun pours its opalescent splendor.
Much of this halo depends upon the isolation of the object.
The chief attraction of Grecian architecture lies on the outside.
The Greeks were averse to religious rites within dark and con-
fined walls. Masters of aesthetics, they knew how to make an
effective tableau out of their worship, as well as to place their
temples in the best positions to exhibit their Seremity, in har-
monious contrast with the variety and breadth of the landscape.
Then too, a classical temple, though originating in a tomb, was
the embryo palace." The Grecian temple was divested of mys-
tical and metaphysical functions, simplified, humanized, made
intelligible and beautiful throughout, and kept as a hospitable
sanctuary for the gods when they left Olympus to visit their
descendants on the earth. Man and deity both loved the open
air. Forests, plains, and mountains were peopled with dignities
of every grade. Zeus no more lived in a house made by man
than Jehovah. Unlike the latter, he had his rites performed
under the clear skies. Games, plays, and schools held to the
like habit. Thus it happened to the Greek by a spontaneous
association of ideas to have a pantheistic sympathy with the ex-
ternal world and to manifest it by outdoor statues and architec-
ture, subordinating both to nature at large, and at the same
time making them its crown of beauty. -
Order is the key-note of Grecian architecture. It is strictly
an intellectual aspiration, founded on mathematical law. Pro-
portion, symmetry, elegance, finish, purity of material, simplicity
of line, regularity of features, a passionless dignity of outlook
as of fulfilled desire ; such are its vital characteristics. Within
it is cold, formal, and unsatisfying; without, beautiful, majestic;
if seen in crowded masses, flat and monotonous. Its spiritual
failure is in its completeness. There is left no suggestion of an
unrealized idea to the soul. It is a demonstrated, intellectual
* In the infancy of the pagan civilizations, men were content to live in huts
or incommodious and rude houses, in order to lodge their gods magnificently.
The mediaevalists also, built their cathedrals on this principle of self-sacrifice or
propitiation. As rulers succeeded to the offices of the gods, whether of Israel,
Babylon, Assyria, Rome, or Renaissant Europe, the palace began to take prece-
dence in luxury and splendor of temple and church. Protestantism thus far
has had a like effect in raising the standard of domestic at the expense of sa
cred edifices.
ROMAN ARCEIITECTURE. 105
problem; pleasant to understand, but pointing to nothing higher
than its own fulfilment. Planting itself firmly and squarely
on the earth, it takes the imagination heavenward by columns
so many given feet, and by a defined number of geometrical
steps in systematic beauty, and then suddenly checks its flight
by heavy entablature and cornice, cutting short the scientific
upright, by the equally scientifically disposed horizontal lines, as
having accomplished the purpose of its being. Its organic va-
riety is equally limited by rules from which it can never depart
except at the expense of its special excellence. The grada-
tions or alterations in details, by which it passed from the severe
Doric to the elegant Corinthian, and their intermediate stages,
are few and simple, marking the progress of classical taste in
its exchange of the sublime for the beautiful.
Rome organized a style which admirably illustrated Rome — The
its imperial power. Retaining the beautiful forms and **
character of details of the Grecian architecture, for the substruc-
ture, the Romans crowned it with a miniature firmament, whose
bold curve, like the vault of heaven, haughtily symbolized universal
dominion. To them we owe the final development of the arch,
whether gracefully spanning columns, tier upon tier in varied
orders, ambitiously piled skyward, as in the Colosseum, or ex-
panded into one noble dome like the Pantheon, which incited
the greater marvels of Michael Angelo and Brunelleschi. . The
arch is the fundamental feature of Roman architecture, being to
it what the spire is to the Gothic. Etruria gave it to Rome in
the first instance as a simple principle of strength combined
with convenience in building, but the Romans made it majestic.
Possibly its final shape was suggested by the Italian pine, whose
tops are of every degree of roundness, from the somewhat flat-
tened swell which is copied in the Baths of Agrippa to the
conical rise of Santa Maria del Fiore, at Florence. Externally
the new architecture retained its elements of Grecian beauty,
crowned and varied by the distinctive arch or dome, which re-
lieved their abstract, intellectual idealism by an infusion of real-
istic thought, more flexible and practical in its application to the
ideas and uses of men themselves, apart from polytheistic asso-
ciations, yet equally capable of being consecrated to sacred pur-
poses. The sentiment of the universal pervades it. In the
earliest basilicas we see how readily and with what slight
change its constructive qualities meet the requirements of the
Christian religion, after having done service in pagan temples,
106 ROMAN STYLE.
baths, halls of justice, and the forum. This is due to its in-
herent nobility of form and simplicity of ornamentation, which
require but suitable characterization to fit the edifice as a whole
for any great purpose. I do not mean to say that it best ex-
presses the spirituality of the Christian faith; far from it. But
it can be appropriately used for that worship, while the pure
Grecian temple has no similar elasticity of constructive func-
tions. Neither is this better adapted for the secular wants of
modern life, for everything is subordinated to external effect and
use. A great step was gained when not merely variety of hori-
zontal line was secured and indefinite expansion of the building,
itself free from monotony of masses, but the interior was ren-
dered light and cheerful, and capable of attractive decoration.
In doing this, the Romans were faithful to their Etruscan training
in masonry. They built firmly and stoutly. So strong is their
brick work, once incrusted with frailer and more tempting ma-
terials for the spoiler, that it rivals the pyramids themselves in
durability. Marble ceilings and adamantine vaults, of old time,
glowing in color, and graceful in suggestive designs, both invited
and confined the thought to the interiors of edifices, worldly
in character, elegant in adornment, convenient and luxurious,
according to their purpose, majestic in appearance, concentrating
in themselves the ambition and glory of the nation, without any
of that individuality of constructive expression and artistic
thought, not to mention the spiritual element, which distinguishes
Gothic architecture. This shows throughout a spontaneous
faith and enthusiasm driven into pursuit of the unknown by
the force of an exalted imagination, like the clouds of heaven
before a gale, changing hue and shape at every step of their
progress. But the Roman style, although emancipated from the
mathematical formalism and narrowness of application of the
Grecian, had a stately, imperious order of its own ; a given
goal and code ; planting itself and taking possession in the
name of the Roman people with all the fixedness of will of the
nation's legions in their steady tramp of conquest. It is a type
of human law, the equalizing protective civic element of na-
tional life, which welds society into a unity. This feature ex-
plains the ease and freedom with which it naturalizes itself in
every civilized country. Imperial Rome had no bigotry. If it
had had, Christianity, like Protestantism in Spain, would have
been stified long before it could have gone alone. Reasons of
State gave rise to spasmodic persecutions of any sect that seemed
TWO GERMS IN ARCHITECTURE. 107
hostile. But in general, if they paid taxes punctually, Jew,
Egyptian, Greek, Scythian, Gaul, or Christian were unmolested,
or even protected from one another when disposed to mutual
fanaticism. Roman architecture represents this spirit of toler-
ation of all peoples and creeds moulded into civic life under the
control of imperial power.
Architecture in embryo contains two fundamental Germs of
germs; one relating to its organic form, the other, to *
the viviſying idea. How the latter works, we have just seen
in the instances of Grecian and Roman architecture, and its
operation will be traced in other styles. An understanding
of the dominant motive may be helped by keeping in mind
the rudimentary lines of the generic architectures. I have al-
ready spoken of the concave lines of the Chinese and Japanese
styles as a reminiscence of the nomadic lives of their ances-
tors. Wherever the Tartar race exists, the tent furnishes the
structural type of its edifices. In Egypt, the inclined lines of
the pyramid, obelisk, and temple-walls, seem to point to a sim-
ilar period of national existence, varied by an experience of
cave-life. But as these and other eastern styles have no sub-
stantial influence on our civilization, we can confine our view to
those which do.
First, there is the Grecian, whose governing line is the hort-
zontal, cutting off and keeping down the perpendicular, which it
dominates. Its disposition is to cling to the earth ; to walk by
means of column legs, expanding indefinitely on the ground, and
nowise ambitious of rising high above it.
Next comes the Roman, using the former for a footstool, and
taking the circle or a segment of it for its geometrical ideal, with
splendid results in a material and governing sense.
The third and last is the Gothic, which reverses the instinct
of the first and selects the upright as its primary line, in vir-
tue of a special law, which will disclose itself as its forms are
passed in review.
These three are the generic styles of European civilization.
All others come from their intermixture, varied sometimes, as
in Venice, Sicily, and Spain, with features of Asiatic invention.
Even these trace their origin to the simple, organic lines of the
parent types, combined into mystical, dreamy, or voluptuous ex-
pression by the Oriental imagination. Compared with Roman
and Tuscan domes, the light, curvilinear, graceful Byzantine and
Saracenic ones seem like opalescent bubbles, on the verge of
108 LOMBARD VARIETY.
bursting, and vanishing like a vision. They and their kindred
accessories of etherealized arches, slender columns, and tapering
minarets, are the sensuous poetry put into stone of races whose
enjoyment is mainly passive and eye-fed.
One of the oldest varieties of the Roman, is the so-called
Lombard style, though strictly speaking, the Lombards brought
no art into Italy, but employed Italians to do their work. At
bottom it is essentially Etruscan in feeling, excessively realistic
and naturalistic in its ornamentation, making a copious use of
Animals in a symbolical sense, or out of wantonness of taste,
and particularly prolific in fantastic and diabolic monsters. It
was a rude compromise between long-established rules and
forms, and the quaint and passionate imaginings of a fresh, bar-
barous race, semi-weaned from heathenism. The wild, novel,
and childish appear together in crowded confusion, with orderly
classical details, pure Christian symbolism, remains of imperial
magnificence or Byzantine glitter, in one incongruous but strik-
ing whole, as if Savages had enslaved various civilizations,
jumbled them in indiscriminate ruin, and out of the heteroge-
neous mass were trying to fit a new garment of as many colors
as Joseph’s coat, unto themselves. They piled rows of columns
of every dimension, kind, and material from all sorts of local-
ities, or new ones of every conceivable pattern and fashion of
capital, one over the other, as high as they could safely go;
they combined the massive and strong with the light and deli-
cate; they rudely carved everything in nature that took their
fancies, grave, grotesque, or beautiful, and stuck them here,
there, and everywhere ; they invented extraordinary designs
with no apparent motive beyond a feverish desire of work, and
covering all available space with sculpture; they used all kinds
of building stuff regardless of unity of tone, effect, and durabil-
ity; in fact they anticipated, so far as inventive but unlettered
action was concerned, the later Gothic freedom from conven-'
tional precedent and previous science, which being better in-
structed as well as evolved out of the sympathetic mental ac-
tion of peoples akin in blood, led to superior results.
Romanesque architecture proper, is more directly derived
from the Etruscan, modified and expanded by Roman influ-
ences, than the preceding, and is of a more orderly spirit and
solidity of form. Indeed the Lombard variety is the result of
a northern graft on it of a barbarous energy, license of action,
and wild, instinctive thought, but half attuned to the spiritual
BYZANTINE STYLE. 109
graces of Christianity. The Byzantine revelled in splendid
coloring and imposing designs of mystical meaning, making its
vaulted ceilings and domes blue and shining, like the starry
heavens, and covering its walls with glowing mosaics and bright
painting.
Its scale of ornamentation was more subtle and refined than
the Lombard, tending to the solemn and mysterious where this
showed a strong materialistic bias. Both favored bigotry and
superstition. During their epoch, we find a strange mixture of
good and evil, the crude and the beautiful, truth and falsehood,
side by side ; traditions and laws of good periods of art, and
greater intellectual culture are seen in chaotic junction with
new forms and ideas struggling for complete utterance, but held
in leash by the Church, or kept under by the prevailing igno-
rance and disorder. Yet the human mind did assert its liberty
more freely and in some sense, nobly, in architecture than in
other ways. This was in part due to the fine remains of an-
tiquity always in sight, and partly because architecture in itself
offers a great scope of mental assertion without coming into
direct collision with the despotism of the moment. Besides it
is so fundamentally useful and universal in its functions, that
one generation, creed, or policy is ever eager to avail itself of
the edifices of another by a mere change of names and details,
to fit them to new uses, without bringing in question the origi-
nating motive. Pagan basilicas and temples were readily trans-
formed into Roman Catholic and Greek churches, which again
were converted into Mohammedan mosques, or mosques into
churches, as the tide of creeds happened to ebb and flow. So,
too, Protestantism took possession of the ecclesiastical buildings
of Romanism when Luther snatched from it half of its territory.
When Roman civilization finally broke up from want of any
firm moral foundation, the legal and civic securities of social life
disappeared with it. Weak and peace-loving people took refuge
in convents, which were virtually sacred fortresses, while those
who preferred the risks and prizes of secular life were compelled
to defend themselves as they could. For the outside world
there was no truce of God. The struggle of life was one of in-
tense, narrow-minded selfishness. No man's love or charity could
get beyond the interests of his family, business, class, or city.
Every citizen was the rival of his neighbor; every trade of its
companion industry; every town of the next, and so on, through
all the distinctions of society. Civil and national unity was not
110 FE UDAL VARIETIES.
comprehended on the very soil which had given the most illus-
trious example of them. The only possible solution of political
questions — if the causes of the never-ending internecine strifes
deserve to be called such — was the brief ascendency of one fac-
tion over another, or of one petty tyrant over his rival, each
and all alike unscrupulous as to their means of success. Out-
side of the Church, which alone kept populations from moral
chaos, there was little centrifugal force in any direction, except
as the instincts of gain or ambition caused temporary and ever-
shifting coalitions for mutual protection, or to plunder the weaker.
In Northern Europe the chief occupation of the labor-despising
nobles was the highway robbery of the industrious classes.
These, in Italy, in their turn, as fortune favored them, retaliated
by depriving nobles of the common rights of citizens, and insti-
tuting a sort of outlawry against them. But in general the
steel-shirted aristocracy had it all their own way, and it would
have gone still harder with the workingmen and traders, if their
oppressors had not found a congenial occupation in fighting each
other.
Feudal The effects of such a social state was seen at once
architecture, on architecture. Every man's house, not as by Eng-
Towers. lish fiction of common-law, but as stone-and-mortar fact,
became his castle. Hence it was that Europe of the dark ages
came to be built over with a class of domestic edifices, as unlike
to the luxurious cheerful villas and palaces of the Roman period
as a rose is to a nettle. In the Teutonic north, they wore a
romantic aspect on their high crags or water-isolated sites, chosen
for their impregnability, but within they were full of discomfort
and unwholesomeness. Indeed they have furnished the favorite
type of architecture for modern prisons; only we give our
felons better light and ventilation than these in general afforded.
South of the Alps they were no less strongly built for offence and
defence, were equally devoid of substantial domestic comforts and
refinements, but they retained somewhat of the ancient palatial
grandeur of proportions and severe simplicity of forms which
had come down from the Etruscans and still obtain in Tuscany.
But what most emphasized these fortified homes, and also the
ecclesiastical architecture of mediaeval Italy, was their lofty tow-
ers. The finest specimen of the campanile is that of Giotto,
belonging to the Duomo of Florence, which as regards beauty
might have been let down from heaven itself. Those of the
churches were of course made to harmonize with the parent
TOWERS. 111
edifices and their religious functions. As a dominating architec-
tural feature, it wholly changed the look of the landscape from
what it was in its pagan period. Perpendicular, threatening,
warning, and watching masses beetling far up the sky, succeeded
to the harmonious, horizontal, but tame lines of the pure classical
styles, which had given a look of repose and assured security to
the country, quite at variance with the clangor of bells and
grim aspect of the towers, particularly those attached to the
houses of the nobles. These were built solely for refuge in ex-
treme danger. Each noble's house was for practical purposes
a suit of protective armor for himself and his followers. But the
tower was the shield that guarded the armor, or the lance that
gave the deadly thrust. Every precaution was taken to make
it a secure stronghold. The walls were too thick to be battered
down, and fire would not harm them. They were solidly car-
ried up to a great height, often several hundred feet, with but
few openings for light, while leaving but a small interior area
for floors, and the ladders or stone steps which led to the
top. Internally they were dark, chilly wells. Externally glum,
angular, straight chimneys of Cyclopean dimensions, mostly sur-
mounted by machicolations, which added to their frowning look,
as heavy eyebrows do to a man's. A popular law finally either
prohibited new ones, or compelled the old to be reduced to an
elevation not exceeding one hundred feet. Previously the Ital-
ian cities, especially Florence and Siena, as may be seen in
thirteenth century paintings, showed such a multitude of these
bare shafts rising in stiff grandeur far above the ordinary horizon
of architecture, that they seemed like the giant trees of some
primitive forest, peeled and stripped of every green and pleasant
thing, and turned by some horrid enchantment into stone.
San Gemigiano still retains its group of warlike towers in
their original state. It is not easy to demolish them, nor are
they available for modern life. Like the keeps, oubliettes, port-
cullises, and drawbridges of old castles, the armor of knight-
errantry, and the instruments of torture of the Inquisition,
they serve as reminders of the lives our ancestors led when
ſorce was the test of right. The walls of the town are ivy-
grown and bright with lovely flowers. Nature has kindly
put over them her mantle of the picturesque. But no gracious
touch of hers softens the sullen outlook with which the towers
of San Gemigiano, planted on the summit of the hill on which
the town is built, domineer the country in a circuit of many
112 M. YSTERIOUS CHAMBER.
leagues; an ominous spectacle, out of tune with the vine and
olive landscape that lies at their feet.
I had to pass a night in that which now forms the spine of
the solitary inn. In looking up the uninhabitable part, there
was a weird cobweb mystery about its deep shadow, especially
by the light of a candle, that Doré would have peopled with in-
describable horrors ; and from my chamber, passages with doors
that moved uneasily on their hinges the night through, led off
darkly and remotely, one knew not where ; while the thick walls
oppressed me as if I were in a dungeon, alive with the evil of
unhappy lives here extinguished. The morning light was wel-
COI!)6.
History shows us that peoples are extremely tenacious of par-
ticular forms, currents of thought, and manifestations of feelings,
which have identified themselves with their early growth. It
requires a prodigious upheaval of mind to revolutionize and re-
new them on an altogether different pattern, however intrinsi-
cally superior it may be to that in vogue. Even Christianity
has not been able to extirpate, in those countries where Grecian
and Roman civilization prevailed, all the fashions and inventions
of paganism, but has had to adopt many of them, and modify
itself to others. How the fundamental exigencies of the old
races began and grew into fixed proclivities of mind and body,
firmly rooted in their blood, we may speculate about, but scarcely
hope to actually find out. Whenever the current of a nation's
life has once chosen its course, it is extremely difficult to change
it; usually it is largely prompted in its choice by climate and
external circumstances; and that which in the outset was mostly
the result of material pressure or persuasion, or had its germ in
it, finally becomes a permanent rule of taste, and is more identi-
fied with inherited associations of pleasure and force of habit
than with any absolute necessity of life. Thus Grecian and
Etruscan forms of architecture have always kept the upper hand
in Italy, though their supremacy has been contested by others,
which, being more directly the result of Christian faith and sen-
timent, were better adapted to express them.
Organ, awm, The first influx of this kind was the semi-barbar-
and scope of * º *
Gothwe. ous Lombard feeling, before mentioned, as having been
speedily absorbed and controlled by the dominant local styles, and
leaving in them but inconsequential memorials of its invasion.
Despite its vigor, dome, column, architrave, and pediment—the
indigenous pagan anatomy of architecture — kept their places.
A VIRGIN-BRIDE. 113
They might coquet with new faces, but would not put them on an
equal footing with themselves.
Their home-rule, however, was fated to be severely tested by
a new style, differing in all respects from theirs. It was born of
a hostile race, inspired by a creed which had supplanted heathen-
ism everywhere, developed in a climate and nature the reverse
of theirs; lawless where they were orderly, unseemly where
they were seemly, undisciplined where they were constrained;
as varied, flexible, and strange as they were the contrary. And
this was not all. Its organic lines and ethical aspirations were
antagonistic to the classical. North of the Alps it had overcome
every style that disputed the soil with it, had outgrown them in
elaborated science and adaptation to the needs of civilized com-
munities, and in consequence crossed the mountains with the
prestige of invincibility. It had also in its favor that the peo-
ples who originated it ruled in Italy, which then had no political
unity or national ambition. Even their common religion was in
closest sympathy with its aesthetic character; its associations
and forms were free of any taint of paganism, while they were
specially suited to meet the requirements of the Catholic ritual.
As architecture, it was a virgin-bride for the Roman Church;
immaculate, beautiful, transcendent. Yet, disregarding the ex-
ample of the rest of Christendom, the Roman Church refused
to take to its heart the lovely Christian maiden that came from
the north to offer herself as a legitimate spouse in place of the
pagan mistresses with whom it had so long dallied.
This looks strange. It will seem more so on examining further
the claims of the new style to replace preceding ones as the
special architecture of the Church. In confronting the classical
on its natal ground, it was indeed one extreme meeting another
to struggle for victory. There was no possibility of harmonious
union. The essence of the one organic form counteracts that
of the other. Whenever an attempt is made to unite the styles,
both suffer. It is like passing a law that is certain to be vetoed;
indeed worse, because, while futile legislation is soon forgotten,
incongruous architecture remains in sight to pervert public taste.
Much was tried in this way in Italy, out of the old habit of the
Roman Church to keep to her own fashions, and make all others
subservient. But every intermingling with the Gothic of any
element, not in harmony with its intent and organic lines, is a
scar on its beauty and a confusion of its purpose. We find evi-
dence of this in those ecclesiastical edifices erected in Italy in
8
II.4 ORIGIN OF THIE GOTHE C.
the first flush of enthusiasm for its novel visitor, while in the
few in which in the main they adhered to its laws, we recognize
at once its superior adaptation to a spiritual belief, to those con-
structed on the general plan of pagan buildings of worship.
After some abortive experiments, Italy rejected Gothic for classi-
cal forms, and has never since swerved from her first passion.
Some writers declare the Gothic to be a natural growth out
of preceding styles; as it were an orderly transmission and
development of germs contained in them. This can be true
only in the generic affinity of all human work, as the product
of mind. Those who find a more intimate relation, I opine, are
influenced by the various amalgamations attempted as it came in
contact with other forms, rather than by an examination of its
essential attributes. For instance, a cursory look at the “Duomo"
of Florence would convey the impression that it was Gothic.
But a more crifical view will show that, although Gothic details
have been effectively used, they are subordinated to the guiding
lines of classical architecture. Even the pointed arches of the
interior are cold and unsatisfactory, done more as a novelty than
from any genuine liking. The façades of the cathedrals of
Siena and Orvieto, though not completely Gothic, come nearer its
true feeling. In both the upright line domineers their construc-
tive character. Milan alone offers a great Gothic cathedral
pure in inception and design, the work of a German, though
subsequently marred by Italian interpolation of details foreign
to its spirit.
Mixed styles afford but an indifferent clew to the original
sources of an art. To get at them, we must go to original ex-
amples.
How, where, and with whom did Gothic architecture originate?
Broadly speaking, it owed its being to races beyond the northern
slope of the Alps, considered as barbarians by the peoples of
Italy, just as nowadays Europeans talk of Americans and Rus-
sians, without reflecting that if the standard of polite culture is
lower than theirs, it is more than compensated in the masses by
freshness of thought and intense national ambition. Such a
condition is especially favorable for a vigorous and original devel-
opment of character, and consequently of new and striking forms
of civilization. Greece and Italy had had their opportunity, and
grandly responded to it. It was now the turn of races younger
in civilization to contribute to the universal progress by the
development — as in what concerns my topic — of an architec-
FORERUNNER OF GOTHIC. 115
ture of a higher religious character, greater variety of shape
and flexibility of form, and at the same time better suited to
their circumstances, than any then known. As a reflection of
themselves, it necessarily embodied their intellectual characteris-
tics as well as the essence of their faith.
We have noted how in the Lombard style some of this north-
ern feeling crossed the Alps, and showed itself in a strange,
almost barbarous aspect. This was a forerunner of the Gothic
movement. Both possessed a perceptible pagan element coming
down from the time when black forests covered Central Europe,
and the ancestral imagination was quickened by a lively belief
in a mythology of congenial aspect and attributes to the savage-
ness of the daily life about it. This fostered a prolific demon-
ology. But the deep shadows of the mysterious, untamed nature
that met the primitive Teuton on every side were offset by other
and more loving associations with the landscape, which incited
in him manliness, religious-mindedness, respect for woman, naive
suggestions of a happier existence, and visions of unreal things.
His body grew hardy, and his mind imaginative, amid his
native scenery. There was further developed in him self-reliance
and a rugged individuality. These were joined to those special
Qualities that arise out of the contingencies of the periods of bar-
barisms of all intellectual races, – fierceness with strength, a
childish flow of spirits, and social desires alternated by gloom and
distrust, and a grotesqueness of fancy which, unchecked, tended
to the vulgar and obscene. These conditions and qualities did
not always appear together or with equal force among the aborig-
inal tribes whose descendants invented the Gothic architecture,
but in some degree, varying in different localities, they did al-
ways exist; and their spirit, controlled or modified by Christian-
ity, entered largely into it. Knowing this, it no longer seems
strange that the Italians should have had no hearty liking for an
architecture which derived its characteristic traits from ideas and
modes of life with which they had no sympathy, indeed were
absolutely repugnant to them. The cause of their neglect of it
lay deeper in human nature than even a community of rites
and creeds. Gothic architecture was the aesthetic fruit of a
race whose blood, nourished by a wholly different diet, has
always left an uncongenial impression on the Italian mind of all
it has ever done in art.
But the psychological gulf between the Italian and German
as regards architecture does not end here. What has just been
II6 CEHARACTER OF GOTHIO.
observed of the constitutional tendencies of the Teutonic and
Gallic minds refers chiefly to them as developed in their native
wilderness under the influence of heathenism. The bias which
they thus received indeed gave to Gothic architecture fundamen-
tal qualities of freedom, variety, originality, a quaint mixture of
the common and imaginative, exhaustless invention, and intense
esotery of feature, whether as to detail or entirety. And so we
find its mental roots strike down to heathen soil. But had it
received no other nutriment, it never would have risen to the
spiritual height it finally did. Christianity grafted in fresh
races not yet moulded into stagnating despotisms, but accus-
tomed to vigorous individual and coöperative action, and earnest
in their feelings, was exactly the influence needed to expand
these primitive germs into an architecture as new as it was
lovely. Its specific excellence was founded on its recognition
of the illimitable as the supreme idea. All previous non-cognate
styles are limited in law, scope, and expression. From a given
section a perfect whole could be made by simple expansion of
the embryonic model. They were strictly aesthetic problems
based on mathematical data readily solved, or at least confined
to definite intellectual bounds, and manifesting mundane am-
bitions. This cannot be said of isolated Gothic forms or frag-
ments of edifices. The animating spirit could not be locked up
in prescribed formula and shapes, for its very essence was infinite.
Palpitating with young life, seeking to incarnate in dumb mat-
ter the spiritual hopes and fears of men, both for time and
eternity, it recognized no limit to its action except those general
laws which governed matter itself. No one was empowered to
decide what only it might use, invent, or create. None had the
right to declare that this or that thing in the natural world, or
borrowed from the unseen, should be proscribed. If anything
created of man can be a law unto itself, ever evading repetition,
formalism, or giving a prosaic reason for its being, it surely is
Gothic architecture. In this respect it is akin to the restless-
ness and variety of nature in its attempts to manifest the Soul of
the Universe. This boundless freedom of choice and combina-
tion of general forms and minute details applies to its construc-
tive being. The religious instinct, when pure and simple, either
in prayer or material aspiration, inevitably looks upward, but
with bowed head, as best befits man before his Maker. Hence,
as in Gothic architecture, it chooses perpendicular lines whereby
to express its yearning, singly, or in gradually drawing together
ENGLISH GOTHIC. 117
masses, as the spire externally lost in the blue of the sky or
internally in pointed arches whose nice junctions are hidden in
the symbolical glories of the artificial heavens that they pierce,
while bowing over and protecting the worshipper. Its whole
force is given to express the longings of the man spiritual; a
perpetual, unfulfilled, but never given-over struggle to mount to
those regions where alone supreme felicity is to be secured.
Other styles attain their ideal repose. The objects of their crea-
tion being secured, nothing remains to hope or try for. Classical
architecture seeks to reduce certain definite ideas to prescribed
forms. Hence its lavish use of limiting and confining lines.
Gothic, on the contrary, tending to lose natural forms in spiri-
tual ideas, seizes on those which suggest neither beginning nor
end ; their unseen foundations pointing to an endless downwards
as their scarcely perceptible tops do to an endless upwards; each
a suggestion of the possible immortal condition of the human
soul, according as it rejects or receives the religion placed tangi-
bly before it in the intermediate sanctuary. There is no bridging
over, materially or spiritually, the dividing chasm of the classical
and Gothic architectures.
My comparison may seem too finely put or fancifully drawn
out, but these vital differences grow on my mental view, as
my experience of both enlarges. Ecclesiastical Gothic is a lov-
ing, enthusiastic attempt to embody the history and inspirations
of Christianity in congenial forms. The genius of its authors
has caused it to stand without a rival for its special purpose of
divine worship. Each nation with whom it sprang into being
almost simultaneously and spontaneously stamped on it local
traits while agreed in general character. Rénan claims that it
originated in the immediate neighborhood of Paris, and that
French architects introduced it into England and Germany.
Whether this is precisely true or not is immaterial to my pur-
pose. France, Spain, England, and Germany varied its details
according to their national temperaments and changes in archi-
tectural taste. In all it was a spasmodic, enchanting effort, at-
taining in none to a perfect religious development, or a final
exhaustion of its capacities, seldom even a structural completion,
before it passed out of fashion, superseded, in most instances, by
bastard classicalism imported from Italy to meet the views of
ruling classes who considered only how they could best solidify
their temporal interests.
English Gothic is staid, more scientific than others in ex-
118 GERMAN AND FRENCEI GOTHI C.
pression, indulging less in fancy or mysticism ; more solemn
and more simple, but finally losing its finest imaginative quali-
ties in monotonous repetitions of parallel lines whose primitive
significance is lost in mathematical formula of building. There
is, however, something in the old roof-tracery that recalls the
ocean; a sort of wild break or gentle toss dying melodiously
away into joyful stone-foam, or mournful diapason of depart-
ing strength, as the wave-ripple washes lightly over the white
sands, or the breaker rolls its solemn chant along the trembling
shore.
German Germany puts more of the romantic, weird, and
Gothic. speculative into her forms. The grotesque and spiri-
tual keep company. Color, too, plays a greater rôle, while sculp-
ture knows no limits of fancy. Her Gothic is richer and more
metaphysical than that of England, inclining at times towards
realistic homeliness of invention. As a whole, it is nearer
allied to the Spanish, which is particularly imposing and magnifi-
Cent.
Prench It is to the French mind that the Gothic owes its
Gothic. most graceful, delicate, and fanciful expression, break-
ing up its strength into a flamboyant lightness and sparkle that
rivals the gleamy play of flame itself. If the English took their
finest movement of roof-swell from the sea, the French were not
less guided by the opposite element in the stone-traceries they shot
upwards toward heaven in burning window, soaring buttress, and
gleesome spire. Theirs was a daring attempt to transform the
Solid into the incorporeal, or what looked so to the imagination,
so transcendently vision-like did they rear their cathedrals; not
so much spiritual in feeling to the soul, as spirituel in sentiment
to the mind. All that was finest and best in French genius
found scope in them as in nothing else before and since. At
the same time the home-devils of their specific legacy of human
nature lurk there, sometimes much concealed, but never wholly
cast out; grotesque, obscene, bestial imps, cruel and scoffing;
the counteracting powers of those forces which sought to realize
in architecture a pure Christian type, in which material beauty
and devout desire should be consistently united in glorifying God
and comforting men.
The Cathe- The particular virtue of feature of the Gothic is its
dral. constructive individuality. No two edifices are alike.
Its essence eludes copying and repeating; for if not easier, it is
certainly pleasanter, to create anew than to mechanically repeat
A CATHEDRAL. 119
anything. Classical temples had a family likeness. Gothic
cathedrals have a spiritual resemblance, with the greatest diver-
sity of features. One-man skill characterizes classical archi-
tecture. Each detail of sculpture, painting, or form must be
subordinated to a given central organization, or else it becomes
a tasteless and deformed object. As it is begun, so it must be
finished, and the completion can be seen in the mind's eye be-
fore a stone is laid. There may be intellectual pleasure in
viewing a perfect temple, but there is no surprise to the imagina-
tion. Now all this is reversed with the Gothic. Many men of
many minds design and make it. Their religious purpose suf-
fices to give them a unity of effect and meaning. All else takes
its rightful course by virtue of those laws of creative freedom
and variety which makes the constitution of Gothic architecture
operate like that of Nature. Things grow into their proper
places and colors. The highest inventive labors of architect,
sculptor, painter, mosaicist, metal-worker, carver, glass-stainer,
and workmen of every grade, one generation after another,
patiently looking forward to the perfect end, in enthusiastic con-
cert carry forward to their complete architectural fruition, for
their common welfare, the profoundest ideas and deepest emo-
tions of a people concentrated in their most momentous inter-
ests in the future, as well as liveliest ambitions in the present
life.
It is easy to see that a Gothic cathedral built in this spirit
allowed to every one employed in it ample scope for the exercise
of his particular talent. Honest brain and hand work, not sense-
less machine labor, such as kills the life of modern building, fill
the chief part. The architect defined its anatomy, and gave to
it spiritual comeliness of shape, according to the promptings of
his own genius. There was also space and place outside and in
for all kinds of artists to give free swing to their talents. Being
a type of a Christian commonwealth, hierarchal in government,
but democratic in recognizing the worth of the individual with-
out reference to birth or riches, and putting him in his right
place within its jurisdiction, admitting all on an equal footing to
its spiritual privileges, its intellectual or artistic entertainments,
and its protective repose: * also being the locality of enactment
1 In the Middle Ages the cathedral was the house of worship, the lecture-
room, the spectacle, and the place of amusement combined; dancing even being
introduced, and kept up to this day in the Seville Cathedral on the fête of Cor
pus Dominus.
120 A CATHEDRAL.
of the Sacraments which decided individual happiness here and
hereafter, a world and heaven in miniature, — the cathedral ne-
cessarily had something for each worker to do, spne hope, relief,
or truth for the needy in spirit, as well as fine music, stirring
eloquence, varied and instructive art, and finally a hearty welcome
for every comer. No other class of buildings combines so many
functions affecting the welfare of man in such harmonious con-
centration and for so wide-spread and lofty purposes. None other
has fixed itself so firmly in the universal heart; once to create,
and now to preserve in recognition of its past good.
The true ecclesiastical Gothic is an image of the soul's present
progress and final reward. Its walls are carved and painted
over with Bible histories and mysteries of faith, lives and effigies '
of famous men, always either an example or warming ; deeds of
ennobled ancestors now lying in marble-sleep on their monu-
ments, whose white glimmer comes through the solemn shadow of
overhanging vaults like a spectral light from a ghostly world;
grateful memorials of science, learning, and benevolence, whatever
distinguishes a man from the common herd; holy allegory and
symbol, or leaf, flower, bird, animal, quaint invention and curious
fancy, anything the artist’s free-will could find to do, carved on
column, capital, shaft, or doorway; an every-day world around,
and a celestial world above ; men and angels in ecstatic commun-
ion or gazing on the Birth, Baptism, Crucifixion, and Resurrec-
tion of Jesus; the Last Judgment, Hell and Heaven, with their
lost and redeemed multitudes; all this and much else dimly or
vividly seen as light and shadow alternate, at one instant dark
and foreboding, the next flashing, in gem-like colors as rays of
sun strike on them through stained glass, lighting the whole in-
terior as if the painted saints and prophets that inhabit the
windows had actually come back from heaven, and were flood-
ing the sanctuary with celestial beauty; heart, intellect, and soul
all quickened into new life; the bad reproved, the weak strength-
ened, the good rewarded, every human condition addressed, and
its future lot forecast: such is the moral scope and material
showing of a complete mediaeval cathedral. There is something
sublime in its appeal and promise to all men, something distinctive
and apart from all other forms of aesthetic speech. And while
it assures hope to the inquiring heart, it preaches action to the
languid, and has a curse for the false hearted ; for it is even more
the embodiment of the spiritual disquiet of man than of his re-
pose.
PREMATURE DEATH. 121
Although I place so high an estimate on the Gothic, as an art-
exponent of Christianity, it is not wholly based on what it posi-
tively accomplished, broad and beautiful as this is. Happily
for it, as before hinted, in its contemplation, form loses itself in
idea. This alone casts a spell over the critical faculties, and
leaves the imagination at liberty to evoke out of its own conscious-
ness anything wanting for its constructive completeness or
more perfect rendering of the religious motive. Instinctively
the mind accepts its spiritual suggestiveness, closing its outward
senses to material shortcomings in masses or aesthetic incomplete-
ness of details. No other styles assert for themselves a corre-
sponding charity of judgment, for they challenge comparisons
between specific laws and their execution. Any variation from
the established rules of composition of classical architecture be-
comes painfully apparent to the instructed person, like discord
in music or a jumble of feet in poetry; while vagaries in orna-
mentation have the same disagreeable effect on the eye that
false grammar has on the ear. Now the Gothic in this respect
resembles the truly Christian character, which is its prototype.
So manifest are its virtues, and so exalted the standard it sets up
as an example, that it becomes with the building as with the
righteous human being : our veneration overlooks those trivial
defects which are inherent in the earthly man and his work.
Moreover, the latitude of omission and commission, rule and
license, order and variety, which is the birthright of the Gothic,
added to its truly catholic motives, makes it difficult to fix on
any formula of criticism of universal application. Born of the
spirit, it cannot be otherwise than best-beloved of the soul.
Doyal to the moral causes of its origin, Worship and Good-will,
it ever was. Yet it did not reach the perfection these two sen-
timents were capable of bestowing, if allowed to operate on the
human mind undisturbed by conflicting passions. A superior
development of ecclesiastical architecture in this form is, how-
ever, not a question for present consideration. The development
that did occur was the best possible under the circumstances,
most creditable to its authors, and encouraging to humanity for
future action. As if anticipating its premature death, like the
fabled notes of the dying swan, the melody of the “frozen
music” was sweetest not long before the invention of printing,
which more than any other single cause led to its rapid decline
on the soil of its birth, aided as it was by the fundamental
changes of political thought and religious feeling brought about
122 FFFECT OF PRINTING,
by the contemporaneous appearance of Protestantism in Germany
and the Renaissance in Italy.
My subject would expand too much were I to go into an
analysis of the Gothic as it appeared in mediaeval civic and do-
mestic buildings, especially as the latter are of a transient na-
ture, seldom attaining longevity, and ever subject to personal
caprice. Both, however, possess great interest artistically and
ethically. Each sprung from kindred sources to the ecclesiastical,
and were developed into corrresponding, fascinating aspects of
odd luxuriance, and conceits of forms and colors, and an inter-
mingling of babarous instinct and habits with the more orderly
aspirations of incipient civilizations struggling for aesthetic breath-
ing-space and legal protection.
Effect of In saying that printing had much to do with the
printing on º se º º º
ñº"Gºinſ... disuse of the ecclesiastical Gothic, I do not imply
that the two cannot exist together, but simply that the imme-
diate effect in races prome to reasoning, was to supersede the
sensuous language of art as the chief medium of instruction.
Hitherto the intellectual appeal to the people had been based
on a ritual which, admitting no questioning, was presented in
forms impressive to the senses, and exciting to the feelings.
Emotional training was attractive and facile, but one-sided.
Consequently, when articles of faith came to be discussed, the
mental energies which had found such an enthusiastic vent
in architecture were turned more into the channel of abstract
thought, which was communicable to the masses most readily
by means of books and preaching. Words got the ascend-
ency over Art as the exponent of ideas, just in the proportion
that the exercise of individual reason was admitted in matters
of religious belief. Science, which had been subordinated to
theology ever since the Church claimed infallible power, began
to make its influence felt in every phase of life. Wherever
common education has been diffused, books have driven art
into the background in popular favor and understanding, simply
from the facility with which they are multiplied, their adaptability
to the mental wants of every class, and the cheapness and com-
pactness with which they disseminate ideas and present aesthetic
images to the imagination. High art, especially of a sacred char-
acter, reached its climax in painting, sculpture, and architecture,
just at the epoch that printing began to be popularly dissemi-
nated. No Sooner was this made universal than the former faded
out, or passed into inferior forms and motives, from which it has
*
EFFECT OF O'LASSICAL ART. 123
never since emerged, while the printed word has acquired a
greater authority each successive century of its existence.
Although printing affected the entire relation of art to civil-
ization by its function of substituting abstract for concrete idea,
out of art itself there came a revolution which transformed its
outward aspects, and turned it into other directions; a revolution
forced on it by literature, which had opened anew to the Eu-
ropean mind the long closed philosophies, poetry, and histories of
ancient Greece and Rome. When Raphael wrote to Count Cas-
tigliome, “I would fain revive the beautiful forms of antiquity,”
he tersely expressed the universal desire of the cultivated classes
of Italy of his time to recreate classical art and knowledge,
partly from weariness of the mediaeval, the wider sphere science
was attaining, and its tendency to substitute naturalism for spirit-
uality in art, and in part because the excessive assertion of the
Church in doctrine, joined to its license of action, had reacted in
thoughtful minds in two ways—one set vainly wishing to reform
the Church; another, and that which wielded its power, to use it
simply as an instrument to forward their personal schemes of am-
bition or pleasure, while at heart scoffing its tenets, and ridiculing
its ceremonies. No secular princes were more unscrupulous in
morals and politics, or greater hypocrites than the popes at this
juncture. Concubinage, Simony, blasphemy, poisonings, and
crimes of every degree of depravity, perpetrated under cover of
intrigues and blandishments, such as only the base side of
the Italian intellect is capable of conceiving, were the com-
mon order of things. It is only necessary to name the Bor-
gian, Farnesian, and Medicean popes, to recall an appalling
picture of wickedness, sometimes braving the sunlight, but
usually veiling itself in an artistic magnificence and riotous
luxury, which fascinated minds whose congenial proclivities
were tempered by no moral sensibilities. When these high-
priests of religion were not ferocious in their passion to raise
themselves or their illicit children to the grade of temporal
princes, inveigling and slaughtering those who resisted, they
gave rein to grotesque indecencies which showed how utterly
they had thrown off religious restraints. Leo X, amused him-
self with tossing monks in blankets, – doubtless he thought
that the best use he could put them to — and foot-races of
naked men."
1 One of his statutes decrees that if an ecclesiastic publicly cursed God,
ridiculed Christ, or said obscene things about him or the Holy Virgin, he was to
124 ST. PETER’S.
The great fact, however, as affecting art was, that with these
demoralized rulers, embued with the sensuality rather than the
beauty of classical life, the sincere worship of God, such as had
been indicated in preceding styles of architecture and art in
general, was changed into the only sincerity they were still capa-
ble of; namely, the worship of themselves. Nero, Tiberius, and
Caligula made themselves gods, and, by decrees of the Roman
Senate, compelled worship to be paid them on that score. True,
Caligula generously made his horse pontiff, while Nero, with
equal self-appreciation, shared his divinity with a monkey. But
the ambition of their papal successors, satiated with divine honors
as the vicegerents of God, was most concerned to secure rever-
ence on the basis of earthly distinctions. Religion was made a
political blind to keep the masses loyal. I am so disgusted
with the lives of most of the popes and princes who were con-
temporary with the Renaissance — not of art as the French
critics employ this term, including the mediaeval epoch, but in
reference to the revival of pagan styles — that I scarcely have
patience to allude to them at all. But it was their patronage
that fashioned the taste of this period, and, in conjunction with
printing and preaching, revolutionized the art of Christendom.
Good, however, has come to the world out of their wickedness,
Religious opinion, whenever it had been supreme, had shown
itself intolerant alike to the liberal culture that comes of free
study and the growth of civic independence. The skepticism
of the popes promoted a spread of knowledge and a latitude
of tastes which their piety would have repressed; while their
ambitions and that of the secular sovereigns to form powerful
states on the principle “c'est moi,” eventually enlarged the influ-
ence of the subject, and led to the supremacy of civil over the-
ological law, to humanity's gain. No thanks to the sovereigns,
however !
3.Regiº Let us glance at the changes brought about in
(Zºlcé, & tº ſº *
Peter's. Tº architecture by the Renaissance, and the uses it was
put to. The truth and beauty of classical forms, rightly un-
derstood and applied, I have already admitted. Further, it must
be conceded that the genius of architects like Brunelleschi,
be fined one fourth of his income. There was a sliding tariff for blasphemy
or other sins which could be made lucrative to the pope's exchequer. In Ger-
many, previous to the Reformation, the only concern of the priests was, not to
conceal their formications, but how to outwardly reconcile their having children
with their clerical functions and duties.
ST, PETER’S. 125
Buonarotti, Raphael, Bramante, San Gallo, Sansovino, and
Wren, was not merely capable of reviving them in much of
their original spirit, but also of adapting them to new uses and
ideas. They could not transfer to them the spiritual essence
and functions of the Gothic, but they reared magnificent edi-
fices especially suited to material pomp and luxury, whether
of church or state, and of tastefully decorating them in accord-
ance with their purposes, their motives being chiefly drawn
from the classical element, or executed in a manner congenial
to it. St. Peter's at Rome is the grandest and richest type of
the modern classical, imperial architecture, in dimensions, fea-
tures, and aim, as illustrating the universal power and absorption
of the world’s riches and homage, for which the political popes
strove. Strictly speaking, it is a monument of papacy without
religious significance; as an object of intellectual wonder per-
haps unrivalled. I write of it rather as it was finally meant
to be by Michael Angelo than as it actually is in many of its
details, which, if not shams in material, are often tasteless, mis-
placed, and incongruous, disturbing the grandiose impression
which would otherwise be left on the mind. Great geniuses sel-
dom have an opportunity to carry out their conceptions unfettered
by the caprices of those who contribute the means, or unharmed
by the incapacity of the workmen who execute them. Hence,
to adequately realize their intentions, we must divest them by
an effort of will of all foreign matter and subsequent devia-
tions, particularly if the subject in question belong to the com-
posite classical styles of architecture, which little learning and
any blunder is sure to ruin in point of taste. The Gothic may
be rude in masses and details, with strange contrasts of orna-
mentation and forms such as nature exhibits, or intricately
delicate and light in traceries, surcharged with carvings and
colors, mysteries within mysteries, and yet appear the more
bewitching from the free exercise of so many minds and hands
moved by a common impulse. Taste here has a roving com-
mission, with wings to search out aerial surprises. But in the
other case it is shackled by a despotic law of constructive
fitness, unity, and narrowness of selection, not always clearly
penetrated by those who profess obedience to it.
We have only to contrast the remarkable buildings of the
Gothic and Renaissance styles to discover at once the gulf
that separates them. St. Paul’s of London and the Pantheon
at Paris are noteworthy examples of scholastic formalism and
126 THE CLASSICAL–RELIGIOUS.
aristocratic egoism, grand but barren monuments, as regards
religion, while the Madéleine Church of the last named city
is a conclusive proof of the spiritual incapacity of a Greek
temple for a Christian house of worship. The more ornate and
sumptuous it is, the more positively it betrays its lack of devo-
tional feeling. Made simple, it harmonizes with teaching or
preaching addressed to the reason ; all the better because noth-
ing spirit-moving finds a home on its colorless, conventional
wall-surfaces or areas, when unbroken by arch or column.
This specially commends it for a lecture-room, and is perhaps
the cause of its being in great favor in Protestant countries for
meeting-houses, in which divine service is restricted to a prayer,
hymn, and sermon. The form and proportions of a pagan
temple are adapted to these purposes; but after stripping it of
its sacred images, beautiful altars, and fine sculpture, there re-
mains in its interior little of what gave it an aesthetic character
or quickened the emotions. Everything now depends on the
preacher, nothing on the edifice; and it can be used for politi-
cal, secular, or sacred callings without compromise of taste, be-
cause there is none to offend."
One extreme of Protestantism was guided by a sound prin
ciple of selection in choosing the temple-type of architecture.
None other so completely dissevered itself from all necessity
of a ritual, was freer from association with Roman Catholic my-
thology and ceremonies against which it protested, or was more
readily converted to the intellectual needs of societies who had
as sincere a regard for abstract as their religious opponents had
for emotional teaching; one thinking and proving, the other
Seeing and believing. The fitness of one style was the unfit-
ness of the other, because the sentiments connected with each
were diverse and opposing. For real warmth of heart and
spirituality of organic form, we must look back to mediaeval
1 In Catholic countries, human dwellings and occupations in an humble way
often cluster about the walls of cathedrals, growing into them as naturally as
ferns to forest-trees, and, while receiving strength and protection, contributing to
the picturesqueness of the entire mass. There is, too, a moral fitness in man's
nestling in the shadow of the great symbol of his faith, that counterbalances the
architectural disfigurement that sometimes happens. But nothing can atome for
the religious and aesthetic incongruity of the Protestant habit of turning portions
of churches into shops and warehouses, especially as has been seen in the Park
Street edifice, Boston, the basement once being an “ice-cream depot” while a
dentist's sign hung to a column of the porch, advertising unmistakably a copart-
nership between God and Mammon.
*
WHOLESOME REACTION. 127
cathedrals, like those of York, Salisbury, Strasbourg, Rheims,
Amiens, Chartres, St. Stephen’s, and their numerous compeers.
The Renaissance in Catholic countries and Protestantism else-
where put a stop to these. While their ideas and tastes remain
in the ascendant, none others will be built like them. But
both the Renaissance and Protestantism have done good service
to men in their respective ways. Protestantism was a whole-
some reaction, requisite to arouse mind from its proneness to
live only in its emotions and passions, and to set it thinking
about justice, truth, science, and discovery. Hence, although the
aesthetic and even spiritual sense for a while be drifted in an
opposite direction by the incoming tide of materialistic pro-
gress, yet I believe a healthy mental equilibrium will at last be
established, resulting in fresh architectural types of so fine a
nature as to put a stop to regret for those of the past. There
are hopeful symptoms in the growing recognition, especially in
England, of the fundamental virtues of Gothic forms, and their
capacity to respond to our more spiritual and imaginative wants,
while justice is likewise done to the classical by putting them to
those uses for which their nature best qualifies them. But this
is rather an anticipation of the future than the exact case at
this moment. Knowledge meantime is sifting and proving,
teaching taste how to act and enjoy. That this may be guided
aright, it concerns civilization to keep its eyes open to the mis-
chief done to it by the Renaissance after it passed from the
control of great masters into the hands of mean men.
The evil from it was greater in Catholic than in Protestant
lands, because as regards art there was more to lose, while the
saving principle of abstract teaching and the new, utilitarian
fashion of church buildings, to which the classical type was
easily adjusted, did not apply at all. I will not cite Spain in
this connection. Ever since its destinies passed out of the keep-
ing of the Moors, it has been as isolated and exceptional a
country in what relates to art, science, and religion as Japan,
without influence on general civilization, while it deliberately
ruined its own from bigoted and suicidal motives. Although
Italy was the seat of the papacy, it has not sinned in this stupid
manner. Criminal in act and low in desire it often was, but
it never altogether forgot its aesthetic constitution transmitted
from antiquity, and a certain political breadth or religious
license of view, shutting its eyes to immaterial points, which
habit also came from its large-headed ancestry. Rome be-
128 POLICY OF ITALIAN POPES.
comes sanguinary only when its power is really in jeopardy.
A mere imbecile conformity of rite and confession in the minu-
test detail, to substantiate a “divine-right” despotism, sanction-
ing the foulest wrongs by blasphemous religious formula, after
the fashion of the Spanish Bourbons, never obtained in Italy.
Whenever pope and prince sinned or revelled, they did it fairly
and squarely before the world, without other sacrilegious non-
sense than the usual magniloquent customs and hypocritical
speech common to sovereign-worship everywhere. With them
conformity was more a question of habit than principle. They
were not over curious to pry into what might be underneath
the external act. This shrewd policy of not hearing or seeing
what there was no positive occasion to, permitted in art, litera-
ture, and social intercourse a scope unknown to other Latin
races. Neither the Inquisition nor religious persecution ever
got supreme control in Italy, as in Spain and France. A
restless selfhood inherited from the old Roman citizen, basing
itself on an instinctive clinging to certain personal rights, or
rather privileges, whether for good or evil, as for instance,
to have bread and shows gratis; to speak and act their minds
in squibs, pantomime, or satire; to be exacting and revengeful
in matters that directly concerned their pleasures and desires;
childlike except in innocence, such has long been character-
istic of Italian peoples. Their aesthetic temperament is easily
excited and directed. Hence the patronage of the ruling
classes decided in the main the public taste; and the more
facilely because of the sympathy between the nobles and com-
mon people in matters of entertainment and public spectacles.
After the mediaeval epoch, there was no independent, popular
action in affairs of art. Savanarola's appeal to the people,
though not without transient effect, was the last effort made
to keep art from going over soul and body into the keeping of
those imbued with the tastes and politics of the Renaissance,
which yearly grew more indifferent to the wishes and welfare
of the masses.
Formerly, governments were many, frequently changing, and
much controlled by the commercial and manufacturing classes,
who in matters of art acted in harmony with the clergy. All
ranks were ambitious of distinguishing themselves by the pro-
motion of works, like the Loggia of the Piazza Signoria at
Florence and the Tabernacle of Orgagna, which should reflect
credit on their particular liberality and taste, besides being use-
RESULT OF TYRANNY. 129
ful and edifying to the public. Their best skill and means were
given to the honor of religion and the glory of their country.
But with the Renaissance there came about an increased consoli-
dation of petty commonwealths and democratic towns into small
states, in which the elective rights of the people were either
wholly extinguished or only admitted under the control of abso-
lute rulers, unscrupulous as to the method by which they at-
tained power, and made it hereditary in their families. The
elimination of the popular element in politics of necessity af.
fected art, causing a complete change in its spirit and forms for
the worse, most conspicuous in architecture. Tyrants are more
given to reflecting themselves in art than even democracies, be-
cause the latter may be very busy about every-day interests,
while with the former, unless there is war, it is the only grand
passion by which they may glorify themselves. The character
of most of the new rulers being particularly infamous, the art
they fostered was in keeping with the man-idolatry and the
sensualities to which it was chiefly dedicated. I refer to a sub-
sequent phase of the Renaissance, when the race of Rococo
great, original masters had died out. Executive skill “”
was never wholly wanting in the artist, nor pedantic learning in
amateurs, but the feeling behind both was ignoble and shallow.
Art became academic, cold, and external. If it were not sub-
jected, as in Spain, to a religious inquisition, it had to conform to
a political one, even more debasing in spirit, though less narrow
in taste. Every branch of it grew to be artificial, formal, and
forced. There was no genuine inspiration of natural or popular
ideas ; nothing to touch the heart, excite the imagination, or in-
struct the mind. Affectation replaced sincerity, attitudinizing
succeeded to grace and dignity of movement, and material big-
ness was thought to be equivalent to moral and aesthetic great-
ness. The standard of right and wrong in art was violently
reversed for the people. «s
Where there is extravagant power, there must be extravagant
patronage. With this lever one base mind can make a thou-
sand even baser than his own. The Italian subjects who had
taken the places of Italian citizens, learned to accept with due
thankfulness and admiration the vicious, pompous art given
them to incite to greater reverence of rank and riches; and
finally their tastes were so perverted that they never have had
since a genuine appreciation of anything that was not spectacu-
lar, or savored of state or personal ostentation, and mere tech-
9
130 DEGRADED RENAISSANCE,
nical dexterity. After the extinction of the primitive religious
and classical schools, and the sensuous triumphs of color of
those of Venice and Parma had been frittered into imaneness by
mechanical imitators, there was left nothing worthy of the
name of Italian art. The sincerity, purity, and truth of ex-
pression that came in with the native-born schools of Niccola
Pisano and Giotto, afterwards strengthened by the epic mat-
uralism of Masaccio and perfected by Leonardo ; the clas-
sic grace and beauty of Raphael, and the supernal force and
idea of Michael Angelo; in fine, all that made Italy as original
as famous in art, came to a premature end.
Before the Christian era a similar event occurred, in conse-
quence of the introduction of Greek forms, made fashionable by
Roman emperors, swayed by the same motives that governed
their petty successors and imitators. In the case of antiquity,
however, the beauty of the Greek idealized the conceptions of
the native artist, so that, for a brief period, the union was a
happy one. It was a matural one also, on account of a com-
mon faith. The difference, therefore, was merely in treatment,
not in motive. Finally the indigenous Etruscan feeling was
overborne by aristocratic influences of a foreign growth, largely
Asiatic, which destroyed all that was good and perfect in art
generally, precisely as, fifteen centuries later, the revival, not of
pure antique forms, but of the imported Grecian in their deca-
dence, manipulated to meet the corrupt tastes of the defunct
pagan imperialism, quenched the more wholesome, indigenous
art of Italian mediaevalism. This reappearance of the same
destructive agency, invited by a similar aristocratic will for the
same vainglorious, Selfish aims, is a striking coincidence of
history. The last master of original and sturdy individuality,
realistic in bias, who made a vigorous protest against the cur-
rent, bastard classicalism, not without effect as seen in the
Neapolitan school of painting, was Salvator Rosa. Consider-
ing the strength of the academic conventualism by which he
was obstructed, his life may be called heroic. After him, how-
ever, the flood. Every trace of Gothic freedom of invention
and mediaeval sincerity of execution vanished. Then and
since, Renaissance, chiefly of the most degraded character,
has overrun Italy, to the ruin of whatever was innately noble
and fine in the native mind.
I will give a brief list of its architectural vices, reserving the
defects of sculpture and painting for a later application, al-
though the family relation is a close one in the three.
FOCOCO ARCHITECTURE. 131
Ecclesiastical architecture in Italy since the sixteenth cen-
tury has been of almost uniform ugliness or misapplication of
rules and spirit, the churches of the Jesuits being the most
cumbered with decorative finery. An effort is made to entrap
the senses through the lowest avenues of gratification and de-
ception. Religion is seen either as a splendid show or a super-
stitious spectacle. For this true art is sacrificed. It is impos-
sible to describe the extraordinary façades which came into
fashion, overloaded with columns, whole or split, doing nothing;
equally useless pilasters of all lengths, stuck wherever there
was space; ornaments without meaning or purpose, where none
were needed; vulgar grotesques and obscene devils conspicu-
ous about doors or windows, made hideous by the violation of
classic rule and beauty, from wantonness of incapacity; stupen-
dous, ugly urns perched on highest pinnacles, threatening the
heads of those who look up to them; clumsy, Smirking saints,
planted like stone sentinels or juggling acrobats at regular in-
tervals on roofs or in niches, interesting themselves in nothing
in earth or heaven; naked, fat boy-angels or gigantic Women,
with coarse effºontery of limb and posture, performing gymnas-
tic exploits, or reclining in impossible positions in impossible
places, their only suggestiveness being one of alarm lest they
fall and hurt somebody below, and their sole merit their con-
structive uselessness, and want of anything to say or do in refer-
ence to their being where they are; veritable sculptured night-
mares: such is the outer look of many churches. If pigs
could be architects, I fancy they would do things in just such
a wrong-headed way, from sheer spite of order and beauty.
Interiorily, the confusion becomes more confounded, except
that the architect, though doing his best, does not always suc-
ceed in spoiling the more dignified features of classical ar-
chitecture. Their effect, however, is sure to be hurt by pre-
posterous upholstery, relics, shrines, wax-figures, gilt and tinsel
properties, to show off the popular idols; tawdry, bedizemed,
miraculous dolls and pictures; bequests of ignorance and su-
perstition, varying from old clothes, crutches, daubs of pictures, to
pearls, rubies, and diamonds; sham and real jewelry; the bones
of dead men made more precious than the bodies of living ;
lies preached of them, and the Word withheld ; man-millinery,
changes of vestments, the lifting or letting fall, at the appointed
time and place, of priests’ skirts ; buttoning and unbuttoning;
much lace and embroidery, tinkling of bells, operatic music,
132 ROCOCO ARCHITECTURE.
swinging of censers, bowing, kneeling, pantomime, dronings and
mutterings in a dead tongue, making tableaux more or less im-
pressive, and not without scenic value, but as art degraded to
its lowest material effects and vulgar appeal; in fact, a shifting
spectacle in which the whole and parts are ingeniously per-
verted from their lawful functions to aesthetic falsities and spir-
itual impositions. To put art and religion on a lower level, we
must fall back on out-and-out fetichism. And this has come
from the evoking of a spurious paganism by the heads of the
Church to take the place of what had come to it in legitimate
course of native-reared art.
The ambition of the baser Renaissance was best gratified by
sumptuosity and costliness; lavishness of rich metals and
precious stones; by dexterous, complex workmanship, bronze
curtains, marble draperies, fantastic tricks, overdone action, and
mechanical surprises; in fine, by artistic harlotry of every spe-
cies, besides a senseless theft of classical objects and motives
misapplied in fragments or in wholes, or distorted by a hap-
Hazard fancy into positive ugliness. Better Quaker homeli-
ness, or other Protestant architecture, of the rigidest Puritan
type and frailty of material; even the pretentious sort, with the
sham Gothic steeples astride of sham classical porticoes and
similar constructive incongruities. If there were not so much
to grieve over in the wasted talent and riches bestowed on the
regenerate Renaissance, and its abject servitude and igno-
rance, one might laugh heartily at the ridiculous figure it cuts.
But it is too preposterous an exhibition of human folly to be so
lightly passed over, particularly as it spread in various degrees
of badness, spoiling the public taste all over Europe, emigrating
to America in a mild form, and finding a footing wherever aris-
tocratic misrule obtained.
I am emphatic in my condemnation, because the feelings
which begot its meanest aspects yet survive, and persist in dis-
figuring the earth with structures, if not entirely worthless in a
moral and aesthetic sense, still made after the general likeness
of the base Renaissance. Where a public is indifferent to its
architectural life, and individuals have no lively sense of artistic
fitness or unfitness, the direction of taste is left to professional
men, who are but too glad to enrich themselves at the least pos-
sible exercise of original thought or study. Hence many fash-
ions continue in use after their formative spirit has died out.
This is the case with the style in question in some places, the
BASTARD RENAISSANCE. 133
United States of America for instance, the rich ordering their
houses of their architects as they would clothes of a tailor, accept-
ing without question whatever design is given them as being the
correct thing of the moment. There can be no independent
national character or individualistic expression in architecture,
unless it represents the real life of a people, and shapes itself in
conformity to local causes. Imported architecture is of neces-
sity a misfit, as is also any attempted revival of styles that have
lived out their natural existence. The Renaissance failed in
the outset, from its mistaken principle of action. Instead of
striving to express in suitable forms the new civic civilization,
which was aiming to temper religious feeling with even-handed
justice, to improve the material condition of men, and to dissem-
inate knowledge, it went back after obsolete pagan forms, and
'tried to rival the production of men born under an altogether
different state of things. One glance at the Gothic, which
it was pushing aside, might have taught it that it could have no
genuine life without a genuine soul of its own. To compete
successfully with the antique, it had to revive ancient ideas as
well as images. In some degree, among a few, this was done, but
more from a spirit of pedantry or infidelity to their own religion
than from any sincere love of the old. Under such circum-
stances, the best Renaissant art conceived after the antique,
was inferior to its model. The common sort was a mere trav-
esty. A connecting link existed in certain features, derived
from sentiments common to both, as they were made the instru-
ments of pompous ignorance, fashionable empiricism, or an ab-
solute will. Superficial nobodies and restless tyrants are always
greedy of sensations. The repose of profound knowledge and
consummate art is unintelligible and fatiguing to them. What
no one else could or would do, that to them is an incitement
to do. An Egyptian princess builds a pyramid with the price
of her favors. A Roman emperor gilds the oats of his favor-
ite horse, and makes him a deity. Another cuts off the heads
of the sculptured gods, and puts his own in their places. Nero
makes a bronze image of himself one hundred feet high, at a
cost of nearly two million dollars. Cleopatra drinks pearls.
Hadrian uses the revenue of the world to make a monstrous
pleasure-ground, containing copies of remarkable edifices of all
countries, and puts to death the architect, Apollodorus, for crit-
icising his taste. Philip II. of Spain impoverishes his domin-
ions to build a vast palace-tomb in the shape of a gridiron.
134 MISCEIIEF OF FALSE ART.
Another royal charlatan, Louis le Grand, starves France to
lodge himself “like a gentleman.” The Dukes of Tuscany were
delighted with monstrosities, coarse conceits, and obscene gro-
tesques. A Grecian satyr is a joyous waif of nature, delighting
in his free, sensuous life; the Renaissant image of his kind is
simply embodied lechery. An antique Venus meant perfect fe-
male beauty; the mediaeval Magdalen, moral purification; but the
modern Venus or Magdalen, beginning with Titian's and end-
ing with those of our time, is a seductive woman, who repents
only to sin again with fresh zest.
Fools in palaces are invariably complemented by boors in
churches, as regards art. To Michael Angelo's Pieta there
was given a mock crown and necklace. Brocade robes and
tin head-gear were nailed to the pictures of the Madonna and
saints by the old masters, as may be seen in “Santo Spirito”
at Florence. The finest frescoes got whitewashed or ruthlessly
destroyed. This, in brief, is the quality of taste and feeling,
begotten by powers unlimited, alike in pagan and Christian
countries. The bad man stamps his selfishness or ignorance on
the whole world within his reach.
A true artist is the product of his period; the false one, of
another's will. Genius, free to act, foreshadows the idealisms
and hopes of a people collectively, and becomes the type of its
inmost soul; Goethe in Germany, Shakespeare in England,
Dante in Italy, Doré in France, and all great masters, in their
several ways represent their countrymen. The mischief of
the false artist is that he has no guiding will of his own, but is
a being moulded to order, bribed or persuaded by external
pressure. Hence, as the Renaissance came into greatest vogue
at the most flourishing period of petty and great tyrants, and
just after the death of the greatest masters, it took whatever
shape was prescribed to it, without right of appeal. Once set
art agoing in a wrong direction, and it degenerates with accel-
erating velocity, because, like fire, it feeds its own course.
There is no more striking contrast of its good and evil than
what occurs in Italy when the artist was the genuine product
of his time, and when he was the mercenary workman of des-
pots. The distinction holds with more precision than most
generalizations, though there are some exceptions on each side,
and some interblendings of freedom and servility, or noble and
ignoble art, in one artist or school of either period. Every
community has its momentary madnesses, just as every despot
HONEST RENAISSANCE. 135
has his moments of magnanimity or common sense. But the
profound moral of the history of art, that to be great and good
it must be free and true, cannot be too deeply impressed on
the minds of a people which, like the Americans, has its art
yet to create.
Homest Renaissant architecture has qualities which Honest
adapt it, when judiciously applied, to state and civic *
uses. We need not give it up because kings perverted its
forms. It specially commends itself to modern life for various
purposes. Externally, from its palatial aspect, where orderly
dignity and beauty are desired, typical of public authority
and use, or as an expression of refined luxury and scholarly
acquirements. Like the Gothic, it has never had its complete
chance of development and application. Internally it is more
manageable for modern domestic life, and requires less original
thought. Gothic architecture compels the architect to conceive
and invent. Many intricate mechanical problems are to be
solved, and aesthetic combinations to be effected. Whereas the
Renaissant styles are composed out of the classical, and ad-
justed to certain definable demands of comfort and elegance.
Success is a question rather of taste in composition than of
experimentive creation. Most modern Gothic buildings for do-
mestic purposes are commonplace imitations of obvious fea-
tures of the mediaeval ones, and not to be compared in con-
venience and handsomeness with those constructed after the best
designs of the Renaissance. There is ample scope for both
styles. Either may be used to advantage according to what is
needed, if the architect will but inform himself of the meaning
and value of their respective forms, and acquire the skill requis-
ite to their aesthetic solidarity.

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CHAPTER VI.
MODERN ITALIAN ART, LIFE, AND RELIGION.
HERE are certain fundamental links in Schools and
& tº tº styles over-
the art of all periods, arising from agen- iań.
cies which cause one epoch to overlap or reappear in
© another in outward form, if not in living spirit. But
before proceeding further, I will recall some of our
recent conclusions to show their bearing more emphatically. I
stated in substance that the great ancient and mediaeval periods
of religious art could not be repeated ; that in them high art,
as it had been comprehended, had reached its climax ; and that
attempts to revive it on its old foundations must fail despite
individual merits. I will now enlarge on this, making my
propositions as terse as possible, that they may be easily kept
in mind to be tested as occasions happen.
Depressing The depressing effect of books on art is felt chiefly
ºf ºf in its highest aspects. In the inferior functions print-
ing favors a spread of art and an enlargement of its scope in
common matters, for it makes its history and purpose better
known, and stimulates its production as a branch of polite cul-
ture. Nevertheless, printing tends to take it out of its former
spiritual kingdom, in which it reigned supreme as the popular
type of man's loftiest idealisms, lowering it from the position of
a creator and educator to that of an illustrator and decorator.
Ideas were mostly given up to books, as soon as the Reformation
gave a little intellectual liberty to the people. They dethroned
high art, because printing served them better and cheaper.
The people were right, as indeed they are in general when
ever their moral judgment has a fair chance of asserting itself.
I do not say that whatever they do is the best that could be
done, but that their instincts, when free to act, incline them to a
shrewd comprehension of what is conducive to their actual wel-
fare. Here particularly their instincts were keen, because art,
except for a short period in Greece and during fitful flashes of
democratic, religious enthusiasms in the mediaeval ages, had



PROTESTANT AND CATHOLIC. 137
been associated in their destinies either with ecclesiastical or
state despotisms. Ranging from unwholesome extremes of as-
cetic fanaticisms to gross sensualities, it had too often served
idolatry or tyranny. Experience showed them that neither
prince nor priest would voluntarily sanction anything which con-
flicted with their interests. Sometimes, actuated by honorable
motives, they had indeed kept art up to a lofty or popular
standard. But the people had had no permanent, independent
choice as to its forms or spirit. A strict Catholic, even at this
late day, receives without demur whatever his superior prescribes,
holding himself as personally unaccountable as if it were an or-
dinance of God. Church or State, not he, is responsible for the
bigotries and falsities they impose on him. But the Protestant
being trained to exercise his private judgment, is responsible in
his individual capacity. This applies as well to matters of taste
as opinion. The practical effect is reversed in the two systems.
In one the executive force of life centres in the civil or eccles-
iastical authority, which gives the initiative to all public acts;
while in the other the will of the people decides their direction
and character. This fact by itself accounts for the realistic spirit
and democratic tastes that art assumed as it passed from the
hands of the few into those of the many, the wishes and pleasures
of the masses necessarily becoming the chief sources of inspira-
tion. While their intellectual condition remains low there can
be no special stimulus to the artist beside gain. The popular
inclination, keeping art at its own average of mental ability and
taste, bribes even talent to mould itself according to the whim
of the moment.
Religion, as a sensuous or ascetic movement, has #.
ceased to govern civilized men. Protestantism turned sm on art.
it more into an inward conviction and moral action, restricting
faith to a few abstract doctrines. Much of the reaction against
an idolatrous ritual was directed against religious art in general,
and brought it into disrepute with the conscience. What in
one stage of ideas was a sacred duty to do and foster, in another
became a sin. The effect first on conscience, and secondly on
art, may be appreciated by watching the different emotions with
which a zealous pietist of the Roman Church and a member of
a Protestant sect regard sacred effigies and symbols. The edifi-
cation of the one is the blasphemy of the other. Neither the
theorist nor an artist can completely realize in himself mental
conditions foreign to those in which he is born and trained. He
138 IMITATIONS FUTILE.
may conceive of them as he imagines a strange spectacle or past
events, never sure that he is consistent and accurate throughout,
and quite certain that he cannot infuse into his mind the gen-
uine feelings of their age. This obstacle precludes any absolute
reproduction of effete art. Any such effort is so much absolute
loss to the rightful art of the time, beside misdirecting or affront-
ing the public feeling. An artist, therefore, is unwise in leav-
ing his true sphere to try to rival one for which he has no
legitimate training. A Polynesian makes a canoe-paddle after
an original design that the most skilled European workman
would in vain attempt to equal, because he has no real connec-
tion with its uses or pleasure in ornamenting it. The imitations
of Cashmere shawls, Persian carpets, Chinese porcelain, or
any other semi-barbarous artistic work by the manufactures of
France and England are unsatisfactory for the same reason.
Reproduction of noble architecture after its creative spirit has
left the world is equally a failure. We cannot revive temples
and cathedrals, for we do not require them as the intense ex-
pression of our religion. Our love of them is the liking of the
amateur for whatever is artistically true and beautiful. Seeing no
prospect of a return to classical or mediaeval conditions of civili-
zation, either in Catholic or Protestant countries, I am persuaded
that moderns finally will limit their desires towards all such
edifices to preserving them as relics of a past forever gone, and
seek out for themselves something which shall, when perfected
in a correspondingly sincere and lovely manner, express their
own idealisms.
The reason why there can be no religious art in Protestant
countries, analogous to the old, is clear; but the dying out alto-
gether of that which only a few centuries ago was the great
glory of the Catholic faith is not distinctly seen, unless we look
into the aesthetic trickery by which the priesthood try to dis-
guise the truth. Their artifices once understood only make the
fact more obvious that religious art has died out in those lands
where it was first created, or else degenerated into mechanical
and lifeless, academic forms, worthless as to spiritual significance,
and in general valueless in an aesthetic sense, if not absolutely
repulsive, either from sensual effrontery or an affectation of sen-
timents which no longer inspire the artist. Some exception
there is in the labors of a few sincere men, like Flandrin
in France and Overbeck in Germany, who have attempted to
revive a genuine religious art, and of ecclesiastics who have
RELIGIOUS FEELING NOT EXTINCT. 139
enthusiastically labored, with partial success, to build Gothic
churches in the old fashion; but they have no weight with the
people at large, nor do they in any perceptible degree modify the
prevailing materialism of art and peoples. Religious feeling is
not, however, extinct. It simply changes its teacher and modes
of manifestation wherever free to act. Indeed, its convictions
become firmer as it grows less passionate and more enlightened.
But while Protestantism has been opposed to any aesthetic de-
velopment, Catholicism in the mean time has been dividing its
multitude into two classes — the profoundly ignorant and super-
stitious, and those imperfectly educated who doubt or disbelieve
altogether, but whose training impels them to a ritual conformity
that has no salutary effect on their souls, and in many instances
is only done when dying, from a latent fear that otherwise it
might go harder with them. Few have the consistent courage
of old Perugino, who refused absolution on his death-bed because
he wished to test the effect of leaving earth without taking the
last sacrament of the church to which he would not confide his
spiritual destinies. Like many others, he confused the acts of
the professors with the principles of Christianity, while his im-
agination was not likely to be affected by his own mercenary
handicraft. Some of his pictures have a touch of gross satire on
high personages in the celestial hierarchy, or else he was culpa-
bly indifferent to the rules of propriety in composition. An
artist is not prone to superstition or asceticism. Not only is his
profession favorable to intellectual liberty, but I mistrust that the
close attention to external nature inseparable from the modern
systems of art, like the kindred exigencies of physical science,
bias the mind towards materialism; at all events, to freethinking
or indifference as regards sectarianism. Exceptions of the Fra
Angelico type are uncommon, and due chiefly to idiosyncrasies
of temperament against which their artistic nature is in perpet-
ual struggle. The careers of the greatest of the old masters
prove that it is not necessary to be a bigot, or even what is
called a “professor” of religion, to execute religious art of a
high character. It was requisite, however, that they should
thoroughly comprehend its motives. This is a matter of intel-
lectual and emotional sympathy and appreciation, quite apart
from pure dogma, or that intensity of devotion which is the fruit
of enthusiastic faith. Some writers claim that religious art is
the exact reflection of the character and convictions of the artist,
and that his design and coloring have a greater symbolical than
140 TEMPERAMENT IN ART.
aesthetic intent. As well might we say that an actor should be
the original of his part in order to personate it properly. Both
artist and actor must be able to feel their subjects, and have
an executive capacity corresponding to their importance. Their
temperaments qualify their performances, sometimes in harmony
with inspiring motives, but often contrary to them. Few of
the great masters were rigid in their religious observances,
or scrupulous as to the stricter moralities. Raphael painted
the most glorious Madonna the world has seen, the spend-
thrift, scapegrace Sodoma the most lovely. Eve, Leonardo the
greatest composition of the most profound Sacramental mys-
tery, Albert Durer the most subtle allegories, and Michael
Angelo the most sublime Biblical scenes and personages, simply
because their imaginations were better able to conceive and
their hands to execute them than those of other men, irrespec-
tive of personal piety. At heart they were true men, highly
appreciative of life and the world around them, delightsome
tompanions, averse to bigotries and austerities, not inquisitive
as to speculative theology or tenacious of dogmas, but devoting
their entire energies to their aesthetic pursuits. He who won
the greatest fame for his Holy Virgins had the most exquisite
delight in the amorous love of woman. The fervid devotion ex-
pressed in Giotto's pictures is wonderful; but he joked somewhat
coarsely, according to our notions. Leonardo was the beau-
ideal of an accomplished, open-handed man of fashion, beloved
by beautiful women and noble men. Poor Albert Durer had
too much mundane worriment to find repose in an ideal spiri-
tual world. While Michael Angelo's religious like his political
opinions were earnest, they were not current with the Church
or his patrons. His austere isolation was caused by want of
congenial society and bodily infirmity.
Great mental power joined to well balanced sensuous and
moral faculties round off genius, and enable its possessor to do
noble work, in whatever direction he may be impressed. The
image of his subject is reflected in his imagination, as water re-
ceives and gives back whatever overshadows it. Execution or
style varies according to habits of thought and work; but if there
be a general equilibrium of brain and temperament, as with
Holbein, Leonardo, and Raphael, the artist can distinguish him-
self in whatever field he selects, while the spectator will find
greatest delight in that which best responds to his own mental
eondition. Universal masters have a lively joy in artistic work
CLOSE OF RELIGIOUS ART. 141
of every kind, religious or profane, idealistic, realistic, ascetic, sen-
suous, sensual, or even erotic. Their constant aim is consummate
and varied art, finding something aesthetically good in everything
God creates or permits. Hence they have a satisfaction for all
tastes. It is a one-sided, narrow criticism that condemns
Raphael for abandoning pure, religious art for classical, and
ascetic for sensuous or realistic motives, because, when called on
for them in the maturity of his genius, he showed himself greater
than ever. Greatness is best fulfilled by completeness. There-
fore he is greatest who displays the most varied capacity and
thoroughness. There are occasions when a great artist is
forced out of his legitimate course, and although producing mas-
terly, characteristic work, makes apparent his want of entire
sympathy with or perfect comprehension of his topic. We see
somewhat of this in the sacred compositions of the luxurious,
magnificent Titian ; those of the sensuous, sensitive Correggio ;
the cold-blooded academic electicisms of the Carracci and their
scholars; the devotional acerbities of the glowing, diaphanous,
but earthly-minded Murillo, and the more powerful designs of
the stronger, aristocratic Velasquez; in the vulgar types of the
religious art of the pleasure-loving, ambitious Rubens; in the
obtrusive coarsenesses and colored strength of the dramatic,
plotting Rembrandt; in the incoherent, sparkling eccentricities
of the solitude-loving egoist Turner; and in the extravagances
of the versatile, erratic Doré. Each of them manifests ineffec-
tual attempts to reduce fundamental qualities of mind and desire
to an orderly subjection to motives foreign to their instinctive
choice, or which were selected because of opportunity for some
coveted technical triumph.
The decay of devotional feeling in the public mind operated
to its destruction in art. With Raphael and his compeers the
career of religious art closed. Their distinguished successors
brought other fashions into vogue. The seductive, sensuous
schools they founded, prepared the way for those artificial, de-
based styles, fostered by a rococo taste, which in the end brought
art to its present wretched condition, or want of any condition
whatever, in Italy and Spain.
The connection between the so-called religious art Connection
of modern Catholicism and its spiritual condition of ...”
religious
mind is so intimate that I must speak of both in vir- lºº
art of a
tually the same terms. How much it can still affect people.
the individual, I will illustrate by a statement made to me by
142 IDENTITY OF PAGANISM AND CATHOLICISM.
an accomplished diplomat, educated by the Jesuits. His character
was an undisguised compound of wordly insincerity and naive
devotion strange to Protestant notions, but not singular in the
light of his theological training. With the usual inconsistency
between practice and theory of those most free with women, he
adored the Virgin as his special protective deity. So fervid at
times were his prayers to her image that he “saw her wink”
in approval. This was earnestly and frankly told as a fact
which edified him greatly. It is a fair sample of the kind of
hold the Roman Church keeps on cultivated minds, by training
them to see religion only through the avenues of Superstition
and idolatry.
The condition of Roman Catholic worship in Italy to-day is
not unlike that of paganism in its final decline. There has not
been a decisive line of ritual demarkation between them since
Christianity lost its early simplicity and sincerity. But the
Renaissance made it more than ever difficult to decide where
veritable Christian forms and ideas begin, and those of heathen-
ism end. Worship has hinged on the substitution of one set
of names and observances for others of a similar disposition,
rather than on a radical mental change. Criminal pagan cus-
toms were kept up long after the official establishment of the
new religion." As late as the fifth century the populace would
rush from the churches during divine service to secure the best
places in the circuses and amphitheatres before the games began.
Even now the masses readily could be led back to their old
rites and superstitions by the priests. Fifteen centuries in
their charge have left the populace, as respects knowledge and
habits, very much as it was in the times of the Caesars. Idola-
trous ceremonies and imposing pageants are still the common
features of a religion which discountenances thought, and favors
ignorance and despotism; which, controlling education, leaves
four in five of the population unable to read or write; which
opposes alike material prosperity and mental improvement in
the people; whose gifts are fresh canonizations and canons, an
increase of supernatural machinery that still further stultify and
degrade human intellect, or of a new dogmas barren of moral
benefit and repugnant to reason; additional inducements to idle-
ness and beggary; fresh taxes to keep whole communities of men
1 The worship of Apollo continued until A. D. 529, at Monte Cassino, although
it was the seat of a bishopric; his temple and altar being overthrown by St.
Benedict, when he founded a convent on their site.
MIS GOVERNMENT OF THE CHURCEI. 143
and women in soul-wilting isolations and avocations, the evils
of which are felt in every fibre of society; that extorts or be-
guiles wealth from industry to appropriate it to works which
carry with them no blessing, not even a wholesome use or com-
fort for the human species; ecclesiastical sumptuosities of build-
ing, and strutting in vain honor of a dead past and mocking
neglect of the living present; while to every prayer of humanity
for liberty to improve its condition at its own expense and volition
the vicar of Christ replies “ Non possumus.” What might not
Italy, the favorite of Nature, become if but one half the effort
that is given to keeping her wretched and ignorant was be-
stowed in making her happy and enlightened
The positive and negative misgovernment by church and
state, to which she has been long subjected, can only be rightly
understood by direct acquaintance with the people themselves.
Since the party of action has undertaken to work out a more
satisfactory civilization, instead of being chagrined by the short-
comings incidental to all new enterprise, I am astonished at the
good done in so little time, and disposed to trust to the enthu-
siasm of a reawakened national life for further progress. His-
torical associations mingled with aesthetic enjoyment and delight
in Italian scenery, not to speak of ecclesiastic and aristocratic
beguilements, so veil the land with romance that the American
mind, beyond all others, is disposed to overlook the chronic dis.
eases which consume the population. The picturesque or polite
may be a charitable masker; but often it is a cunning deceiver,
making gay and lovely on the surface what is filth and ruin un-
derneath.
To get the truth, our senses must be schooled to observe the
disagreeable quite as much as the agreeable. Civilization re-
quires its mean back door as well as stately front. Its first
fruits should be that personal modesty and cleanliness which is
ranked among the virtues next to godliness. When any clergy
make religion to consist in outward show and dumb conformity,
the inward graces have to shift for themselves. While the
greatest pains have been taken in Italy to cause the people to
worship the divinities of the new mythology and to pay “tithe
and cummin,” they have also been encouraged to act out their
animal and emotional natures. If premiums had been offered
for improvidence, untidiness, indolence, and shiftlessness, the re-
sults scarcely could have been worse. Habits, however disas-
trous to character and thrift, have passed unrebuked so long as
144 ITALY SYNONYMOUS WITH BEAUTY.
the people did not acquire the inconvenient one of thinking and
working for themselves.
The dark Italy is synonymous with beauty. But her loveli-
*** mess is associated with unmentionable filth and blatant
immodesty. No locality is too sacred, pleasant, or interesting
to be spared defilement, unless under vigilant surveillance or
quasi protected by the symbol of salvation, the most common
use of which now is, to scare away by an appeal to their super-
stitions those dirty-minded wretches who are inaccessible to direct
ideas of propriety. Even these crosses are not always able to
fulfil their sanitary and beneficent purposes. The condition of
public ways, ruins, and out-door sights in general prove that there
is no public disapprobation of their defilement, nor of the wan-
ton immodesty attending it, which puts human beings almost on
the footing of animals as regards bodily habits. If the rulers
and clergy had extended their toleration of the most offensive
nuisances to eye and nose, equally to freedom of mind, these
material evils, as in northern countries, would have been abated.
But it has been a more congenial occupation to amuse the pub-
lic with out-door fêtes, and get up tableaux and spectacles in
churches, than to preach cleanliness of mind and body, purify
the atmosphere, or elevate the moral and intellectual tone of
the community. I doubt if it ever occurs to those who could
reform the public manners that the present state of things is
not wholesome and proper.
What also are we to think of their neglect of duty in view
of the cruelty towards animals and pitiless massacre of the
smallest birds? The brutality exercised on horses makes it
painful to enter a public vehicle, the whips being the sole
reliance of drivers, who either stare in stolid astonishment at any
rebuke, or, momentarily acquiescing, politely hint that the re-
prover must be an eccentric fool.
Imagime the state of conscience where a mother in straitened
circumstances, who has deprived herself of necessaries of life
to educate an only son, after having secured him a petty clerk-
ship, cheerfully consents, as a natural and proper act, to be unrec-
ognized by her child in the street, lest her humble appearance
should compromise him with his companions !
Where priestly control is absolute, there ignorance and su-
perstition must abound. At Milicia, in Sicily, the peasantry
are taught to believe that whenever the Madonna goes out in
a procession, she has the power to stop before any house, and
ITALIAN MORALS. 145
refuse to move on until the inmates give her money. As for St.
Anthony, he burns the cabin of any peasant who neglects to
make him an offering on his féte, while the pious St. Francis
soundly thrashes those who fail in their vows to him. On the
other hand, the rural populations sometimes curse and imprison
the Mother of God, when their crops fail. Even in compara-
tively enlightened Tuscany, at Montevarchi, a short distance
from Florence, three drops of the milk of the Virgin are period-
ically exhibited, to be worshipped and to extort money. Some
religious teachers declare baths to be immoral. Girls, by them,
are forbidden to learn to write, lest they should correspond with
those to whom they are betrothed or with whom they are in love.
In a town not far from Naples, a Neapolitan assured me he could
not find one inkstand. An intelligent Italian of good position, on
being assured that what he was saying was not only untrue, but
a stupid lie, naively replied, “O, you English have such a preju-
dice for truth !” In a certain district of Sicily and perhaps
elsewhere, the deformed or maimed are viewed as cursed of God.
A blind gentleman of remarkable musical talents, to which he
owes his present independent position, born of a good family,
says that he was thrust out of it when a child, without resources
or instruction, while his sound brothers and sisters were reared
in luxury. Whenever the maternal instinct prompted his
mother to be kind to him, she always confessed it as a sin,
and prayed for forgiveness.
Among the lowest classes, old women are apt to be considered
as abominations. Instead of respect, age and sex too often in-
cite jests and abuse ; partly owing to the common dislike of
physical decay and dread of death, and in part because of the
inability of the victims to resent in kind. In points of aesthetic
and natural beauty, Florence is the queen of cities. Her
journals assert that the Italians are the most civilized of races.
Yet there is a degree of cowardly malignity in some of its popu-
lation which could scarcely obtain among savages. An elderly
woman of irreproachable character, whom I have known for
years in her humble but respectable avocation, on going recently
to one of the popular theatres and seating herself in the cheaper
places used indiscriminately by both sexes, was kicked on her
legs and otherwise maltreated in a sly way, accompanied by
obscene ridicule from the men about her, who immediately ex-
cused themselves like poltroons as soon as they ascertained that
her grandson was at hand. If she had been an apparently un-
10
146 ITALIAN FREETHINKING!.
protected girl the attentions would have been different but not
less insulting. There might be equal barbarism in a low Anglo-
Saxon audience, but the spectators, instead of enjoying it or
remaining quiet, would instinctively take the part of the weak;
at all events insist on fair play.
I admit and admire the current “gentilezza" of Italian man-
ners; still more the humility, respect for superiors, honesty, and
general good deportment of some of the “old school” peasantry,
trained in feudal habits. But this latter phase of character is
fast disappearing, and the former diminishing. In itself it is
only an aesthetic accomplishment, not necessarily reposing on
any moral foundation. In citing facts I adhere to those whose
evidence is incontestable and admitted by candid Italians them-
selves. They acknowledge that there is a higher standard of
justice, truth, and manhood, in Protestant than in Catholic
training, giving a conscience and independence to the one which
is unknown and unmissed in the other. While this difference
in moral education continues, the results on the national habits
must be what they are. Indeed, radical defects of character
and deficient intelligence seem not to be considered by the
priesthood as within their province to remedy, but any shifting
of the theological or political weathercock is watched with in-
tense anxiety. A symptom of the generally low moral con-
sciousness may be found in the application of the term for bad,
cattivo — in its derivative meaning, caught or found out, not evil,
as in English. A lie is popularly held to be the same as the
truth until detected. The social and religious foundations of
society being thus loose-jointed, it is not surprising that so much
suspicion and hypocrisy come to the surface. Freethinking
elsewhere is usually an honest conviction or doubt, and its
possessors live up to their ideas. Not so in Italy. Among the
better instructed there is slight belief in the actual dogmas of the
Church. Yet it is rarely the case that the most daring skeptic
in his last sickness does not reconcile himself to the priests.
Even the excommunicated Cavour so far forgot the principles
of his life, as to do so when dying. The reason is apparent.
At present there are no profound spiritual convictions, or prin-
ciples of duty to replace the worn-out ecclesiastical materialisms
into which the offices of the Church have degenerated, and to
dissipate the current Superstitions with their concomitant fear.
Nominal duties are fulfilled when an honorable place is given
at home to sacred images, and a deference shown them in public.
CLIMATE AND ART. 147
Nowhere are crucifixes and madonnas more common than in
haunts of vice, being viewed as talismans, to be reverenced or
scoffed, according as they are believed to favor the nefarious
pursuits of the inmates. Doubtless the Bible among the least
enlightened Protestants has a sort of fétish value, but there is
not a vicious person of any sect but would feel reproved by its
presence, nor one who would admit it into any scheme of wick-
edness. Such is the turpitude of conscience of the lowest Ital-
ian class, that they demand the sanction of their idols, especially
for brigandage, frequently proposing to share with them the
results of their crimes. It is a class, too, over which alone the
priesthood has influence. What, then, must have been the ex-
tent of their neglect of the primary obligations of their faith,
where these things existſ
Climate and art are mainly responsible for the ea.lſ
glamour of the Northern mind in regard to the the Northern
Southern. Probe its civilization, and its unsound- ſº
ness appears at once, especially as regards woman. *
She is either a pet or a laboring animal, but an animal al-
ways. I generalize, of course, permitting every reader to note
his own exceptions, as I do mine, but maintaining the sound-
ness of the conclusion as a whole. The peasant husband gives
his wife and daughters field labors as toilsome, often more so,
than he takes for himself, while whatever they may earn inde-
pendent of him, he disposes of. It is common to see the finer
organized sex doing the labors of draft-cattle, or carrying heavy
burdens, their male relatives meantime resting or playing games.
Italian men are not unkind at heart, only thoughtless and self-
ish in these respects; a deportment generated from the lees of
heathenism which the Church has never seriously set itself about
cleansing. Even its charities are sometimes so administered as
to pervert the moral instinct. Convenient foundling asylums
tempt parents who are not indigent or criminal to abandon their
offspring in their tender years, to be eventually reclaimed if it
be desirable : if not, left to destiny. What that often is, may
be conjectured from the soubriquet of Herod the Great, given
to a superintendent of the principal institution of this nature
in one of the chief cities.
So-called gallantry may gild the manners of the men of the
higher classes toward women, but this specious devotion comes
from and is directed towards the animal in both. There is an
antranslatable freedom of expression in society, connected with
148 LOW STATE OF WOMEN.
elegant manners, which betokens a lack of moral sensitiveness.
Journals of repute publish tales or feuilletons in series, which
can scarcely be excelled in grossness of sensualism, direct and
indirect, and would not be tolerated in English or American
families. There is, too, a latitude in the use of religious terms
that grates upon Protestant ears, but which the euphony of the
language so mitigates or covers up after the first surprise; the
ear delighting in what the moral sense would reject. Piazza
Santo Spirito or Via dall’Inferno, sound differently from Holy
Ghost Square or Hell Street, independent of associations; but
an Anglo-Saxon would hesitate at such a use of words, embody-
ing the most profound mysteries of his creed. In fact, North-
ern and Southern ideas of decency and propriety vary as much
as the climates: the one being based more on the moral, and
the other on a conventional sense. At heart, the “jewnesse dorée”
of all countries are much alike, but I believe they have yet in
America or England to accustom themselves in their orgies to
be waited on by naked girls; or that any fashionable coterie of
those countries, fast as their fastest women may be in their
manners, would dare, as has been done in Italy, to give a ball
at which complete nudity, with the exception of a mask to the
face, was the condition of admittance. I have heard such an
one described by a high-bred lady, as a novel and interesting
affair. The “cancan * too, is sometimes danced by a select
circle of aristocratic amateurs.
But the low status of women in the eyes of the men is often
manifested in the public streets by the middle classes, who are
guiltless of the vices of the aristocracy, and mean well, but are
so obtuse as not to be conscious of their rudeness. They
evidently are brought up to consider that a woman alone has
no rights a man is bound to respect. I have seen an Amer-
ican lady rudely forced, by a well-dressed man, to take the
outside, as a carriage was rapidly passing in a crowded, narrow
thoroughfare, by which she had a very narrow escape from be-
ing run over, and the only excitement it created was an oath
from the driver, and astonishment from her assailant, that any
woman should dare to be in their way.
On another occasion, while raining, a lady tried to pass a
man lazily seated in a doorway, with his limbs occupying the
sidewalk. To avoid soiling herself in the gutter, she pushed
gently by him. He screamed after her such obscene abuse, as
would have caused him to have been lynched in America, wind-
D OMESTIC SYSTEM. 149
ing up with, “if she was his mistress, she would not have dared
take such a liberty with him.”
There is also the well-known numerous class of men, young
and old, who dog women that have the courage to go out by
themselves on any errand, sometimes from sheer lewdness, but
often out of puerile mischief, ejaculating silly compliments, or
hissing foulness in their ears.
These and similar traits, which every traveller may witness,
evince the low estimation in which woman is still held in Italy,
and sometimes cause the Anglo-Saxon mind to come into indig-
nant collision with the Latin, to its surprise, because of the
different moral view, or want of one, peculiar to it. Neither
fine art nor a lovely climate compensates for this social condition.
And there can be no improvement unless young Italy learns
that woman has something else in her nature besides the an-
imal. How hopeless any immediate change for the better
seems to the best youth, can be known only on discussion with
them. Even when admitting the superiority of the Anglo-
Saxon training, they declare they would not trust their own sis-
ters or wives with the slightest liberty. The domestic system
is one of exclusion, seclusion, and repression; stagnating to the
mind, but stimulating to desire and imagination, with degrading
consequences to both sexes, and all the worse because of the
want of those intellectual resources, which largely obtain
throughout England, Germany, and America. The notions
that still govern the domestic status of the women of Latin
races, are largely infiltrated with Oriental ideas of isolation and
indifference to mental development.
Every observant traveller notes the vacant stare, and appar-
ent mental impotency of the multitude of aged persons of both
sexes, especially in Florence; a stolidity of brain caused by the
prevailing disuse of the intellectual functions. The mind ac-
tually shrivels from lack of wholesome exercise.
Southern races are more temperate and tractable than North-
ern. Their vices are more insidious and wide-spread, but their
deportment in general less violent and brutal. Civilization has
had them longer in hand. Roman Catholicism having shown
its indisposition to reform and educate, we should rejoice in the
progress of the popular reaction, even if its first aspect is
seemingly hostile to the state religion. When criminal, it de-
serves harsher treatment than even political misgovernment,
because of its spiritual power and assumptions. In the towns
150 A MOJOERN “ PA G U.S.”
its influence is more shaken than in the country. I have been
in a great church in one of the chief cities during the festival
of the patron saint, and despite fine music and decorations found
only five worshippers, where five thousand would have found
space. Paganism lingered long in the rural districts, dying so
imperceptibly that the peasants to this day do not know what
true Christianity requires of them. “Pagus,” the verbal par-
ent of pagan and paganism, meant a village, which was their
last haunt. Just as paganism died out, longer lived in the
fields than the streets, so will the papal worship, before the
newer interpretations of Christianity, initiated by Protestant-
ism, and more practically applied to human welfare.
A sketch of a nineteenth century pagus, one of the
many thousands of the direct descendants of those
of paganism, which are to be seen throughout Italy and Sicily,
will show how the bulk of their peasantry still live. Take, for
instance, one of the petty hill-towns in the old province of
Lucca, which overhang the Baths. Here the population has
ever been devoted to the Church, and owing to the numerous
summer visitors, seen somewhat of foreign life, had a ready
market for their labor and crops, and is exceptionally genial,
simple, and industrious. No country can show better raw-stuff
for civilization. The Italian peasant often possesses a fine
mental grain and rare susceptibility of refinement. How far
the “healing of nations,” as administered by the priesthood,
has elevated their material and intellectual condition above that
of their pagan ancestry, we may gain some idea from present
facts, which do not vary substantially from the old, while one
village is pretty much a type of all, though the poverty and
misery of many have reached their lowest stage. Guliana,
called after Julius Caesar, is a better specimen than common;
the triple Controni one of the worst.
The approach is by steep foot-paths, winding among vine-
yards, olive groves, chestnut and oak forests, over hill-sides,
broken and tossed into romantic wildness, every step offering a
fresh view, and turning fatigue into exhilaration with each
breath of mountain air. Goats beloved of Pan, donkeys of
Bacchus, grape-laden peasants, lithe maidens in scant drapery,
with antique water-jars poised on their heads, venting their
light-heartedness in wild cries, and their heavily laden mothers,
sad and silent, but ever prompt with a courteous greeting for
the stranger, make a novel spectacle for an American. Near
“A pagus.”
NATURE OF THE PICTURESQUE, 151
and distant bells of feudal church-towers call to each other,
now in exulting cadence from high crags, sending their sil-
very notes through the sun-setting air, then dying softly
away in shadowy valleys into melodious whispers, as if guar-
dian spirits were bidding mortals good-night, before mounting
to heaven. Soon we reach heights overspread with an atmos-
phere of dissolved opal. Thence appear ridge behind ridge of
mountains in softened purple outline against a golden horizon,
retreating into the mysterious depths of the Apennines, as waves
after a storm subside into long, lazy swells, broken at intervals
by one that frets its indignant foam into cataracts of color
against the rebuking sky.
Before this spectacle, the visitor who comes only to 1,
* * e 7tat1tre
find the picturesque, will scarcely turn aside to look of the pic-
at its reverse. My theme demands both views. “
Here the picturesque being twin of wretchedness, the aesthetic
faculty is gratified while the moral sense makes its practical
investigations. I fear that ruin or decay of human work and
life, as opposed to comfort and progress, is the essential element
of the picturesque. Nature puts on this asthetic disguise, to
reconcile us to her rudely rapid growth or quiescent, long-
breathed revolutions. Antique and mediaeval art had no ob-
jective recognition of it, for their idealisms were of human and
superhuman types. By no elasticity of imagination can we
make man himself, apart from his background of Nature, into a
picturesque object. The imperious individuality of his living
presence eliminates its spirit from art. Picturesqueness is a
modern aesthetic discovery, that comes from a descent of the
mind in its standard of appreciation rather than a rise. The
antique ideal was the superhuman beautiful. The mediaeval
ideal was the supernatural human ; in one case man was made
a god, in the other God was made man, each yielding a sublime
creative art. Renaissance transformed the sensuous loveliness
of the former and the spiritual beauty of the latter into a
bestial ideal ; or a direct confession of sensualism as the foot-
hold of man's faith. There could be no picturesqueness in this
any more, indeed even less, than in the others, for wantonness
is a lewd ape, and detests alike the spiritual sublime and the
natural comely.
Ancient science was speculative, just as antique art was imag-
inative. Modern science plants itself on rationalism, drawing
art after it into the simple phase of observation. Mark
152 ITALIAN PEASANT LIFE.
how distinct their life essences are Briefly, modern art being
more versatile and diversified in its taste, fonder of what is am-
biguously termed nature, adheres to a lower range of motives
and treats them either in a picturesque or realistic manner, con-
tented to be pretty or true. Hence its tendency is to lower
man as an art motive, just as antiquity was prone to the oppo-
site. What man for the moment loses, nature gains. The new
field of taste is both attractive and wholesome, but it should not
cause indifference to the real welfare of our species. Pic-
turesqueness then becomes a siren beguiling art into a theory of
dilettante excitements and technical appreciations, disennobling
to character and belittling to the fancy. For this reason I put
the love of the picturesque into its proper secondary position as
regards art, and as an antidote to my own disposition to over-
regard it, introduce a pagus to my readers.
Imagine a few score rude stone hovels huddled together, after
the universal air and light excluding patterns of the old cities,
only more shrunken, grimy, and weather-racked, low-studded,
heavy-roofed, few or no panes of glass, the stone stairs mostly
on the outside; rooms small, dark, and bat-like ; blackened rafters
and tiles overhead, and underneath dilapidated stone floors; pig-
geries, henneries, stables, and human slum, all mixed up and in
common use; put rows of these habitations on sharp hill-sides,
grown like lichens to the rock, and forming lanes or tiny
squares so close that only a mid-day sun can lighten their re-
cesses, each a den of dirt and penury, or if there be any
of better outside, comfort in the interior does not match it;
add the reeking filth of an unwashed population, where water is
often far-fetched and hard to get ; a perennial diet of sour wine,
black bread, green oil, coarse beans and salads, often scanty at
that ; find as the centres of this village life, a café which is an
air-tight chillsome cell, containing a few bottles, tumblers, and
the omnipresent tobacco, pipes, salt, and postage stamps of gov-
ernmental monopoly ; a clean patched up church may be on the
site, and heir to the remains of a heathen temple, or, as at Asissi,
the old temple itself, with its primitive altar of sacrifice still to
be seen by descending a few feet beneath the level of the pres-
ent piazza, showing that one has not to scratch deep anywhere
in papal soil to disinter paganism; a church that fits aesthetically
well into the material degradation around it, limiting its spiritual
gifts to its venerable routine of festivals and masses, but keep-
ing alive, in the stunted human heart, a divine spark which other-
A YANKEE VILLAGE. 153
wise might entirely go out in the intellectual darkness that
comes of complete isolation from the world at large; a literature
limited to church-prayers, marvels of Saints, an almanac, and
sometimes one Lilliputian newspaper from the nearest city; a
people of whom the old are prematurely woe-begone and de-
crepit, body and mind worked and starved to the verge of ex-
tinction ; the young with their parents’ hardships for their sole
inheritance; life for all a horrid enchantment of profitless, ill fed,
badly sheltered toil; death only presenting a ghastly hope of
betterment, provided the ecclesiastical power that broods with
raven-wings over this desolation be propitiated to say God speed:
combine all this into one picture and it will be an average sample
of the last strongholds of the papacy in Italy, made the more piti-
able by its exquisite setting of the handiwork of God. Pan is
verily dead, and Christ has not risen here.
May not the picturesque cost humanity too much There is
none in a Yankee or his home. Instead, angularity and thrift
abound. He and his comfort are as much the fruit of two cen-
turies of Puritan culture as the Italian peasant and his destitu-
tion are the sum total of papal gestation after fifteen. The
Yankee is not yet the ideal man of humanity; far from it. He
lacks aesthetic roundness and juiciness. Breadth, expansion, the
gracious refinement of true taste, amenity of manners, and com-
prehension of the right place and object of the beautiful in civ-
ilization, come slow and hard to him ; for his ancestors were too
recently Teutonic or Saxon barbarians, while his own exigencies
of existence have been of necessity desperately utilitarian and
homely. Besides, his actual civilization only began after the
Reformation had put art under a dogmatic ban, and made him
suspicious of it altogether. Wisely, it has happened to him that
first he was led to improve himself morally and materially.
Having secured his political and personal independence, made
an orderly and comfortable home, built his school and meeting-
houses, lecture-rooms, music-halls, and libraries, connected his
village by railway and telegraph with the whole world, sub-
scribed for his literary magazine and news journal, abolished
slavery in man and put steam to do his hardest labor, provided
for his general well-being and secured his income, let us hope he
will now begin to give over his one-sided intensity of intellec-
tual training and look about for means to make his life more
spiritually productive and aesthetically happy. His two centu-
ries of axe and school work are a Sound investment. Fifteen
154 WHAT CHRISTIANITY HAS DONE.
centuries' misrule have left his Italian brother a beggar as to the
first necessaries of civilization, incapacitated him from rightly
enjoying what Nature has so generously given him gratis, and
of comprehending and rightly directing the fine aesthetic tem-
perament native to his race. Such has been the delinquency
of his church as regards his education, that at last the civil
power has been compelled both to undo what it has done, and
to do what it has left undone, so that his welfare now rests
more upon the action of the state than his religious instructors.
It has turned convents into barracks, schools, asylums, hospitals,
and museums; compelled idle and vagrant nuns and monks to be-
come normal men and women ; broken up many sources of beg-
gary and superstition, and finally by the intervention of the drill-
sergeant given to the village clowns their first lessons in manliness,
neatness, sanitary discipline, general intelligence. As the soldier
proves to be a better schoolmaster than the priest, it is not sur-
prising that the Church is losing its influence even over the
masses, while intelligent men are hopeless of any reform within
itself. Won possumus cuts two ways at once.
What the Although the priests have left so much undone,
§..... Christianity itself has not been quite inert. A moral
compºsed upheaval has been going on since the Crucifixion.
The outlook of humanity is different. Certain old rites and vir-
tues are now called vices and indecencies. It is not considered
right to plunder or enslave a man because he speaks another
language, or lives on the further side of a river or mountain ;
although the custom is still rife among Tuscan bumpkins of dif-
ſerent villages of waylaying one another when they go a-wooing,
and either savagely beating or bedaubing with human ordure
from head to foot the unfortunate swain whose amorous courage
has prompted him to risk the penalty of courting a lass of a
rival hamlet. As this filthy persecution ends at marriage, the
lover makes haste to transform the sweetheart into his wife.
Roman priests may do silly and imbecile things, but they would
not now be upheld by public sentiment, as in the antique Luper-
cals, in running races naked through the streets, and striking those
they met with whips of goatskin, the blows of which were received
with great unction by married women because supposed to pro-
mote fertility. Even in the third century A. C., human sacri-
fices were continued on the Albine Mount to the Latian Jupiter.
In modern times the Roman Catholic Church has felt obligated
to veil its blood-offerings by dogmatic chicanery and inquis-
TEIE COUNTRY PRIEST. 155
itorial offices. The riotous rites of Cybele, “Virgin Mother of
the God,” with their processions of “miserable buffoons,” as St.
Augustine calls them, chanting indecent verses before her image,
are now succeeded by the chaster though not less idolatrous
worship of the Madonna. In fine there has been some moral
progress, but not enough to save Romanism from the fate of the
unfaithful steward.
I have personal cause of sympathy in its approach- #ºnal
ing dethronement, as will be seen in the narration of ºpacy.
sundry experiences, and reasons for deprecating any sudden
violence to the feelings of the rural population. If the papal,
like the pagan worship, is abruptly destroyed, before a superior
system of religious instruction is rooted in the convictions of the
people, they will be left in utter aesthetic and mental destitu-
tion. The peasant would lose the slight hold that he has on
civilization, and be reduced in his hopes and pleasures to the
level of his cattle. His theatre, music-hall, and school-room are
still centred in the Church, which provides his only entertain-
ments while living and consolation in dying. Defective as is
its practical training, it preserves precious germs of religion and
morality. But there can be no enlightened, patriotic clergymen
where the public opinion is not sufficiently instructed to be a
judge of their qualifications and a stimulus to their intellectual
progress. A country priest in Italy may be well-intentioned
and of average culture, but he must be more than human, if his
isolation, deprivation of family ties, dull routine of rites and
neglect of preaching, do not in time cause a decline of his moral
and intellectual state almost to the surrounding level.
In America a clergyman is exercised to keep up with the
mental requirements of his congregation. If he fall behind,
sometimes if he get too far ahead, he is exchanged for another.
Our competitive brain attrition compels the clergy either to face
the living age about them, or to drop behind into the oblivion of
effete ideas. Here, on the contrary, their discipline and training
force the priests to turn their backs on the present. They live
in perpetual contradiction to its spirit and needs, as a distinct
class, owing allegiance to a hostile court, disclaiming responsi-
bility to their own feeders, and inclined by unwise vows to sex-
ual relations that have given rise to the common saying, “as bad
as a priest.” The falsities they are required to invent and pro-
claim, are enough in themselves to stultify the mind. A health-
ful action of brain and body becomes equally as impossible as
156 A CHURCH PAGEANT.
a congenial association of ideas and interests with modern pro-
gress.
The original sin of this wrong practice and position is not to
be laid to the charge of the inferior clergy. They are con-
scripted to do the work of their ecclesiastical lords. The evil
has passed so thoroughly into all phases of society that improve-
ment has become hopeless except by radical changes of religious
and aesthetic instruction. What the present system is I will
show by citing one of those periodical pageants, to be seen in
their primitive idolatry only among the peasantry. The scene
occurred in a hill-town on the outskirts of the Tuscan Ma-
remma. Its motive was a miraculous crucifix of hideous aspect
which was believed to heal diseases, and perform other acts
much to the credit of the priests who owned it. But so sacred
was it considered that it was exposed in public procession only
once in seventeen years, or on occasions of calamity, when its
Supernatural power was a last resource of superstition. Its féte
was the most important event that could happen to the neigh-
borhood. Bands of music were sent for, fireworks provided,
booths erected, and a regular trading, feasting, and religious ju-
bilee prepared. Men, women, and children in their gala attire
came from all the country round, beggars to forego for a brief holi-
day their monotonous whine, cripples to be healed, and all to
accept the proffered “indulgences.” The crowd followed in
procession, or kneeled in the hot, dusty road, strewn with green
leaves and flowers, along which the image was borne under a
gaudy canopy surrounded by lighted candles, held by richly
robed priests chanting and swinging censers, and the usual mob
of laymen and dirty boys greedy after the wax-drippings, all
tumultuous with anticipated enjoyment. In Rome and cities in
general, spectacles of this sort are mainly shows to attract stran-
gers and amuse the populace. Here however there was a deep
undercurrent of fanatical enthusiasm. Although standing re-
spectfully apart from the crowd, a stranger was savagely re-
proved for not joining in the homage to their idol. In the lively
pleasuring that ensued after the religious functions were finished,
there were no drunken excesses or disturbances. The entire
population had given itself over to the Church to be amused
and edified as it thought expedient for them. Their plan was
not calculated to enlighten their understanding, or to make the
people more self-reliant. But it marked a bright spot in their
impoverished lives, and stirred anew their sluggish emotions.
DUOMO OF CORTONA. 157
Would it be wise to forcibly deprive them even of such enter-
tainment before they had acquired an insight into something of
a more salutary character 24
Is it simply a desire to oblige, or a growing indif. pion, of
ference to their own rites, that makes the subordinates Cortona.
in many Italian churches so amiable to visitors ?
Going into the Duomo of Cortona, one Sunday morning, to
keep an appointment with the sacristan to see the Signorellis, I
found high mass going on in presence of a numerous auditory.
As I was turning back, the Sacristan perceived me, and insisted
on my seeing the paintings. It was necessary to pass through
the entire congregation and by the priests at the altar, which I
was reluctant to do, especially with a party. But wishing to test
to what extent sight-seeing under such circumstances would be
not seen by the clergy and their flock, we followed our guide
and were unnoticed except by an occasional furtive glance.
Strangers are rare in Cortona; but the magnetism of politeness
and devotion combined, caused a sobriety of deportment which
would not be looked for in any Protestant meeting-house if
anything equally novel should occur to excite the attention of its
pew-pent members. We were speedily made to feel that we
could go on with our business as freely as the priests with
theirs. To better inspect the principal picture, the sacristan
told us to climb the rear of the high altar, amid the candlesticks
and sacred ornaments, mass going on meanwhile in front. This
looked so much like abusing our privileges that we declined ;
but he set the example, and made a path for us. We enjoyed
our position without receiving one reproving glance or being
noticed in any way.
On another occasion, to avoid intrusion, I went early to the
Church of St. Francis at Arezzo, to study the frescoes of Piero
1 Notwithstanding his firm habits of devotion, the common Italian at times
will play pranks with church-rites such as Protestant levity would never devise
against anything held sacred. Not long since there was to be a grand festival
in one of the minor seaports, ending in a procession of chanting monks, music,
candles, and images, got up with all possible splendor and solemnity, but pre-
ceded by a feast which the populace were admitted to view as the dishes were
placed on the tables. A wag among them slyly dropped a large dose of jalap
into the soup, which was consumed in due time. As the reader may surmise,
after the procession had started on its long round, there were exhibited by its
tonsured and robed members a series of impromptu and involuntary spectacles
wholly uncanonical, to the astonishment and diversion of the crowd. The
sufferers charitably attributed their abdominal distress to the use of copper
vessels not properly tinned.
158 WESTMINSITER ABBFY.
della Francesca in the choir. But the friars soon began to
enter, and pray close to me. As I started to go, they begged me
not to mind them, but to consult my own convenience, offering
sundry explanations of the subjects, of which, however, they
knew but little, and could appreciate artistically still less. The
invitation was so sincerely given that I stayed in their midst
while they went on with the regular services for which they had
collected. I must not forget to add that they also adjusted the
light to the best advantage for me; and the next moment, ab-
sorbed in their devotions, no more heeded my presence than if
I had been one of the painted figures on the wall. In the
main nave I had met the day before a young priest as handsome
as an angel, sweeping the pavement. Attracted by his intelli-
gent expression, I entered into conversation with him on matters
of art. Leaning on his broom-handle with unconscious grace
and dignity, his remarks caused me to respect his taste as much
as the high-toned humility, which made his lowly task seem
spiritually great.
Here there is an odious contrast to draw to the disadvantage
of our English relations. Once, being near Westminster as a
storm was bursting over London, I sought refuge in the Abbey.
The sudden transition from the tempest without to the peace
within made it seem like the holy rest saints pray for. Morn-
ing service was dying out in Solemn tones of organ. The angry
thunder, pacified by its passage through the fretted stone roof,
fell on the ear with harmonious cadence, and spent itself in low
whispers amid the silent monuments, while the sharp lightning,
as it leaped from out the cloud-glooms, pierced the stained win-
dows with intensified glory. Never had I so completely realized
the worth of the true Gothic as a shelter from the world, and a
balm for the troubled soul. My gratitude went then and there
freely up to those who had bestowed on man so precious a gift;
their souls, I trusted, were realizing in the perfect mansions of
our common Father the fulness of that spiritual gladness of
which their labors below are a faint type.
Seeking to enter the Edward VIIth Chapel, as usual I was
confronted by an iron gate and a stout verger, who, like a jailer
speaking to a convict, told me to wait while a crowd collected
and paid their fees in advance, and then he would show us
through. Former experiences of the boors of his class scamper-
ing their sixpenny victims through a spectacle which can only
be enjoyed by contemplation at leisure, had so disgusted me
WESTMINSTER ABBAEY. 159
that I had invariably left, cursing the British supineness which
permitted their finest ecclesiastical edifice to be a mockery in-
stead of an edification to the public, as its rare monuments are
called off in rapid cockney speech, like the names and habits
of caged beasts by a vulgar showman. Indeed, I had had hasty
words with my wife for suggesting to me again to undergo this
aesthetic outrage. I remember indignantly saying that it was
countenancing a direct robbery of the American and English
public, whose ancestors had bequeathed this monument for our
free edification, and that it effectually barred our seeing and un-
derstanding what we paid to see and understand. However, we
tried it once more, in a crowd of pushing children and women
struggling to be foremost, and get out soonest, for which I did
not blame them. After our keeper had counted us and then
his sixpences to see that they agreed, he began in the most
offensive manner to race us through in the “going, going, gone *
habit of speech of an auctioneer, sharply rebuking any who lin-
gered to see what he was talking about, scolding the children,
apparently terribly agitated lest some one should read an in-
scription or look at anything but his swelling person, as in a
pompous madhouse style he murdered the Queen's English,
history, and art all at once. So rapid was he that he overtook
the party that had preceded ours, and we had the benefit of his
brother verger's jargon mingled with his. One blunt English-
man showed fight, and told him, as he was paid for it, he must
behave with more decency. As for ourselves, we got out as
soon as we could, vowing more indignantly than ever not again
to enter the chapel unless the verger nuisance was abated.
Guides elsewhere may be as greedy, but never as brutal as him
of the Abbey. Why cannot the Chapter charge a shilling en-
trance, and permit the visitors to examine their museum without
being badgered by their flunkeys into an unchristian state of
mind. Is it that their system is so uniquely bad that they take
pride in making it a “vested right?”
How different are the rencounters in Italy | Discovering
genuine men concealed in cowls begets a romantic sympathy
for their orders. Exploring lately the suppressed Convent of
Monte Uliveto, near Florence, I chanced upon its last Bene-
dictime occupant, left as the temporary guardian of its forlorn-
ness. He was a cultivated, comely, clean monk of aristocratic
bearing and sensuous temperament. As he talked about his
speedy return to family life, art, and politics, I detected in the
160 CHURCH LAZZARONI.
lurking satire of a bright, sagacious eye that which would soon
reconcile him to worldly cares and ambition. Taking me out
of the mysterious darkness of the convent into the declining
sunlight, which revealed the city as in a golden flame shooting
skyward against a background of purple hills, he seemed like
the genius of fresh, young Italy, casting behind him the dead
past to rejoice in the vital present. Guides like the courteous
Benedictine and the more spiritual monk of St. Francesco are
not to be bought with dirty sixpences. Indeed, to hint at a
recompense for their politeness is only to invite mortification for
want of perception.
There is, however, a class of church lazzaroni who do try the
temper and purse of the visitor. I confess to pitying them
after coming to know something of their abject lot. Cease,
friends, to grudge their importunity the small pittance that
makes them happier for meeting you. They clean the rich
pavements you walk over, and dust your favorite pictures. Two
types I have in mind, one of Arezzo, the other of Siena, no
matter what church, for the poor are ever about us. Both were
absolute hags in outward appearance. The former installed
herself as my body-guard against the rest of beggardom, and
facilitated inspection of the monuments, besides letting me behind
the scenes of her life. Her golden days had been spent in the
service of Perugino in his native Citta della Pieve, when it was
the fashion to admire him. Visitors and coppers were plentiful.
But the taste of tourists finally got surfeited on that form of
preraphaelite diet, and she was obliged to change her quarters
for those of some other artist more in request. For her sins
she had hit on Arezzo, where she was now worse off than ever.
But her patience and hope were inexhaustible, while her content-
ment was a lesson to me.
A stranger in Italy must submit to beggary of all degrees of
genuineness and imposition, as an unavoidable element of the
picturesque. It is best to turn it to advantage, since it cannot
be repressed. The mendicants that herd in the Piazza of the
Duomo at Pisa are perversely obtrusive, but not without a
sense of honor. Before entering the cathedral, I assembled
them, and asked how much they would demand not to speak to
me again that day. After some consultation, they named a sum
which gave each less than one cent. I paid it and they held
scrupulously to their bargain, much to my comfort as I saw
their importunate exhibition of rags and sores to others.
RAZZI’S EPIPHANY. 161
My Siena friend let me into a secret as regards church-pay
worth all the sympathy she extracted. She had attached her-
self to Razzi's picturesque Epiphany, with its Joseph jealously
Scowling at the youngest of the kings, who is more ardently ad-
miring the mother than the infant, a magnificent painting, the
drawing of whose curtain ought to relieve any one in pitiable
circumstances. But, alas, it does not As she phrased it, for
breaking her back and scrubbing her scant flesh down to the
bones in keeping the church clean, and moving about the heavy
“roba " for the frequent festivals, she received an annual salary
of exactly three dollars and sixty cents, four dinners of meat
and wine, and a bread-and-water diet the remainder of the time.
On this and Razzi she lived, but her receipts from him had to be
divided with a superior custode, who watched her so closely that
she dared not except a single centime for herself exclusively.
Her patched garments, coeval with her first womanhood, would
have made excellent relics of the holiest of the female anchor-
ites. All the men that she knew, she detested ; the priests be-
cause of her salary, the custode for filching her gains, and her
husband for threatening to kill her if she left her present posi-
tion in uncertain quest of a better. Her sole love was a cat
who shared her bread and water, watched the picture and her
visitors, and was rewarded by torrents of kisses from a withered
mouth, which it bore with resignation, as philosophers submit to
fate. She reckoned it a happy event that after waiting months
in vain for strangers to call upon her “old master,” on that day
and the one before several had come. There was an excusable
bitterness in her estimate of life, as she eat her meagre dinner
sitting on the chilling marble floor, embracing her cat in the in-
tervals of her conversation.
If my reader wishes an agreeable flavor of mediæ- Hºnias, of
val monasticism to abide permanently in his mind, like *.
that of a rich old wine on his palate, let him go to the Hermitage
of Gallicano, twelve carriage and three pedestrian miles from the
Baths of Lucca, following the valley of the Serchio. The walk-
ing part of the trip is up a picturesque valley. We enter it
where the romantic old town of Gallicano rises abruptly on either
side of the narrow gorge through which flows the stream that
comes down the hills, divided into fertilizing rills, and giving to
the vegetation an almost tropical luxuriance of green. About
half-way up the Apennines, whose backbone here crests the
Mediterranean, and grows into one with the white Carrara
II
162 HERMITA GE OF GALLICANO.
mountains, we come suddenly upon the Hermitage, clinging
to the hollow of an overhanging precipice, fringed with forest
trees, and ferns that droop over its extreme verge. So slight
is the apparent foothold, we marvel how it hangs there, and by
what way to approach it. But in advancing, the path discloses
itself until the outer gate is reached, where streams of crystal
water, too cold to drink suddenly, gush from the rock out of
which the Hermitage for the most part is excavated. The nar-
row, sloping ledge on which it stands, formed by fallen débris,
seems scarcely sufficient to sustain the antique Romanesque fa-
çade, forming a two-storied corridor and bell-tower, which lean
or brace themselves against the precipice, to prevent sliding
bodily down the hill, Solid structures, however, make the archi-
tecture secure, though so steep and sudden is the descent, broken
at first by a series of stone terraces, upholding patches of culti-
wated soil, that a visitor, seated in the upper corridor, seems
like a bird in a cage hung against a high wall midway between
ground and sky; projecting eaves keeping it in dark shadow,
while far beneath lie the sunlight, waters, flowers, and fruits it
pines to reach. The sensation is peculiarly novel, for the view
commands a variety of the grand and beautiful, under local
conditions so startling as all but to mingle fear with pleasure.
At first sight of the immense mass of rock, split and fractured
by former catastrophes of nature, rising concavely hundreds
of feet above, and projecting over the building, and the steep
gulf that descends for fifteen hundred feet directly beneath, so
that a mere foot wall alone prevents the visitor from seeing the
first descent of the ground, one may plead guilty to nervous ap-
prehension. Soon, however, the strangeness of the spectacle,
coupled with the thought that for more than eight centuries her-
mits have lived here in friendship with the formidable mountain
— indeed protected, warmed, fed, and sheltered by it—tranquil-
lizes the mind to a degree that makes it begin to envy them their
lot. No repulsive asceticism is seen hereabouts. Theirs was
the sylvan picturesqueness of anchoret life. They were placid
Christian satyrs, vegetarians, praying as their antique prototype
piped, working as he danced, but, like him, appreciative amateurs
of an equable climate, delicious groves, fountains, and whatever
makes the landscape agreeable. There were no noxious animals
or reptiles to molest them. A more agreeable outlook on the
external world, none might pine for. On the farther side of the
Serchio rose the Lucca Apennines, crowned with forests, villas,
HERMITA GE OF GALLICANO. 163
and feudal towns, the most prominent of which, Bari, was dis-
tinctly in sight on its verdant mountain site, with its white walls
and grand old Lombard Duomo glistening in the sun like a dia-
mond set in emeralds. In front were high peaks and ravines
of a semi-alpine character. By ascending their own mountain
to the pass that led westward, these hermits could see much of
the glory of the earth and the kingdoms thereof. A semicircle
of snow-tipped mountains spreads itself right and left, until
lost in the distant horizon, or sunk in the sea which washes
the sands from the Gulf of Spezzia to the towers of Livorno.
Between the Mediterranean and the spectator lie the scattered
fragments of once hostile duchies, fertile in olives, vines, and
grain, still bristling with the grim defences of more barbarous
days. All this and more glory the shabby hermits were heir
to, but I doubt if they ever gave it a moment's consideration;
for to recognize nature understandingly, requires an aesthetic
sense and spiritual discernment that anchorites, pedants, or
mere worldlings are not apt to possess. Doubtless, our shorn
and girdled ascetic found an infinite satisfaction in his labori-
ously built terraces, with their few inches of uncertain soil
which bore him the fruit and vegetables he liked. They were
now bright with flowers and oranges, arranged in a tiny parterre,
after the formal Italian manner, but very welcome in color for
the brilliant contrast they offered to the gray sternness of the
precipice. A lank fig-tree, bearing a solitary fruit, had forced
its way into the air out of the smutty crevice which served as
the chimney to the kitchen. Its shrivelled, soot-covered trunk
was pointed out as a sort of vegetable miracle protected from
the fire, and nourished by the odor of sanctity that clove to the
spot, despite its secularization. The edifice itself grew sympa-
thetically out of the rock. Its chapels and dormitories were
light and clean, if not cheerful. The young canon who hospi-
tably entertained us, said that one aged hermit was left; but as
he was then in the forest gathering fuel, we did not see him.
Our canon's rock-cell had a piano, plenty of orthodox books, and
Sundry mild works of art, all quite unanchorite in aspect. There
were plainer chambers for visitors, beside an unalluring woman
to wait on them. We ate our picnic dinner in the upper cor-
ridor, in the open air, cordially approving of this hermitage if no
other.
But the ascetic fruit of mediaeval mysticism, and religious
feeling, both good and bad, is fast being swept aside by nine-
164 TRANSFORMATION, NOT OBLITERATION.
teenth century utilitarianism. Such objects of art as can be
removed, are being gathered into local museums, or pass into the
hands of amateurs and dealers. What was once holy is now
simply beautiful or curious. In brief, Roman Catholic religious
art is rapidly finding itself on the same intellectual level as the
antique, and as irrevocably passing away. Soon there will be
very little of it to be seen in its original condition and localities.
I do not regret this any more than I do the dying out of clas-
sical art, for while it held the minds of men in the thraldom of
fear, there was no opening for better influences. It should be
scrupulously preserved, when possible, intact, for its historical and
aesthetic worth. As the world now stands — thanks to the Ser-
vice Christian art has done — on a higher basis of humanity
than it did when it superseded the art of antiquity, we will not
have to regret its ruthless devastation and destruction, as was
the case with its pagan ancestor. Besides, the religious dis-
Quiet which has come over the world at this juncture is more a
regular development of mind than the fruit of revolutionary de-
sires. Ideas and acts having a certain freedom of expansion
are less inclined to be convulsively destructive. Attilas, Gen-
serics, Iconoclasts, Anabaptists, Robespierres, and St. Justs, are
less and less likely to be repeated. The old is better able to
make good terms with the new ; but those terms have all one
common refrain : Stand aside for your successor, peaceably if you
will, forcibly if we must.
º: Transformation, however, and not obliteration, is
iteration, the governing desire. Grand old monuments, that
have done service to men in their time, like the Benedictine
convent of Monte Cassino, too remote from active civilization
to be beneficially utilized, will remain as landmarks in history
as long as their walls hold together. Few of the multitude
that fly past them on express trains, give an intelligent glance
at their sites. Railroads have no sympathy with the picturesque
and heroic. Their shrill pipings are for crowded thoroughfares.
Will they ever be raised to a higher office than that of carriers
of human merchandise, racing against time P Our epoch is one
of rapid transitions. Antiquity has wholly disappeared. Me-
diaevalism is gasping its last. The Renaissance has gone cor-
rupt and inane. Modernism has not yet found for itself satis-
factory shapes. In its innovations it is inflexibly practical.
What these seem to be tending to in art, we will see in the
review of other countries. Italy has opened no future in this
PROFESSORS A CASTE. 165
direction. She scarcely realizes that her old schools died with
the decay of those religious and aristocratic influences that
evoked their existence. She sees, however, that at present her
energies must be given to the solution of problems of more vital
importance. Those who heretofore guided her destinies were so
eager to get God worshipped by lip and eye service that they
forgot the essential matters of human welfare. This error has
now to be corrected. Its civilization has to be taught to go
alone, and be self-sustaining in the people themselves.
But church and state have been so long in selfish copartner-
ship, for mutual benefit, that the latter cannot at once throw
aside all her pernicious habits. It still believes in substituting
one favored class interest for another; in breeding intellectual
and artistic to take the places of the monastic idlers. For
what else is the numerous body of professors who obtain their
positions by favoritism, and are paid by the state for a lax sys-
terſ of lecturing that has slight reference to the actual needs
and conditions of the people? There are about one thousand
who receive salaries and emoluments varying from twenty-five
hundred to ten thousand francs, in return for which they are
supposed to instruct the pupils of the universities, and the pub-
lic at large, by one or more short weekly lectures in philology,
philosophy, poetry, fine arts, history, and the sciences. So far as
general education is concerned, the system is a delusion, and in
practice, an empty pretence of earning the stipends and secur-
ing the retiring pensions. Some professors are actu- ºft
ated by an honorable ambition. But the practical re- º
sult is to inspire young men who have acquired distinction
among their friends in any branch of learning with the notion
that they have a claim on the state for support. This secured, the
next ambition is to arrive at the highest grade of salary with the
least possible labor. A conscientious professor may give all the
lectures required by the university rules, but an indolent one may
shirk them, I am told, with impunity. A professor in Italy is,
in fact, a member of a privileged caste, supported at the expense
of the bulk of tax-payers, with his time virtually at his own dis-
posal, but indulged in the notion that he is of some special
importance to the community which honors learning in support-
ing him. The real fact is that there is more of healthful future
life for the state in the irrepressible street gamin, who has just
begun to appear, than in him. His active self-reliance rebukes
the egotistical dilettanteism of a professor, who has neither taste
166 ITALIAN LECTURING!.
for popular audiences nor capacity to create them. The hours
of his lectures are an actual prohibition to any but those of
fashionable leisure. If they were not, the choice and treatment
of his topics, and his formal manner of reading, would not suit
any people. An English or American lecturer consults the
needs and tastes of the public, with mutual benefit. The stand-
ard of these countries has been as much raised by their sys-
tems of voluntary lecturing, as has the moral and religious stand-
ard of America by a free church. Yet both systems are only
in their infancy. English and American audiences are num-
bered by thousands, who pay of their own accord to a favorite
lecturer, as much for a single evening's instruction, as the Italian
receives from the government for several months’ nominal work.
In Italy, where the lectures are free, a professor is considered as
very erudite and popular, if in Florence he can attract an aver-
age attendance of one hundred persons, one half of whom will
be foreigners, who go for a lesson in the language, while a large
proportion of the remainder are personal friends, who attend out
of “gentilezza.” Instead of promoting education, by letting
knowledge make its own market, the government hinders it, by
imitating the church, in adhering to a system which has nothing
in common with the exigencies of the times or sympathies of
the people.
old ideas Old ideas and old Saints were good in their day,
New saints, and their strength lay in this fact. But time has left
most of them so far behind that barren words are all that is now
left of them. These cannot longer govern or content mankind.
Fresh thoughts and heroes, saints of a new order, that of human-
ity interpreted in the broad Christian sense of fraternal love,
ousting dogmatic exclusivism and elected salvation from their
usurped place in theologies, are the signs of the incoming re-
ligion of the peoples. Popes hitherto have decided who should
be canonized and what should be worshipped; princes, to whom
statues should be erected, honors and riches given. Now the
people are beginning to discern their heroes and saints. St.
Anthony, St. George, St. Anna, and St. Denis, are far-away ab-
stractions of virtues — myths to the Romanists and fables to the
Protestants. But free men of all tongues and dogmas find in
certain new beings the realizations of those deeds and convictions
that help to improve their common lot. Wellington, the peer
saint of England, provokes in them defiant skepticism ; Louis
Napoleon, the saint of the Bourse and hero of political chicanery,
THE MODERN VENUS. 167
distrust and vexation. But every noble instinct in human ma-
ture vibrates with hopeful thrill at the names of Saints Watts,
Franklin, Rowland Hill, Lincoln, Garibaldi, John Brown,
Nightingale, and the rest of the disinterested fighters of human-
ity’s battles.
Sympathy is the life-blood of art. The more directly per-
sonal the one the greater the force of the other. A modern
Venus has no individual interest. The Greeks called her a
goddess, invented a history of her, and she had worshippers in-
numerable. After the same manner the mediaevalists got their
Saints revered. Out of this deep devotion great art came. But
the modern Italian artist no longer knows the mediaeval saint or
antique goddess with other enthusiasm than that of money or
fame. For either he will do tolerably clever, academic work,
on pagan or Christian commission, but his ideal Venus will prove
to be a sensual abstraction and his devout Saint a conventional
symbol or dogma. Until he realizes his new saints and deities,
Italy will know no more high art.
Italian art and literature are too much a reflection Modern
of the past. The former especially is kept in exist- **
ence by its traditions and erudition rather than by an under-
standing of the new order of things. The government considers
it a duty to foster art by means of academies, competitive ex-
hibitions, free lectures, and the annual purchase of certain works.
Art, like other education, being made a pensioner of the state,
the public, as is to be expected, assumes no responsibility in the
matter, except under official pressure or professional clap-trap
when some personal interest is at stake. There are no Italian
buyers to speak of, unless a few amateurs at Naples or Milan
suffice to represent the nation. Works purchased by the govern-
ment are usually put where they are seldom seen. This is of
little consequence, because in general they are not worthy of
being exhibited.
In old historic countries, names and acts identified with their
fame always live, though more or less vaguely, in the popular
mind, and when selected by art, awaken a feeling of national
pride. Sagaciously treated they reinvigorate patriotism and
piety. Ussi’s “Expulsion of the Duke of Athens from Florence.”
a forcible, realistic painting, was of this character. As signif-
icant of the wished-for exile of the Grand Duke, and driving
the Austrians out of Tuscany, it was heartily welcomed. But
there have not been many happy efforts in this direction. Ussi
168 PEST OF MODERN ART.
himself seems to be exhausted by it. Those immense scenic
pictures, of the “Destruction of the Cimbri by Marius,” done by
Altamura, are mere art-rant, and mark the last stage of deca-
dence of high historic work. Fedi's marble group of the “Rape
of Polyxena” has been placed by the Florentines in competitive
proximity to the works of Michael Angelo, Donatello, Cellini,
and Giovanni da Bologna. It is a noteworthy example of the
Italian habit of looking behind instead of around or before in
art and literature. Although the closely stuck drapery has a
look of being just taken out of a wash-tub, and a falling figure
is always a grave aesthetic defect, like stuttering in speech, yet
as a whole it is a favorable illustration of the capacity of the
modern academicians to treat whatever motives may be presented
to them in a skilful manner, devoid of other ambition than to
make an effective tableau. That so much talent and money can
be in this age so misplaced, as concerns the public, is a direct
impeachment of the old governmental tyranny over the artistic
mind, which permitted no training that could enlighten the
people or inspire them with that disquietude in existing things
that prepares the way for something better. How could art
thus repressed rise higher than mere mechanical excellence and
a tolerable imitation of whatever in the past was officially en-
dorsed as politically harmless | But if governments prevent the
development of any genuine national life based on freedom, the
artist also has much to answer for in bringing it into popular dis-
repute by his treatment of the permitted subjects.
The pest of modern classical and religious art is the predom-
inance of the model. So that this is conspicuous, and the artist
himself intrusively manifested by visual evidence of academic
legerdemain, the fundamental idea is left to shift for itself. Out
of very shame at its ignoble position it hides its ethereal form
from mortal eyes. Something beside correct drawing and paint-
ing, even when these are attained, is required to make an artist.
Good modelling, coloring, and composition are means, not ends.
If an author has nothing to say, fine words only serve to make
his ignorance more evident to those who look beneath the sur-
face of things. This is equally true of art, though the aesthetic
senses, being more susceptible to flattery at first blush than
the other intellectual faculties, because of their general want of
training, they are even oftener deceived into accepting the show
for the substance of truth. How common it is now to see what
are called beautiful works without any deeper emotion than
BEN VENUTI’S FRESCOES. 169
transient admiration of their clever execution | They fade from
the memory at once. When this is the case, either the work
has no substantial merit in itself, or there is nothing in the spec-
tator's mind in affinity with it. This last may arise from igno-
rance or obtuseness of feeling, but it may be that the motive of
the work is foreign to the sentiment and thoughts of the epoch.
Art of this character, however learned and arrogant, has no
legitimate claim on the people.
Benvenuti's showy frescoes in the Medicean Chapel at Flor-
ence, and his stupendous cartoons hung up like trophies in the
Church of St. Francesco at Arezzo, are fine specimens of modern
eclecticism after the David style, as are Canova's sculptures of
his classical schooling. But all such work, tasteful and admi-
rable as it may seem, ranks as prize art, and may be developed
anywhere by forced culture and rewards of merit. Deriving
no sustenance from the life of a people, the sensation it excites
is partial and transitory, giving way to the next novelty of
aesthetic fashion. Its valuable technical qualities work mischief
when they are mistaken for high art itself. Unless Italy ceases
as entirely to live in her old aesthetic, as in her effete ecclesias-
tical and political training, her promise of a future in art com-
mensurate to her ancient renown is absolutely nothing. New
Italy must make its gods in its own image, and not under the
pressure of past form and example. It is difficult to bring the
artistic mind to a recognition of this fundamental psychological
truth. A nation, like an individual, can make a genuine character
for itself only by strenuous exertions in harmony with its peculiar
circumstances. Now, the clever artists of Italy look two ways
at once for guidance : one eye turned to antiquity, the other to
the imperial French schools, which are as bad guides in refound-
ing their national art as are Napoleonic ideas in remodelling
their government. We can have fashions of art at any moment
by the same means and from similar sources that give Fashions of
the cut to our clothes. Create a pecuniary demand “”
for anything of mere superficial worth, and its prolific manu-
facture is sure to follow. But the genuine art of a people
precedes the stimulus of money, which more often corrupts and
debases than exalts its character. If an artist aspire to be re-
membered beyond the fleeting glance of the seeker of sensuous
sensations he must show that he is in earnest himself. If
my reader doubt my sincerity, he will have thrown down the
book in disgust before this, without troubling himself to test its
170 GOTHIC, TOMBS.
truth. Where a people are indifferent to art, it is certain that
either there is no art for them to see, as in America, or as it
now is in Italy, none of the time worthy to be seen.
As examples of mediaeval faith and earnestness to contrast with
modern treatment of similar motives, look at the Gothic tombs
of Ubertino di Bardi in St. Croce, Florence, by Giottino, and of
Niccolo Acciajuoli, by Orgagna, in the subterranean church of
the Certosa. Some living artists might give more correctly
modelled or drawn conventional figures to support the sarcoph-
agus or receive the risen Bardi in the heaven to which he
looks with clasped hands, but not one could compose a monument
so Christian in feeling, and so thoroughly beautiful and elegant
in form, and with such purity of design. The same remark ap-
plies to Orgagna's monument of the knightly founder of Certosa.
He lies on his back in full armor, in marble sleep, with a calm
assurance of immortality lighting up his war-worn features.
The face of Donatello's warrior-saint in fighting guise, await-
ing the attack of the arch-enemy of man, is not more aglow
than his There is still another sepulchral monument which
forcibly illustrates the superiority of idea and execution of the
mediaevalists in work of this nature over all subsequent, of
which, not to mention the inane productions of the present, the
empty-minded monuments of the later Renaissance, in Santo
Croce at Florence, erected to Michael Angelo and Dante, are
conspicuous examples. The one referred to, seldom visited, is
in the little church of San Francesco di Paolo at the foot of the
hill of Bellosguardo, and was put up in memory of Frederigo,
Bishop of Fiesole, A. D. 1459. Being the work of Lucca della
Robbia, it is a simple and truthful specimen of realistic sculp-
ture, broadly treated, and with deep religious repose. Nowhere
is the Christian notion of “sleeping in Jesus” more admirably
prefigured than in the placid slumber of the hopeful prelate.
Evidently he will rise in joy unspeakable at the first note of the
trumpet of resurrection.
Turn now to Dupré's “Pieta,” a much lauded specimen of the
Christian art of A. D. 1867. Some may claim that the dra-
pery and anatomy are more scientifically treated than in the
mediaeval sculpture, though they certainly do not appear to me
as being as correct in relation to the impression to be conveyed
as a whble, however true any special detail may be. The com-
position is one of the frantic-ludicrous efforts which the sensa-
tional art of the day delights in ; Dupré's “Cain’’ being another
BASTIANINI AND DUPRá. 171
though less absurd exhibition of spasmodic posing of limbs and
features in lieu of real passion. Such is the gesture and look
of the Virgin as she bows her head searchingly over the hair of
her half-raised son, that irreverent wits insist that she is only
expressing a mother's indignant surprise at finding it full of
insects not to be named to ears polite. Sacred art which can
suggest this idea cannot edify much.
The Neapolitan Morelli paints sacred subjects in a less lu-
dicrous, declamatory style, but after a curious manner, equally
removed from any profound feeling. He is versatile and clever,
but neither sincere nor skilful enough to revive the dubious
merits of the Spagnuola school of his native city, whose techni-
cal eccentricities he affects. So far as my observation goes, the
“professors ” of art, like those of literature, darken knowledge
rather than enlighten the people or advance taste.
Ill-fated Bastianini, whose countrymen allowed him to starve
on the wretched stipend of a bric-a-brac dealer until they awoke
to his merits only to see him die, was a noteworthy exception
to the general want of original talent and genuine feeling of
modern Italian sculptors. The authorities of the Louvre Gal-
lery have borne striking testimony to his capacity of modelling
after the forcible realistic manner of the school of Donatello by
buying, for thirteen thousand six hundred francs, his bust of the
Florentine poet Jerome Benivieni who flourished in the fifteenth
century, made in imitation of the style then in vogue. It was
modelled from the person of a cigar-maker dressed in the costume
of the poet's time, and sold to an antiquary for three hundred and
sixty francs, who resold it to the French dealer of whom his
government bought it, installing it among the genuine works of
Michael Angelo, Settignano, and Cellini even after the proofs of
the imposition were given to the public. Other specimens of
his ability to recall the souvenirs of the past Italian sculpture
have been from time to time, through no connivance of his,
passed off as genuine mediaeval work.
If Italy were to lose the misdirected stimulus of government and
the foreign demand for her mechanical repetitions and imitations
of her former art, principally in its cheaper decorative aspects,
every semblance of her old art life would be gone. Italy now
offers the cheapest market for aesthetic commonplaces. When the
idea of art is limited to grubbing among the half-buried works
of former ages, it is well to obtain it on the spot where its objects
can be manufactured with the most facility. Still, the realistic
172 APATHY TO LANDSCAPE.
spirit of the century is showing itself even here. True there is
no landscape art proper, as at the north. Italians of the upper
class, when they walk, which they seldom do, apparently consider
it a positive hardship, or else a dainty condescension on their
part towards mother earth, for which she should be proud.
To complete their satisfaction, in their brief promenade, they
must be followed like shadows by servants in livery at a set
distance, and be surrounded by a throng of fashionists, whose
personal appearance eclipses in their eyes any charms of nature.
Italians, however, have an intense admiration, in general volubly
expressed, for the charms of the human figure, second only to
their delight in tasteful dress. But what Italian gentleman ever
looks upon the landscape with hearty English enjoyment, and
makes any exertion to reach it, or ever alludes to it in conversa-
tion ? Those who can afford villas have a sort of kid-glove
taste for gardens mostly trimmed and arranged after a barber-
shop fashion; a rococo arrangement of flower-pots, fountains,
vases, bric-a-brac objects, and redundant sculptures: sometimes
painted wooden figures, sentinels on duty, and miniature forts
and castles, with geometrically laid-out walks and vegetation cut
and tormented into formal unnaturalness." The tradesman
takes his taste from his superiors. With them artifice equally
distorts or misrepresents nature, only its forms are more on the
Scale of toys. As for the average peasant, any genuine sym-
pathy with the landscape would be an intellectual operation out
of his range. I recollect calling the attention of one to a beau-
tiful view near Serravallo. The sole response was, that since
the change of government everything had gone bad, meaning
really that wine, salt, and bread were dearer, and beyond their
connection with the landscape it was nothing to him.
This universal apathy as regards one of the most simple and
Satisfactory sources of human happiness in a country where it
richly abounds, springs from no inherent defect of aesthetic tem-
perament, but from a defective mental training, which has made
the Italians the most materialistic and least imaginative of civil-
ized peoples. Extremely quick and acute in observation, with
the seekers of pleasure, their desire goes towards persons and
that which, to use their peculiar phrase, “makes a figure” in the
world. With the studious it is directed towards abstract sci-
1 The oddest bit of decorative sculpture I ever saw was in a Roman villa. It
consisted of a painted Stone sheet or piece of household drapery hanging out of
a mock window as if to dry.
GENRE PAINTERS. 173
ence, antiquarianism, dilettanteism, and whatever regards man's
past history more than his present relations to the nature amid
which he dwells. While the public mind remains in this condi-
tion there is no base for landscape painting.
Genre motives are not so entirely wanting as those of land-
scape. Some stone carvers put pantaloons on their Cupids as a
concession to modern realism, and sell scores of stone Washing-
tons and Franklins in the guise of little boys, with hatchets and
whistles in their hands. Others carve the fleeting modes of the
day on the effigies of their sitters, without regard to idealism of
any sort. There are several genre painters, but of no special
promise. The present incapacity of Italians in this direction
must be seen to be understood. It proceeds from the national in-
aptitude of enjoyment of this class of motives. Animals are as
much neglected as the landscape. In caricature there is more
native talent displayed in personal and political subjects, and of
a much higher grade, than in France. Architecture shares the
low condition of the other branches. There is, however, among
persons of culture a loving appreciation of whatever is fine
in the past; pride in preserving it, and nice asthetic discern-
ment displayed in designs for completing or restoring me-
diaeval work in the likeness of the original. But the restora-
tions of the Duomo of Perugia are as bad as can be, being
of a meretricious café order. Not even in America can there
be found public buildings more wanting in aesthetic character
than recent edifices constructed for the Italian government, espe-
cially in Florence. It is incomprehensible how the architects
succeeded, in face of the old architecture of the city, in uniting
so much homeliness and wrongness of general masses, mostly
sham constructive ornamentation, to so much absolute poverty
or ugliness of detail. The late Renaissance exhausted the base
capacities of meretricious sensuality and pride of vulgar dis-
play; but this modern no-style is the very idealism of aesthetic
meanness and incapacity. Turin shows somewhat better work.
The constructive features of its great railway station are ap-
propriate and dignified, manifesting fair inventive talent in the
direction that modern architecture on a large scale, combining
popular uses and needs with grandeur of effect, seems likely to
take. Many of the decorative details, however, are unworthy
of its general appearance.
In conclusion, it is necessary to mention two works, as show-
ing some disposition upon the part of modern Italian artists to
174 DE VIL IN MODERN ART.
escape out of the worn idealisms and traditions of the past into
fresher motives and styles. One of these is the well-known
“Dying Napoleon’ of Vela, which is as thoroughly realistic in
conception and execution as the most ardent advocate of realism
could desire, and not without some of the sentiment which at-
taches itself to the moribund warrior and lawgiver of nations.
The other is a pure piece of idealism, novel for the school. and
indeed new as a matter of heroic sculpture in any now ; or was,
when it was first put up in plaster ten years ago. Since then
the Devil is becoming a popular motive of modern sculpture,
especially with Americans, of two types: one, the wicked gen-
tleman, the Mephistophiles of modern society, its ideal bad
man in fine clothes with fine manners, dangerous in particular to
the female sex, such as Mr. Gould's admirable bust makes him ;
and the other, the arch enemy of mankind and the Almighty,
the Scriptural Lucifer, as conceived by Corti of Milan, and
ordered to be executed in marble for the Count d’Aquila,
brother of the ex-king of Naples. Corti makes no vulgar
Satan with horns, hoofs, and tail, the superlative ugly monster
of mediaevalism, but a veritable fallen Son of the Morning;
majestic in form, strong of limb, determined of will, supernal
in figure, but sinister of aspect: a being enveloped in doubt,
despair, and guilt; sufficiently attractive in mien to cast a spell
over men or draw their sinful yearnings towards his by force of
congenial sympathy. AEsthetically criticised, it is a genuine
Satan of the right stamp to fascinate, tempt, or terrify mortals;
one of themselves superhumanly wicked, powerful, and ambi-
tious. As a conception it is not so original as it looks at first.
The ancient Etruscans put many figures of similar type and im-
port into their sepulchral art; beneficent and maleficent genii,
or furies, they called them. It is nevertheless a wholesome
symptom of progress to find at least one Italian sculptor of to-
day turning to the genius of his remote ancestors for guidance
and ideas in the grander elements of art in which they were
conspicuously original and great.
The appearance of the supernal and gentlemanly types of
the Devil in modern art is one of its significant features and of
itself significant. Even an American lady of some reputation
as a sculptor, Miss Stebbins of Rome, has essayed him in a
heroic guise, in armor, as just descended on the earth to begin
his mission of evil. We may yet see his colossal effigy figure in
public edifices and grounds, and his statuettes, as the polite gen-
CORTI’S EXAMPLE, 175
tleman of society, no questions asked as to moral character, in
ladies’ boudoirs and parlors. At all events the Devil has now
got a firm footing in modern art, but with what results for good
or bad, remains to be seen.
Despite Corti's example, for the moment Italy has neither an
ideal art like its old, nor has it yet developed the realistic art,
which dominates in countries more especially governed by
democratic ideas and superior habits of domestic life. But the
prevailing disquiet points to radical changes, which may finally
recreate art on a more popular basis, revivify religion, and pro-
mote the general welfare of the country. Unless this is accom-
plished there is even less practical foundation for Gioberti's
theory of the supremacy of the Latin races in Italy than in
France, under the guidance of Napoleonic ideas. How can
any student or statesman maintain such an illusion in face of
the rapid advance and increasing pressure of the Teutonic and
Anglo-Saxon peoples over all the Latin forms of civilization in
the present juncture of human destiny |

CHAPTER VII.
THE ART OF HOLLAND, BELGIUM, SPAIN, AND GERMANY.
WFE have noticed how the invention of printing and
Luther's Reformation displaced relig- ºr, tºng dis-
ious art. Words displaced symbols, and places relig-
book-discussion supplanted fresco-paint- “ arf.
ing. Thenceforth, images of divine things ceased
to be made by hands, but were formed in the mind and conveyed
from one to another as intangible thought, to take shape and
color according to idiosyncrasies of imagination. Printed books
in consequence became the means of a vast step forward in
intellectual freedom and general culture. Wherever they were
freely admitted, the old religious art either degenerated into a
spurious fashion, having no vital force, or it was denounced as
idolatry and eventually cast out of its fanes, or destroyed. For
those who agree in relation to art that what has been may again
be, it is requisite to look back on the causes of sweeping changes
like the above, and see if they are of a fundamental or acci-
dental nature, before they can rightly determine their final
operation. To me it looks as if the influences which put an
end to the great religious period of European art, are of a
radical and permanent character, belonging to the logical se-
quence of development of the human mind in its advance from
concrete to abstract idealisms. If poetry, the drama, and prose
of a high order are more subtle mediums of intellectual expres-
sion than sculpture and painting, are they not the finer art?
Who shall say that in their turn they may not give way to some
more complete method of mental intercommunication | For the
present, however, in the ratio of the culture of peoples, litera-
ture is the popular fine-art. I cannot believe that any nation,
having won intellectual and religious freedom, will ever be
successful, while books are easily to be had, in any spasmodic
attempt to replace religious art on its old foundations. That
was the natural outgrowth of its own time, just as education by
means of books is of ours. Painting and sculpture have lost


SPIRIT OF SPANISH ART. 177
their primitive authority and functions in respect to education.
For the future they must be satisfied with their more legiti-
mate office of contributing to the happiness of men, less as
religious instructors than as aesthetic comforters and illustra-
tors at second-hand, of ideas which find their first expression
in books. This will tend more and more to make art a fruit
of national culture rather than to take the initiative in civiliza-
tion. Keeping this in view we get a ready clue to its varying
conditions and absolute changes since Protestantism has altered
the mental aspect of Europe.
The popes put down Protestant ideas in Italy not al.,
so much by direct force as by the encouragement fºil out
º - • Protestant
given to the revival of pagan literature and art, taken j
into the service of infidel tyrants both of church *
and state, and in their hands reduced to the degraded forms
and motives I have already described. Like the Indians on
our prairies when encircled by one fire, they fought it by
another. It is true they preserved their positions, but it was
at the sacrifice of the welfare of their subjects. Finally they
have the bitterness of seeing those Protestant ideas, which they
tried to keep out of Italy, returning in force to overthrow their
systems of government and religion.
Sustained by absolute kings and the Inquisition, religious art
made its last serious stand in Spain, more than a century after .
it had elsewhere become a sensual phantom or an inane pre-
tence. It was here kept alive by the virtual prohibition of
printing and the absolute restriction of education to priest-
craft. In an intellectual point of view it had nothing in com-
mon with that of Italy. Rigorously confined to a fanatical
and idolatrous aspect of worship, it became alike degrading to
man and Deity. What else could art become in the hands of
an ignorant clergy and bigoted statesmen, who, taking away
its proper functions, reduced it to the lowest ascetic standard,
scarcely one grade above fetichism, making physical degra-
dation and mental abasement fill the same final place in their
system that human beauty and heroic virtue did in ancient
Greece 2
The artistic capacity of the Spanish nation is abundantly
proved by Morales, Cano, Velasquez, and Murillo, as well as
by the taste of several rulers, in Securing some of the most
precious specimens of the Italian Schools, despite the excluding
canons of a persecuting church. Neither Egypt nor India in
12
178 SPIRIT OF SPANISH ART.
the fulness of their sacerdotal zeal was more intolerant in
matters of art than Spain. The artist could paint or carve
only such subjects as suited his theological despots, and accord-
ing to an unalterable formula of execution. Consequently we
have in Spain an ecclesiastical but no national School of art,
As the Spaniards are prone to excessive passions, and in their
amusements and contests are bloody-minded and sensual, there
can be little doubt that had not their art been thus held in
strict ascetic check and external decorum, it would have rev-
elled in the nude, vulgar, and cruel; not after the coarse little-
ness and superficial materiality of the Dutchmen, but in a
passionate splendor which might have made the spectator
forget its sins against humanity. But the evil side of the
Spanish temperament is in large measure the product of his
creed and government. There are certain religious crimes so
profound that they spring upon the imagination like virtues,
just as some aristocratic follies seem magnanimous in first
blush from their frankness. Spaniards have been so long the
dupes of their priests and rulers in both cases, that they have
themselves acquired from them a counterfeit magnificence and
frankness of wrong-thinking and doing that obfuscates the
moral sense, and hinders national progress. A bigoted art,
born of a religion fed on outrages against the rights of men,
could not fail to be harmful by infiltrating public taste with its
own remorseless Spirit, approval of ignorance and idleness, and
greed of blood. So far as concerns morality and intellectuality,
Spanish art, like the state religion, has been a positive curse.
Although the Inquisition could control its topics and treat-
ment to their own ends, they had not the same power over the
aesthetic temperament itself, whose instinctive choice was to
common realistic types, a splendid coarseness of execution,
glowing, luminous, sensualized tones of coloring, and a morbid
satisfaction in gloom, sorrow, suffering, despotic authority or
ignoble sacrifice; and finally in the predominance given the
material and external, whether of princely or sacred motives,
over the spiritual and intellectual. Spanish art is almost ex-
clusively emotional in intent or else given to the expression of
one idea or phase of character, which makes it restrictive and
narrow. What is lacking in intellectual breadth and variety,
is made up in depth of sentiment and vigorous execution.
Its sincerity adds a quasi dignity even to ordinary motives.
Further, there is a passionate mystery or technical force in its
dramatic coloring, which appalls or fascinates at first look.
MURILLO AND VELASQUEZ. 179
Murillo kept common company as much as he dared. Anºin,
His virgins, angels, and saints are slightly elevated Velasquez.
types of the people around him. Beggar-boys and mendicant
monks suited him well; but above all the palpitating charms of
the maidens of his ardent climate in their virgin ripeness. But
the Inquisition scourged the sensuous activity of his temperament
into an ascetic discipline, which deprived the world of the finest
fruits of his talents, and reduced him to a half use of his legiti-
mate genius.
Velasquez's career was that of a petted court painter. His
brush ennobled those who failed to ennoble themselves, or had
nothing but insignia of rank to make them known. He intensi-
fied the dominant traits of his sitters, making them acutely char-
acteristic, without any of the mock heroic idealisms that Rubens
indulged in with his Bourbons. But his chief power was in an
aristocratic largeness of design, naturalness of style, sparkle, and
emphasis, more effectually realistic than the utmost Dutch finish.
He did not rival Murillo in sensuous diaphanous coloring, though
excelling him in light and atmosphere, in grave splendor, subtle,
and forcible delineation of character and depth of effect.
We need not look for the poetical or imaginative in Spanish art;
seldom for very refined treatment, and never for any intellectual
elevation above the actual life out of which it drew its restricted
stock-motives. What could be expected of painting in a country
where masked inquisitors visited every studio and either destroyed
or daubed over any details that did not accord with their fanat-
ical scruples; of sculpture which was dressed or painted to imi-
tate actual life, and where an artist could not destroy the labor
of his own hands, if a sacred image, without risk of being put to
torture for sacrilege P. There are admirable points in Spanish
painting, but it is not a school of popular value or interest. Be-
sides its two chief names it has no reputation beyond its own
locality. The fixed purpose of its priest-ridden work was to
stultify the human intellect and make life a burden instead of a
blessing.
Holland was as antagonistic to Spain in her art as school of
Mer politics. Here the Reformation took firm root, *
democratic habits got the ascendency, and a people for the first
time since the death of Christ had their own way in art, un-
checked by reasons of government or creed. As regards high art
the result was not edifying, but it demonstrated the wisdom of
leaving artists and amateurs free to exercise their taste and
180 DUTCH PAINTING.
skill as seemed to them best. Dutch painters may be called the
natural product of their country, in the same sense that canals
and dykes were the necessary features of its landscape. Having
reached the mental level of those they worked for, they rested
contentedly in view of flat horizons and unaesthetic common-
places, satisfied to gain money by a painstaking imitation of the
externals of the scenery and life around them, just as their
patrons made their fortunes in the same scenes by a never flag-
ging attention to profit and loss. The more intellectual wants
of Dutchmen were supplied by a printed literature, that made
them pious and patriotic, as well as clear-headed in trade and
independent in politics. They were as much inclined to keep
the liberty they had won with their swords as the money they
had made in their business. . In past times high art had been as-
sociated with the tyranny they had overthrown. Art they still
liked and would have. But it must be their boon friend and
entertainer. So they tore down its old forms from church and
palace, as things evil and false, and took its spirit into their
shops and to their firesides to be recast into shapes that should
amuse their wives and little ones. As was natural, these wives,
children, and the stout burghers, too, had an honest liking for
those objects most intimately associated with their notions of
pleasure and prosperity. They did not want art to teach them
ideas but to represent things. Compared with that of the
Southern races theirs was as distinct in its foundations, motives,
and aims as trade is from poetry. In the first place it was
chiefly an in-door, easel art, almost as cheap and portable as
books themselves, and with producer and buyer ruled by com-
mercial principles. Outside of the ordinary stimulus of business
and popular likings it had no abiding inspiration. Nor had it
any special ambitions, enthusiasms, or idealisms, such as are the
roots of a high art. Whatever a patron would pay for the
artist would produce to the best of his ability. He worked for
a ready market. Whether the character of his art was in itself
good or evil was to him of as little consequence as is to the rum-
seller the effects of his liquors on the health of his customers.
Dutch art was made to be sold, and its ethics assume no higher
standard. Spanish art was made to dogmatize, threaten, and im-
pose lies on a nation ; to seduce it from truth and justice, in-
dependent judgment in matters terrestrial or celestial, and to
blind obedience in things present in order to win the promised
enjoyments of a future life. The Spaniard, full of the delusions
THE DUTCH SCHOOL. 181
of his art-religion tried to coerce the Hollander into a similar
condition. Motley shows us how and why he failed. Com-
mon as was Dutch art it was more healthful for a nation than
the Spanish. If it did not aspire to teach, neither did it mislead
the mind. There was no disguise or latent meaning to it. He
that ran might comprehend it. The basis was democratic liberty
of choice as opposed to aristocratic exclusiveness and ecclesias-
tical rigor of selection. Dutch politics and religion alike con-
demned the high art of the past, while the public scarcely cared
for fine art of any character. In all free countries popular art
being based on popular liberty, must necessarily follow the lead
of its guardian. Under favorable conditions the common mind
finds its way out of vulgar thought to higher aspirations.
Among the aesthetic changes produced by the Reformation there
is none more apparent than that which places the future of all
genuine art more and more in the hands of the people, just as it
does the final decision of their political destinies. Popular elec-
tion is the very marrow of Protestant art. The Dutch school
was a vigorous, wholesome protest against those controlled by
Romanism. Intellectually, its choice was low and unrefined. It
ignored moral significance, yet its feeling, although common, was
not unsound at heart. I should say that it lacked both aesthetic
and intellectual sensibility. There was no ambition for a his-
torical art; but small desire even for the higher motives of
domestic life. Its speciality was vulgar genre ; avoiding all
thought, and priding itself on its mechanical skill and infinite
patience. There never was a more purely mechanical, common-
place school of painting combined with so much minute finish
and fidelity to the ordinary aspect of things, heedless of idealisms
of any sort. If it labored for any special end it was that of oc-
ular deception. In this respect, therefore, its notion of art was
like that of a child or savage, while its selection of objects to be
represented was equally unsophisticated.
Humanity is overmuch shown under vulgar aspects, and
nature at large in its commonplaces, while small things are
made of equal importance to great. If there be any striking
emphasis, it is to be found in the predominance given to boorish
brawls, feastings, mean lives, or pride in wealth, civic rank, and
dress; pampered animal pets and the usual accompaniments of
fashionable inanity. Avarice, too, was most truthfully depicted,
and drunkenness, but lust and nudity not so conspicuous as in
the French school. They showed their love of the sea as of
182 REMBRANDT AND RUBENS.
their monotonous landscape and houses of picturesque homeli-
ness, because of their associations with their independence and
comfort. Fine ladies and fine cattle were painted from the
same point of view ; fine clothes and a fine skin set off by
luxurious surroundings, or a golden tinted sky, both beast and
woman chewing the cud of animal repose. Who but a Paul
Potter could have painted “La Vache que p—” of the
Hague, an offensive realism highly appreciated by his country-
men but alike disgusting either as art or nature. But Dutch
art is too well liked and known for me to dwell longer on it.
Those whose aesthetics are in sympathy with its mental medioc-
rity will not desert it for anything I may say. Nor would I
have them until they are prepared to appreciate a higher stand-
ard. That of Holland is a hearty stimulus to the animal,
material, and trading instincts of a people ; not altogether in a
debasing sense, but as exhibiting their fruits at their accepted
social value and national consideration. It gives, too, honest
work for hard-earned dollars. But as an agent of intellectual
progress it is of doubtful worth. The tendency is rather to
materialize the understanding and sensualize the taste, without
yielding any sustenance to the imagination.
Rembrandt, Every people, however, has its native genius that
Rubems. caps its fame in the direction of its national proclivi-
ties, or carries them far onward into hitherto unexplored regions
of imagination and methods of execution. Rembrandt has done
for Holland what Turner has for England, and Doré is now
doing for France : the artistic strength and weakness of each
race attaining its generic climax in each of these men. Rem-
brandt's mastery of his vehicles is that of a giant. He creates
effects as the Mosaic record says day and night were made.
But he cannot separate himself nor his country from his work.
His religious pieces are Dutch translations or travesties of the
original scenes; not to illustrate the story, but to demonstrate
Rembrandt’s wonderful control of light, shadow, and color in
evoking form, a powerful creating faculty and strong hand in
harmonious combination, intensely coloring his work with his own
individuality. Whether looking at etching, portrait, landscape, or
figure composition by him, the first and last consciousness is, -
Rembrandt.
In a minor degree this is true of the Flemish Rubens. What
is now Belgium, being then a rigid Roman Catholic country, its
art was subordinated to the usual papal influences. In its first
REMBRANDT AND RUBENS. 183
stage it is allied to early German art in intellectual character
and design, and to the Venetian in richness of coloring. But it
is not necessary to dwell on the minor schools, unless, as in the
case of Holland, they present new distinctive features. I allude
to Rubens on account of his omnivorous characteristics. Vulgar,
profane, aristocratic, and sacred themes, either in a realistic,
allegorical, or idealistic sense, he treated with like amorous ardor,
provoking an aesthetic appetite that increased as it fed. His
flexibility, fertility, and versatility astonish, while his bacchanal
tints, brimming with animal life, are poured on to his canvas as
if from a conjurer's inexhaustible bottle, and run of themselves
into the forms he wills. Contrasted with this torrent-like capac-
ity, Rembrandt's dark force is law itself. But there are analo-
gies of manner and taste between them. Both spring effects
and style on the spectator, overriding their subjects. Rem-
brandt’s “Guard-house” is an aesthetic miracle. One forgets
his curiosity as to its meaning, in its super-excellence as art.
While looking at a brilliant spectacle in the street you would
as soon be inquisitive about the life of each person in the crowd,
as to ask why that stream of humanity with flashing arms is
emptying itself out of that impenetrable shadow, into the fitful
glare beyond. The scene recalls the sluggish, eddying, and jerk-
ing flow of liquid lava, seen by night as it breaks away from
its black bed, pushing itself forward uncertain where, but
murkily joyous to burst its bonds and spirt its ominous splen-
dor against the clear sky above. Rubens does not come up to
this, but his pictures nevertheless are equally an emphatical out-
pouring of himself. We must look at these two men through
glasses of their own coloring. Each uses coarse types, exag-
gerates the physical and material, does with satire or sly delight
unaesthetic or even dirty things, roots in human nature as the
hog does in the ground, perchance bringing to light a precious
stone, but sure to lay bare many things a fastidious taste deems
best hid, employs heavily loaded palettes, and sweeps broadly
and daringly with his brush, infusing color with intense life and
vehement movement. Rembrandt bids darkness speak for him ;
is conventionally decorous in costume, loads an angel down with
drapery so that he flies only by the sheer projection given by his
brush. Rubens commands the magic of light ; throws off cloth-
ing, delights in naked skin, big limbs, colossal charms, and vinous
tinted flesh that often hints at corruption. The Dutchman is
self-hidden, peers from out of dark places; a sphinx, intractable,
184 RUBENS’ “ RURAL FETE.”
isolated, pimpled-visaged, greedy, glum ; the Fleming, jovial,
sensuous, handsome, magnificent. His tastes and habits are
those of a cultivated gentleman. Prodigally luxurious, he alarms
a king of Spain to whom he goes as an ambassador, lest his
example should be considered a reproach to royal prudence; rec-
ognizes his masters, and makes a gallery of their works; repro-
duces them by his own hands very much as Bacchus might play
Apollo, or Venus the Madonna ; a zealous Catholic with liberal
instincts, and despising asceticism.
I fancy he saw through royal shams, for in filling to order
those acres of canvas in the Louvre, whose scrubbed brightness
gives a false idea of his real melody of tints, he makes the alle-
gorized Bourbons seem like the great geese they were, in play-
ing at gods with the instincts of clowns; conjuring up pompous
artifices and meretricious nonsense that Savor more of the mad-
house imagination than of rational beings. But they paid well,
and were excellent practice for his filibustering brush. To see
the genuine Rubens, stript of aesthetic disguise and courtly
grimace, look at his “Rural Fête” in the same gallery. Here is
a hearty painting of boors and booresses engaged in a drunken
lewd revel; a characteristic scene of his country, which he
must often have gazed at with infinite amusement. How they
hug, strain, lift, whirl, embrace, rollic, and swell I See that
rising tide of amorous passion and jealousy; hearken to the en-
couraging jeers of the lookers on ; a variety of action and feel-
ing put into a harmonious unity of debauchery and rural pleas-
uring, in strict keeping with one of those delicious, Satyr-like
landscapes, redolent of sensuous health and enjoyment, which
Rubens knew so well how to paint | And this true to nature,
equally devoid of grotesque or obscene exaggeration of the Doré
kind, and of the silly sentimentalism of the Boucher sort on the
other. Rubens was too sincere an artist to mix up romanti-
cism or idealism with Smut. He bade nature speak without
maskery. One little picture of this kind is of tenfold more con-
sequence than all those foolish allegories that stare at the visitor
up and down the long gallery.
A volume apart would be needed even to skim the
art of Germany, if it were to be treated for its own
sake. But as I confine myself simply to pointing out the modi.
fication in its character caused by the Reformation, I shall refer
only to its leading traits, without venturing upon the prolific sub-
ject of its eminent schools. German art has an important rela-
Germany.
THE ART OF GERMANY. 185
tion to modern civilization as the product of a highly intellectual
race, in whose domain began that religious contest, still going on,
which divided Germany into two ritualistic camps, affording a
comparison, side by side, of the practical results of the antago-
nistic principles of Protestantism and Papacy in human progress.
We have only to note the direction taken by political power,
material well-being, and general mental growth to see at once
which system in an open field of action in the long run obtains
the Supremacy, and drags the other after it, vainly struggling to
free itself from the Laokočn coil of popular education.
Before Luther's time the art of Germany was more devoutly
Roman Catholic than that of Italy, for it had been less subjected
to seductive classical influences. Allowing for local differences
as to popular saints and traditions, and the weird northern ele-
ment of demonism born of pagan ancestry, the best feeling of
both countries ran in the same theological channel, was based on
a community of motives and aims, and vented in a sacred art
that forestalled literature and sermons, with similar results on
the people, as their chief means of intellectual discipline. Per-
haps the influence of German religious art was the more forcible
from the fact that it was more explicitly a national development
of Christianity unbiassed by any previous types of an aesthetic
ideal. Such idealism as it created was subordinated to its
Sacred motives. How original and suggestive in a spiritual
sense Teutonic faith became in the prime of its zeal, as it was
converted into architecture, we still have rich evidence in the
Gothic cathedrals of the “Fatherland.” A similar sentiment and
treatment obtained in their easel pictures and movable sculpture.
Their prevailing character was an earnest simplicity, quaintness
it might be termed, pushing bluntly aside all classic idealism
of form to make more emphatic the absolute thought and gov-
erning sentiment. These were quite abstract, often of a mystical
or metaphysical intent, showing that the ruling theology had
rooted itself even deeper in the artistic mind than those histo-
ries and biographies, which occupied so conspicuous a place in
Italian art. German religious art generally makes the funda-
mental idea the important element, while in the Italian the ar-
tistic inclination went more towards piétorial composition. This
was subordinated to aesthetic taste in a higher degree, its design
was better, forms simpler, details purer, meaning clearer, to the
common mind, and as a whole more beautiful to the cultivated.
German artists made less account of the sensuous, nude, or
186 ALBERT DURER,
sensual, yet gave to details a materialistic importance at variance
with the chief motive and otherwise abstract bias of their works.
Even in the finest periods of the religious schools of Flanders
and Germany we see cropping out those likings for the substan-
tial things of this life, the landscape teeming with good fruits
and rich harvests, in-door luxury, fine apparel, and precious orna-
ments, which subsequently ran riot in the Dutch. Their style
was ornate, minute, and severe. Design was heavy, sharp, and
angular, without grace; quite the reverse of Greek practice of
refined gradation of curves ; so that we perceive the German
figures by their firm incisive outlines rather than by the more
advanced system of insensible modelling of the entire form, each
part in exquisite harmony with the whole, with no definable sep-
arations of brush or chisel stroke, of which perhaps the most life-
like example in color is Titian’s “Venus * of the Tribune at
Florence, and one of the best in rounded form is the Medicean
“Venus” underneath it. Take the contrary method, sink the
expression of vitality of surface-aspect into a realistic individual-
ism of features, add extra angularity of dividing lines, drapery too
cumbersome for actual wear, cover it with profuse ornament,
multiply patiently elaborated details, disregard symmetry, pro-
portion, and unity in large measure equally with the exigencies
of the actual spectacle, but keep the masses well balanced, in-
terpret the conception according to the local standard of ideas
and things, the composition the while making a richly colored and
picturesque whole, and the reader gets a fair idea of the German
method of religious art before the Reformation.
Albert Durer stands, in relation to it, as Rembrandt
to Dutch and Raphael to Italian art, but on a higher
plane of devout feeling and intellectual apprehension. His im-
agination is more interpenetrative and mystical, evoking new
forms to fit the essences of ideas or reproducing past scenes in
the light of his own home-fed vision. It is a profound genius of
touching simplicity and sincerity, somewhat sad in ratiocination
and sentiment, eschewing ideal beauty, loving the exact fact or
semblance of it, yet ever aspiring to the abstract and spiritual.
If I love Raphael for his sensuous grace and joy, I am equally
drawn to Durer by his omission of them. I feel that they
would weaken the ineffable tenderness of truth that his intro-
Spective heart pours out to the world with such guileless sensi-
bility ; a trait in genius rarer than the finest aesthetic sentiment,
matched in rarity only by the creative majesty of Michael An-
Albert Durer.
BOOKS AND ART. 187
gelo's isolated mind. Albert Durer was a suitable climax to
the intensest qualities of the religious art of his country, just as
it began to decline before the influx of printing. Hans Holbein
the elder is a German Leonardo, almost matchless in his finest
portraiture in solidity of style and intense realism of character.
The immediate benefit of Protestantism was that it relieved
the human mind from the worst of the one-sided ecclesiastical
pressure, and permitted it also to think in other directions.
Theologies have ever had a distrust of natural science for the
reason that they declare their base to be an immutable one, re-
vealed of God, while that of science moves on with every fresh
discovery. Art favored their assumptions, inasmuch as it kept
before the people in attractive shapes those dogmas on which
were founded the claim of divine authority. The “thus saith
the Lord” of art is a potent appeal to all persons, sustained as
it is by prerogatives whose origin is lost in the night of ages,
and, to minds undisciplined by reason, irresistible. Enunciated
with the emotional blandishments and force of imagination of
high art, it has a readier capacity either to fortify truth or to
diffuse error than have books.
These are slow of tongue, speaking to one mind .
at a time, are fastidious as to opportunity and in- and art.
troduction, while painting and sculpture possess the glib fac-
ulty of extemporaneous speaking to crowds of people, in all
moods and seasons, predisposed by the deceptive logic of their
physical organs to believe what they see. The image of the
idea lodges itself instantaneously in the unwary soul without
being subjected to the challenge of logic. Indeed, next to mu-
sic, the plastic and pictorial forms of art most speedily fascinate
the senses. They further beguile the mind into an aesthetic lan-
guor which impairs the hardier processes of critical thought.
Used with evil intent, or even stupidly, art has always done in-
calculable harm, by seducing the public into habits of supersti-
tion or sensuality, fostering the light vices of human nature
to the undermining of its solid virtues. Wherever discussion
is most restrained, there art has most license, because it is easily
kept moving in those directions which are not offensive to gov-
ernments founded on breech-loaders. Encouragement of art
by despotism has a captivating ring to the popular ear, but it is
a snare and delusion to true civilization. Tyrants first cun-
ningly emasculate it of nobility of spirit, and then throw it as a
sop to a defrauded people, or else train it to systematic baseness
188 I, UTHER'S REFORMATION.
to subserve sinister policies or conceal selfish passions by plausi-
ble aesthetic masquerading. Art is a convenient domino to cover
up the legalized robbery of a nation's treasure as well as a temp-
tation to infinite squandering. Louis XIV. spent one thou-
sand million francs of Frenchmen's money on an ugly show-
house for himself, and then burned the accounts to hide the ex-
tent of the theft.
Not to be too severe on men of his pattern, I do not doubt
that the wrong they inflict on men and art, after all, is in keep-
ing with their honest notions about both.
In either case they are too demented by absolute power to be
capable of common sense, much less of a right view of their
artificial relations to their own species. But this aggravates
their mischief, and ought long ago to have weaned men from any
dependence on one-man power, whether by right of royal cradle
or deluded suffrage. The Lutheran Reformation was a great
step towards putting Christianity into its normal position as re-
gards human progress. Its tendency was not only to dissever
it from the exclusive service of reigning castes and creeds, but
to discriminate between it as an aesthetic principle merely, and
art for the elevation of humanity. Art for art is beautiful,
as Victor Hugo says, but art for mankind is both beautiful and
sublime. Its mission is not complete unless it keeps the moral
ideal as purely in its heart as the aesthetic in its eye.
Protestantism has not yet reached this stage. Its career is
too recent and undeveloped to have produced in art other changes
than an abandonment of old motives and styles, and a diversion
of its current to other channels, without as yet any special excel-
lence or exhaustion of its democratic capacities of variety of
choice and adaptation to the expanding tastes of the multitude.
The new art is feeling its way through good and bad experiment
to a more satisfactory condition, borne hither and thither in the
disquiet of peoples, now ignored, now petted by fashion, uncer-
tain of movement and inspiration, but steadily rising on the tide
of naturalistic truth and working its way into popular favor.
In Germany, modern art has been kept alive by its mixed re-
ligious, liberal, and reactionary ideas, stilted patronage, like
that of the kings of Bavaria, and scholastic culture, assuming a
universality of features that offers something to the liking of
every one, without being productive of much popular edification
or establishing a distinctive modern school of a European repu-
tation. Germany has not yet reached the height of her old re-
CORNELIUS, OVERBECK, AND KAULBACH. 189
nown. There is a bias to academic systems and realistic forms
based on laborious study; as for instance the Dusseldorf school,
which is pedantic, formal, external, unimaginative, and unaes-
thetic in the ideal sense; clever in execution, without any pure
instinct of color ; prone to common things, and much given to
pictorial rant when it grows ambitious of dramatic compositions.
It is a plodding school of mediocrities in its best men, while the
works of the common rank and file serve as the primers and
grammars of art-training of the public eye. There is also a
conservative religious school illustrated by Overbeck and an
eclectic one by Cornelius and Kaulbach, who thought to recast
the art of the nineteenth century in old moulds, and with about
as much permanent success as a new order of Stylites might
expect. These artists are ambitious, learned, sincere, and skil-
ful. But the common people wonder, shake their heads, and
straightway forgetting the big paintings, compounded of defunct
foreign systems and feelings, pass on to admire the easel represen-
tations of things familiar and domestic. Modern democratic taste,
right or wrong, will not tolerate asceticism, allegory, religious or
classical, idealism, mysticism, romanticism, or other passion of
the past, while it can command a plentiful supply of its own
loved naturalism. Its idols must talk its own tongue, and have
a fellow-feeling. Democracy has hit the right path for a more
wholesome art of its own than aristocracy ever worked out for
itself. Believe, and then be baptized. The habit of church or
state is to baptize first, leaving the neophyte to believe if he
can, disbelieve if he dare.

CHAPTER VIII.
ENGLISHI ART.
and Catholic art more obvious than in England
and Spain. Holland and Spain were contemporaries
in the best periods of their schools, both vehemently
materialistic in feeling, though differing widely in
other respects; Dutchmen painting with beaver-like instincts,
while Spaniards imparted to their brushes somewhat of their
own sombre grandiloquence of speech and flow of passion. The
saving's bank principle of accumulation by a series of little in-
General is dustries and assiduous toil, always excepting Rem-
j%, brandt's grand manner, chiefly obtains in the Dutch
wn Europe, manner. In the Spanish there is the reverse pro-
cess of producing imposing general or specific effects by a
large touch and direct stroke looking steadily at a final success,
disdainful of wayside finish and distracting side-play of detail.
The English school, without arriving at the summit of technical
excellence of either of the others, partakes in its extremes some-
what of both, while its sentiment is equally national. Further,
there is an ignorance and indifference in regard to it in the gen-
eral European mind about as complete as that of the art of
Japan, while it was excluded from the knowledge of the rest of
the world by the timid policy of its government. Nothing like
this has operated to seclude English art. On the contrary,
England is an asylum of nations. There are no barriers to
ingress or egress of people or art. Anglo-Saxons emigrate and
travel more than other races. By these means they spread
their notions and habits faster and further than the rest of man-
kind. Actually they have done the most to raise the standard
of the moral and physical well-being, promote material comfort,
and enlarge the horizon of political liberty, in fine, to diffuse
civilization by individual example, of any people Americans
fail to appreciate what Europe was before this influence was
brought to bear on it, unless they step out of the common track


THE BRITISH REFORMER, [91
of tourists. A few miles of side-travel will carry them back
almost to the social conditions of the dark ages, divested of their
picturesquesness. To realize the vast scale of English civiliza-
tion, we must take in at one view America and Australia, watch
the intellectual and religious light that is penetrating Asia from
this source, and observe how the presence of the English race
is felt wherever it settles, in ameliorating local discomforts, in-
troducing sanitary innovations, and improving the common ideas
of truth, chastity, cleanliless, humanity to animals, and public de-
corum. Those who regard only individual exceptions will deride
this statement. But I base it on twenty years' experience in
different countries. The habits of personal propriety and self-
reliance which the educated Englishman takes with him to the
four quarters of the globe are a source of improvement to all
peoples. Setting aside those large ideas and enterprises which
grow well only in free countries, I thank him for showing the good
of pure water, soap, ventilation, warmth, fixed prices, full meas-
ure, punctuality, bathing, open-air exercise and games, doors
that will close, chimneys that will draw, windows that will open
and shut, sewerage and drainage that will do their duty, and in
fine for his reforming zeal in little things. I sympathize in his
abhorrence of the stinks, filth, rotten beggary, and hypocrit-
ical knavery too common on the Continent; of the prevalent
desire of being carried through life, Sinbad fashion, on some one
else's back, so that the legs of many persons come to lose their
natural office of Support; on his contempt for that common
style of tailor-made men who push women into the gutter in the
street, stare them into scornful immobility of feature for self-
protection, or plot how they may entrap some weak female into
supporting them in affluent idleness for the sake of a comely
person or forlorn title. The amount of starvation of body at
home to keep up a show out of doors by the Southern races,
must be witnessed to be comprehended by comfort-exacting
Anglo-Saxons.
Impatient of shams and equally beguiled by material interests,
the American is England's own child, intensified by larger free-
dom, greater self-assertion, and emancipation from “vested”
wrong. Neither Americans nor English are liked in Europe,
except for their money and the reliance on their promises to
pay. Both are too restless under imposition and arbitrary
power, too little possessed of the spirit of “patienza,” to be pop-
ular. Their frankness of damning grates on the ears of those
192 WHAT WE O WE TO ENGLISHMEN.
who unconsciously offend them from ignorance of their ideas
and habits. The American being the last comer, more of a
spendthrift, and less mixed up in the politics of Europe, though
he begins to loom portentously, is the less disliked. Moreover,
be is more flexible, impressible, and cosmopolitan in tempera-
º: is in him the possibility of relationship to all the
rest of the world, even the negrq” Distance also lends some
enchantment to the foreign view of his person. European
idealists see in America the great primary school of democratic
progress. An American, therefore, wherever he is, should live
in the light of his own institutions, talk from his throat instead
of his nose, not be unmindful of the grammar of his mother-
tongue, train his manners in accordance with the requirements
of polite society, - which is a fine art in itself, - and not strive
for those aristocratic appearances which, like the donkey in the
lion's skin, only advertise his imposture. Rather let him imitate
the Englishman, who carries his island on his back, an inconven-
ient burden at times, but in the end beneficial. An American,
keeping faith with his proper principles, will finally be more
respected as an individual, and more useful as an example of
republican civilization, than if he fades into an indefatigable
snob, clamoring for the privileges of that birthright he has bar-
tered away for a mess of aristocratic porridge. A genuine
American can teach Europe much that concerns popular educa-
tion and individual development that an Englishman has not yet
grown up to. Still, I repeat, we do owe him thanks for the
good service already done. This, too, despite frequent insular
haughtiness, indifference, an alpine egotism, want of tact, amen-
ity, and recognition of rights and ideas not registered in his
conventional text-books or systems, and the selfish sophistry and
offensive arrogance with which he prematurely sneered at the
downfall of democracy and the destruction of the great Republic.
My great uncle, I hated you then I kept warm in my heart
your long list of national crimes, – not blunders, but coolly
adopted policies and opinions, against the defeated or those who
do not fall into your way of thinking; like the blowing away of
Hindoos from the mouths of cannons, less to torture their bodies
than as a touch of extra damnation to their souls; that letter of
Ruskin declining intercourse with Americans, because of the
wickedness of fighting to put down slavery, in the same breath
that he was anathematizing England for not fighting in support
of his gyratory ethics; the idiotic conclusion of Carlyle as to the
THE ENRA GED LATINS. 193
meaning of the North ; and the snap-judgment of British Lords
and Commons upon America in her severest trials.
Let the dead bury the dead. At least, let us not imitate
evil. The world owes more to England than it has the grace
to acknowledge. Its manners are blunt, reserved, but hearty.
If other populations travelled as much as Englishmen, we should
see in them even more to vex or annoy. There would be some
new lessons in stinginess, deception, dirtiness, and the vocabulary
of profanity and obscenity as a fine art, practised by an enraged
vulgar-minded Latin, and sundry personal habits that little suit
English and American notions of propriety. There would be
plenty of fault-finding and but scant reforming ; for the protest
of the Latin is limited to his personal desires and hearers,
while the vigorous grumble of the Englishman, and his emphatic
denunciations at bad faith and scanty accommodations, echoed by
a sympathizing press, operates both as a preventive and a cure.
The one would rely on the government to make all smooth for
him ; the other denounces, and puts his own hand to the reform.
An average Englishman, being either the most pertinacious con-
servative as to what relates to his own class of ideas or the
most earnest reformer as to those of others, is certain to offend
in both ways.
Although English art shows names that would jºſ,
confer honor on any modern school, in spirit and English art
execution it is reforming and innovating, besides being in-
Sular in position. The Dutch school is less intellectual, varied,
and inspiriting, yet its works abound in the galleries of Eu-
rope, everywhere in protesting contrast to Roman Catholic art,
ºwhile there are to be seen out of Great Britain no Eng-
lish pictures of account. Part of this neglect is due to the
scale of home prices, which is far above that of the Continent,
but it is mainly owing to ignorance and that prejudice against
Jºnglish individualism which tones their art as much as their
manners. Still these circumstances do not explain why for-
*se * º & e
eign governments have given no place to English paintings
in their galleries. Turner, who in his sphere, was quite as
remarkable as their great painters, is almost as unknown in
their art world as the Japanese Oksai. Other distinguished
names fare no better. So much the worse for Europe. Eng-
land herself cultivates a catholic taste in literature and art.
She collects from all sources to aid her own intellectual de-
velopment, without stint of money, and finally with sagacity,
13
194 HOT-HOUSE ART"
thanks to the criticism her system of aesthetic training has
fostered. Elsewhere culture of this character is wholly a care
of government. Here it has been only recently initiated on a
large scale, and by private zeal, as it were, forced into the offi-
cial budget. Whether it is a better for the government or the
people to take the initiative and direction in all matters of educa-
tion, is an open question. The first system hastens develop-
ment, but is apt to mislead or pervert, while the second, if slower,
is more sure to be a genuine expression of national taste and
needs. In art, as in politics, the less a people are governed
downwards, the better. Hot-house forcing of an eclectic art
after the Munich pattern, imposed on an indifferent popula-
tion, is certain to meet with the fate of seed sown on rocky
ground. The mixed English system has greatly benefited
the nation by giving vent to the aesthetic convictions of those,
best qualified to stimulate the public mind in this respect, and
by promptly supplying those artistic helps which were out of
the reach of private enterprise. In America we must await
individual action both as to initiation and organization. All
that the legislature may do is to legalize its work, and if
persuaded of its general utility, give it incidental aid. The
last and most difficult task of the American people has in-
variably been to enlighten their law-makers. As yet their
ignorance of art is hopelessly profound. Compared with ours,
the English are supremely wise in their generation ; and this
wisdom is the result of the mental activity of a few persons,
who, having studied the subject in its relation to British civil-
ization, have succeeded in convincing Parliament of its practi-
cal importance.
The present English school is scarcely a century old. While
England was Roman Catholic, her art, which was more than
respectable in architecture, was imbued with the same religious
sentiment as that of her neighbors. Here we may again ob-
serve of how little weight are race or climate in artistic devel-
opment compared with ideas. With one class of convictions
England wrought abundantly and well. As they changed, art,
too, changed. The book influence becoming very strong and
taking an iconoclastic direction, for a long period the aesthetic
training was set aside, or put on a very inconsequential footing.
This withdrawal of art from its old position was the less felt be-
cause of the brilliant literature that took its place. So far was
the intellectual development of England from being suspended
INFLUENCE OF FASHION. 195
by the Protestant reaction against art, that it was carried for-
ward more rapidly than ever, surpassing that of the other peo-
ples who were in different degrees subjected to similar revolu-
tionary changes. We may miss in England a distinctive school
of painting equal to that which existed in Spain, Holland, or
Germany in the first centuries subsequent to the Reformation,
but its absence is more than compensated by the artistic supe-
riority and wholesomeness of its prose and poetry. They trained
a public to think profoundly as well as to feel deeply, which
was more than art could do by itself. Likewise they kept in
active circulation those principles of political science which sub-
sequently ripened into American freedom. Therefore if our an-
cestors at this juncture produced no masterpieces to match those
of Rembrandt, Rubens, or Velasquez, or school-work equal to
that of Claude, Salvator Rosa, and the Carracci, they were busy
in solving an abstract problem of civilization, which they finally
brought to a practical solution of infinitely more benefit to men
than fine sculpture and painting by themselves. We may wish
we had more treasure of this sort, but in view of our old Eng-
lish literature and present political advance, we have no reason
to covet the above names. Sk
It must, however, be confessed that religious preju- Influence of
dices and materialistic tendencies caused an unneces- *
sary amount of aesthetic poverty, which did not much abate until
the Royal Academy was founded, and the aristocracy made a lion
of Reynolds. Just what is now happening in America occurred
then in England. Fashion set up for an amateur. To have a
taste always implies a flattering distinction, the more so when the
crowd associates it in its superficial judgment with titles or wealth.
It is not a generous patronage of art, but the best to be had in
the present condition of Protestant human nature. Money and
rank had far more to do in putting the English school on its legs
than intelligent criticism or a universal desire for pictures.
I confine my remarks to them, because English sculpture,
with partial exception, is too mechanical and commonplace to
stake a genetic pasitiºn- Flaxman had taste and genius in de-
sign, but he cannot be accounted a great sculptor. Chantrey,
Marochetti, and other well-known names appear as shrewd con-
tractors of moderate executive skill and scant acsthetic knowl-
edge, foisted into notoriety and wealth by an imbecile patronage
created by adroit patron-hunting. Gibson was a diluted Greek
of the decline; a clever artist, but bestowing on his country

196 ENGLISH PAINTING,
nothing in sympathy with current ideas and feelings. He is
one of those classical pedants, of whom Canova is the chief, who,
acting as plausible guides to the antique, mislead the public in
its conceptions of it. The English mind either does not take to
sculpture, or sculpture does not take to it. So far from there
being in this department indications of an original excellence
corresponding to the progress of the sister-art, or to architect-
ure as a constructive whole, each fresh name marks further
retrogression. And England owns the Elgin marbles
English pain;ing reflects the tastes and habits of the popula-
tion at large/drawn by the climate rather towards a fireside,
easel art, than to out-door, monumental wº Those motives
are preferred which are associated with ordinary enjoyments.
Next, those which illustrate facts, scenes, or sentiments. There is
little passion in English art, instead, the domestic affections,
loyalty, self-esteem, and whatever manifests the national power.
There is, too, a hearty love of the sea, landscape, the substantial
fruits of wealth, wit, humor, exposure of Social shams and follies,
respect for morality, mingled with adulation of rank and the mere
fighting class, whether of the ring or war-office. It is a common
school in many respects, and material in its longings; but it never
descends to the bottom of Dutch motives, although its respect of
animal vigor, the turf and chase, and delight in physical sensa-
tions, are frankly avowed. If Englishmen prize health in man
and strength in beasts, it is more for the power they confer of
overcoming difficulties than as sources of sensual pleasures. Etty
is a rare example of a sensuous artist, and he produced phantoms,
not flesh, as impalpable, unformed, and unseductive as the vague
forms of a dream. The School is too clean-minded for success
here. It refuses to steep womanhood in vice or immodesty, and
cordially detests the wanton. Neither has it the blood instinct
which accompanies the sensual in the Gallic and Spanish schools.
Generally there is the possibility of a rake in a French saint (on
canvas) and of a ruffian in an Iberian angel. ÓClassical idealism
is no more to its taste than painting “dirt" of any sorº’ It has
no forced standard of beauty, scarcely considers it at all other
than as the result of a body that digests well and hits hard. The
Strong point is natural truth. Whatever is seen it wishes dis-
tinctly shown. The public eye is the first organ to criticise,
next the heart, lastly the brain.
English art is a good story-teller, dotes on children and pets,
enjoys the picturesque, manly sports, horticulture, agriculture,
--~~
..~~~
ENGLHSH GqLORING. Jr.” gºs -
i , / [t 2 C. Côn .-- ... ..."
commerce, business, the & isolation, vanities of fashion,
follies of low life, virtues of every-day existence, the eccentricities
of the world, and is more content with a “home" midway be-
tween poverty and riches than to be “decorated ” and receive
prize-medals. Solid comfort is dearer to it than “honorable
mention.” It prefers punctual bank-checks to distinguished
back-patting ; does not knuckle to patronage, yet adores it.
Superior to the copyist, it asserts itself as an illustrator and
exhibitor; original in selection, varied and reputable ; not in-
ventive, but discursive, discovering ; a wholesome art for the
whole people; neither too abstruse, ideal, or allegorical for the
common apprehension, nor too gross for cultivated taste; not yet
aspiring to high historical and religious painting or profound
thought, except in a few cases of but partial success or absolute
failure. For a long while its chief ambition was to catch the smile
of fashion. Now it earnestly seeks local truth and accurate
characterization. Voluntarily it yields precedence to literature,
satisfied with borrowing its creations, in place of creating
thought-models for itself. The Bible as a source of inspiration
pushes aside Homer, Virgil, and Dante, who, however, get com-
pensation elsewhere. Scriptural subjects are sure of popular
sympathy, while classical motives are certain to catch the cold
shoulder. Minor things, to say the least, have as good a chance
as great; I think better. Their soul is recognized, and thereby
they are exalted, as much as Dutch art tends to belittle them by
the variety of labor heaped on their crust. English art has its
own cant, but does not often rush into absurd sensation, being
kept clear by its shrewd detection of the ridiculous. The weak-
ness goes to the opposite extreme of impassive decorum and
rigid restraint. It overlooks the quiet saints of Protestant prog-
ress in favor of those who make the most uproar; but as a
whole, English painting, planting itself firmly on the earth,
specially devotes itself to Humanity.
Technically our satisfaction is less complete. It has British color.
no universal, acute feeling for color or large sense of "*
harmony, being in this behind other schools. There is overmuch
Tawness, spottiness, flimsiness, and dryness of touch. The color-
ſeems to be as inoperative in the nation at large as that
of music. This is noticeable in the prevailing inharmony, want
of subtle gradation of tints, of skill in modelling, or the expres-
sion of character by it equally as by form, as with the Venetians
and Spaniards, and the absence of that aesthetic tone which com-


198 WATER—COLOR PAINTING.
pletes the unity of perfect painting. Color becomes blunt and
jerked ; like British speech, throaty, whereby words are dwarfed
into imperfect sounds, and fluency and harmony choked. A
single-eyed regard for the main idea is at the bottom of much of
this inept practice of parts. But more arises from vicious
methods and paucity of home-means of training the senses to a
correct appreciation of colors. Further there is much careless
execution, founded on the common make-shifts of ocular decep-
tion, or relying on the popular obtuseness not to be detected.
Preraphaelitism, so called, was an earnest protest against
the superficiality of the older men, and wrought a wholesome
change in the standard of painting. It operated as a regenerat-
ing force, insisting on a more loyal treatment of nature and more
honesty towards the spectator. Details and accessories were
given their legitimate value in composition in the scale of fact.
Like all reformers, however, the Preraphaelites were sometimes
seduced by excessive zeal to push their practice to extreme limits,
putting every object, without regard to the point of view or its
relative importance, on the same level of elaborate finish and
equality of representation, so that the spirit of the whole was in
danger of being frittered away in minute parts. If the old men
did too little, the new did too much, like Denner in portraiture,
who makes the pores and texture of the skin more evident than
the likeness. However it put the shirkers of labor out of fash-
ion, and made conscientious work, if not wholly popular, at least
respected, besides giving a severe blow to the stilted prestige of
the average academicians. -
With it grew up that beautiful branch of art, at first peculiar
to the English, but now spreading everywhere, of water-color
painting. To the remainder of the school it bears the same re-
lation that lyric verse does to the rest of literature, or a people's
songs to their affections. The style suits both a cultivated and
common audience of ordinary poetical sensibilities. Its tone of
color is on a higher key of light than is proper to oils. Not
possessing their force, capacity, or dignity, it cannot supersede
them in the more serious efforts of painting, though it has spe-
cific qualities and facilities that warrant the favor with which it
has been received.
Having thus outlined the motives of English painting, let us
look at some of the masters who represent its extremes of idea
and treatment. . It is not worth our while to go back to the
Sir Peter Lely period of light portraitureſor no merely frivolous
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. 199
style has any soundness of heart to consider, while his influence
was as transient as the lives of the frail beauties who employed
him. AEsthetic fashions come and go with the caprices of pat-
rons and the servility of their painters. Jºhe vapid-execution–
even of a Sir Thomas Lawrence has no interest except to his
sitters. g --~~~ - • * v-wºr:
`T is otherwise with artists who refuse to toy with art to
catch the fancies of the uninstructed rich man, or degrade it to a
plaything of rank. Their works may be far below their ideal,
yet lift the public taste to a higher level of artistic understand-
ing at each effort to reach it. Genuine work is sure to incite
genuine enjoyment finally. Now the British school, which was
in type or sentiment genuinely national, begins, as was fitting,
with artists who believed that the essence of painting was embry-
onic in color, and that their chief office was to bring its power
to the surface; form being the skeleton, and color the quickening
breath, as was the conviction of the Venetians. If their success
fell short of their ambition, it was because the standard of ex-
cellence left by Titian in painting, like that of Phidias in sculp-
ture, is so close upon the subtlety of nature's own modelling that
only a genius especially endowed of her may hope to rival him.
Real progress commences when the inferior master perceives
in the greater that superiority which he covets. Copying may
help his practice and instruct him in theory, but it cannot be-
stow the cunning of hand that marks quite as distinctly the gulf
that separates genius from talent as does thought itself.
* * * * . .3 º Reynolds.
Reynolds, believing in Titian, became a colorist. But
not having the power to express all he conceived, and failing to
detect by chemical tests, as those do who thus seek it, the secret of
Venetian vitality of coloring, he groped his life away in shortcom-
ings, though not without executing works which have been useful
in helping reclaim the British public from its general insensibility
to color. So deeply did Sir Joshua feel this barrenness that he
said despairingly, “There is not a man on earth who has the least
notion of coloring.” Again, “It is totally lost to art.” He was
right in his esteem for it and estimate of the prevailing ignorance
throughout Europe, but wrong in supposing that a lost art could
be renewed by means of chemistry and manual dexterity alone.
He would have done sounder work if he had not lost time
chasing an ignis fatul, a mistake common to small artists,
though not to be regretted in them as with one competent to do
better things.
200 GAINSBOROUGH.
In view of the consummate modelling of color in Titian's
“Venus,” portraits of Canaro and the gray-eyed unknown man of
the Pitti, not to cite other wonders, it is not surprising that impres-
sible artists of no original force, like the American landscapist
Tilten, should theorize themselves into a maze of manual blunders
in the search of effects as hopelessly beyond their powers as the
plays of Shakespeare, or the creation of woman herself. Most
artists know something theoretically of former methods, but are
skilful only in the particular one taught them or which they
work out for themselves. The Greeks knew the value of glaz-
ings two thousand years before the Venetians wrought them into
their transparent glow of harmony, or Correggio into his glowing
light. Pliny says that Apelles, having finished a picture to a cer-
tain point, poured on it a liquid which gave brilliancy and toned
down the strong hues. Evidently he knew the modern receipt
for lowering their pitch.
It is the charitable fashion to attribute the want of success of .
the imitators of the great masters to some technical mistake, as
that their oils were faulty, colors impure, or they put transparent
tints over opaque before these were dry, which absorb the
former. Some of Leonardo's pictures have suffered on account
of their black foundation showing through the superimposed
half-tints and darkening the shadows. But who fails to recog-
nize the hand and thought of genius, despite the drawbacks of
time and chemical changes 2 If Reynolds could not recreate
Venetian in English painting, or William Page in American, it
was not owing to vicious methods only. When England and
America give birth to original genius on a par with the “old
masters,” we shall have art equal to theirs. Meantime, let
either nation cultivate such talent as it has in its natural direction.
Gains- Gainsborough doing this, attained a clearness and
borough. delicate gradation of tint that surpasses his rival's,
besides being more English in motives and style. Still, a “Holy
Family” by Reynolds is an English mother of the common type
of features and costume, of the upper class, with a fine boy over-
shadowed by British foliage. It was as affected in him to miscall
his theme, as it was indecent in Rubens to make coarse moulded
women and wickedness in high places into effigies of divine per-
Sonages. The English artist, however, never wounds the moral
sensibility by his anachronisms, but the continental shocks pro-
priety and history alike. A respectable mother fondling her
child, whether called a Madonna or Mrs. Blank, is always a
AſO GARTH. 201
pleasing spectacle, but no grandiloquence of titles or wealth of
jewels can bring the mind to accept the lineaments of a well-
known sinner for those of an immaculate Virgin. English art
often disappoints in execution, but its morality is certain to be at
the highest gauge of the nation’s.
Another pleasing feature of British colorists, including Wil-
son, is their refinement. Their aesthetic tone is superior to that
which came into vogue with the sturdy realism of the next gen-
eration, which introduced into art more of the ruder elements of
life, to the detriment of the older idealism of character and
scenes. Although Reynolds had no better subjects to paint than
his successors, his portraits will always be valuable because of
their high-bred grace and dignity. *.
More striking contrasts, in the scope of motives and treatment,
obtain in England than is usual in the schools of the continent.
Hogarth is supremely English. No other land could
have bred himº He is the climax of its insular moral-
ity and anti-aesthetic mind, scorning foreign art, habits, and
idealisms,” Spurgeon of the brush, realistic to the spine, not
for dirt's sake, but having an ethical aim that savors more of
the puritan pulpit than the palette, and a sharp satire that cuts
into shams as a surgeon's knife into tumors. A strong man with
a strong purpose, he seizes on painting as the most handy mirror
in which to reflect the manners, vices, and misery of his gener-
ation in a series of unique pictures, unsurpassed in incisive
delineation of character. No old rules for him. He draws and
colors by his own formula. The intensity of his art springs
from its truth. Hogarth is the typical Englishman who will
Hogarth

_wash his dirty clothes-m-pºng-wmafºres he hôWTStºråFé
the SºTests strips Orthºdity rags, if but nºnhyºbététon
to them. Virtue with him is a materialistic dame just as vice
is physically horrible. He distributes reward and punishment
in a substantial manner, according to the average Protestant
notions of what honesty or dishonesty, truth or falsehood ought
to lead to on earth, only they often do not.
Hogarth is the Nemesis of mob-vice and fashionable sin, re-
lentless to both. What would not one give to have as realistic
a series of paintings from life in Babylon when Daniel read
its fate on the wall; in Memphis, when Moses was set adrift
on the Nile; in Jerusalem, when Jesus was martyred ; or
in the Rome of the Caesars, as Hogarth has given of the
London of the Georges: pictures which intensify in interest as
202 HOGARTH AND FRITH.
civilization advances. A Gaul dealing with similar facts con-
fuses the naked truth with his spirituel fancies and delight in
the decorative or sensational. He has not in him the whole-
some faculty of truthful caricature. He must exaggerate him-
self or nation, because glory is the dearest wish of his heart.
Hogarth looks the home-devil out of countenance with his un-
flinching gaze. What business has he with theories of transmitted
wretchedness and official do-everything or do-nothingness P If
the reputation of England is bloated he will prick it. Here is
the sin and the sinner so brought forward that you cannot give
them the go-by on the opposite side. An English brother and
sister, each wretch exactly what England has grown on its proper
soil, a fire from hell burning away the frail props of political and
social respectability. “Up ! O Englishmen,” shouts Hogarth;
“put it out ship-shape, or be irretrievably damned.”
Plain, practical preaching of the brush this, such as is seldom
put before human eyes! If more had been given to art as art, the
intense realism of the compositions would have been weakened.
Now we must see what Hogarth saw, and from his point of
view. He has conferred honor on genius by giving it the noble
mission of calling the “lost" to repent. In general, genius
prefers the society of the “saved,” reversing the example of the
“Son of God.” If we look in Hogarth only for that beauty
which is the music of the eye, we may turn away disgusted; for
as grapes refuse to grow on brambles, so aesthetic repose is not
the companion of crime, nor is sensuous delight the handmaiden
of gin-consoled poverty.
The stern realism of Hogarth partakes too much of an ap-
peal to conscience to be popular as art, although his humor miti-
gates his unpalatable revelations. A favorite realism of English
people is one which gives a prosaic representation of current in-
cidents, as for instance, the “Derby Day,” and “Railway Station
of Frith; ” coarse, forcible pictures, devoid of aesthetic feeling
alike in composition and color, but entertaining as matter of fact
spectacles of certain phases of life in the bustling British hive.
Being the chosen art of the crowd, it is the best paid of all, and
applauded the loudest ; whereas it bears no nearer relation to
fine art than an ordinary novel does to fine literature. Yet it is
more advantageous for the multitude to possess what they like
and comprehend, as a basis of training their taste, than to have
their minds perplexed by the more ambitious eclecticisms of the
Sir Benjamin West class, which require reference to books to be
LANDSEER'S ANIMALS. 203
intelligible, or to be disappointed in their notions of art itself by
the frantic efforts of a Hayden to clutch the academic transcen-
dental.
It is to the credit of the English school that it produces so
many well-instructed artists inspired by motives suited to the
comprehension of all persons, and yet in moral tone salutary,
stimulating to the intellect, and pleasing in an aesthetic sense.
Landseer's devotion to animals, though his work has too much
of a surface look, is in keeping with the public feeling. His
pencil is more humane than that of the Dutchman Sneyders,
whose broader brush revels chiefly in the ferocious instincts of
brutes and the bloody trophies of the chase. Landseer keeps
uppermost the bracing effects of hunting as an out-door exercise
on the hunter, and the keen development of his physical senses as
he copes with the sharp instincts of his game, while his triumph
is not in a cruel death of overmatched victims, which continen-
tal painters of animal life depict with profound satisfaction, but
in overcoming physical difficulties, in daring pursuit, and in the
hardihood gained by an invigorating pleasure. Our feelings are
not lacerated by needless parading of torn limbs and gory mouths.
Instead, a healthful sympathy is incited by the courageous attack
or defence which puts the instinctive faculties to their highest
test, before the fatal moment arrives; or admiring pity at the
resignation with which, the animal having exhausted his resources
of escape, confronts his destiny, pathetically rebuking man for
his wantonness.
The English painter loves man and animal too sincerely to
put either on the rack. Furthermore he is the court-painter of
dogs and horses, evidently preferring to see them sharing the
luxuries and pride of station of their aristocratic owners, with a
seemingly latent idea of an equality of souls in his two and
four-footed patrons; at least of intimate affinities which exalt
the dumb if they do not the speaking animal, though in his
hands they never debase the human being. No one of common
sensibilities can fail of being favorably impressed in regard to
dependent brutes by Landseer's portraiture of them.
Higher up in aesthetic range and the development º
of character we find two representative painters of the #g.,
genre-historical style, each a type of substantial Brit- tº
ish idiosyncrasies of temperament: Wilkie and Leslie, the one
Scotch and the other American born, but true English artists in
selection and execution. Wilkie had a rich fund of that humor
204 WILKIE AND LESLIE.
which honors and amuses humanity: a quiet, racy, tender, truth-
ful picturesque method of composition, harmonious as a whole
while abounding in delicate by-play; not masterly but agreeable
in color, faithful throughout in work, sincere at heart, and clear-
headed. Honest Wilkie
Leslie had more culture, but a narrower understanding and
more contracted heart. He was not a genius, like Wilkie.
His coloring is an offence to painting, deficient in harmony, unity,
tone, and meaning. It concentrates the worst faults of his
school. There are men who paint even worse because knowing
less, not for feeling less. Leslie's coloring may be locally true,
but as used by him, becomes cold, coarse, and heavy, disturbing
that refined unity of characterization and composition which was
his strong point. In taste and sympathies he was kindly aris-
tocratic, not recognizing the people of his generation, as did
Wilkie. nor yet offending them. His is a limited, high-toned
well-informed manner, suited to the drawing-rooms of the in-
structed classes who care more for art as a literary than an
aesthetic enjoyment. Wilkie painted for a numerous, Leslie for
an exclusive circle.
Although Leech was not a painter, he represents one of the
most welcome and deepest ingrained phases of British art,
founded on the national perception of the ultra-ridiculous and
fallacious. He was most clever in making caricature a vital
detective force, exposing humbug, scenting mischief, and present-
ing the truth to popular apprehension in a ludicrous, wholesome
way, carrying conviction to head and heart quickly and pleas-
antly. The branch of art of which he was chief master, an-
swers as a pictorial conscience for the nation, reflecting its imme-
diate impressions of good or bad of themselves and others; in
the main with fairness and common sense. Its blisterings excite
the healthful action in the public skin, though sometimes it runs
into uncharitableness and thoughtlessness out of haste to joke.
Yet it is never malignant, immoral, or irreligious, and as free
from actual cant as anything human may be just now. It has
originated a singularly trenchant and graphic style of design,
broad in manner, pointed in detail, free from senseless exaggera-
tion, which as in French caricature overshoots its mark, quick in
seizing the roots of character, sharp as lightning in application,
of large and minute observation, sleight of hand, which constant
study and practice alone can keep up, and a skill in sugaring its
bitterest pills with enough of fun to reconcile even its butts to
CHARACTER OF “ PUNCEI.” 205
them; indeed, to make its heaviest home-thrusts valued as evi-
dence of high-game, for it loves better to strike upwards than
downwards.
“Punch” is as thoroughly a British product as Hogarth. Ital-
ian caricature is inventive and excoriating; careless in design,
vehement and ingenious, excessively irreligious, making as free
use of the figures of the Holy Trinity as of pope or emperor, to
point its shafts. Devoted to political propagandism, in which it is
very effective, it conveys and defines ideas to the populace by
aid of the ridiculous, with a rapidity and emphasis that books
cannot rival. The most hopeful, original art-talent of Italy now
takes this direction, as the sole one sustained by the common
mind, or for which it has a hearty liking. But its use is con-
fined to the exigencies of politics, while the caricature of Eng-
land, taking in all the globe, overlooks no topic of interest to
humanity at large.
What emphatically distinguishes it is respect of woman. She
is as fair game in the ordinary course of her eccentricities and
follies as the common Englishman for snobbery or both for obesity
or stupidity; but her chastity and the domestic relations are
never trifled with or sneered at. “Punch's ’’ familiar English
virgin is an ever delightful picture of youth, health, beauty, and
goodness. Her mother is the respected matron and faithful wife
that she ought ever to be. That tenderness for the erring and
fallen, which comes of Christian pity and desire of their redemp-
tion, beautifully sung by Hood, is likewise a vital characteristic
of British morality in art. It is praiseworthy in the nation to
sustain “Punch "; nobler, that its ethical standard is thus pure
and independent. France would not tolerate the latter even if it
had talent equal to the former. Neither would America in the
present despotism of public opinion, outside of politics and impa-
tience of sound criticism, though its regard for women and stand-
ard of domestic morality are quite equal to the English, perhaps
a mite higher. --- ***-*…
* One artist stands alone, an exceptional man at any
period, but the more remarkable as coming to light in the Eng-
lish school, against whose materialistic tendencies he was a
Spiritual protest, as he was an enigma to the nation. By his
contemporaries he was called the “mad ‘’ painter. But was
William Blake more mad than Milton, whose verse records
visions akin to those the artist drew 2 Are his extraordinary
creations the fruit of a disturbed imagination, or the orderly
Blake.
206 WILLIAM BLAKE.
sequence of a rare gift of spiritual insight 2 | Blake looked into
worlds unnoted by the outward eye. His vision was not com-
plete or thorough. None earthly may be ; but it was approx-
imative ; revealing glimpses of scenes of too intense grandeur
and beauty to be apprehended by mortals unless partially veiled
in that imperfection which is our common heritage while in the
body, or given as faint suggestions of celestial truths. Ezekiel,
Isaiah, John of Patmos, Dante, Milton, Swedenborg, all the great
utterers of spiritual knowledge, have an advantage over their
fellow-seers who rely on plastic and pictorial means to embody
their discoveries.) Neither Phidias, nor Fra Angelico, succeed in
forming out of the concrete so perfect an image of what is in
their souls as can the prophet and poet of theirs out of the ab-
stract. Matter is refractory, while the latter is a spiritual pro-
cess appealing directly to kindred senses for interpretation, or
the completion of what the imagination outlines. We should
therefore always remember in favor of the artist his specific
disadvantage in any effort to render the super-excellent. Words
paint sublimity better than colors, for the receiving thought it-
self is illimitable, while the external organs are limited by their
own and the objective matter. J Great artists see mentally as far
as great poets, only their medium of expression is less subtle
and mº y !/ %t §:. Wºn tºrt
The reverse holds good in ordinary art. A common picture
of common events conveys to the beholder a definite idea or
sight quicker, more completely and pleasurably than does the
ITInted description, since it is...merely an affair-of-the-eye;
without call on the imagination. Hence as the vast majority of
people judge of pictures by their skins, they think an eye-painter
like Frith is a prodigious artist, while a soul-painter like Blake
must be foolish or crazy. And their judgment is the more em-
phatic if the drawing and coloring of the unintelligible artist
has not the superficial likeness to nature of his rival.
Blake certainly indulges in wayward freaks of composition,
and displays marked defects or recklessness of design. But
even these seem to have a purpose and meaning clear to him if
not to others; as likewise his system of coloring. One of the
oldest and most accomplished of living English artists, who in his
youth knew Blake well, and saw a large painting of his of a
Welsh historical subject treated ideally, but not then finished,
says it was as remarkable for force of coloring and the quality
of its composition and design as for its originality of thought.

WILLIAM BLAKE. 207
What became of this immense canvas he never knew. Fuseli
told Blake with truth, when he came to the Academy to learn,
that he was better qualified to teach them.
Blake's disparaging critics overlook an important point.
The Superiºrnºs is tangföremoder; and in such instances, the
artist not only must mºre mºrown-law, but by the nature of
his motive his hand is the insufficient tool of his idea. Michael
Angelo swayed to and fro between his power of hand and force
of thought. Whenever the former got loose rein it led him
into amatomical extravagances of composition, whereas the lat-
ter, however incomplete in manual realization, magnetizes the
spectator by its inherent greatness of conception. Felix told
Paul that much learning had made him mad. All insight into
highest truth meets with similar accusation before the current
mind rises to its level. This happened to Blake, aggravated by
his independence of the world and occasional artistic careless- c. * * artf
wº ºr- * : *** 3 tº: iº * s -
ness or incoherency. & £ º & iſ rºº ºf
Nevertheless Blake is a unique mäster of the spiritual-sub-
line – a creative-artisi-post-of-temarkable-originality. He
alone would serve to redeem the English school from its re-
proach of overweening materialism and deficiency of exalted
motive. As its spiritual faculties become developed, Blake's
fame rises and his inspirations are better appreciated. In view
of the results they were better termed revelations. All prophetic
revelation stammers as it passes human lips. It reaches us
In Orphic fragments, susceptible of varied construction, leaving
gaps difficult to fill, yet on the whole ennobling and inspiriting.
Whatever originates in the world of spirits must come to us
in this imperfect guise whilst material barriers intervene.
Blake's place in art is the antipodal extreme to Hogarth's.
He revealed the frightful secrets of earth's hells as a warning.
Blake let in Tight TOTTThe TGVerstö"Console, and opened to
mortal eyes vistas of happier homes beyond the grave. Had
he been a Catholic, his mind would have been preoccupied by a
defined mythology. Which would have governed his pencil. But
TOTm where the boundaries of religious thought are less fixed,
he rose to heights and penetrated to depths before unknown to
his school. He was the first to graphically embody the con-
soling truth of the immediate resurrection of the soul, which
although exemplified by Jesus, seems never to have been gener-
ally comprehended by Christians. I refer to his sublime composi-
tion of the corruptible putting on incorruption, in the form of

208 WILLIAM BLAKE.
decrepit age tottering on crutches into the tomb, reluctant to en-
ter, but the next instant seen as a perfect spiritual being in the
figure of immortal youth rising from the top of the sepulchre,
gazing upwards in rapture at the celestial light that electrifies
his new-found existence.
What art before or since has been so transfigured by the
dearest of all divine truths to humanity ? What we feign
would believe here bursts on our consciousness as a beneficent
law of nature taking out that “sting of death" which before Blake
art heightened rather than assuaged. Regard, too, in the illustra-
tions of the “Grave,” how beautifully he shows the release by
death of the soul from the body : its brief moment of anazement
and curiosity at a glorious unexpected change, its notions having
been obscured or falsified while on earth; the preliminary expe-
riences of new-birth and final joy at rejoining friends in a land
whose mansions though many and lovely are not constructed or
distributed after the unequal ways of earth.
Gºłchrist’s By artistic clairvoyance like the above, Blake opens
.#ſºſ., to the human heart fresh fountains of hope. The
i., p. 30 el" illustrations of Job best evince his range and power
Ség. of the sublime. He says of himself, “I do not behold
the outward creation, and that to me is an hindrance and not
action.” “All things exist in the human imagination.” And
again, “Mere natural objects always did and do weaken, deaden,
and obliterate imagination in me.” When ten years old, he
sees “a tree filled with angels, bright angelic wings bespangling
every bough like stars,” and meets angelic figures walking amid
the haymakers at work in the fields he frequented. How un-
like Raphael’s and Leonardo's theories and practice in relation
to their ideals | They studied natural objects with cool heads
and clear eyes, content to find their models in living men and
women and the creation around them. Blake virtually despised
them all. The core of his philosophy of art ran through an
imagination more sublimated in a spiritual sense than ever be-
fore was given to a painter. Material things did not exist to
him when the inspiration was on him. “Instead of the sun, a
round disk of fire, I see an innumerable company of the heav-
enly hosts crying, Holy, Holy, is the Lord God Almighty.”
Furtaer he adds, “I question not my corporeal eye any more
than I would a window on seeing a spirit.” To appreciate his
art we must go to him to learn its informing motives, for any
less a guide would lead astray. That becomes intelligible
WILLIAM BIAKE. 209
which otherwise might be regarded as a mystic craze. We are
prepared to see Blake design the Almighty as if, like Job him-
self, he had seen Him riding on the whirlwind which covers the
Lord as with a mantle of wrath. There is an imaginative
probability to his conception that reconciles the mind to the at-
tempt to incarnate the Unrepresentable. His “Ancient of Days”
is more majestic, grave, old in the light of venerable authority,
than the mediaeval effigies; * more realizing the spiritual con-
stitution, strictly subordinating to it the external form of a Being,
who appears actually as the centre of light and life of all things.
Then, too, how human He seems, as if comprehending and feeling
all that man suffers and enjoys. See how mournful God looks, as
if half repenting Him of his inscrutable purpose in commissioning
Satan to vex Job. He even pities Satan as He casts him head-
long into the pit; but the angels rejoice at being rid of their arch-
enemy, who falls in a sheet of flame as only Blake could make
a fiend fall.
With what fatherly love God blesses Job, in the end triumph-
ant over his tormentor. Note the general resemblance be-
tween their figures | Blake not only sees that man was created
in his Maker's image, but attaches a peculiarly subtile spiritual
meaning to the likeness, as if Job impersonified the God in man
on earth, and his victory was that of the eternal right which
made them one forever, blessed evermore.
What terrible repose in the “Spirit” that made Job's hair
stand on end as it passed like a vapor before him, glorifying
the firmament and dazzling the mountain summits with an efful-
gence which turns the light of the sun into blackness. Clair-
voyants describe spirits as Blake depicts them, with rays of
light or color coming from them and forming an atmosphere in
which they move and by which their nature is disclosed. Those
beautiful supernal beings, which represent the Sons of God,
and the Morning Stars in the highest empyrean, shouting for
joy, are as exquisitely as originally conceived in this incorporeal
but yet not formless manner. None other ever so majestically
and so substantially brought down to human ideas by symbolic
creation, the essences of the divine forces that surround and up-
hold the great white throne.
The Book of Job lifts Blake far above the mundane standard
of men and things. His types are stupendously real neverthe-
less, devoid of coarse exaggerations of physical attributes, su-
pernal characterizations of the sublimest invention, vitalized by
14
210 WILLIAM BLAKE.
a dramatic power of mind and hand as wonderful as new in art;
and which fits equally well men and spirits. What cowering fear
affects the wicked; what profound sorrow and humility the mourn-
ful! Seeing, as it were, passions and emotions, he invests them
in forms that disclose their deepest natures. The angels shrink
from Satan who comes into their midst ; for he is the evil force,
not incarnated ugliness, but grand in stature, physical strength,
and sinful ambition, — a dark Son of the Morning ; demoniacal
in attributes rather than figure, which is muscular, swarthy, and
natural ; the evil being internal and reflected through the exter-
mal, not changing its original heroic outline. There is nothing
of the vulgar, gloating, sensual diabolism of the ordinary nature
of the Devil in Blake's creation, which is a truly conceived in-
fernal potency in the likeness of man-evil, as the Saviour is of
the man made spiritually perfect.
Perhaps the grandest example of Blake's sublimity, is the
plate representing “Satan going out from the presence of God
to afflict Job.” There is a disturbed concentric spasm of the
heavenly hosts like the swing of a universe trembling on the
brink of an awful catyclysm, but held in secure check by the
central Almighty repose, which contrasts marvellously with
the astonishment and forebodings of the Sons of God, whose
graceful, rapid movements are in no less striking contrast to the
supernatural velocity of Satan as he exultingly descends head
foremost amid smoke and flame to the earth. Although his
figure is only one inch long it embodies more colossal grandeur
than the tallest Italian fresco of man or devil. Raphael’s “Eze-
kiel ” is child's play in sublimity beside the best of his tiny com-
positions, which bring together in artistic unity the powers of
heaven, earth, and hell, in a few square inches.
Wehement action would seem to be Blake's chief success, if
one did not regard with great attention those designs in which
the lyric takes the place of the epic movement. With what
quiet simplicity and naturalness Job’s happiness and prosperity,
before and after his suffering, are delineated ; no self-congratu-
lation on account of wealth or position, but the devout humble
worshipper, the repose of true piety, being the law of the
great man. The mystic grandeur of the colored design of
the “Crucifixion ” displays his capacity of effecting much by
sparse means. It has a Rembrandtish emphasis of light and
shadow, joined to purity of design and sentiment foreign to the
Dutchman. The infinite sweetness, tenderness, and spirituality
NEW ENGLISH SCHOOL. 211
of Blake are more especially discernible in his “Songs.” Of
his strange, visionary portraiture I need not speak, as they have
no direct connection with his real merits, as shown in the
works already cited. a’
There is a class of English artists who occupy an #.*
intermediate position between the common realists and school.
those of absolute genius like Hogarth, Blake, and Turner ;
men of sound English morality in choice and treatment. They
exhibit cultivated taste, independent judgment, original inven-
tion, refined feeling, poetical sentiment, and an intellectual vision
keen and broad. Nor are their technical virtues less noticeable.
Industry, enterprise, patient elaboration, thorough study of their
motives, a profound regard for art itself theoretically and prac-
tically, having an aesthetic conscience; all these are conspicuous
traits. Whatever culture, talent, and ardor may accomplish, they
aspire to do. As in literature there are writers who strive to per-
petuate a purity and excellence of style derived from the classics
of their country, and yet admit legitimate innovation, so in paint-
ing, the artists to whom I now refer endeavor to incorporate
whatever is meritorious and useful of old methods into modern
practice, in subjection to the cu, rent taste and ideas. Their
contempt of superficial training, willingness to learn from all
sources, and fearlessness of experiment, give them an initiative in
art-progress, so that while representing the growth of aesthetic
knowledge they in large measure also lead and direct it. Still
I cannot perceive that there exists in England any extensive, in-
telligent enjoyment of art. The multitude are ignorant of its in-
tellectual functions, and have no sufficient opportunity to train
their senses to catch its more fleeting pleasures. On this point,
man for man, England has not much to boast over America.
But she has provided a foundation for progress in a class of able
artist-scholars, who keep alive aesthetic traditions and principles,
and numerous, wealthy patrons disposed to overpay in their com-
petitive eagerness to secure favorite works, more perhaps from
associations of a refined, fireside luxury in possessing them as
objects which can never become cheap and common, than from an
enlightened appreciation of art itself. Like the kindred cultiva-
tion of literature as an unfailing source of happiness expanding
by exercise, a liberal comprehension of art must long remain the
exalted privilege of a few. There is however no impediment in
free countries to the spread of art-culture except that callousness
of feeling which comes from inattention. Its claims are slowly
212 MILLAIS AND HOLMAN HUNT.
making themselves felt through the obvious advantages which
are seen to accrue to national civilization everywhere in enlarg-
ing and refining the popular means of happiness. Without un-
duly exalting the wholesome influences of this younger school, it
seems to me to have more vigor, instruction, and better methods
than its immediate predecessor; not only Seeing with more ac-
curacy but keeping to a higher standard of aesthetic faith.
Unfortunately for their fame and the world's benefit, the
painters of England are bound to their own island by golden
chains. Even there, it is difficult to see their best works collec-
tively, owing to the restrictions of private ownership. Américan
amateurs would do a salutary thing were they to temper their
eagerness for French subjects with the wholesomer motives and
more sincere treatment of English painters. Millais, Holman
and William Hunt, D. Rosetti, and Leighton, to name but few,
deserve to be better known abroad. They paint brilliantly and
with signal ability and versatility. Their training is robust, their
choice alike free from the commonplace, and the transgendent-
ideal or conventional grand, while their treatment both of great or
little motives, whether altogether to our fancy or not, begets re-
spect for its honesty and acuteness. They have greatly widened
and deepened the range of English painting, introducing a truer
realism and more profound theories of aesthetics. If they have
less humor and satire than some of the older men, their percep-
tion is more delicate, science truer, and feeling more sensitive;
in fine, they have created a superior atmosphere for English
painting.
º Millais, Holman Hunt, and Dante Rosetti were the
i). Rosetti, originators and “forlorn hope” of this renovating
movement, which they made successful as much by sheer pluck,
perseverance, and consistency as by a high view of art itself and
indomitable talent; returning year after year in the Academy
exhibitions with their accurately executed and carefully consid-
ered pictures, until they overcame prejudices and took by storm
the position of the older painters in the estimation of critics.
Their long-deferred success was as sudden as complete. There
may be different judgments as to the relative merits of Millais
and Hunt, but that they are conscientious masters of rare ability
and great knowledge none can dispute. The “Sower of the
Seed " of the former is an impressive composition of profound
aesthetic as well as moral meaning ; a serious thought put into
Serious coloring and suggestive design of prodigious force. Hunt,
MILLAIS AND HOLMAN HUNT, 213
in his chief work, “The Finding in the Temple,” inclines more
to the picturesque-historical on a strictly realistic platform of art
than to the profoundly emotional, bringing the scene in its mat-
ter-of-fact probability before us, like a brilliantly told narrative;
but his “Light of the World’ shows an equal love of the pic-
turesque symbolical. The range of their fancy and motives is as
wide as their general cultivation and acute observation. Any
type they select is certain to be well treated in relation to itself
as art, and not for hasty gains and transient sensations. They
keep in mind that the main office of a painter is to paint, teach-
ing being secondary. This rigid adherence to the first principle
of asthetics, joined to a high-minded comprehension of the moral
and intellectual aspects of art, imparts to the English school of
which they are the acknowledged chiefs, a more elevated, if
somewhat restricted, character than elsewhere obtains. Much
is also due to the generous faith of these rivals in each other.
The history of art, alas, has more to say of petty jealousies and
windictive malice than of paternal kindness in cases of strong
competition, ending sometimes in the malicious destruction of the
obnoxious works and the murder of the offending artist himself,
as the records of the Neapolitan school disclose. It is delightful,
therefore, to be able to relate an act of these masters which
honors them and their profession equally. Their fortunes at
one period seemed so desperate that both talked of abandoning
art lest they should starve. 26at Millais soon after meeting with
a little encouragement, said to Hunt, “You must not give up ;
you have before you a great future; if you need money, share
mine ; ” which Hunt did for one year, when Millais' words
were so verified that Hunt in one week had sold every picture
he had painted during years of unrequited toil, received com-
missions sufficient to occupy him for several more, and at one
bound found himself famous and prosperous. His father from
the first had opposed his becoming an artist because he thought
the tendency of the profession was immoral and vagabondizing.
One of the most ambitious of recent easel paintings is the
“Florentine Procession,” by Mrs. Benham Hay, representing
the well-known episode in the career of Savonarola, A. D. 1489,
when the children of Florence, incited by his preaching, went
from house to house demanding that meretricious objects of art
should be given up to them to be publicly burned. Mrs. Hay
has produced a striking picture on a large scale, of sufficient
merit to prove that a woman of talent who accepts for herself
214 MRS. BENEIAM HAY.
the same severe discipline in art as a man, may approach him in
technical results. Comparatively few men do better work. The
architecture is good in tone, true in quality, and correct in de-
sign. Her figures are dramatically individualistic, and elabo-
rately finished, without littleness. Foreground details and the
varied accessories evince a bold touch, an observant eye for local
truths, and considerable skill in giving material qualities, text-
ures, and functions. There is a prevailing sense of space, solidity,
weight, distance, general effect, and particular action. It com-
poses picturesquely, and evinces thought and invention. As an
ambitious attempt at historical painting, the picture marks an
era in woman's art. Unhappily it is neither completely realistic
nor idealistic. Aiming at giving an actual historical incident, it
goes part way in that direction, then abruptly passes into the
typical and symbolical. Local architecture, including the Bap-
tistery, part of Giotto's Campanile and the opposite Loggia, is
well rendered. Some of the Florentine portraiture and costumes
seem inspired by the frescoes of D. Ghirlandajo. Then we are
taken back a century and more to defunct fashions, but these
may be admitted as masquerading of the moment, were not their
extravagant and rich effects, and the coarse, more Northern than
Italian features of the scoffing spectators, opposed to symbol-
ical draperies and figures of the Fra Angelico type, without his
power of spiritualization. Allegory, realism, and an abortive
attempt at refined idealism and intense spirituality are thus con-
founded to the loss of intellectual and technical unity. There
are also sundry anachronisms of styles of the art-objects collected
and carried by the children, some things antedating the event, and
others only in existence at a later period, especially the rococo
“Venus’ and its frame, and the bronze satyr, and a portion of
the rich stuffs and jewelry. The children, too, instead of being
carried away by the excitement of their fanatical enterprise, are
impressed by conflicting emotions. Some hesitate and evidently
contemplate the coming holocaust with reluctant eyes. Half-
way feelings have no place in famaticisms of any sort. This
want of unity of treatment of the central idea produces an aes-
thetic jar, which is increased by the failure of the painting to
respond to its title. There are too few principals or spectators
for a procession, particularly at Florence, where the slightest
cause calls together an idle crowd as if they dropped from the
skies. I have counted ten men watching an eleventh buy two
oranges from a street-huckster. Savonarola kept Florence in
“THE FLORENTINE PROCESSION.” 215
perpetual turmoil. This scene in particular aroused the atten-
tion of the whole city. Mrs. Hay, therefore, in treating it,
should have kept it consistent throughout to one phase, whether
historical, typical, or ideal. Now we are perplexed by several
intellectual points of view, none of them complete. Her idea is
intelligible after we know the story and motive consistent, but
as history the painting is not exact, nor is it artistically correct
and harmonious.
The chief mistake is the introduction of the tri-colored awn-
ing which prolongs the picture disagreeably, makes the foreground
figures look awkwardly long, mars the aerial perspective, could
not have been true in itself, impairs the painting every way,
especially in its proportions and distance, and is uncalled for in
the scene, such awning being put out only to screen the Holy
Sacrament in the great festivals of the Church. There is a
want of flow of movement in all the figures, and mastery of form
and action ; a heaviness of outline, detracting from the in general
tolerable modelling and drapery. Mrs. Hay displays skill in
the management of color, avoiding offensive glare, and toning
down the redundant white. But the pitch of light in the fore-
ground and mid-distance is too strong in itself, and does not
unite well with the softer, subdued tone of a background, not
as remote as it would seem to be here. Too much stress is put
on details which, although showing cleverness of studio practice,
disturbs the general mass. Further, the spectator can divide
the composition into a dozen separate pictures of groups, each
one gaining by being alone, and the whole not suffering by
the subtraction. I have been the more particular in naming
the defects of treatment because they are such as Mrs. Hay may
obviate if she means to continue to try to prove the capacity of
her sex to win the rank of “master” in painting.
It is comparatively early to criticise talent, for its ten-
dency is to orderly shape and classification. Talents
group into families. Genius stands apart. But this isolation is
one element of its greatness. Whatever be the cause, there is
something inexpressibly mournful in that reserve which forbids
human communion. Yet the solitude of Jeremiah, Dante, and
Michael Angelo, was the result of their intense yearning to en-
noble humanity. Such men stand out in the darkness of na-
tions, like light-houses irradiating gloom and flashing warning
on sea-slime and breakers. They love their species over-
much, not too little. Nevertheless there are rare men through
rmer,
216 CONTRAST BETIVEEN BLAKE AND TURNER.
whom we receiva precious foregleams of divine beauty and
hints of immortal truths, but “whose moral consciousness is
of a very different quality. Some men are grossly earthy, gritty,
factious, spitting contempt on fellow-beings instead of being
stirred by an infinite compassion to guide them into higher
ways of life. No savageness of egotism, satire, or coarse in-
stincts of the flesh can utterly pervert genius. Though it fail
in its own salvation, it is not permitted to it to wholly shirk
its obligations to the world. Blake's visions of a nobler ex-
istence than the present caused him to be indifferent to or-
dinary mundane satisfactions and inspired him to work miracles
in art. The joy and independence which his faith fostered
were ingomprehensible to those whose horizon of enjoyment
was bounded by material things. An incapacity of a higher
belief is the saddest event that can happen to any man ; a
tenfold sadness to genius: more fatal to contentment than the
mournfulness born of want of faith in humanity in mass, for no
evil can equal that of disbelief in own one's soul. Believing
in his, Blake's spirit was invulnerable to poverty or neglect.
Turner disbelieving, insensible to religious hope, dreading the
logical annihilation of his cheerless materialism, that awful
phantom of eternal nothingness which stalked before his reason,
devoted his powers to accumulating fortune. Gaining it, he
grew only the more solitary and imbittered. At his death,
greedy, neglectful relatives contrived to filch it from the chief
purpose of his long toil and privation. If there could have
come to him in the grave one additional pang of unhappiness,
this was it.
It is wholesome to contrast the interior lives of Blake and
Turner. By so doing, we shall better estimate the importance
of faith to men of genius and indirectly from their example to
us. In the world's judgment, Blake was the more unappre-
ciated and disappointed of the two. He had scarcely a taste of
that intellectual recognition which is as precious to the humble
as the proud. Few comprehended or cared for his works or
Words; mone besides his lowly wife, for his habits or his visions.
Of money, patronage, fame, in one word success, he had next
to nothing. Keenly sensitive to sympathy and encouragement,
he kept himself as pure and unworldly in spirit as a little child.
“I live in a hole here, but God has a beautiful mansion for me,
elsewhere.” “Lawrence pities me, but 'tis he, and the prosper-
ous artists like him, that are the just objects of pity. I pos-
TURNER, * 217
sess my visions, and peace. They have bartered their birthright
for a mess of pottage.” To a friend he says, “May God make
this world to you as beautiful as it has been to me.”
Would you exchange the spiritual riches of Blake for the
heavy guineas of Turner P
As an artist he is to be approached with diffidence; for it is
as difficult to adequately understand as to copy him. Yet the
oftener one goes to his works, as to nature herself, the more
profound the revelation. Turner believed in the landscape.
It was his alpha and omega of a world. But his intercourse
made him unhappy, because his eyes must in a few years close
on it forever. Beyond nature, there was that portentous eclipse
which shut out heaven from his soul. Consequently he con-
centrated on what his eyesight took in, the extraordinary pow-
ers of his imagination and observation, with a degree of success
that entitles him to be called the one complete master of land-
Scape.
Others have had special successes. They have excelled in
certain phases or qualities and been content therewith. But
Turner was the first to raise landscape art out of the partial,
common, or conventional, on to the same complete, sympathetic
basis of truthful treatment as the human figure, imparting to
it a variety of expression, and profundity of feeling commen-
surate, so far as art vehicles permit, with its divinely derived
functions. Before him great artists had treated landscape in a
great manner, but with them all it was a secondary motive. I
speak of Titian, Correggio, Rubens, Velasquez, Rembrandt.
The lesser landscapists, Claude, Rosa, Domenichino, Albano,
Poussins, and men of their calibre, though skilful in rendering
separate features or details, were never imbued with its real
spirit, or observed it closely and surely. They were eclectics,
idealists more intent on creating a landscape according to their
notions of what it should be, or subjected to a central motive
foreign to itself, than if studying nature from the only legiti-
mate point of view, as the ancients studied the human figure,
from actual life. Dutchmen and Germans had painted clever
pictures of local effects and familiar scenes, but seemed more
ambitious of fine finish and mechanical dexterity than of a
comprehensive view of their subject. Theirs was an eye-
service no way truer of heart than the common run of lip
responses in religion. Now Turner did not profess to see God
in anything ; talked not even about the landscape; but he
218 TURNER.
silently and solitarily threw himself bodily into it. By sheer
force of native sympathy with his motive he steered clear of
the entanglements, shortcomings, and contracted ideas of the
old men, and after mastering all they knew, got to interpene-
trate its moods and catch its likeness, as if it had a soul of its
own whereby to reflect the purposes of its author.
I do not think that Turner had any spiritual consciousness
of this, because without a religious sense this is impossible. It
was the instinctive sagacity of genius, after he had consecrated
himself to nature, that gave him the clue to her secrets, and
drew him into close communion with phenomena heretofore un-
observed by art. Turner was as much of a hermit in his way
as most of the old mystics, only instead of tying himself to a
rock in a wilderness and looking inwardly on a cramped soul,
he went to and fro, untraceable and unknown, over the earth,
companionless, with his eyes searching everywhere for the ma-
terial truth and beauty of creation. How could nature refuse
its confidence to one who so unreservedly gave his life to her.
Assuredly it was a serious misfortune to his soul not to have
been led by its agency into a spiritual comprehension of its
being. But his eyesight was none the less keen, or hand less
dexterous, at stopping short of this revelation. His unrivalled
faculties of observation were directed to effects, not causes,
while his memory and imagination, developed and disciplined in
the phenomenal school of nature, his brush gaining skill as he
detected her ways, enabled him to repeat her facts in infinite
detail, and to vary or compose them anew with vital force and
suggestiveness.
The aesthetic successes and failures of Turner come from the
Same deep causes of will, and are analogous to the extrava-
gances of anatomical compositions of Michael Angelo. The
Englishman was as imperious over color as the Italian over
form. He wished to enslave it to his caprices and fancy. There
is something sublime in his conceptions of the latent forces and
meaning of colors. He refused to believe that they could be
reduced to scientific law. His daring experiments either af.
fronted the men of rule or were offensive enigmas to the crowd.
Turner flung color into his canvas with a volcanic brush, bent
on resolving ideas or creating forms, as if he had only to say,
“Let there be light,” and light was. This overmastering pre-
Sumption of thought and hand,- for his fiery haste and erratic
invention led to a frequent disregard of the qualities and limita-
TURNER. 219
tions of his vehicles, and also of natural law itself, - although
it produced at times great suggestions if it did not great work,
also gave origin to much mad work, not like Blake's spiritual-
istic visions, but crazy from excessive materialism of purpose.
Constable would spit with disgust at sight of these lawless ex-
periments. Turner, however, was as indifferent to blame as to
praise. It sufficed him that he understood himself. He scorned
those who could not comprehend him, brother artists above all.
His aim was to grasp the creative-absolute, and master the
infinity of nature. Ambition of this character looked with"
contempt on the seekers of the superficial pretty. A single
truth in his view was simply a single letter of the alphabet of
the landscape. To attempt its likeness, hosts of facts must be
brought together in magnificent variety and glow.
The strength of Turner is most felt in his masterly render-
ing of the little as well as great features of nature, sugges-
tiveness of forms and moods, and the essential relations and
differences of things by means of color. His canvases have
minds. They are intellectual rather than emotional appeals.
Pictures form within pictures. There is an all-pervading mys-
tery of meaning or expression in his masterpieces, whether in
oils or water-colors. Nature's infinite self-hood is felt and seen.
He recasts the varied splendor of the elements, with magical
sleight of color. He is the first to portray the real life of the
clouds; to thrill one's senses with their magnificent symphonies
of alternating gloom and glory as wrought out by sunlight and
shadow, or the marshalling of their innumerable storm hosts.
Turner is too profoundly original to have successful disciples.
The benefit he does art, is to manifest its capacities in a new
and popular direction. Landscape art has not advanced since
him as a whole, any more than figure-painting since Titian. If
we gain in particular we lose in general aspects. It is easier to
denounce his wilfulness and exaggerations than to equal their
reserved power and suggested thought. He never hesitates to
sacrifice the little and literal in design to heighten the eloquence
of coloring in mass. Figure-drawing is often limited to splashes
of color. His later compositions particularly, are crowded with
details, which seen separate confuse, but as wholes declare a
definite purpose. There are water-colors and notes of effects
that seem like bits of nature itself. Turner's first pitch of
coloring was after the old masters. He subsequently originated
that daring rivalry of tint with nature as far as pigments would
•
220 TURNER.
permit which has since become so disastrously common, making
white lead its chief reliance for atmosphere and light. This
is as exhaustive of resources in the outset, as it would be for a
general to bring all his reserves into battle at the first onset.
Unfortunately, much of the best work of Turner is the most
perishable, owing to his technical recklessness and wantonness of
experiment. Each year impairs our means of adequately know-
ing him. To point some of them out as clearly as time and
decay will admit, I refer to a few of the more characteristic of
his works open to the public. In audacity of original concep-
tion and gorgeous painting, what excels “Ulysses deriding Poly-
phemus; ” for the imaginative terrible, the “Dragon of the Hes-
perides; ” for weird, supernal invention, the “Angel standing in
the Sun;” for tender sweetness, atmosphere, and poetical feeling,
“Crossing the Brook; ” for profound pathos, “Old Teméraire ; ”
and for picturesque sentiment and solemn association of the
sea with the unheadstoned dead, the “Burial of Wilkie.”
Verily, Turner had an immortal soul, whether he recognized its
future or not.
Once beginning to show the versatility of Turner it is diffi-
cult to pause. But descriptions and allusions to works of art
are of little satisfaction to those who have not access to them.
Turner is as completely the climax of the English mind in his
department of art as Shakespeare is in his. Each embodies the
national feeling for nature as it is, one in man, the other in
the landscape, with some analogy of creative power and reveal-
ment of profound and subtle truths. I do not think that Turner
proposed to himself any deeper motive than to render what his
eye caught, fancy wove, or to produce splendid or involved
mysterious effects in rivalry of nature's. Be this as it may, the
fact remains that England enjoys the honorable distinction of
having produced the most varied and thorough master of land-
Scape.

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CHAPTER IX.
THE ART OF JAPAN
English. Like theirs, its civilization in the outset
was derived from the contiguous continent. But whatever it
took from China, the fountain of its art, was speedily assimi-
lated into fresh and vigorous forms. Rigorously excluding all
foreigners, until within a few years, we have known nothing of
its real character. Even now our knowledge is restricted, but
what we have learned indicates a people possessing remarkable
artistic skill, though in theory and practice widely differing
from European. It is worth our while to get a glimpse of an
original art, which has intrinsic merit, and, including the kin-
dred Chinese, is the exponent of the taste of nearly one fourth
of the human family.
The art-design of China, so far as is now known, is in-
ferior to that of Japan, though fundamentally similar. Only a
faint instinct is shown for graceful outline. In general, the
choice goes to the odd, brilliant, grotesque and ugly, but strik-
ing in decoration without any constructive connection with the
main object. Idealization of the human form is unknown. Their
oldest illustrated books and manuscripts are finer executed than
the modern, but with similar minute elaboration, and disregard of
truth of form, perspective, and rules of composition. Were Ori-
ental art proper represented only by the un-ideal, monotonous
Chinese design, it would not deserve notice other than as a curi-
Osity. But that of Japan is as much beyond it in execution and
expression, as the art of England and France is superior to the
meagre, stagnant Byzantine. We can get no adequate notion
of the aesthetic capacity of the furthermost Asiatics and the
peculiar direction it takes, without becoming acquainted with
Japanese work. My conclusions are based on a series of an-


222 ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPTS.
cient manuscripts, splendidly illuminated in water-colors on
powdered gold backgrounds of varied tones, bearing the im-
perial mark, mounted on cloth, in silk-bound volumes, measur-
ing sixteen inches high by thirty-eight long. A scholar from
Jeddo informed me that the writing was too ancient for him
to read, but that it related to a war which occurred eight cen-
turies since, between a Chinese and Japanese emperor." Be
this as it may, the volumes are lavishly adorned with elaborate
paintings of great delicacy, and brilliancy of design and tinting,
representing battles, sackings, marches, mythological scenes,
towns, landscapes, historical events, and domestic scenes, ban-
quetings, executions, religious rites. The mode of using gold
differs entirely from the old European methods. It is ef-
fective as lustre, but breaks up the pictures, leaving portions of
the scenes in a golden fog, or obscured by a sort of frost-work
of the same rich material, which is also largely used in details
of armor, costumes, and wall decorations, but on so minute a
scale as to require a magnifying glass to make out all the de-
sign. The treatment of the landscape backgrounds is conven-
tional, bordering on the symbolical, while the rest of the work
is realistic, aiming to secure the utmost splendor of particular
effects, consistent with a quiet harmony of general tone.
Throughout, the masses of color are carefully balanced and
opposed. *
Besides these, I have studied the works of later men of re-
pute in Japan. Some are colored albums of landscapes, cos-
tumes, domestic and national incidents. Two series deserve
Boun-Tiyo special mention. One is by Boun-Tiyö a recent
** artist, the other by Oksai, who lived one or two gen-
erations back, my Japanese informants not being precise as to
the period of his death.” Both are distinguished names of the
1 A European scholar tells me that the books in question form part of a
series of nine volumes, of great antiquity, translated from the Chinese into
Japanese, with notes, relating to love, war, mythology, and contain moral
axioms and other instructive matter, compiled from ancient authors. The set
was splendidly got up and illuminated for the ladies of the imperial household,
but that he had never seen others than those in my possession, nor could he
find the work mentioned in any Chinese catalogue. My Japanese informant
said that he knew of but one other series, and that was in the royal library at
Jeddo.
* Oksai is said to be an assumed mame of the artist, like that of George
Sand, and literally refers to or means the locality of the studio or place where
the designs were executed.
OKSAI. 223
same school, the first showing much cleverness, the last decided
genius. Indeed, he is the great Japanese master, ranking at
home as Albert Durer does in Germany, Hogarth in England,
and Doré in France; in fact, exhibiting some likeness to the
intellectual qualities and executive capacities of each of these
artists, but after a novel method of his own, and with a ver-
satility of invention that would be remarkable anywhere.
Such is the similarity of motive and treatment of some of the
designs of Oksai and Doré, that one might infer the latter had
taken effective hints from the former, which is not improbable,
as Oksai's volumes appeared in Paris at the time some of Doré's
most striking designs were published.
Oksai’s works are so voluminous, that I conjecture they must
contain the drawings of more than one master, probably a
school of artists. One series is a sort of pictorial encyclopedia,
containing, by a rough computation, more than twelve thousand
designs, partly colored, in thirty-nine or more volumes, divided
into three sets, illustrative of life, manners, arts, natural history,
scenery, caricature, religious myths, poetry, riddles, and science;
in fine, a compendium of Japanese civilization and products,
mainly in sharp outline. His albums of birds are said to be
exquisite, but too costly, and so much esteemed in Japan as to
leave a small chance for the foreign collector to obtain any.
Oil-painting is not practised, except as a late European inno-
vation. They give examples of our science of perspective
without radically adopting it; at least Oksai does.
The first aspect of Japanese art is most striking for its odd-
ness. A prolonged examination discloses artistic qualities which
amply compensate for those technical shortcomings or omis-
sions that our system of art-training prepares our eyes instan-
taneously to notice. Japanese artists render certain truths with
prodigious characterization, while neglecting some that we hold
to be indispensable. Indeed, these do not appear to enter into
their theory. The most obvious are the common rules of
perspective, distance, proportion, symmetry, light and shadow.
It is common to omit fore and back-grounds. The figures exist
only in and by themselves, quite independent of local accesso-
ries. Without these, and a proper distribution of details to
make up a complete whole, we feel that a picture is wrong.
Japanese artists emphasize forcibly the main point, and neglect
side issues or aids. Their aesthetic point of view, feeling, and
comprehension is antipodal to the Occidental. They concen-
224 JAPANESE SYSTEM OF DESIGN.
trate attention on a few aims; we divide and scatter it among
many. Our system gives the impression of general fidelity to
nature; theirs a special. It is broken talk, like infants’. Their
system omits much in a picture, as did our old religious painters,
intent on their central idea, that modern European art requires.
The Japanese display a vigor of realism seldom equalled by
Europeans. By the simplest means they suggest distance, per-
spective, broad masses, far-off horizons of sea and land; in
short, an effective realization of the larger features of landscape.
Zigzag lines adroitly lead the eye into interminable space.
Abstract, easy, and prosaic as this means is, nothing more
quickly arouses the imagination to complete the landscape.
Church, Auchenback, and their class, paint so that the reflection
of their work does not pass on from the eye to the mind.
They give more to see, but we actually see less. A Japanese
artist, in drawing a house, is most likely to put it wrong end
foremost as to perspective, but he will give breadth and
grandeur to the landscape as a whole, without any perceptible
effort or elaborated artifice, but by a sort of visual instinct.
Grammatically it may be all wrong, but the impression is truth-
fully profound. However this is accomplished, art secures its
chief triumph. Our artists have something to learn from as
well as to teach the Japanese. If the latter by rapid, incisive
outline gives a better idea of a given object than the former by
laborious drawing, then we needs must recognize in the Asiatic
a technical sleight of hand, and an insight into the character of
the thing represented, superior to the Europeans. All who
examine the drawings of the Oksai series are astonished at
their forcible characterization and action, independent of mod-
elling or relief. Noteworthy results are produced by solid or
shaded outlines only, with a few light, rapid touches to indicate
parts or movement.
The genius displayed is interpenetrative and demonstrative,
unique in quality, delighting in that action which exaggerates
or ridicules the real, yet truthful and thorough in reproducing
the habits, instincts, actual life, and absolute identity of plant,
insect, fish, bird, animal, or man. Oksai's style of drawing sur-
passes any similar efforts that I have seen in Europe. I feel
at once exactly what he means me to see, and at the same
time the latent vitality or instincts of the objects rendered, or
capacity, if it be human. Oksai evokes the fraternity of life,
whether I wish it or no ; teaches me natural history and human
SUPERIORITY OF JAPANESE ART. 225
nature, often ludicrously, always genially, sometimes coarsely,
but ever truthfully. I may admire Audubon's and Bonaparte's
birds, for their correctly painted plumage and forms, but one
glance at Oksai's colorless or tinted designs awakens more sym-
pathy with animal life, besides disclosing the instincts and hab-
its of birds and beasts in a more graphic manner, than the highly
finished European illustrations. This specific superiority applies
also to the vegetable kingdom, and to man himself in his ordi-
nary aspects. Oksai makes him lift, struggle, play, joke, gamble,
love, fight, boast, beg, juggle, eat, stand, walk, pull, repose, in fine
live, with a realism that I find nowhere else more intensely genu-
ine. No idealization; no sacrifice to conventional propriety; no
aspiration for the beauty of flesh or of holiness; no special dig-
nity or majesty, though plenty of lively posing and accurate
action; nature, earth-nature ; Japanese men and women of all
grades, exactly as they are; such is the inexorable logic of
Oksai's pencil. Would that I could reproduce a few hundred
of his designs to illustrate my words, but it would require time
to do it. There are mere dots, the tiniest of touches and
strokes, that have in them a kingdom of meaning. The effect
is increased by the nicely shaded paper, perfect printing, and
delicately colored inks of the best editions.
Japanese art is worth studying, if for no other end than to
see how thoroughly it opposes the objective common to the
subjective beautiful of the Greeks. Each is a generic success.
Yet, as regards the animal and vegetable kingdom, the Japanese
style of design is singularly idealistic in the sense of rendering
with great exactitude and wonderful refinement the essence of
the thing itself, in that shape or action which most perfectly
expresses its vital functions. This is particularly true of birds,
leaves, flowers, and grasses, which display as close an observa-
tion of their finer forms and manner of growth, joined to an in-
tuitive perception of their inner organization, as did the Gre-
cian sculptors of the human figure. The Japanese recognize
souls in things. Some may insist that their skilful treatment
of the lower forms of creation is the result simply of keen-eyed
imitation. But the Chinese, Dutch, and French genre painters
are painfully exact in imitating objects, without giving them
that subtle consciousness of organic existence which the Japan-
ese infuse into their work.
Oksai and Phidias are masters of the human figure, but in
what diverging systems and aims In view of their purpose,
15
226 JAPANESE EIUMOR.
both are equally true. But the Athenian evokes the godlike
in man; the Oriental, the every-day human, choosing that type
and movement which thoroughly demonstrates his earthiness.
When he indulges in the mystical, transcendental, or sentimental,
it is oftenest as grotesqueness and diabolism, or to invent super-
nal ugliness, as the ancients created beauty to be admired for
its own sake. A people can be trained to delight in the false
as readily as the true. As they become habituated to artifice
and error, their taste gravitates towards them. The mind for-
feits its faculty of detecting and appreciating the really beautiful.
The skill and feeling which Japan has shown in managing
minor motives, indicate a capacity for a more exalted ideal in the
higher. But her aesthetic bias and standard being guided by
false conceptions of religion and low aims, her artists were
obliged to develop corresponding types. In estimating their
ability, we must keep steadily in sight what they meant. They
are far from being incompetent or ignorant. On the contrary,
they are exceedingly clever, apt, and skilful in whatever they
touch, only their taste is at fault from want of right culture.
In one respect the American and Japanese mind is somewhat
alike; and this is a capacity of broad humor and appreciation of the
wit which makes exaggerated contrasts and ridiculous similitudes.
We make fun of very serious things, not in art yet, because we
have not learned how, but in newspapers. The Japanese puts
an undercurrent of drollery into his gravest motives. Oksai
represents the terrific thunder-god, fantastically sublime, whose
lightnings fall among a group of peasants, causing a ludicrously
fatal catastrophe. The wind-god is an extravagant, burlesque con-
ception of a being borne rapidly through the air by an immense
bag of wind around his neck. Regard the tiger-stealth of the as-
Sassin creeping up in the jungle behind a fashionably dressed per-
Sonage serenading the full moon with a flute. A cold shiver passes
over one at the intensely murderous movement, while the naive
unconsciousness of evil of the victim absorbed by his transcen-
dental occupation in the midst of a sinister landscape, provokes a
smile. The serenity of the enticing moonlight is admirably offset
by the glum death-stroke approaching from out of the shadow. It
might pass for the genius of a fatal fever about to strike down the
unsuspecting victim in the zest of his pleasure. Whether it tells
a tale or points a moral, only a reader of the text may know;
but it is one of varying hundreds equally quaint and vigorous, of
which the mocking spectre of the air, a shadowy, bat-like face on
NONSENSE—ART, q 227
a female form, whose long black hair half envelops her elf-like
body, and streams wildly back as she speeds through the sky, and
the genius of solitude, a more comely nude figure, with similar
hairy covering, sitting and gazing into vacancy with intense ear-
nestness, one hand on the mouth and the other clutching the knee,
are pertinent specimens. Humor is omnipresent in Oksai's work.
Oddity, contrast, burlesque monstrosity, enigma, the laughable,
ferocious, terrible, ironical, exaggerated, foolish, droll; birds and
animals humanized by man's vices, follies, or fun; men turned by
enchantment into impossible monsters, doing the most extrava-
gant vagaries; such are some of his inventions, literally a NON-
SENSE—ART, unique in variety, force, and comicality. Leonardo's
freaks with the human face are labored extravagances compared
with Oksai's grotesque maskery. However absurd his pencil,
its juggling cleverness and quickness make his nonsense seem
as if nature itself was playing the fool. Noses like the pro-
boscis of an elephant are fitted to human faces in a life-like
manner, and made to do the strangest acts. One young lady
ties a pen to hers, and writes love-songs on the wall of her cham-
ber. Arms, legs, and necks suddenly grow to snake-like lengths,
and involve their possessors in frightful scrapes. Jugglers and
conjurors perform miracles that would amaze the most credulous
believers in vulgar spiritism. Oksai's genius in this connection
might aptly be surnamed Legion.
Much of the drapery of people of rank appears stiff angular,
and cumbersome, though scarcely more so than that of the
earlier German schools. In part this is intentional, though the
lines of all drapery are sharp and incisive, with very little curve
and flow. The ease and maturalness of the smaller figures,
sometimes graceful and dignified, are admirable. Costume fits
the action. Although figures are generally flatly outlined, lacking
contour and projection, the suggestion of form is good, and the
meaning strongly put.
As is to be expected with a people having no Japanese
idea of the beautiful, realism runs readily into sen- *
sualism or vulgar materialism. The obscene art of Japan is
inconceivably monstrous, and betrays a liking for the absolute in
vice, such as no European nation would outwardly tolerate.
But the domestic habits make modesty impossible. Hence artists
depict indecencies in a matter-of-fact style, with the unreserve
that attends the habits of animals. What is so common seems
to carry with it no special pollution, as with peoples of nicer
228 JAPANESE SENSUALISM.
customs and purer moral sense. Oksai shows Japanese ladies
inflicting a punishment on unresisting menials such as would
not be conceived by an European imagination, assuredly not
submitted to by the vilest person. How can personal delicacy
be developed where prostitution is an honorable profession,
the portraits of famous courtesans hung in religious temples,
and shamefacedness unknown. Asthetic sensualism and Vul-
garism do infinite harm in Christian communities, for there ex-
ists a public sentiment capable of being debauched and degraded.
But in the East, where it is already in its lowest level, there is
no further depth for it. An acute capacity of sensuousness on
the sensual side, joined to a perverse desire to taste fruit forbid-
den by the gods, is essential to entire corruption of heart. This
is what classic art finally came to, and what French art in part
threatens to become. The sin of these peoples is wilful be-
cause, knowing purity and truth, they select the vicious and un-
true; while much of Japanese want of modest disguise has its
origin in not seeing their own nakedness, and an insufficient
standard of home refinements, which have not radically emerged
from the habits engendered by their primitive nomad life. Both
Oksai and Boun-Tiyö, in all their works that I have seen, avoid
the voluptuous or directly immoral. Japanese grossness is un-
gilded, and consists rather in the choice of certain motives not
so improper in themselves as unsuited to art. The chief ethical
defect is levity and want of conscience. There is no tenderness
or philanthropy. Suffering and destitution excite laughter more
than pity. Life is seen either through ludicrous or material spec-
tacles. Nothing is softened by idealism, but much is heightened
for drollery. In Oksai there is noticeable an active sympathy
with the common people, whose foibles and habits furnish him
an inexhaustible source of pictorial jokes. Nowhere do I de-
tect snobbery or conventionality, certainly no predilection for
rank, in his many-sided freebooting pencil. Yet there is no
evidence of higher aim than to entertain by recording the fleeting
thought, or to illustrate the passing fact, unless it be seen in
their bizarre monsters that represent their religious notions, and
which exalt the ugly into representing the Supreme and appar-
ently maleficent power, that must be propitiated at any cost.
Without a knowledge of the text that accompanies Oksai's de-
signs, any criticism on their real intent is of necessity empirical.
Especially, the mystical or sacred art remains an enigma. Its
aspect on one side is demoniacal, materialistic, and ascetic, pro-
*
JAPANESE SUPERNATURALISM. 229
lific of terror, abounding in visions, evocations, and ghostly ap-
paritions. Some of the designs imply beholding spirits, or con-
juring back the departed to hold intercourse with their world.
They also have a pictorial way of sermonizing quite as telling as
any verbal heaped-up agony of sinning. Oksai gives two mad-
dened gamblers, unnoticing above them that the demon of play
has spun a thick web, in the centre of which he sits, like a huge
spider, with enormous eyes chucklingly watching them, as he
poises himself for the fatal spring. This design would make an
excellent back to our playing-cards. There is a colored cut by
another artist, embodying the disastrous physical effects of
lechery, that is a sermon in little, but graphic enough to startle
the nerves of the most thoughtless sinner. A lucid sense of
final retribution is betokened by avenging phantoms, drawn from
their world of shadows, as ingeniously frightful as the worst night-
mare could furnish. Their divinities are shaped after the images
of a disturbed imagination or incoherency of reason. One god,
Quanwero, enjoys thirty-six arms and one hundred heads. Jebis,
the jolly fiend of the ocean, sustained by dolphins, is represented
as if dancing the cancan on the waves. Although islanders, the
Japanese show an incapacity of rendering the sea. They have
only two sorts of quaintly primitive tones, one for calm and one
for storm. Yet they attempt in bronze, not without a hint of
success, to render the toss and roll of breakers ; only the crests
of the waves get shaped into weird-like claws, which, however,
accord very well with their fantastic effigy of Neptune.
Cheou-lao, god of longevity, familiarly called the “Old Child,”
is a favorite Eastern divinity. He was born 601 years B. C.,
after eighty-one years' pregnancy of his mother, so the myth
runs. As his venerable image shows, he was always gay,
living long and jovially, believing that happiness consists in
so doing, and ever seeking by means of alchemy to find the
secret of terrestrial immortality. Japanese mythology is as
pantheistic in its ideas as the Grecian, only, instead of finding
the divine in beauty, it invests the creative and governing ele-
ments of life in fantastic and ugly shapes, repulsive to our eyes,
but which may nevertheless fascinate those of the devout Jap-
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CHAPTER X.
THE PAINTERS OF FRANCE.
HILE Italy, Germany, and Flanders Foreign
possessed renowned schools of painters, *
ſ and which had wholly in Italy and partly in the
other countries passed into stages of decline, France
in common with Spain and England had acquired
no European reputation in this direction. The foreign element
early exercised considerable influence, in the higher aspects a
controlling one, on French art. To go back to A. D. 1338–9,
Simone Martini, the rival of Giotto, was called to Avignon,
and, working there until his death five years later, inspired
French taste with a liking for the loftier motives and broader
treatment of his native land. Previously, the degenerate By-
zantine models had been popular, as may be seen in the “Heures
de l’Empereur Charlemagne” of the Louvre, A. D. 780. This is
not specially French work, but it shows the condition of color
and design at that epoch in Western Europe. It is scarcely
better than the picture-hieroglyphics on skins done by Ameri-
can Indians, and betrays the final stages of decay of an illustra-
tive and decorative art of a superior character which had pre-
ceded it.
A little later, in the MS. Bible of the Emperor “Charles le
Chauve,” A. D. 850, there is improvement. The figures are red
on blue ground, with superior action, and contours tolerably well
given. The “Bréviaire de St. Louis” is entirely Byzantine in
treatment. These two works, and the “ Statutes de l’Ordre du
Saint Esprit.” A. D. 1232, may be seen in the Louvre. The last,
though stiff and flat in its miniatures, shows more vigorous color-
ing and movement, and a decided tendency to escape from By-
zantine conventionalism into a more life-like art.
Subsequently we find French illustrative art alternately con-
trolled by German and Italian influences, forming no absolute,
great School of its own, though rich in decorative work, delicate
and brilliant in execution, inclined to the picturesque in its illu-

FRANÇOIS CLOUET. 231
minations of manuscripts, free and natural, equally removed from
the religious idealism of the Italian masters on the one hand, and
the prosaic literalism of the Germans on the other. In the best
MSS. of the mediaeval epoch may be detected the germs of the
leading characteristics of subsequent styles of painting. In
general, however, the painting of this time is of foreign stock,
weakened in its transfer to the soil of France. The gold back-
ground pictures that exist, have few of those strong, original
qualities which appertain to the contemporary work of the lead-
ing schools across the Rhine and beyond the Alps. Indeed, they
deserve citation only in justification of Francis I. and his suc-
cessors, in summoning from Italy, Da Vinci, Andrea del Sarto,
Cellini, Primaticcio, and other foreigners to the rescue of art
altogether in France. In a national sense the results of their
visits were nothing. They merely transferred to their foreign
abode the art of their native land, adorning the country with fresh
and beautiful works, whose style and feeling were imported from
Italy. Their transient example could not renovate or recreate
a nation's art. The only credit due France is for having had the
good sense, when she found herself lacking, to call in the aid of
her more richly endowed neighbors. That the imported art did
not touch the people, and stimulate them to work out something
in their own way appertaining to their own lives and thoughts,
was owing to the one-sided spirit which characterized the pro-
ceeding. It was not intended to benefit the people, but simply
to gratify aristocratic taste, glorify the king, adorn his palaces,
beautify his court, and so, by means of a magnificent art, to
widen still more the great gulf between the ruler and the ruled.
The Medicean graft of bad blood was an exotic like the sensuous
art it sought to nationalize in France, and neither succeeded in
becoming French.
François Clouet, born at Tours A. D. 1500, and ...”
Cousan.
who lived to be seventy-five, is the first French mas- Glaude.
ter of other than local celebrity. Yet his reputation is £"sºr.
based on a limited foundation, few genuine pictures of his, and
these portraits, being known. His father being a German,
Clouet's style has nothing in common with the grand Italian
then in vogue, but is derived from the school of Holbein, but
far inferior in breadth, dignity, and profundity to that power-
ful master. Clouet's manner is dry and hard. Great pre-
cision is given to details, and strict attention to design. We
find, also, a spirituel apprehension of character and taste in
232 JEAN COUSIN.
arrangement which more particularly belong to French art.
These qualities alone connect Clouet with the national school.
His scholars are mere formalists, firm and fine in finish, which
is their great aim, but wanting in that subtle mental discrimina-
tion which gives intellectual vitality to the master's elaborate
brush-work.
Jean Cousin, a contemporary, makes but a sorry figure as an
artist in his fantastic, panoramic “Last Judgment,” in the
Louvre. It is the usual turmoil of material horrors, destitute
of those grander qualities of the Italian masters, which partially
elevate the spectacle above the level of an exhibition of lustful
vengeance and demoniacal wrath.
It is unnecessary to dwell on names which local pride alone
exalts to the rank of great artists. My purpose is to inquire
how far the works of later men, of wider fame, merit the esteem
awarded them by national partiality.
To facilitate inquiry, let us group artists according to their
political eras, selecting conspicuous examples of each. This
compels generalization, with its sins of omission and want of
exact individual specification, but in the main it will be just.
The world at large has only time to deal with general results.
To do complete justice to every artist would require volumes
instead of pages of criticism. With few exceptions in any
school, there does not exist sufficient public interest in their
works to justify a very particular investigation. But a verdict
as a whole is needed, giving to each distinguished master his
proper position while holding him responsible for the uses of
his gifts.
Three names dominate in the 17th century — Claude Lorraine,
Nicholas Poussin, and Eustache le Sueur. The first two, in
their departments, are representative men of universal reputa-
tion. Le Sueur is not much known out of his native land.
These painters are the foremost examples of the French school.
In citing them, however, everything is given to the accident of
birth, and nothing allowed to the actual training and career,
which, in the instances of Claude and Poussin, were Italian,
both dying in Rome, where they had lived and studied during
most of their lives. Neither can be called French in their art
any more than West, Copley, or Leslie can be claimed for the
American school. The nationality of an artist needs be con-
sidered in an investigation of his art only so far as the qualities
of race are manifested in his works. Every country is prone to
NICEIOLAS POUSSIN. 233
arrogate to itself the reflection of greatness of genius born on
its soil, although it may have despised or persecuted it when
living, or driven it, as Florence did Dante, elsewhere for liberty
to grow. The true country of any one is that which gives him
the fullest freedom to assert his entire humanity; which fosters,
inspires, trains, and makes him a complete man ; which he elects
as most completely fulfilling his aspirations in life, and whose
life he most reflects in his own. Undoubtedly blood affects char-
acter, but its influence is secondary to those conditions chosen
by the individual himself for his mature development.
Le Sueur's art-education, although acquired in France, was as
really foreign in its sources as that of his distinguished contem-
poraries, but his decorative style is characteristic of his origin.
It is inaccurate at this epoch to speak of French painting in an
absolutely national sense, as in the cases of Spain, Italy, and
Germany, because the France of the 17th century, as in the
16th, had nothing to distinguish her among nations, except what
foreigners brought to her, or was borrowed from other countries
by her eclectic artists, and not yet fully assimilated into a strictly
indigenous school of art. For some time yet, we must discrimi-
nate between adopted and native art.
Poussin, the French Raphael, as he has been called, was
born A. D. 1594, and labored prolifically until A. D. 1665.
Has he those eminent qualities claimed by his countrymen P I
fail to see in him anything great, original, or emphatic, either in
thought, design, or color. Of all distinguished artists, he is one
the most made up from others; a learned, skilful eclectic, who
adds nothing original or great to art. If all he ever did were
destroyed, it would be no loss, because painting would still re-
tain in others, in a higher degree, every excellence to be found
in him. His numerous works are washy in substance, weak or
Second-hand in thought, and often hasty and careless in execu-
tion, especially in draperies. The types of his figures are monot-
onously uniform, and want character. His chief actors have a
tendency to grimace in lieu of expressing passion or thought.
The more elevated his personages, the more absurd or feeble
they are apt to appear, his paintings in this respect being worse
than his designs. Look at Nos. 422 and 427 of the Louvre,
the “Judgment of Solomon” and the “Adulterous Woman,” as
illustrations. The Saviour is inane to the last degree. Regard
for a climax his masterpiece, No. 434, “Raising the Eyes to the
Almighty,” a figure which makes the rudest Byzantine work in
234 NICEIOLAS POUSSIN.
the same vein seem grand in comparison. Poussin’s “Ancient of
Days” is a curly-headed vaporous dandy in dishabille, attended
by frisky angels in keeping with his drawing-room graces; as
an example of the meretricious, academic-pretty, it is a well-
balanced composition, with graceful languidness of pose, some
force of expression, but as empty of thought as a gourd. There
is no reserved emotion or suggestion. The coloring is thin
and impoverished. Yet technical qualities appear to be the
artist's highest aim. Blind to defects of their favorites, the
authorities of the Louvre place this picture, a “Descent of the
Cross” by Jouvemet, a clever translation in French of Rubens'
vigorous materialism, and the feeble phantoms of Le Sueur, in
the position of honor in the famous Salon, putting them in
direct competition with the finest Titians, Veronese, Correggios,
Raphaels, Leonardos, Murillos, Vandykes, and Rubenses, provok-
ing comparisons which make the French masters appear more
insignificant than they really are ; an injustice happily not re-
peated with their later and stronger men.
Poussin's Virgin, in his “Holy Family’’ No. 424, is a milk-
maid; true feeling being sacrified to plagiarism and the conven-
tionalisms of composition. Both in classical or Scriptural sub-
jects there is a want of individuality in his personages. Like
actors, they can change characters as easily as their costumes.
His coloring is cold, monotonous, and conventional. Poussin
toils after graceful and well-balanced compositions, careful to
avoid any solecism of taste as decided by academic rule He
is always the fine gentleman in art; pleasing on superficial
view, accomplished, well instructed, clever of hand, never vul-
gar in manner or violent, ever self-possessed, but emasculated
of original power. Few artists better appreciate the qualities
of the great masters of Greece and Italy, or more persistently
choose their themes from intellectual motives of a high charac-
ter, irrespective of any ruling sentiment of his own. Still there
is no flow of genius into him. He recasts old themes with a cer.
tain facility of expression, selecting those which best show off
his academic culture, but soon reaches his limitations and is
great in nothing. Indeed, he is only the shadow of the great-
ness of others. Such feeling as can be detected is for the
sensual-classical. When most influenced by the manner of
Titian, he is best. Sacred compositions are dwarfed into life
less tableaus or pictorial abstractions, having no virtues except
of brush. His versatility appears to best advantage in landscape,
LE SUEUR. 235
from the later Bolognese, chiefly Domenichino. It gives a
poetical, heroic, aristocratic aspect to mother earth, as if it were
too refined for rude labor, or savage life of any sort. The
wilderness is banished from its polished surface, and everything
that offends aesthetic repose, or suggests harm, suffering, or
poverty, is put out of sight. In their place we find the elegant,
serene, and graceful; a pleasure-bestowing, lordly landscape,
temple and palace-clad, purged of gross humanity and vulgar
needs; fitted up for gods, nymphs, deified heroes, and a select
company of mortals. There is nothing in this impossible ideal
of nature to love, or which can benefit us, other than as it re-
sponds to an Arcadian dream of a golden future or reverie of an
imagined past. It is the romantic outgrowth of the Renaissance
before it changed from the ideal to the natural view of things,
and for more than a century was the Supreme type of its land-
scape-art, with the exception now and then of a vigorous revo-
lutionary protest from men of the Salvator Rosa stamp.
The career of Le Sueur, born A. D. 1617, dying A. D. 1655,
although so much shorter than Poussin's, was equally fertile in
the same direction. His work is more equal and more vapid.
In allegory he is refined and decorous, but wholly French in
his taste for the decorative. There is no passion, depth, or
high intellectual purpose, though some sentiment. His pictures
are carefully studied, in color lively but inharmonious, and dis-
play facility of design. He strains less after epic grandeur than
Poussin. The general impression is weakness. Monotony of
expression and profiles, and absence of individuality are very ap-
parent. His figures take the places assigned them, pose rightly,
compose harmoniously, but, with an occasional exception of sug-
gestive action, do nothing. At first view they excite expecta-
tion. We await mental impressions, and see only attitudes.
The net result is soulless work. Over-study of the classical-
statuesque killed the proper art of the painter both in him and
Poussin, but the latter's more forcible effigies recall the lay-
figure of the studio, while Le Sueur's are but painted phantoms.
In style he is a sort of religious Boucher, striving for grace and
delicacy, and ending in the sacred-pretty. Like Poussin he
paints mythological pictures with equal facility and taste as those
of his own creed. Poussin drew his inspiration more directly
from the old masters of Italy and Greece. Le Sueur’s comes
strained through him. Both are academic dilutions of Raphael.
They were capable of receiving impressions from and appreciat-
236 CLAUDE LORRAINE.
ing the productions of those they emulated, even of recasting
their ideas; but not, like Rubens, who held the same great artists
in equal estimation, of learning from them, and by the alchemy
of their own genius giving fresh forms, thought, and style to
painting. The distance between Rubens and Poussin is the
exact measure between genius and talent. The loss of the one
would leave a chasm in art. The annihilation of the other,
and Le Sueur added, would cause no gap.
Gellée, commonly called Claude Lorraine, was born A. D. 1600,
and died A. D. 1682. He, too, was a hard worker. His fame is
a popular one, because founded on certain qualities appreciable
by all. As an academician, his skill in design and learning are
not equal to his contemporaries. Especially are his figures ill
drawn, their action spiritless, and his composition in general ex-
tremely forced and conventional. Truth of detail is disregarded
in his desire to beautifully render the broader features of nature.
Landscape then was of the ideal sort; nature not being studied
in a realistic light, but used as an auxiliary element to be made
up by studio rules into the mock pastoral, classical, scriptural, or
wild scenes which were in fashion. Rubens, Velasquez, and a
few others may be considered an exception to the prevailing fal-
sification of the natural. They painted what they saw in a
broad, vigorous manner, life-like and refreshing ; and next to the
magnificent treatment of the landscape by the great Venetians
and Correggio, theirs is the truest up to their time. Salvator's
was a subjective art; an infusion of his own sorrowful and
gloomy temperament, rejoicing terribly in the rugged and deso-
late. Nature to him was dark and avenging, and her mysteries
and greatness frightful. His own weird imagination gave it
final shape, and peopled it in kind, so that, except to kindréd
spirits, there is small satisfaction to be had in his rough work.
Not so with Claude. He had no relish for the forcible, quaint,
or terrible. There was nothing epic in his composition. His
atmosphere was one of peace and quietness. Instead of darken-
ing canvas with bitterness, ferocity, and disappointment of soul,
or peopling it out of the wars, miseries, or diabolical imagery of
humanity, Claude pipes joyously to the gay spirits of nature who
sing and dance in the bright sunlight on verdant plains, with
sparkling water and smiling hills in sympathetic unison. There
is no work in his pictures; workmen, sailors, and their like, it is
true, but they are all brightly clad, and look as if on parties
of pleasure. How he delights in magnificent architecture of
PERIOD OF LOUIS XIV. 237
the impossible stage-kind His landscapes are composed for
the enjoyment and repose of men. There is no poverty, crime,
or harshness where the gentle, sensuous Claude lives. Nymphs,
maidens, and ladies are safe there ; the serene sky above and
genial air about them suggesting the protection of the unseen
guardians of nature. But the great debt we owe to Claude is
his quality of light. As no man before him had done and none
since surpassed, he floods his pictures with it warm and tremu-
lous, giving infinite space and a breathable atmosphere to dis-
tances whose horizons recede always. Sunlight under his hand
gleams, quivers, and mystifies. The cool, gray awakening of
misty mornings rising over broad plains and far-off mountains,
miles of space on inches of canvas, leading the eye by gradations
of tone into hidden distances, the very poetry of light, he was
equally felicitously facile in treating, with the rich, burning
effects of noontide sun, or as it set in its golden heat.
It is much to have done this, not merely for its own triumph,
but for the standard of excellence it established. All that we
have had excellent in kind ever since has been fostered by it.
But, greatest obligation of all, it stimulated Turner to work
out his miraculous atmospherical scenery. Claude's range was
limited, though complete within its compass. His affectations
and weaknesses were those of his time ; his enchanting qualities
came of himself, not spontaneous, but slowly, after patient years
of observation and trial. Claude dead to art, and it would
have a long step in progress to make over again. His example
is the more valuable for showing how much one sincere worker,
following the bent of his own talents, and limiting himself to
their possibilities, may do for his profession, instead of surrender-
ing himself, body and soul, to the influences of others whose
excellences are not to be rivalled by any fervor of imitation, as
did Poussin and Le Sueur.
It is not worth while to trace particularly the course Period of
of academic painting through the long reign of Louis “*”
XIV., having its fountain-head in the art of Italy in its deca-
dence, and repeating itself within a prescribed circle with varied
technical merit, but uniform want of true feeling, because with
but unimportant variations we should find the same general
features, inferior rather than superior in the artists that follow,
many of whom were trained in the studios of Poussin and Le
Sueur. Valentin, who somewhat anticipates this period, is a
heavy, dull imitator of Carravaggio. Sebastien Bourdon is
238 PIERRE MIGNARD.
serious in style, but neither his example, Jouvenet's, nor any
other's of the makers of big sacred pictures with which the
Louvre is crowded, down to the time of Sigalon, prove anything
except the incapacity of the French school to deal with spiritual
topics. They had not acquired the talent of our time of present-
ing a vivid spectacle of a given subject in its proper local aspect.
Instead, we have immense canvases crowded with studio-figures
put together into confused compositions coarsely conceived and
treated ; valueless as art and something worse as religion.
Where all is bad, it is difficult to pillory one as an example.
But the “Vision of St. Jerome,” by Sigalon, may be worthy of
this distinction. One might conceive of such a painting done by
a mad Michael Angelo, of whose style it is a raving grimace as
well as a painful satire on things sacred. There is nothing,
indeed, elevated in French art from that day until our own
time. If there be any wholesome aesthetic nutriment or men-
tal value in the canvases of Le Brun and the rest of the
courtly painters of the Louis XIV. period, I fail to detect it.
Pierre Mignard, A. D. 1610 to 1695, is the chief, and excels
the others in coloring. He is a fit representative of that epoch
whose highest motives in art were in pandering to the tastes of
a monarch who thought to deify kingcraft by ignoble exactions
of humanity, making it a low and contemptible thing, and by
exalting puerile fooleries and vulgar necessities into state cere-
monies. Whatever was true and good in man, this ruler tried
to corrupt and pervert. That art was most worthy which to
his blinded vision most completely represented the utter human
sham that he was. They painted him a god, and he believed it.
Rubens did a vast deal of this sort of lying in his day; but it
was so bravely done, and withal a touch of satire in it, that he
is to be forgiven for the very amplitude of his sinning. Besides,
the world to him was a stage, and all men, high and low, sub-
jects for his inexhaustible brush. But the men who painted for
Louis XIV. gave themselves up wholly to his monstrous vanity,
believing with his eyes that the ridiculous and preposterous
were indeed the beautiful and sublime. Rightly is the art of
this period known by his name. He was the author, by means
of his favorite Lenotre, of that taste which, by the shears of a
barber, did for vegetation what the last named individual did for
him ; that is, made it look as unmatural and absurd as possible.
That nature even should be allowed to grow as God designed,
was treason. So he clipped, and trimmed, and squared, and
EPOCH OF LOUIS XV. 239
stunted it, until all notion of the natural and true was lost
to French taste. Even classical statues were subjected to the
same stupendous wigs that disfigured himself. The style of
the “perruquier” being supreme, the bizarre became the divine
principle. Architecture and sculpture suffered equally at his
hands. He made of the Renaissance an abortion, and perverted
the Gothic into utter nonsense. When an absolute will over-
shadows the entire intellect of a country, giving to all things
one hue and tone, it is difficult to fully take in all the harm
done. But after time has stripped off the tinsel, the naked
image of irresponsible power is disclosed in its loathsome mag-
nitude. It is not sufficient to say that Louis XIV. retarded art,
but he poisoned it and perverted its functions, as he did every-
thing else he meddled with. France has not yet been able to
wholly eliminate the virus he injected into her organic life. In
judging of art, we have to keep in view its inherited obstacles
to a healthful development. Even now, there is need to caution
the novice against the sensual seductions and pompous preten-
sions of an epoch which gloried in its shame, preferred falsehood
to truth, meanness to manliness, in fine travestied humanity as
only a “great monarch * could. Pass it by. To obliterate
it, would be to merit well of the world. If it must be looked
at, let it be in humiliation and sorrow in witnessing how mean
human nature can become.
There is at first a feeling almost of relief in turn- p.,,,
ing to the art of Louis XV. But the final change Louis XV.
is from what is self-degrading to the disgusting. Lascivious
wantonness comes upon the scene. Meretricious effeminacy
takes the place of studied pride. Kingcraft foregoes blasphe-
mous masquerading, and takes to sinning in the Ópen air like
the lowest of mortals, exposing its concupiscence and shameless-
ness to whomsoever chooses to gaze at them. Pleasure was the
motto. The laugh, the jest, to find fresh daily food for wanton
desires, to parade vice, to jeer at wisdom, to Scout at the end,
“after me the flood ; ” of such was the new spirit in art, forming
the first genuine French school, because springing from the dom-
inant aristocratic tastes of the nation which were then the only
ones recognized, the people still being an unknown quantity in
politics and art. Nothing great now, nothing elevated, nothing
pure, nothing deep except sin, nothing broad except effrontery.
Taste in art from being degraded became depraved, vibrating be-
tween the extremes of the sentimental-pretty and the grossly sen-
240 EPOCH OF LOUIS XV.
sual. Cooks, barbers, dancing-masters, were privileged artists.
Purveyors of “little pleasures”—in plain English, pimps, prod-
igal prostitutes, scented abbés, and their tribe — inspired an art
whose highest efforts were given to snuff-boxes, porcelain toys,
and the florid ornamentation of furniture and salons in accordance
with the Pompadour taste, the Du Barry choice, or the Louis XV.
dictation. Much was invented that was pretty and graceful.
Small arts flourished like rank weeds. But adornment should be
appropriate to the use and created with honest motive. In the
present instance, the sources of inspiration being foul, the little
arts were in the main permicious, pandering to vanities, frivoli-
ties, and lusts, and obscuring noble effort. The dubious mélange
of objects thus generated, constructively fine, – for good work-
manship was the rule, – now known by the expressive term
rococo, was in the mass worthless as art and thought. We may
safely accept it as a general truth that there is an evil and false
element in everything of that nature. Instead of imitating it
in our furniture, upholstery, and decorations, we should instinct-
ively shun it because of its impure origin. Great harm to the
public mind has come of it, and its influence is still perceptible
in this century.
The duty of grand art in the preceding reign was to celebrate
the battles of the king, to adorn him, to magnify the great
human carbuncle that he was into a beperiwigged Jupiter. Our
modern Olympian, “by the grace of God,” makes at the best
but a sorry exhibition in his state trumpery. He got himself
up as the image of omnipotent tyranny, forcing art to administer
its needed artifices. The people do right to scoff at the pro-
digious show. In his day, however, it was an earnest, serious
tyranny. The crime of treason was in an unbelieving look or
a chance word. As bad as the spirit of the art then was, in which
it was upheld by what was called religion, it had the merit of
sincerity in execution. Evidently the reward of the obedient
was ever before its eyes, until it came at last to have faith
in its own panderings to royalty as the right way of art.
Louis XV., however, tempered his tyranny with the license of
pleasure and the scoffings of unbelief. His predecessor made a
pretence of the name of the Lord for his acts ; but the fifteenth
Bourbon came out squarely for the Devil. The hypocrisy of the
one and the openness of the other king are the sounding-notes
of their respective fashions in art. If the mistress of the first
must appear demurely pious in his old age, the harlot of the
VANLOO AND BOUCHER. 241
second rollicked openly before the people. He was too obtuse
to their existence to take into consideration their opinions; con-
sequently he did not require of art that it should fortify his
tyranny, but that it should sacrifice to his carnal desires. True
he did not much need to recreate the former service, as his pred-
ecessor had reduced it to an organized system of ceremonies
and spectacles that, once begun, went on themselves by mere
force of routine and vested self-interests. They were, however,
no longer a worship, only a habit of royalty. In the license
of a pleasure-loving act, the national instincts for the gay, grace-
ful and pretty, and the spirituel came lightly to the surface, but
devoted to the inclinations of the ruler who had given it liberty.
Its chief delight was in the mere frippery of ornament, to which
was added a taste for the Oriental monstrous and grotesque,
betokening an unwholesome love for things impure, unnatural
and unbeautiful, or sentimental-decorative ruled by the caprices
of fashion. The Vanloos, Watteau, and Boucher are fitting
representatives of the frivolous, sensuous art of this period.
Their finest work was given to fans, coaches, and cabinets for
salons. They aspired to be always charming, in the natural
sense of this word. Inventive and industrious, they deluged
France with sense-seducing art, undertaking every sort of com-
mission with equal levity of purpose and aptness of hand. Re-
ligious and classical subjects were intermingled with sensual
and wicked. They decorated theatres, salons, and made de-
signs for tapestries. Figure-work, landscape, animals, fantastics,
everything fashion craved, they were prompt to execute, and with
uniform results so far as the defilement of noble art was in-
volved.
As colorists they are monotonously thin and feeble, Wanloo.
something of a sparkle perhaps to Vanloo, but paleness ;ſº
is common to all. Boucher's greens and blues look Desportes.
as if they had fainted, while his rosy tints, on which he relies
for attractiveness, have the value of pink ribbons. His vegeta-
tion is an ethereal substance, with a general tone of confectionary
surface-color. He holds landscapes to be made for powdered,
perruqued, and hooped belles and beaux to fancy themselves
shepherds and shepherdesses in. Its choicest nooks are re-
served for the display of well-turned legs and delicately tinted
bosoms with men gazing appetizingly thereon, or for nudity
made unchaste by debauchery of intent and sensual disorder of
drapery Frenchmen rarely paint unadorned obscenity, as did
16
242 OUDRY AND GREUZE.
the Dutch and Flemish artists, but insidiously suggest it. They
are too polite a race for unmitigated grossness. Watteau's faces
of men and women are the same for all his personages; his
characterization being exhausted on limbs and attitudes.
Cruelty and sensuality being closely related, it is not surpris-
ing that the animal-painters of the epoch exhibit the fiercest
instincts of their subjects. Painful as must be much of their
art to a humane person, still it must be acknowledged that
Oudry and Desportes paint real dogs, such dogs as Landseer
never has given; with bone, muscle, action ; canine instincts
dominating, not a mere show of dumb skins or sentimental
effigies. They hunt, pant, growl, bark, tear their game with
remorseless grip, behaving like dogs in every respect that obey
the brutal wills of vulgar-hearted masters. Aristocratic dogs,
too, well kept and skilfully trained, like their owners despising
poverty, and nothing loath to rend it for the fun of the thing.
Unlike Boucher's and Watteau's human stock, they are solidly
painted, mean work, and are put into landscapes that have some
semblance of realism, although flat in color, and coarse in feel-
ing. Veronese and Rubens paint a higher style of brutes in
a few, broad, effective sweeps of the brush, giving the ideal dog,
whose beauty and character attach man to him. On the lower
plane of animal nature which Oudry and Desportes adopt, there is
no work that surpasses theirs. It is a rude, healthful tonic, in
contrast with the effeminate art of their brethren. Whatever is
sanguinary is rendered literally and forcibly ; but there is no ex-
aggeration of torture and indulgence in the ghastly and disagree-
able for their own sakes, as is to be seen in Salvatoresque battle-
pieces.
Two painters relieve the general depravity and worthlessness
of this time, Joseph Vernet and Jean Baptiste Greuze; each
of whom, though widely apart in styles and motives is distinctly
French. Honest Vernet, painting the landscape as he actually
saw it whenever he was sufficiently himself to shake off the
mingled Claudesque and Salvatoresque influences which at first
hampered him, is a man to be prized in his generation. No
silly pastoralism, or voluptuous sentimentalism, or nonsense of
any sort adulterated his manner. He was destitute of imagina-
tion, and so had no dubious fancies to cast out of a teeming
brain. Even the spirituel apprehension of his race was wanting.
Wernet painted his southern climes in a truthful, prosaic way,
making a pictorial record in the simplest language, without any
JOSEPH VERNET. 243
hidden sense or Turnerian involvement of form and hue. A
matter-of-fact man, viewing everything with a child's literal eye-
sight, his art is wholly of the material senses. He loves the sea,
sky, and shore with sailor-like heartiness. We get from him
light, atmosphere, breeze, vigor, description, topographical truth,
and the day's doings. His series of southern cities in this as-
pect are interesting. Claude's and Salvator's scenes, being com-
positions, give no local truth, and gratify only the ideal and
aesthetic faculties. Vernet's proficiency in copying is almost
Chinese. We are sure that the houses, vessels, boats, costumes,
and people are as rigidly like the originals as a clear eye and
a conscientious pencil can make them. On that Marseilles quay
there are now at work the same persons on the same bales of
merchandise, true to their marks and numbers, – business like
for all time, – that he saw on the bright, breezy Mediterranean
morning of A. D. 1754, when he carefully noted them down,
and put the whole life before him into a vigorous picture. This
is not great art, but it is useful work. His coloring is neither
trickish nor feeble. He succeeds in getting the local colors into
his panoramic pictures fresh and true, careless of other qualifies
or aims. It would have been better for the French school at
this period if it had more scholars as honest and earnest as
Joseph Vernet.
Greuze is not unlike him in sincerity and literalism of manner,
but is of a different intellectual calibre. His style owes but
little to color, being cold and disagreeable in tone and superficial
in texture, except in flesh-tints, which although slight are deli-
cate, transparent, and tender, marking a success where Boucher
fails. The design is vigorous, and fancy graceful. Character is,
however, his strong point. In this he has dramatic force. Of his
ready talent of composition, the “Malediction ” and “Son Pun-
ished ” in the Louvre are pertinent examples. But in general his
inclination is rather for the sensuous and coquettish ; the charmant
of his school, with no particular scruples of purity or desire for
intellectual expression. The “Broken Pitcher,” is the favorite
specimen of his pretty manner. A few clever genre pictures,
not as much esteemed in their day as they deserved to be, now
cause him to be ranked as a great master by his countrymen,
while fashion of late has pushed prices for even his common
productions to a point not often attained by the greatest genius;
a simple vaporous head of his, of no especial meaning, having
sold for upwards of one hundred thousand francs.
244 TEIB SOEIOOD OF DA WID,
We now arrive at a new phase of French painting. The
sway of royal mistresses ending in the execution of Louis XVI.
gives way to the retributions of the Revolution, and art transforms
The art of itself with the times. Having administered to the
i.” pride of one king and the sensuality of another, it
now goes into the hands of their Nemesis, a people excited by
tyranny into paroxysms of progress, and, though possessing noble
ideas, mistaking their way to liberty. The downfall of the Bour-
bons carried with them their pernicious maxim, “L’Etat, c'est moi,”
and whoever since rules in their stead is compelled to substitute
the people collectively as the synonym of political power. This
forward step, slight as it actually is, has vastly changed and
widened the scope of French art. At first the people, or those
who acted in the name of the nation, sought patriotic inspirations
chiefly from examples of Roman history. Art in consequence
turned toward that source for motives and subjects. This was
a fundamental political as well as aesthetic error. Nothing per-
manently good, and least of all national, would come of parody-
ing the history of an obsolete race. Every genuine Gallic ele-
ment was set aside by an unnatural admiration of the mythical
deeds and doubtful virtues of the old masters of Europe, whose
political watchword was dominion. There being no real appli-
cability between the two cases, it resulted in much harm to the
French nation. I have, however, only to show its effects on
art which powerfully reflected the revolutionary fervor of the
people.
The classical school, so called, developed by Louis David, first
came into the ascendant; not the spirit of beauty and repose
which distinguishes Grecian art, but the stormier and coarser
features of the Roman taste and history. Its leading character-
istics were ambitious compositions on immense canvases, great
energy of design, flaunting surface-color, and theatrical display.
History as acted on the stage was transferred to canvas with
spectacular effect, and reduced to sensational tableaux, with the
details of which real history had but little to do. In this there
was nothing genuinely French, except the enthusiasm with which
for a while the nation welcomed this attempt to impose at second-
hand the ideas and manners of a people that had passed out of
living history, on one for the first time striving to make a place for
themselves in their own. But this pseudo-classical furore soon
expended itself, and French nature came to the surface again.
David's School was useful in one respect, although false in others.
THE CHIEF ARTISTS. 245
It operated as a salutary tonic to arouse art from the little and
mean into more exalted veins of thought, and higher standards
of excellence. It was a generous attempt to found a patriotic
school of historical art in a grand style, and, however mistaken
the performance, it let in a purer atmosphere. Those big pic-
tures that nobody now looks at, were the results of hard study,
fired by sympathy for human rights and heroic action. More
positive and cold in color than the antecedent painting, exag-
gerated in action, in motives forced, unrealistic throughout, they
were intended to be epic poems on liberty, as sung by the
Revolution, or pictorial harangues on themes born of that great
human spasm. But they were at bottom prodigious shams,
counterfeiting virtues that did not exist at heart, or by great
noise and show disguising their absence. Humanity could not
long be taken in by them. After a momentary excitement and
wonder, they passed into the category of abnormal art, never
more to be mistaken for the genuine. The experiment of David
has guided the modern reproducers of history into the right
direction. Abandoning theoretical ideas, they seek to illustrate
and recreate it on its own ground of truth of scene, event, and
accessories, and from its own basis of thought and feeling. In-
stead of trying to make the past talk the language of our time,
they take us back to the old, and introduce us to its actual life
and character.
The chief artists that gave character to the first Empire
beside David, and who may be considered especially the expo-
nents of the ideas and styles that came in with the Revolution,
were Géricault, Girodet, Gros, Gérard, Prud’hon, and Madame
Le Brun. Their best works have been put by themselves into
one of the great halls of the Louvre to challenge comparison
with the masterpieces of the Italian, Flemish, Spanish, and Ger-
man painters in the neighboring Salon Carré. A more unhappy
position could not have been chosen for them, notwithstanding
the inharmonious hanging, general confusion of styles, schools,
motives, and too frequent bad condition of the foreign artists,
owing to the neglect or incompetency of those having them in
charge. The French school enjoys the advantage of a unity
of tone and ideas, which composes the mind of the spectator at
first ingress into its hall, and predisposes it towards enjoyment.
This fails him completely on entering the Salon Carré because
of the disturbing relations of the pictures themselves. Their
finest qualities are not only lost in the jarring propinquity of
f
246 SALON CARRE.
opposite elements, but the primary effect of them in mass is to
bewilder. Plato in a mob is an ordinary man. Solomon in an
assembly of kings loses his special magnificence. Genius is
invisible in a crowd. So with the masterpieces of the Salon
Carré. Entering it is like stepping into a mob of philosophers,
prophets, saints, poets, emperors, angels, satyrs, and fair and false
women ; God's elect herded in a pen, labelled for show, and all
talking at once. Amid this confusion of races and tongues, it re-
Quires strong self-command to select, comprehend, and enjoy a pic-
ture by itself. A sensitive organ would find an agony of sound if
submitted to the music of operas, oratorios, and sacred, profane,
military, and light compositions within one hall at one time. It
is so here to a certain degree with the eye. Crowded with treas-
ures of art, such is their confused arrangement and absence of
means of quiet enjoyment of each picture in accordance with its
own proper character, that, until the nerves become steadied
and concentrated, it is a chamber of torment, instead of being on
first view what it easily might be made to appear, the sanctuary
of high art. But compared with the rival salon of the French
masters, it truly is one, despite the great advantage of the latter
in its unity of style and feeling. But this unity condenses itself
into an impression of repulsion, in which disgust and horror are
equally balanced ; an impression which deepens with increasing
familiarity with its paintings. Analyze them, and there is no mys-
tery in this effect. They are false in character, coarse in expres-
sion, extravagant in action, when not feebly sentimental, and brutal
in color. I do not include David’s works in this anathema, their
points having been already stated. Can any one look at the
exhibition of physical suffering of Géricault’s “Wreck of the
Medusa,” without having every aesthetic faculty outraged ? If in-
tended for a scene in the “Inferno,” a raft of human souls adrift
on a viscious sea, it might pass. But to call that pitchy slime
the ocean is a foul libel. It is rare to find a Frenchman who
comprehends at all this part of nature. He gets his idea of the
movements of the sea from the oscillating canvases of theatres.
Géricault's atmosphere is as unbreathable as his water is un-
liquid, while horror upon horror is piled up in his representation
of starvation, until sympathy is overborne by the opposite emotion.
His equestrian portraits are all fury and smoke ; impossible in
attitude and absurd in effect; realistic truth sacrified to tours de
force.
Gros’s “Battle-field of Eylau " is in a like view of the exag-
GIRODET, PRUD'HON, GERARD. 247
gerated-physical, a pictorial horror, acceptable only to a morbid
appetite for the disagreeable. The “Plague at Jaffa " is somewhat
better, but still making predominant the ghastly and appalling.
It is lustreless, though strong in tint, with less of the positively
ugly and coarse than in the other painting. A lifeless spectacle,
it neither warms our sympathies nor elevates our sentiments.
Even the action of Bonaparte is not made heroic, but simply
curious, as if he experimented on his own courage rather than
sought by an act of piety to inspire the sick with hope.
The “Deluge” of Girodet is an extraordinary burlesque, in
which an impossible gymnastic action is the chief feature. His
“Atala” is weakly commonplace. Madame Le Brun sacrifices to
the Sentinental-pretty. Prud’hon tries to translate Guido into
French studies of flying draperies and a confusion of limbs and
bodies, meaningless so far as the execution has any connection
with the motive. Baron Gérard essays the same by Paul
Veronese in Nos. 238 and 239, two allegories, lively in move-
ment, with ample force and conventional color, but devoid of
other aim than sensational effect. His “Psyche” is daintily silly.
Suffice it to say that the common defects of these men are
want of right feeling, or an elevated conception of their themes,
or even a natural one. They are revolutionary in art, the off-
spring of troublous times, producing compositions that would
have affrighted Poussin and Le Sueur in their tame routine of
academic proprieties. Gymnasts of painting I call them, when
they do not affect the merely sentimental ; for their chief effort is
to startle by displays of vigorous design and technical force.
They do not lack knowledge or skill. Their art is the antithesis
of the effeminate school, and their sense of color is as coarse and
unfeeling as that of the Louis XV. period was insipid and
frivolous. Neither has produced works worthy of preservation,
or beneficial in an aesthethic view. On the contrary, their in-
fluence is bad in taste and motives. But the revolutionists did
good service in breaking up and dispersing the corrupt atmos-
phere of the former school, in introducing vigor and variety,
and substituting for the baneful worship of royalty the love of
national glory, which, although diverted by Napoleon too much
towards military ambition, was based on a sentiment of patriot-
ism. The many miles of canvases which have since been
devoted by the ablest artists to a pictorial record of battles are
graphic as narratives, but embody no higher lessons than the san-
guinary triumphs of French valor. Reverses and humiliations
248 FI. VERNET AND TROYON.
are studiously omitted, forgetful that defeat in a right cause is
more to a people's glory than victory in an evil one. These
military pictures, though not the most wholesome training for a
nation, are, however, in every way superior to those in vogue in
the royal edifices before them. Right or wrong, they are national,
and every Frenchman is identified with their histories. An art
which keeps alive in the people the consciousness of their own
importance in the state, even though on a low plane of justice
and right, merits an acknowledgment of its special benefit.
Let us now succinctly examine the successors of the masters
of the first Empire, before closing with those whose reputations
have not yet been fully tested by time. For the first, IIorace
Vernet, Delacroix, Ary Scheffer, Delaroche, Troyon, Ingrés,
Décamps, Fleury, and Hippolyte Flandrin are sufficient to illus-
trate the varied development of their school immediately subse-
quent to the period just examined. Of these men, Vernet is the
most direct offspring of the common taste and mind of France.
He is the artist of the multitude. All is revealed at one look.
His hand and eye are quick, memory retentive, and manner
dashing, materialistic, and sensational. The love of excitement
and adventure, a free camp-life, and brave deeds, are his special
attractions. He tells his story rapidly and off-hand, freely em-
phasizing for effect, but in the main truth-telling. It is done by
action, for he has no sentiment of color, and no higher intellect-
ual aim than declamation. Vernet is a clever but not great
artist. He rejects academic trammels, and makes himself a
spirited reporter of history in its external look, the French
soldier being his ideal man. In fine, he seems to be a sort of
“our own correspondent” of the brush, after the stamp of the
“Times’s ” Russell, very acceptable to those who care only for a
lively told story.
Troyon in another field is equally materialistic, and protests
with like power against old conventionalism. A heavy, coarse
man himself, he depicts cattle to life — hard working and docile
to his dull-minded masters, in a landscape Savoring of heat and
toil. He sees the earth only after the “fall !” There is no
sentiment of paradise in it. In its kind his painting is hearty,
done in a masterly but narrow vein. His animals are animals ;
not like Rosa Bonheur's skin-painted effigies in fields and at-
mosphere of opaque paint. Compared with her, Troyon is great.
His realism is felt from nature; hers is artificial, clever in design,
but wanting the breath of life. Troyon gives dust, sweat, work,
DECAMPS AND INGRES. 249
air. His peasants and cattle are in keeping with their natal
clods. Latterly he grew to be greedy of profit and careless of
reputation. But his best works form a landmark of positive
progress in the right direction. He floods his pictures with
glowing light and transparent shadow. One feels it is out-door
work, and plenty of it; no shirking of application, but a strong
brush obedient to a powerful hand. Troyon suggests life and
movement ; Rosa Bonheur counterfeits both. He is an Anak
by nature ; she only skims the substance of things.
If we are to judge artists only by what they actually do to ad-
vance their profession from a lower to a higher phase, Ingres de-
serves no mention. But some men must be cited either for the
evil they do, the mistakes they make, or the little good use they
put their talents to. In the Luxembourg there are frequent ex-
amples of each of these phases. Of men like Décamps, strong,
original, with a profound subjective sense of color, Oriental in
feeling and poetical in expression, who often waste their fine
powers on topics unworthy of them, adding merely to the curios-
ities of art or its eccentricities, as in his monkey pictures; like
Fleury, serious and intellectual, but, in aiming at the tragic and
heroic, often bordering on the burlesque from overdone physical
expression, as in his shrieking Queen; or like the accomplished
Ingrés, striving for a high range of idealism in motives and design,
and falling into the stale academic and effete conventional, con-
spicuous examples of which are shown in Nos. 102 and 105,
“Jesus giving the keys to St. Peter,” and “Homer Deified ”;
compositions forced from an unyielding imagination, confused in
grouping, artificial, and feelingless. If possible, No. 103, “Roger
delivering Angélique,” a subject taken from Ariosto, is worse than
the other two, for it is polished into sculpturesque smoothness,
without texture of rock, flesh, water, or armor; academic precision
and skill of touch, yes, but remote from any possibility of nature,
and appearing more like a looking-glass reflection than painting.
The cartoons made for the painted glass windows of the chapels
of Dreux and St. Ferdinand at Sablonville are more favorable
specimens of his technical abilities. The figures of the Saints,
drawn after the modernized Byzantine type, are quiet, digni-
fied, but, like all modern work of this character, wanting in that
solid archaic grandeur and richness which distinguishes the an-
cient art. Ingrés appears best in portraiture. This talent he
shares with the artists of repute from Clouet down, for they
have a faculty of seizing hold of salient points of character, and
250 ARY SCHEFFER.
drawing to the surface the spirituel elements. Painting, too,
directly from nature, they succeed better as colorists.
Ary Scheffer is a poet, but not a painter. Color eludes his
pencil. But his elevated imagination, purity of treatment, spirit-
ual apprehension of his themes, often allied to the supernatural,
and his recognition of Christian motives in their loftiest sense,
render him a remarkable exception to the uniform tendency of
his school to materialistic life and thought. He rarely attempts
realism. Abstract ideas and religious motives, cold and shadowy,
but lofty and pure as symbolized in his mind, he seeks to pic-
torialize. But he began otherwise. For a time, before he
reached the lucid atmosphere of his final manner, he was infected
with the passion for the horrible, and appealed to the spectator's
sympathies by means of physical suffering only. But he never
added to these lasciviousness or brutality, either in color or ex-
pression. Indeed, he finds difficulty in rising above the technically
pretty; but throughout his art there is an inferior sentiment or
feeling that appeals to the higher sentiments. The “Fran-
cesca” is an exception to his general want of strength. That
borders on the sublime.
Delaroche is another exceptional artist, noteworthy for his
poetical conception of historical themes, his elevated religious
spirit, and his chaste manner. He is an academician, with a
mind enlarged by study, and governed by purer taste than that
about him. Averse to noise and movement, he is the reverse
of Horace Vernet in style and feeling. The one fled from the
Academy to nature for inspiration. The other buried himself in
his studio to mature his conceptions by slow process of thought
and work. Vernet would begin on an immense canvas at the
top, and paint down with a rapid brush, finishing as he went.
Delaroche had none of this extemporizing power. But he com-
posed well, even eloquently; drew poems, eleborated academic
work, but with less of that consciousness of hard toil which is
apparent with Ingrés; had a noble sense of the human figure;
an elevated appreciation of the true purposes of art; was tran-
quil and dignified, and would have been a great painter had his
talents for coloring been equal to his other merits. In this re-
spect he fails. His color is heavy, positive, and speechless. It
even tells against the intellectual motives of his pictures. Like
most moderns, he appears best in engraving. The chiefs of the
old masters lose by it.
The example of Delaroche adds another to the frequent in-
DELAROCHE. 251
stances in the French school of its loss of crowning glory be-
cause of the vital deficiency of a true instinct of color, which
no education can perfectly remedy or intellectual delight in it in
others secure to one's self. The Bolognese academicians sought
to rival the Venetians by means of eclectic studies, and notably
failed, though producing work of much value. The French
fail also of reaching to the same great standard from like natural
causes. Their native bias is for design. Hence their coloring,
with but few exceptions, is the result of various scientific theo-
ries containing more or less but not all of the truth requisite to
create perfect color. That fine sense which causes it to express
moods and ideas, which makes it subjective and accessory to
the main motive, is the exception, not the rule, with them.
With the older Italians and Spanish painters, it is a common
feature, and constitutes the fundamental excellence of their sys-
tems. United to equal genius of design, it gives them a com-
pleteness of aesthetic value we look in vain for on the same
scale elsewhere, unless it be among the early Flemish and Ger-
man masters. But color is employed by them in a more exter-
nal and decorative manner. Delaroche worked for this gift, and
so did Ary Scheffer, but neither succeeded in obtaining it. The
conscientious career of Delaroche is an instructive example in
his school. His temperament being melancholy, the subjects
chosen by him were generally of that stamp. There was in
him no spontaneity of execution, but rather slow, toilsome com-
position; a continual struggle towards an ideal, which, as in
everything human, kept ever the same distance from the paint-
er's easel. Each acquisition lifted the artist's standard a step
higher. An eclectic student, laboring to arouse emotion by
dramatic incidents taken quite as often from foreign history as
his own, mostly pathetic and with a profound moral, having a
sympathy with suffering, viewing facts in their poetical aspect,
Delaroche is a man of striking talents and fine sensibilities, but
not a genius in its large meaning. His intellectual faculties were
so well balanced that he could have won distinction in any other
C2, I’é62]”.
If it needed Ary Scheffer to temper the dominant materialism
with his spiritual apprehension of art, it not less needed Hippo-
lyte Flandrin as an example of a purely religious master. His
sincerity and high-mindedness would have done honor to the
best periods of the sacred art of Italy. Having a faith in
divine things, Flandrim incarnated his ideas in a remarkable
252 FDANDRIN.
series of wall-paintings for public edifices and in easel-pictures,
borrowed in general characteristics from early Christian art, but
treated in his own thoughtful and refined manner. Other relig-
ious art of France, with here and there an isolated or partial
exception, is the mercenary labor of skeptical studios in which
crucifixions, saints, martyrs, and the usual topics of the Bible and
sacred traditions are painted from academic receipts or stolen
outright from abler hands, without a trace of religious feeling.
On the contrary, they are most often theatrical, silly, or inane
if not vulgarly or maliciously wicked, and in their best condition
simply endurable as displaying the aesthetic training of the com-
poser. Flandrin's career in comparison seems like a light
direct from heaven to guide the nation into a purer atmosphere.
But its rays fall on indifferent men. Aside from the multitude
of so-called religious works of the heartless patterns annually
called for to fill up barren wall-surfaces in churches, the best
sacred art now strives simply to attain either strict historical
realism, praiseworthy and valuable from its external point of
view, or falls into the common current of sensuous decoration.
The more honor, therefore, is due Flandrin for his integrity.
His talent of composition ranks him as a master, and he is as
clear and simple in coloring as devout in spirit. But even he
cannot free himself wholly from the realistic tendencies that
environ him. Flandrin conceives after an original manner,
keeps the religious motive in sight, but the realistic-picturesque
prevails in execution, as is to be seen in his numerous frescoes in
St. Germain des Prés. His most solemn figures are prophets
and martyrs, Byzantine in feeling, but late Italian in execution.
Although Flandrin stands at the head of French religious art,
he would take no such rank among great masters elsewhere.
There is nothing grand or profound in his works. He does not
rise to the full height of his motives. The influence of Andrea
del Sarto is perceptible in his style, except as he tries to give
historical verity of accessories, while the Italian introduced only
those of his own country and times; and although more equal
Flandrin does not rival him in vigor. Below Domenico Ghirlan-
dajo in power and invention, he makes but short approach to
the qualities of a Leonardo, a Raphael, or a Michael Angelo.
His is a relative greatness, founded more on contrast of his well-
intentioned work with the defects of his school than any uncom-
mon genius of his own. It is an example that goes to prove
a general truth ; namely, the incapacity of the French school
A PICTURE BY GIORGIONE. 253
thus far to give birth to art based on exalted religious motives
or moral feeling.
Let me illustrate from a picture by Giorgione what I mean
by the word moral in this connection, premising that the ear-
lier Venetian school abounds in similar motives. Giorgion?
wishes to depict how and why Malatesta, Lord of Rimini, pre-
vious to his excommunication, was reproved by the pope for
his concupiscence and cruelties. As an artist, his first care is to
make a complete painting, but which shall declare forcibly the
moral of the tale. He paints a broad, hilly landscape bounded
by the densely blue Apennines, – that intense blue that tints
his native hills, — and intersperses the fore and middle grounds
with forest and cultivated lands, abounding in flowers, and the
game the feudal lord loves to hunt. Malatesta's castle is in a
distant mountain-peak, at the foot of which is his tower. A
shepherd is piping to his flock in one spot, while not far off a
savage hound is worrying a hare to death ; a hit at the habits
of the haughty lord, who sits in the centre of the composition,
on a broken sarcophagus, richly sculptured, with other ruins of
temple and statues about, to indicate how bad government had
overthrown the high civilization of former times. Malatesta is
an imposing figure, richly costumed according to the fashion of
the latter part of the fifteenth century. His scarlet cap hangs
on the limb of a twig, and one hand is protectingly placed on
the shoulders of his golden-tressed mistress, whose face is
turned beseechingly towards him as he frowns at the messenger
from the pope, who is interrupting his dalliance. The lady is
refined in figure, decorous and picturesque in dress, handsome,
but has the extremities of her feet uncovered, perhaps to denote
an humble origin or her loose relation with Malatesta. A skull
is held towards him by the pilgrim-ambassador, who bears upon
his costume the keys of St. Peter, and the tokens of a pilgrim-
age to the Holy Land. Pointing to the death's head, he ad-
monishes the prince that it is bad to live in a condition in which
he would not wish to die; a message that is to be read in Latin,
as an inscription on an uncovered sarcophagus, overshadowed
by a broken image, near the arms of Malatesta.
The picture in itself is beautiful on account of its execution,
and the breadth, simplicity, and richness of the composition.
Every detail is conscientiously studied from nature; the figures
are admirably designed and posed, and the whole painted as the
rival of Titian knew how to paint. Intellectually it is equally
**-
.*
254 COUTURE.
a success, for the stern, overbearing tyrant, the threatening
pilgrim, and the pleading concubine are thoroughly in character;
and it is also one of the numerous examples of the Venetian
painters in always treating woman so as to dignify and not to
disgrace her, whatever she might be in herself; at all events, to
excite chaste admiration of her charms, or sympathy for her
misfortunes, and not, as is the modern practice, to incite libidi-
nous feeling or mock at chastity with sardonic unction. The
superiority of old art is based almost as much on its morale as
its execution and aesthetic constitution. We are apt to over-
look the best points in the old masters because of our training
to regard only the superficial and external, and especially the
meaning and delight that come of a harmony between the -sub-
tleties of character and color in compositions of a high range
of motives.
conna. , Couture is the opposite of Flandrin; a genuine
Delacroix offspring of French feeling, tempering, however, its
sensual bias with the aesthetic requirements of his personal
tastes, and making pictures from an intellectual point of view,
vitalized by passions and sentiments akin to their themes. Es-
pecially is this true of his masterpiece, “The Romans of the
Decadence,” which best exhibits his quality of genius and highly
trained skill. It is an allegory subdued by realistic treatment to
the comprehension of every one. Ideal in conception, and avoid-
ing the scenic display and trite conventionalism of the David
school, it shows a possible classical debauch, without attaining
to the local and historic verity of more recent treatment. Alle-
gory predominates. Similar scenes must have marked the de-
cline of Roman virtue, but this painting rises above the partic-
ular spectacle to the realization of the collapse of a mighty
empire, and symbolizing the vices and crimes which ruined it.
Couture's aesthetic perceptions were too mice to permit him to
indulge in the common trait of making the nude simply unchaste.
His figures are voluptuous, but not lewd. Even in intoxication
he preserves them from the loathsome by the grandeur of their
passions, and those ancestral memories that withhold them from
absolute bestiality. They are drunk to the reeling of reason;
eyes glisten with thickening films and besotted desires; speech
staggers; forms totter; action is growing benumbed by the fatal
cup ; but the aristocratic mien of the masters of the earth never
wholly leaves them. How can it be otherwise in the presence of
those grave statues of their fathers that look down upon them
I).ELA CROIX. 255
like admonishing visitors of another world 2 Compared with the
lecherous orgies that French art gives of scenes of the Orleans
regency and subsequent reign, it is a veritable debauch of
gods.
The technical treatment of this effective painting betrays the
influence of Veronese, though there is no servile following of
any master. It is brilliant and luminous in color, but falls into
the not uncommon fault of the school of broken and scattered
lights, and a certain fierceness of effect, which comes of fiery
blood and strong passions.
The colorists of the French school, with few exceptions, have
something repellant and unsatisfactory, particularly in a moral
sense, in the tone of their pictures. It is a disturbing, irritating
quality. Fleury has it; Décamps less, his best tone being one
of solemn magnificence, speaking to the imagination ; Diaz dis-
plays it in reckless wantonness of brush, luscious and warm, but
not as pure as might be ; and Delacroix revels in it with fierce
delight. Venetian art mastered color, and made it subserve its
more noble ideas by an implicit obedience to aesthetic law.
But color, with French masters, often runs into riot and fracas.
Delacroix is a great colorist in point of original force,
though not the most perfect in practice. It comes of his blood.
He thinks, speaks, invents in color. Subjects are chosen to
admit of its prodigal use. He discharges it like a burst of
fireworks. His pictures overpower by their fury of brush.
For it he often neglects design. With the zeal of a revolution-
ist, he bears the spectator away, or dashes him aside like an im-
petuous torrent. He treats colors as Buonarotti did design.
No pupil can follow him. There is little beauty in it, less
grace, no tenderness, and no faith; but everywhere is seen a
creative, untiring intellect, surging and foaming in a colored sea
of passion.
Delacroix delights in the dark side of life. Famine, impris-
onment, martyrdom, the desolations of war, massacres, cruelties,
orgies, tragedy; Hamlet, Macbeth, Othello; madness, melan-
choly, and crime; these are the themes that inspire his brush.
To Dante’s “Inferno” he turns for choicest topics. Tasso's insan-
ity, Byron's ravings, the society of madmen, or madness turned
inward to gnaw upon itself, the latent ferocity of wild beasts,
alike charm him. See his tiger's head in the Luxembourg; a
mere suggestion in form and color, yet exhibiting the pitiless,
blood-dreaming animal in its most sinister aspect. Look at his
256 DELA CROIX.
“Massacre of Scio” for a revolting accumulation of the horrors
of war; nothing pathetic, nothing exalted as patriotism or sub-
lime in resignation, but a revelling in the atrocious, cruel, and
ensanguined, without any palliation by way of idealism in de-
sign. Instead, every possible heightening of physical horror,
with crude, coarse, contrasted, loaded colors, and scattered lights,
shocking and confusing the senses. In the neighboring picture
of “Dante and Virgil,” the anguish of the wretched souls cling.
ing to Charon's bark, looming up in the hellish gloom and glare
of the coloring, is unspeakable. A unique but not a pleasant
painter, Delacroix Mythology, instead of beautiful fable, af-
fords him a copious supply of monsters, and slaughter of every
variety. He shrinks at and shirks nothing in his terrible lab-
oratory of art, to heighten the impressions of supernatural vehe-
mence, suffering, or strength. His peculiar powers culminate in
the “Apollo triumphing over Python,” which occupies the post of
honor in the ceiling of the Apollo gallery of the Louvre. Here
he absolutely creates a light glowing with the fire of the combat.
He is borne away by the intensity of his conceptions, he looms
up as a great dramatic genius of unbalanced powers, the focus of
the strongest and deepest qualities of the national proclivities
in art. Like all great artists, he loves space. But he also has
the ability to put greatness into small compass. When called
on to decorate St. Sulpice or the Chapel St. Denis du St.
Sacrament in the Marais, the calmer requirements of religious
art failed to temper his impetuous palette. The Virgin is frantic
with earthly woe. Mary Magdalen gives herself up to equally
tragic sorrow. St. Michael of St. Sulpice is a failure, not so
much in color as in those grand qualities of original design
which distinguish most of his other work. It recalls Raphael's
in idea, but fails notably in comparison with it. But the rush
of wind shown in the disturbed curtain in the “Heliodorus,” the
velocity of the avenging angels as they precipitate themselves
through the air, and the vigor of their chastisement are emi-
nently superhuman. The horse, however, is awkwardly done.
“Jacob wrestling with the Angel” is also noteworthy for vigor.
The herculean strength of the patriarch, as he lifts the angel, is
astonishingly rendered. But the painting is confused by the
long drawn out caravan of Jacob as it passes in the distance, so
that the wrestling seems like side-play, instead of being the
great point of the composition. The landscape is imbued with
that mysterious sympathy with the scene which constituted the
essential element of Titian’s “Peter the Martyr.”
MULLER'S “ CALL OF THE CONDEMNED.” 257
Delacroix was an enigma to his countrymen at large, for al-
though genuinely French in temperament and thought, his range
of imagination was above theirs. He had no sympathy what-
ever with their worship of the “pretty.” The large and terri-
ble pleased him most. If his genius had been qualified by
grace; could he have attained harmony in coloring and unity
of graduated lights focused to the emphatic point, and given
more heed to aesthetic principles in composition, — he might have
rivalled Paul Veronese, whom he so admired as to assert that to
him he owed everything. As it is, he cannot be called the equal
of the brilliant Venetian. Although color was a vital force in
him, and also creative design, neither was under perfect control.
Draperies are often sketchy, leathery-like, and ill adjusted, encum-
beftg and obscuring rather than suggesting form and life. His
great triumphs are in wall-decoration, whether in fresco or oil.
But his tints are often dry, crude, dead, lack transparency, and do
not harmoniously blend. Flesh-hues in his easel work are apt to
be cold and clayey. Lights, too, are confused and scattered.
There is also frequent want of unity of tone. His feeling for
color is based on passion more than sentiment ; splendid, but
coarse. Still everything he touches bears a master's solid impress.
Muller's great picture of the “Call of the Condemned” of the
Reign of Terror is perhaps the best composed historical paint-
ing of our time. None that I know, better fulfils the require-
ments of this branch of art, as a realistic narrative. It carries
the spectator directly into the scene as it must have appeared on
that morning when the last of Robespierre's victims were wan-
tonly hurried to the guillotine. Muller drags it bodily out of
the past, and puts it before our eyes in its precise truth, without
dramatic exaggeration, or attempt to heighten anguish and
despair sufficiently intense in their own naked reality. It is a
conscientiously told tale. The officials at whose action we are
aghast, are justly treated ; made men doing a stern duty, not
ensanguined monsters. There are fifty masterly pictures, each
a pathetic tale by itself; every separate group and individual
action diversified in emotion, but filling its place with appropriate
feeling in the harmonious whole; all subdued to an appropriate
key of light, in fine gradation, centred outside the prison-door,
where waits the cart which is fast filling with its dismal load.
There is no attempt at an imaginative treatment, as in Couture's
picture, but in place of it a picturesque rendering of the specta-
cle, based upon a thorough study of incidents, costumes, persons,
17
258 MEISSONNIEIR.
and locality, with copious variety of action and expression. It is
devoid of academic artificiality on the one hand, and of the other
extreme of conventional idealism on the other. Sincerity and
sympathy are joined to unquestioned skill and rare talent in
composition. Delacroix, by his grand manner, writes hiš auto-
graph all over his work, and we are led to think as much of the
artist as his subject. Poussin, Ingrés, and like men, represent
systems or theories, and provoke comparisons. Delaroche ex-
cites the sentiments by his poetical sense, but his defective style
of painting detracts from the enjoyment. Even the Couture
which hangs opposite, recalls the studio overmuch as a composi-
tion, besides being spotty in high lights, and securing brilliancy at
such sacrifice of unity of tone and color as to make it border on
the sensational in general effect. Muller attempts nothing that
he cannot do thoroughly well and in a quiet, truth-telling manner.
His system gives all to art, regardless of exhibiting the artist.
The painting is not the highest effort, but it is a success in high
art complete in its way. Muller paints history as Motley writes
it, picturesquely, and with insight into its emotions.
Compte is a skilful painter of the historical-picturesque, of
elegant executive taste, with too much stress on the effective
pretty, in fine a clever novelist in color of the Walter Scott order.
Gérome and Meissonnier are painters of the historical-genre
type. David tried to paint history as Livy writes it. But
these men more nearly resemble acute tourists whose powers of
observation and imagination, being well balanced, enable them
graphically to depict those scenes which make up the actual life
and history of a people. They do not paint ideas, or even
emotions, but spectacles. There is a meaning, though, in what
Gérome does; often a lesson of deep import, though, like Ma-
caulay or Thiers in history, he may as an artist be more intent
on the picture than the principle.
Both are realists, Gérome inclined to the sensual, and Meis-
Yonnier, so far as he shows feeling, to the brutal. They neither
offend nor captivate by color, but strive for local truth in a cold,
prosaic manner. Each is masterly in execution. Gérome often
finishes to a degree of brush-polish which leaves his figures like
porcelain, a vicious practice which mars his great skill in com-
posing.) The “Siamese Ambassadors” is a marvel of pencil fin-
ish, but "worthless as fine painting. The best of the modern finish-
ers, as we may call those who concentrate their strongest efforts
upon dexterity of brush, do not equal early Flemish and Ger-
GEROME 259
man work. , Van Eyck, Albert Durer, and Holbein surpass
them. The old masters, however, did not often waste their skill
on inferior motives. If the object was in itself lowly or common,
they elevated it by its application, and kept it in its right posi-
tion and connection with their main topics, in obedience to the
canons of high art. One of their paintings is something more
than a picture in the modern sense. Too many of our best
trained artists are content to find a “subject.” Meissonnier is
a painter of no higher aim. Gérome does better. His realistic
elaboration is not always limited to mere technical triumphs.
He evokes the past of Greece, Rome, or France, in their hap-
piest effects of architecture, costume, and scene, with the same
vivid reality with which he paints subjects whose accuracy we
are able to test by our own observation. For his capacity of
keen humor, witness the “Augurs.” Rarely are learning and
skill better united, though his intellectual discernment is not
of the highest character. Still his is the true method of illus-
trative history. The idealism is strictly confined to its legiti-
mate purpose of beauty as defined by classic art, while the
motives are drawn from actual life, facts, or myths, and treated
in their natural or probable aspect. By this system, while
availing himself of all that is useful in academic rules, he makes
them conform to real life. In other words, he substitutes the
varied natural for the monotonous conventional. The funda-
mental principles of academic teaching are right, because they
recognize truth and beauty as the vital forces of art. But in
practice it has long gone wrong, narrowing itself to formalism,
and reproducing itself, generation after generation, in forms of
increasing weakness and worthlessness. º the modern
men of whom Gérome is so illustrious an example, it has come
to be an established axiom, that mere beauty of form, harmony
of composition, and like laws of aesthetic taste as defined by
academic practice do not in themselves fulfil its entire purpose,
but that to them must be adjoined the vital facts and spirit
of nature.” This is their root of success. It was that of the
old merſ. Intervening schools neglected the substance for the
shadow, and a common inanity appears in them all. No more
washy phantoms, no more skin-deep painting, no more making
of lines and hues the finality of art, but consummate work as
the abode of informing spirit, the old law of art restored to its
legitimate supremacy; such is the code of modern reformers.
It is an offshoot of the revival of correct principles, which has
260 BA UDRY.
begun to bear pleasant fruit for our century, and marks its sym-
pathy with the mediaeval mind in its progress towards perfect
work.
The chief merit of Gérome lies in his apprehension of old
truths, and his patient, skilful application of them with \the ad-
vantages which modern science gives him. There are, however,
some things wanting, not only in him, but the French school as
as a body. First, color, as language or feeling. Gérome has
no sentiment of color. Secondly, its nudity is unchaste. The
severe purity of the Greek and Italian masters in their manage-
ment of the naked figure, presenting it as an exquisite poem, or
even when treating the sensual, making it a divine instinct or a
grand passion, finds no counterpart in the French mind. That
chiefly sees the human figure from its voluptuous and animal
aspect. If modesty be attempted, it is a counterfeit virtue; an
additional seduction, the more complete by betraying the sen-
sual bias of the artist's brush. When not unchaste, it is given
overmuch to kindred passions, or the exhibition of force and a
taste for blood. Hence its too apparent delight in the cruel
and terrible; watching human suffering with an amateur's rel-
ish, and the joy it finds, as in Doré, in the fiendish, grotesque,
obscene, and supernatural-hellish. But more on these abnormal
phases later. I am now led by the dubious example of Gérome
as the great sensualist of the school to point out its demoraliz-
ing tendencies. It may be objected that it is unfair to select a
conspicuous artist of any sort as a representative man. On the
contrary, I hold it to be reasonable and just. All great men
are national types. In other words, they are the culmination
of certain national proclivities. In art Michael Angelo repre-
sents the highest Etruscan elements, Albert Durer the Ger-
man, Rubens the Flemish, Turner the English, Delacroix
the French. Whatever is instinctive or inbred in the race is
sure to find expression in its art; great in great men, little in
little men, mean in mean men, evil in evil men, in all good or
bad according to the soil.
Baudry and his class are a revival of the wide-spread feeling
for the lascivious-pretty of the Boucher coterie of the last century,
with greater fascination of coloring and style. Wantonness of
this sort is far from being eliminated. Indeed, it bids fair at
present, by a revived 'love of the nude, to become more deleterious
than ever. Until there is a radical purification of the French
temperament, it cannot be trusted with the nude any more than
THE NUDE OF FIRENCEI ART. 261
it can be with sacred or serious themes. It degrades it into the
lascivious or sensual, unless, as with Delacroix, overpowered by
another passion, it strips it of grace and beauty. Once the Latin
races thought of the human figure only how they could exalt
and purify it by art, and make it more divine. Even passion
Twas lifted to the clouds, not-teampled-in the mire. The ascetics
sóught to extinguish it entirely, a mistake as fatal as the op-
posite extreme in its ultimate consequences on character, but in
art sinning on the side of purity. Even the debauched Renais-
sance, with all its countless sins of infidelity and prolific art-sen-
suality, was slow in descending to the directly obscene and
vulgar, being retarded by its aesthetic instincts. But French
art largely plants itself on the sensual, diversified, it is true, by
an esprit or wit which is born of the devilish-intellectual, inocu-
lated with the obscene This aspect is too revolting to be en-
larged upon. Even in Paris it is more or less driven by the
authorities into cover. But the coquettish-lascivious, having
triumphed over the mock-heroics of the Davidites, now openly
appears without rebuke. It is not simply tolerated, but sus-
tained by a patronage which pure art in vain seeks. Sexual
charms are made more tempting by lascivious devices of drapery
more immodest than nakedness. If a subject be sought from
history as an excuse for obscenity, it is taken, like that of Schaef-
fer's “Henry II. Fête,” from a spectacle of lewd debauchery
which would now consign every participitant to a penitentiary.
Why should art be free to strip ladies naked, mount them with
lascivious gestures on cattle, surround them with the rakes of
society, who, applauding, drive them before them into the town
either of Blois in the 16th century or Paris in the 19th 2 The
real scene, no doubt, shocked even mediaeval laxity. France of
to-day, under the sanction of the government, is invited to admire
the corrupt canvas. 2.
If the whole nude is done like Baudry's silly “Diana.” — a
tempting piece of flesh-tinting, — the goddess of chastity is
rendered with her divine attribute omitted, and transformed into
a wanton coquette. As individual art, however, all of the above
character is too frivolous and worthless to possess more than a
passing influence, though unhappily its tendency is to rapid
propagation. The more solid sensual brush of Gérome has a
deeper significance. “King Caudaules,” “Phryne before the Are-
opagus,” “Alcibiades with Lais,” the “Almeh,” and other similar
paintings, seem intended to be the opposite in effect of the Greek
262 ITS IMMORALITY .
nude, to incarnate womanhood in a perfect form, and thus Sug-
gest its divinest attributes, making, as with the “Venus de Milo,”
chastity so complete, that the idea of nudity never presents
itself; but to show off the voluptuous attractions of impure women,
exhibiting them as prize-animals for amorous men to gloat over.
The greater the technical achievement, the more dangerous the
painting. Art can dishonor as well as honor a country.
Further to illustrate the varied expression given to subjects in
which the sensual passion is directly embodied, look at the several
treatments of the common topic of the “Temptation of St.
Anthony” by the Italian, Dutch, and French painters. The first
bring the physical attractions seductively but modestly into play.
A vision of a beautiful woman disturbs the ascetic solitude of the
saint. If he fall, it will be as much because of the instinct for
companionship implanted in him by his Creator as from sexual
feeling, which is kept out of sight, though suggested. The
Dutchman surrounds him with obscene demons and delirium-
tremens visions, in which a fiend-woman appears. No danger
of fall of the saint with such diabolical imagery to warn “hands
off.” Our Frenchman provokes his appetites by carnal attitudes
and charms he borrows from models lost to self-respect. ,
It is not agreeable to be thus called upon to indict before
public opinion a great school of art for offences against morality,
and consequently against civilization, but the pºominence given
to carnality is too marked to be overlooked,” United to an
almost equal love for military motives, and those based on phys-
ical force and exhibition of the baser passions, it demonstrates a
low feeling among amateurs and artists. This is further illus-
trated by the national preference of the Dutch school over
the Italian, and the popularity of those artists who, like Meisson-
nier, follow its lead, and make no call on the intellects of their
countrymen, by way of suggestion of ideas or facts calculated to
elevate their minds in any sense. These men give themselves
up to microscopic painting, resolving everything into the minute,
with marvellous Zaccuracy of design, firmness ºf touch, and
elaborate finish. eissonnier is vigorous and little. He adds
to the curiosities of easel-work, but not to its greatness. As
talent it is almost perfect of its kind, but nothing new or com-
mendable. Gérome can beat him on his own ground, but he
does not rest content with finished nothingness. I refer to Meis-
Sonnier chiefly to call attention to his generally low range of
motives. These are the military-genre, combats, quarrels, and
THE SPIRITUEL ELEMENT. 263
crime. Sometimes he rises to the level of peaceful games, a
friendly glass of liquor, or similar commonplaces. Unlike
Gérome, he has no power of acute characterization. To exhibit
his skill of hand seems to be the ruling motive. Schreyer’s “Ar-
tillery Charge” of the Salon of 1865 is a splendid example of
broad and natural treatment of the military-genre, as full
of life as Meissonnier's pictures are the reverse.
Although I have alluded to the French fondness for Dutch
art, I must do the school the justice to state that it never
descends to the level of the Dutch liking for debauchery, drink-
ing-bouts, and their attendant fracases. The love of the pretty
does good service in preserving it from this lowest stage of
materialism. Neither do we find among the Dutchmen the
amateur taste for suffering and lighter vices which obtain with
their Gallic neighbors. Both schools are firmly set upon the
material plane of art as distinguished from the ideal or spiritual,
and each finds in the other something it is without in itself. I
do not mean that idealism or spirituality is not represented in
French art. They are but as exceptions to its general cur-
rent. The spirituel element is a saving grace, and gilds much
that would be purely offensive without it. Yet this subtile at-
traction and the artistic work of a few skilled men must not
lead us to overlook the externality of the ordinary genre-painters
of France, and indeed of many others. Their grave shortcom-
ings are want of seriousness, faith, and high purpose. They
coquette with art as with a mistress, using it alternately for their
necessities or their entertainment. A fundamental feeling for
the decorative overrules all. Next to that it is best satisfied
with being charming. It loves also to illustrate and to amuse.
In caricature, however, it has little real wit, being given to
grossness, exaggeration, and distortion, which it mistakes for it.
Rarely does it recognize things spiritual ; almost never those
universal ethics that teach humanity and inspire it with fresh
hopes or resignation. Neither has it political aspirations. Much
that it might express as freely and eloquently as does its sister-
art, literature, it omits to do. Fashion, power, and the purse
are its chief stimulants. It would be unjust to lay all its sins
of omission at the door of the government; for until the experi-
ment is fairly tried, it cannot know how far its liberty of action
extends. The common drift is towards things trivial and super-
ficial. The body of man is more recognized than his soul by
the average of artists; but their art is spiced with sufficient in-
264 DES GOFFE AND FIRO iſ ENTIN.
tellect to preserve it from wholesale corruption. If the inspi-
ration derived from the government was of a higher character,
doubtless art would be put on a superior basis. But before
there can be any radical, permanent change in its moral tone,
the heart of the nation must be purified. Technically the school
has much where with to congratulate itself. In this direction
there has been entire freedom of experiment and progress. Im-
provement since the last century is varied and rapid. In style,
manner, and subject, the school is versatile and accomplished.
Science is largely put into contribution for its material advance-
ment. But overmuch work is prompted by vanity or desire of
gain. Great names are seen to grow careless of their reputa-
tions, so that their purses are filled. Above all, the vice of paint-
ing “de chic,” indifferent to truth for the sake of a transient
effect, obtains. In treating thus of a school whose annual ex-
hibitions number new works by thousands, the generalization is
necessarily broad, and the coloring shown is of the mass. But
continued familiarity with it convinces me that these observa-
tions are in the main just.
Desgoffe, the painter of still life, for thorough imitation of jew-
els, tapestries, objects of art, and precious things in general, -
he never wastes time on things vulgar, – excels even Dutchmen.
Perfect in design, truthful in color, finished to microscopic ex-
actness of detail, he leaves the spectator nothing to desire in
these respects. But it is unsatisfactory painting. The impres-
sion is of intense labor and Chinese profitless endurance at imita-
tion. There is no vital sense of the things given. They are
flat, hard-polished, dumb counterfeits. Philippe Rousseau, in
the same line, with a freer brush restores the consciousness of the
things themselves to us, which is a more genuine triumph.
Fromentin's ambition has led him to hitherto untrodden
fields. His observation is broad and felicitous. He transfers
Arab life, wild and picturesque, to his canvases. We enjoy the
freedom of the desert, and rejoice at escaping the confinement
and artifice of the studio. Décamps brought back from the
East a mystic sense of its coloring and antiquity, solemn and
magnificent in his profoundest work, partaking of the feeling
of prophecy; a seer's intuition into its latent meaning. The
poetry also of the Orient possessed his brush. Not so with
Fromentin. His pulses beat quick music to its surrounding
life. He sees its untamable activity of nomad existence;
the splendid development that it bestows upon the phys-
*-
DEMOCRATIO ART OF FRANCE. 265
ical man; its modern realistic aspect on its bright and story-
telling side. The ringing gallop of his high-bred Arab horses,
obedient to the sympathetic action of their sheik riders as they
pursue their chase, are vividly given. There is no unworthy
trick of pencil or straining after effect, but conscientious, rapid,
and telling painting. Something is wanting in his qualities of
atmosphere, which is apt to be thick and unbreathable, and
of his still water, which too much resembles ice, but these are
deficiencies scarcely felt in the healthy ensemble of his work.
Another class is also seeking truth in a quite new direction,
taking themes from common and domestic life. The affections,
interests, feelings, and realities of the people are its choice.
If it has taken the French school two centuries to compre-
hend the value of Nature as a teacher, it has also taken it
equally long to find out there was a people to paint for, and to
supply its easels with topics homely in most part but every way
more honest and wholesome than those to which it had been
devoted ever since it had had an existence. This new phase is
democratic, just as that of Baudry and Winterhalter is aristo-
cratic. The demoralizing pettiness and falsity of the one, born
of the self-indulgence and blasé existence of fashion, is now off-
set by the natural sentiments and genuine sympathies of the
other, based upon the broad foundation of the lives of those
who constitute the real strength of the nation; a late but neces-
sary recognition of their being. In this recent phase of paint-
ing, which may be called the domestic-genre, the French have
lifted their art much above that which responds to it in the
Dutch school. Its delight was in exhibiting the vulgar triumph
of riches and the coarse pleasures of the poor. But Frére,
Mèrle, H. Browne, Millet, and their followers, with finer taste and
purer feeling, take a higher view of humanity. Avoiding the
sensual and frivolous they rely upon the better instincts, senti-
ments, and affections to attract sympathy and admiration. We
need not, however, mistake them for philanthropists or philoso-
phers. They simply understand their times better than other
artists, and seek their motives partly from sympathy and partly
because of their novelty and freshness. At bottom, however, it
is a concession which the growing democratic spirit of the na-
tion has exacted of its vitiated, aristocratic art. Unspeakable
good it might do could it attain that purity of purpose which
would lead it to devote itself to the cause of the lowly and un-
fortunate; seeking to enlist society at large in the work of
266 MILLET.
amelioration of those social and civil evils which are at once the
seed and the fruit of human injustice. Art, like literature, can
do good work in this direction. But to effect this the artist
must have a worthier aim than merely to render local truth for
the sake of the picturesque or an effective tableau, leaving the
heart untouched and the mind uninstructed. Genre of this
character destroys living art by replacing it with the lifeless.
The volatile temperament of the French race causes a fear that
the present promise, like a temporary fashion, may pass without
leaving any permanent impression.
Unfortunately Frére, Mèrle, and Henrietta Browne are not
colorists. They have not the ability to reproduce the mood or
feeling which underlies their subjects. To imitate local color,
rendering blue for blue, red for red, making shadow and gra-
dation transparent and correct, is clever work, but it does not
of itself infuse sentiment and speech into the painting. The
average coloring of these artists is unsympathetic and meaning-
less. Browne is strong but heavy. Their merits are chiefly
confined to motives and design. Hence photographs and en-
gravings give a much higher idea of them than their pictures.
Jules Breton. Jules Breton and Millet, however, are born color-
IIullet. ists. In choice of subjects Millet is a realist, but a
poet in his management of color. His manner is broad, vig-
orous, and impassioned in a low key. He is in sympathy with
the work of peasants and hard labor of every sort, as was
Troyon with field-toil and kine — also a true son of the earth,
powerful in design and weighty in expression, his color giving
'emphasis to his thought and inciting the imagination of the
spectator. Millet's style suggests greater qualities than he ac-
tually possesses. Nevertheless he is a man of mark, and suc-
ceeds in impressing his own nature deeply on his pictures.
With less force of imagination and a less decisive sweep of
the brush, Jules Breton has more refinement, equal simplicity
and breadth of composition, greater delicacy of taste, and a
higher purpose to his art. It lacks that complete fusion, and
low, tender harmony of tints which makes Millet's work always
Serene and sometimes solemn in feeling, but excels in light and
atmosphere. His “Evening” at the Luxembourg might readily
be mistaken for a picture by Millet, it is so largely treated and so
closely toned down to his standard. But the pensiveness and
subtle concentration of light upon the central interest of the
composition are markedly his own qualities. Jules Breton is a
JULES BRETON. 267
lyric poet of no common cast. His “Summer's Evening ” is
a masterpiece in a vein of feeling usual to him but rare in any
school, and which honors human nature wherever it exists.
Millet appears best satisfied when he has come up to his execu-
tive standard of painting. Breton does not find that enough.
He has in reserve a soul that must likewise have its fitting
word. The “Summer's Evening” is a simple composition, quiet
and strong as truth itself. Peasant women have just ceased
their labors of haymaking, and, warmed by the setting sun
which covers them as with an atmosphere of celestial hope,
have clustered together preparatory to going to their homes.
Amid the sweet-scented hay-cocks, there stand, like priestesses of
the harvest about to offer up an evening hymn, two mature
women resting on their rakes, stalwart yet feminine figures,
with the possibilities of the Madonna in their sexhood. Beside
them a wrinkled grandmother with sinews hardened by a long life
of field toil; a wearied mother nursing her new-born infant;
and a fair young girl, overcome by the heat, is sleeping on a
pile of fresh-mown grass, soothed by the hum of the twilight
insects: these make up the central picture. In the distance
are seen their rude homes. The figures, costumes, and land-
scape are closely drawn after nature. The painting, modelling,
and particularly the management of light, are of high order.
But these merits are its least recommendation. An aroma of
a summer's sunset floats on the quiet evening air. The fra-
grance of meadow flowers and new hay mingles with human
sympathies and hopes, as the last glow of daylight brightens
those silent figures whose story creeps into our hearts. But
the chord which vibrates deepest is the brooding sadness,
mingled with that inquiring look towards the sinking sun, as if
labor asked to know its future. Must it always be thus? it.
seems to inquire of God. Those overworked, strong-limbed
peasants may not feel so in their native fields, but Breton
makes us anticipate the pertiment question : whether a poor
woman's lot shall always continue to be an incessant round of
hard manual toil in civilized France 2
Breton's types of figures are uncommonly good. There is no
trace of vulgarity, such as Millet yields to. Neither are they
idealized beyond the limits that Nature herself permits under the
artist's chosen conditions. Unless Breton was refined as well
as truthful he could not plead so effectively as he does for hu-
manity. He demands of the spectator to respect labor, the
268 DAJIBRON'S “ VIRGIN.”
while making the landscape lovely in sentiment as well as nat-
ural in features.
Before speaking of the landscapists proper, I have to record
another example of sincere work after an original manner in a
semi-symbolic, semi-realistic painting of the “Virgin and the
Infant Jesus,” by Lambron, a scholar of Flandrin. The motive,
taken from the apocryphal Evangile of the Young Jesus, reads,
“As the Virgin rested herself in the fields with Jesus, the birds
and animals came and gazed upon the divine child.” The pic-
ture is flat, wants atmosphere and shadow ; lines of drapery are
somewhat heavy, and there is overmuch rigidity of posture.
But its merits are strikingly novel. It is firmly painted, in
clear, pure, bright colors, as the religious-minded Lorenzo da
Credi was wont to paint, large and simple in composition, the
design and tone in keeping with the motive. In the distance
are the towers of an oriental town. A steep, green hill-side,
rising to a sharply defined horizon, occupies the chief part of
the picture. In the centre is a solitary tree. The masses are
broadly indicated, according to the fifteenth century practice of
taxabroes the purists, and the accessories beautifully finished.
“Virgin.” The Virgin reclines amid a bed of flowers, with her
infant sitting in front, watching the birds and animals that are
divinely attracted towards Him by the power of his love to draw
all things to itself. Jesus has the forecasting expression, in-
structive of his final sacrifice, which the great religious masters
give Him even while in his mother's arms, and is devoutly and
seriously treated in all respects, his type of figure being noble.
But the great success is the Virgin. To avoid repeating the
time-worm effigies of past art in returning to a field trodden by
thousands of artists during sixteen centuries, was in itself not
any easy thing. Lambron accomplishes more. To the barren,
religious art of the nineteenth century, he gives a fresh and
pure type of the Madonna: stately and loving, every instinct
of Woman in subjection to a holy will, without ascetic draw-
back; an intellectual, free, self-controlled woman, fit to bring
forth a Redeemer.
Contrast this solitary example of sound religious art with
the vapid plagiarisms at third hand of Signol, who aims at
resuscitating the emptiness of Poussin and Le Sueur, or the
“Expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise,” by Carbarel,
whose ruffianly figures and sugary, meretricious painting, al-
though done with masterly dash, are a sardonic grimace at
THE PAINTER OF UGLINESS. 269
things sacred, and only adapted to a “Biche aux Bois” audi-
ence. This species of levity and mockery is so spontaneous
and general in much of the French treatment of serious sub-
jects as to seem unconsciously done, so far as sacrilege or dis-
respect is positively intended. But the spiritual callousness
that prompts it, be it grounded in carelessness or malice, is fatal
to all serious art. Z
The French school is constantly going to antipodal extremes.
If Lambron's picture may be considered the herald of something
new, elevated, and beautiful, we find his opposite in Manet, the
painter-in-chief of Ugliness, which in-sineereºselëelekreien-he
exalts into a Worship. It seems to be a fixed-principle with
TºmTOTmake the most promising "subjects for beautyras his
“Olympia,” for instance, which motive a Titian or Correggio
would have transformed into a masterpiece of aesthetic joy —
the combination of all that is most disagreeable in painting.
This abnormal picture was exhibited in the Salon of 1865,
much to the wonderment and disgust of the many and to the
admiration of a choice few, whose tastes were as eccentric as
the artist’s. “Olympia’’ was naked, but as her flesh was of the
hue of green meat, there was nothing corrupting to the public
morals in the gross display of her flaccid charms. She was of no
mundane type of feature or figure. Her form was coarser, if pos-
sible, than a Tierra del Fuegian belle's. A negress stood grin-
ning in the background, and a witch-cat with her black back up,
in the foreground. These accessories gave a grotesque hideous-
ness to the whole. Yet there were indications of talent and a
certain spotty force of splashy contrasts of coloring, which might
be trained to better work. Manet is one of the eccentricities
of modern art, as Whistler is another but better variety, induced
by the popular love of the sensational and extravagant. Wasted
talent and perversity of taste of this kind tends to bring art into
ridicule. Frequently it outrages the moral sentiments, as is done
by Manet's companion picture to “Olympia,” “Jesus insulted
by Soldiers,” an exhibition of ribald ferocity, united to brutal
coarseness of brush. Ribot's style of religious composition is
less objectionable, because he models better and paints sincerely
upon a dark unrefined key of his own in keeping with his
gloomy subjects and forcible style. His “St. Sebastian” has none
of the aspect of the handsome martyr that tradition makes
him, but is a burly, muscular Spanish smuggler, whose gaping
wounds are cared for by monks of the same rough type. It is
A sº ºr sº *:: ºr


270 FRENCH LANDSCAPE.
not wise to revive the ascetic ferocity of the Ribera and Carra-
vaggio School, but if intended as a protest against the prevailing
meretricious pretty, it is not without use.
There has been no serious attempt at landscape painting in a
realistic sense before the present generation. Indeed, landscape
art proper is a modern idea. The heroic landscape of the Pous-
sinites, besides being only an offshoot of the later Bolognese
school, had little real nature in it, but was, like epic poems
of the Homeric order, or nature transcendentalized to fit the
pseudo-classical tastes of the studio. Neither did the weak,
pale backgrounds of the Louis XV. time represent nature with
any greater fidelity, or pretend to aught else than to give suitable
localities for aristocratic picnics and lascivious playgrounds for the
ribboned and satin-clad shepherds and shepherdesses of the Wat-
teau fabrication. David and his pupils were possessed with the
classic disrelish or indifference to it. Consequently it makes no
show with them. Even now there is no extended hearty liking
of the landscape among the French, as in England and America.
That which exists is narrow in taste, confined chiefly to the pic-
turesque, or the flat and low, -fields, pastures, and orchards be-
ing the favorite subjects. There is some fancy but not much gen-
uine poetry in this feeling. It is in the main associated with
kine, fatness, and productiveness. Few beside Fromentin and
Décamps travel to the East in quest of more knowledge and a
wider range of motives. There is no counterpart here to the
enterprise of the English ; no thorough students like Turner,
untiring in search of artistic truth, and cosmopolite in his love
of nature. Still less do we find an ambition like the American,
which sends its students to Labrador and the Arctic regions, to
study icebergs and polar scenery, or takes them to the hottest
tropics, exploring the Andes, the Cordilleras, and the valleys of
the Rocky Mountains, in quest of the strange, grand, and beau-
tiful. In French art there is scant recognition of mountains.
The ocean is no better known. There are many pictures in
which what is intended for the sea is introduced. But can any-
thing be more unlike its slumberous repose or tempestuous wrath
than the viscid absurdities of Géricault, Gudin, and their fol-
lowers ? L’Hariden gives something of its sentiment in the long-
drawn breaths of its playful moods, as it tosses and foams on the
beach-sands. Distance, a receding horizon, and liquidity, are to
be found in the picture referred to. Ordinarily a French marine
painter's' idea of a gale is wholly of the perpendicular order.
NATURE RESENTS TOYING. 271
He piles droll masses of gutta-percha waves, literally mountains
high in his canvas, performing gymnastic exploits which would
bring down the applause of the circus, but which have nothing
in common with Nature's movements. When the maniacal and
tragic are not essayed, the artist subsides into the melo-dramatic,
or superfine.
A fertile source of this incongruity is due to Parisian central-
ization. Being the sole arbitress of fame and fortune, it has
come at last to supersede nature in its influence over art. The
ideas of the masses on most subjects come from the theatres.
Sacred history itself is travestied to amuse, as is evinced by the
popular drama of “Paradise Lost,” with its twelve great spec-
tacles of the Fall of the Angels, Hell, Paradise, Death of Abel,
Divine Justice, Children of Cain, the Deluge, and like tableaux,
in which are introduced “pluie naturelle et effet hydropatique,”
invented and patented by M. Delaporte, one Mr. Dumaine fill-
ing the rôle of Satan.
At the Robin Theatre, the people are shown, according to
the advertisements, how the “ ocean is formed, its mysterious
depths, its convulsions, phenomena, productions, habitants, sub-
marine panorama all over the globe,” nightly by gas-light.
It is unnecessary to multiply proof of the Parisian habitude
of taking their conceptions of nature and life from the stage.
How tempting to the artist to be instructed and amused at once
without going out of his Eden. “Natural rain’” too, patented,
under the roof, warranted not to wet ! What an advantage to
have the ocean brought to him for one franc, he comfortably
seated exploring its phenomena
Nature resents toying. To know her we must join hands
with her. But give up the town for the country for the purpose
of honest study, is what few Frenchmen are equal to. Even
for the finest illustrations of their own beautiful river scenery
and their landscape at large, they are indebted to the enterprise
of English artists. What can be learned of the sea, in a few
sultry weeks spent at a channel port, or of the land in a cursory
ramble after subjects, to be worked up into landscapes within the
walls of city studios ? Instead of seeking the variety of na-
ture in its own haunts, they pick up a few of her most obvious
truths which are fettered into theoretical painting — for the
French artist is much given to theory in regard to nature — or
used at random “de chic.” Such is the ordinary practice.
Hence the weakness of their landscape-art ; and if strong,
272 LAMBINET,
its narrow limits and monotonous expression. The talent and
science of French landscapists, if supported by an equal feeling
and sincerity of purpose, would place the school on a firm and
rº, rang high footing. In the degree that this is done the re-
scapists. sults are encouraging. A few men have begun to find
the right paths. The French people should be grateful to Lam-
binet, Daubigny, Auguste Bonheur, Théodore Rousseau, Diaz,
and Corot for opening new sources of happiness by introducing
them for the first time to genuine landscape-art.
Bonheur is a hearty realistic painter, fresh in color, healthful
in feeling, with an out-door consciousness of work about his pic-
tures, not imaginative, inclined to the literal, but possessing the
ability — in which his sister is deficient — of giving vitality to
his work.
Lambinet is a man of less power, but in his limited choice of
lowland scenery, natural and simple; having a refined taste and
defined execution, suggesting details by emphasis of brush
ather than by accurate finish. He fills his pictures with
clear, bright light, rivalling Nature's tones as fully as pigments
may. But it is a hazardous process, and no way so satisfactory
as the lower tone of Corot, whose treatment of light is unequalled.
Those who follow Lambinet in this respect would do well to re-
call Leonardo's maxim in regard to pure white, “Use it as if it
were a gem.” Lambinet's landscape, although ever repeating
himself, is fresh and fragrant, like a bouquet of flowers.
Daubigny works in the same vein. but he is weaker and
prone to superficiality. The greens of all of these men are well
felt, showing the direct influence of nature. Rousseau is a more
subtle artist. His coloring is deeper and richer, and he recog-
nizes sentiment in things, while Lambinet and Daubigny stop
at the external features. Their matter-of-fact work is admirable,
as far as it goes, like any well-given description; but Rousseau
adds the poetical sense to his. This is also true of the versatile,
unequal, impetuous Diaz, a brilliant colorist by blood, so much so
as to obscure design, but charming in his genre-landscape motives,
in which he introduces little children, lovely women, or clas-
sical nymphs, amorini, or whatever best affords him scope for his
rich flest-tints, in contrast with magnificently colored draperies
or the deep greens and browns of vegetation. His fancy is
peculiarly delicate and playful, not serious, which is a defect, be-
cause the want of earnestness of purpose seems to have pre-
vented him from realizing complete returns of his uncommon
promise.
COROT. 273
Corot stands apart. Critics call him a master. In
some respects he is one, who was much needed in his
school, or indeed in any other, as a counter-weight to the prev-
alent materialism. He is no profuse colorist. Browns, pale
greens, and silvery grays, with an occasional shade of purple or
a bright spot of intenser colors to represent flowers or drapery,
are his reliance. Vegetation or figures, which he uses sparsely,
are thin masses or washes of color, with only a shadowy resem-
blance to the things indicated. But Corot is a poet. Nature
is subjective to his mental vision. He is no seer, is not profound ;
but is sensitive and, as it were, clairvoyant, seeing the spirit
more than the forms of things. There is a bewitching mystery
and suggestiveness in his apprehension of the landscape, united
to a pensive joyousness and absorption of self in the scene, that
is very uncommon in his race. Calame, who is Swiss, has it
in a more robust way; Doré also of another kind. This ob-
liviousness of selfhood is an important element in truly great
work. Corot's paintings challenge no carping criticism. Their
tendency is to make one forget it in tranquil enjoyment. They
fall upon the eye as distant melody upon the ear, captivating the
senses and inspiring the sentiments. Contemplation, too, and
sympathetic reception of Nature's language are quickened by his
compositions. They are no transcripts of scenery, but pictures
of the mind. To soothe, to give repose, to evoke dreamy senti-
ment, such is their mission. Not that there is any peculiarly
Christian idea in them. This spirit is rather pantheistic, and
shows a sympathy with amorini, nymphs, and the Greek’s de-
light in nature because of her mysterious beauty of sunlight and
shadow, in a subdued way, as if in the presence of gods. Corot
can never be popular in France, for he is too much removed
from the common characteristics of the nation. He is not
materialistic enough. His solitude is too calm. His amorin?
are not lusty or amorous, but flit through his copses like ethereal
butterflies. Twilights charm him greatly, always silvery-toned
and bordering on the shadowy boundary that separates the
visible from the invisible, and suggesting the inscrutable. The
consummate success lies in his management of light. With him
it is genius. Nature knows herself in this in his painting, as a
beautiful woman knows her face in a glass. Water, which he
loves next to light, glimmers and sparkles under its rays.
Shadows and reflections are alive with it. The densest vegeta-
tion opens before it. Everywhere light penetrates without re-
Corot.
18
274 COURBET,
minder of either brush or pigment. Corot is the painter of air;
as great a gift to art in his manner as was that of Claude of un-
veiled sunshine in his.
Antagonistic in style to Corot, is Courbet, whose material
force is overwhelming when he chooses. He is the strongest, the
truest, and most satisfying of the realists, a Robert Browning of
the easel. There are no such local greens, grays, lights and
shadows as his ; no firmer sense of material forms and uses of
things; none more vigorous or more harmonious in his own
interpretation of nature. He puts the spectator in absolute,
organic relationship to it. Courbet's qualities are great, like
those of Walt Whitman, who is an American Courbet in verse;
but the best qualities of both are obscured or affrontively ob-
truded by a sort of Titanesque realism, which affects the gross
and material, as it were, to emphasize their introspective view
into the primary elements of nature and man. Each sings the
Earth earthy, and with such heartiness and comprehension, as
to move our imaginations to a muscular grasp of her stores
of enjoyment. Courbet at times may be coarse, but his style,
compared with the popular pretty, is as the uncut diamond beside
the tinsel gem.
Doré is an original genius, of a quality and calibre
widely differing from all the preceding ones. He
represents in their intensest degree the chief fundamental char-
acteristics of his race. Indeed, we must view him as a modern
outbreak of the old fecund Gothic invention, which in mediaeval
times delighted so hugely in the grotesque, especially in sculpture,
reckless of purity of thought or fitness of application. The
ancient spirit was a serious one in one sense. It did these odd
things because it delighted in them. But Doré does them from
levity, scorn, and contempt. He likes them too, but in another
way. His is a strange genius. Mediaeval idiosyncrasies of
thought and belief are mingled with modern infidelity and jest.
In all, however, Doré is thoroughly French. No other nation
would have produced him. As well might one look for an Albert
Durer or a Shakespeare from Gallic stock as a Doré from Ger-
man or English. In one respect he is antagonistic to his origin.
There is no sympathy in him for the pretty. The beautiful he
wholly ignores, and with it academic order and rule. His aes-
thetic sense runs in a dark direction. He has burst upon the
art-world with a prodigality of execution that overwhelms it
with surprise. It is hazardous to undertake to analyze the gifts
Doré.
DORÉ. 275
of a man who, at only thirty-two years of age, had made nearly
fifty thousand designs and won universal fame ; who is cosmo-
politan in his choice of subjects; as familiar with the great
writers of England, Germany, Italy, and Spain, as with his own,
and finally laid the whole Orient under contribution by illustrat-
ing anew for the nineteenth century the Bible. Moreover he
claims rank as a painter.
In this character I will first examine him. By instinct he is
a profound colorist, because his nature is profound, but he has
not yet won that mastery over materials which belongs only to
long and steady practice. The qualities of mind and execution
which appear in his designs are reproduced in his paintings.
Color echoes his feeling or want of it, as may be. It is not
held fast to local truth, but is made an outlook of his in most
motive. His “Spanish Gypsy” exemplifies his system. We
all remember Murillo's lousy boys with their dirt-ingrained
skins, rags, and filthy occupations. His coloring was toned to
the dirtiness of the subject, and by itself would have been dis-
agreeable. But Murillo made the life-giving sunlight, the
Father's gift to rich and poor alike, fall full upon his beggars.
It is their saving grace; all that wins our sympathy comes of it.
But Doré's proclivities are so intense that his art must run to ex-
tremes. His wretched “Gypsy” has no beauty except a dusky
olive complexion, and that harsh in tone. Her rags are loath-
somely gathered about her. Unmitigated vagabondism and
pitiless poverty are stamped upon her entire figure as she leans
in hardened endurance against a stone wall, sunless and com-
panionless. The quality of coloring is literally filthy, as is the
subject: coarse beyond description, and intensified by an em-
phatic crimson spot on her bosom ; a bit of red drapery in
showing, but signifying the lust of sense or crime at heart. No
good comes of such art.
If the predominant trait of Delacroix was physical force, that
of Doré is fiendish horror. That which devils most enjoy he
most heartily depicts. Added to this is a fecundity of invention
and a darksome flow of creative invention which places him the
foremost of his terrible kind. Even Dante, reared in mediaeval
notions of theology and politics, finds some springs of tenderness
and always of faith, in his soul ; but Doré, in translating his
“Inferno" into pictorial French, discards all humanity, and pre-
sents the horrors of the Dantesque imagery in forms more appal-
ling than the original. The advanced theories of peace and good-
276 DORÉ.
will to men of our century make no impression on him. Before
his advent we had no entirely adequate conception of diabolism.
Other interpreters of Dante, Orgagna and Michael Angelo, for
instance, had given us glimpses of its features in a grand way,
but it has been reserved to Doré to let us into its utter horror.
He finds in it a satisfaction akin in depth to the intensity of
ecstacy which prompted the celestial visions of Fra Angelico. It
is no coldly studied design, but a spontaneous outflow, like seeth-
ing lava. Alike remarkable is the unceasing activity of his
phantom creations. They are supernaturally endowed with
vitality. He transforms all nature into demoniacal forces in
keeping with weird scenery evoked by his imagination. In the
“Wandering Jew,” untrammelled by necessity of illustrating the
ideas of another, he gives his own freer play. The powers of
darkness are let loose. Heaven itself catches the vindictive
spirit of hell. This is art undergoing the delirium tremens, with
ravings as blasphemous as they are foul and hideous. This may
seem harsh judgment, but an art that distorts and misrepresents
the divine attributes, engendering hate or fear in place of love
and charity, is not one to be dealt gingerly with. A sen-
sitive imagination cannot look it over without risk of nightmare.
In almost every sense it is unwholesome art. Coupled with
the cruelty that enjoys human suffering in its most excruciating
conditions, and peoples the world with fiends whose bestial
grotesqueness of shape and ferocity of torment makes one shud-
der, is a coarse obscenity and a witty licentiousness, the spirituel
element in its mocking aspect, which comes naturally in such
company. The lascivious-pretty is not found in his compositions.
Doré intellect is too deep for light sins. With him there is no
innuendo, dainty disguise, or tempting display, but plain, out-
spoken passion and lust and indifference to virtue. The four
hundred and twenty-five cuts of the “Contes Drolatioues” form
a unique monument to his brilliant debauchery of design : a
consuming fire to the weak in morals, a wonderful master-work
of invention to the well-trained brain which can appreciate its
wit and satire without being contaminated by its smut, and an
object of disgust to the one-sided pious mind.
Doré seems to have faith of no kind. His mental vision ex-
plores behind the material veil of creation as freely as his natural
eye sees the moving panorama around it. But the world seen
and unseen is to him simply a field from which to cull motives
for his extraordinary powers. He belongs to no fixed time.
THE GENIUS OF DORÉ. 277
The mediaeval spirit of the grotesque is as fresh within him as
the sense of modern caricature. The supernatural element an-
nihilates time, making him as much at home in the scenes of
Oriental life, as recorded in the Bible, as if he had passed them
in actual review. But there is no religious sentiment in it. Its
force is expended on the graphic-realistic or the imaginative
creative of the supernal cast. A fine example of the latter is
the seven-headed beast of the Apocalypse rising out of the sea.
The mystical Scriptures are his most fitting sphere of invention.
He excels also whenever free to compose wholly from his im-
agination on its dark side. The Deluge, Crucifixion, Passage
of the Red Sea, Lives of Moses and the Prophets, are the topics
on which his energy, originality, variety, and picturesque large-
ness of loosely jointed composition are best displayed. He is
weak and conventional in those based directly upon the simpler
religious sentiments. Fra Angelico could not paint a devil;
Doré cannot draw a saint. His illustrations of the Bible are a
record of his strongest and weakest qualities. He is not many-
sided. But in his own wide field, including the darker aspect
of creation, natural and supernal, and up to a certain point the
picturesque and sublime in realistic action, he is supreme. The
most and almost the sole humane sympathy he exhibits is a cer-
tain liking for children, but this only in their dubious sports.
He is a pitiless destroyer of the humane and refined in general.
His intensest delight is got from terror, suffering, horror, jesting,
and dishonor. Perhaps he seeks by sheer force of caricature
and exaggeration to carry the mind over from vice to virtue, on
the principle that extremes meet. But it is a dubious charity
towards him at the best, as, if meant, it would be a crooked way
to reach the good. There is too evident pleasure shown in the
elfish for its own sake, contempt of mankind, indulgence in the
Scornful, indecent, and satirical, a relish of ugliness, and an ap-
petite for the loathsomeness of disease, and pride in the super-
human fiendish, to be altogether palliated by the usual apologies
for misdirected genius. Doré makes love, pity, charity, and
faith absurd. Under his influence one feels that honest emotions
or any traits of common humanity, much less piety, are evidence
of weakness or nonsense. The world being an infernal bub-
ble, let us laugh or sneer; the end will take care of itself. If
this is unjust towards Doré, he has made it the frequent lan-
guage of his art.
How incapable he shows himself of estimating rightly the
278 THE GENIUS OF DORÉ.
character of Don Quixote, except in its ridiculous aspect
Look at his design of him when wounded and melancholy Is
there anything of the honest, half-mad gentleman that he was in
that overdrawn, battered face P There is some pathos in the
anatomical refinement of lines expressive of gentle birth com-
bined with the deplorable condition of the patient sufferer, and
we feel sure that he is no rightly served bully, but a true man,
who has met with misfortune, whether born of his own folly or
not, it cannot be told. But Doré twists the pathetic into the ab-
surd. The “Don Quixote,” however, contains much that is very
good in individual character, though that is not the artist's strong-
est point. His treatment of groups, and generalization of move-
ment and effects, are more masterly.
As a landscapist, Doré shows qualities of interpretation that
place him above all others of the school. Thus far we only
know it by designs, especially those in Atala. But these mani-
fest his consciousness of the sublime in a remarkable degree.
They are ideal compositions interpenetrated with the gloom and
mystery of a nature torn by her own wrath, and terrified by her
own mystic solitude; in general dissociated from man, or, when
associated with him, akin to his fellest passions, untamed and Sav-
age as he was before civilization began. They realize our con-
ception of primal creation. There is no caricature in them, but
a vast creative or disturbing sense, which makes and destroys
with equal facility. Doré grasps the formative idea, and shapes
his creations to express the animating feeling. It is organic
spirit even more than nature that we see in his designs. He
thus insists upon the highest triumphs of art. One who does
this may not always be or intend to be perfect in drawing, or
exact in perspective. If, like Doré, he works immensely, he
will often be careless and superficial. We find him sometimes
blundering in details, weak in consequence of departing from
his immediate fields of strength, but almost always making ap-
parent the intended idea and artistic effect. Dealing largely
with the supernatural and with caricature, he must exaggerate
known forms or invent new, to create the impressions he has in
view. He cannot therefore be bound down to the common rules
of realistic art. His success depends upon his freedom of them
at will. The grotesque, terrible, and striking in the supernat-
ural or the sublime have a law unto themselves. An artist who
can do what Doré does in this line, is capable of the minor reaches
of art. He attains his aim by means at the command only of
THE MODERN FRENCET SCHOOL, 279
genius. His deficiencies are those of genius also, and go to
prove his intrinsic greatness.
Doré's art is great. Is it good 2 It need not be Christian
in a nice sense to be this, but it must be natural, truthful, and
humane. It should have also the instinct of the beautiful.
Doré's art has almost none of these qualities. Much of it is
heartless, sensual, and perverse. It refuses to elevate, or instruct,
or even amuse, except the mind, like the art, be prone to obsceſſie,
cruel, or mocking levity; preferring to excite emotions which
have in them little that is pleasurable or improving. The gen-
eral tendency is to deepen and strengthen those proclivities of
the French school which most require pruning and reforming.
If the Devil has ever created such an office as Designer-in-
chief to Hell, it is now filled by Doré.
To sum up, the genuine French school of painting has been
shown to be of recent origin. During the past century, French
motives prevailed; but the art itself was so essentially decorative
and trivial, that it deserves mention only in connection with his-
tory. That of the Revolution was founded chiefly on Plutarchian
ideas, and the examples of Italian masterpieces brought to Paris
by Napoleon I. It developed into the “grand style,” which
proved only a transitory fashion, from want of solid foundation
in the national character. As the Gallic tendencies in art came
to the surface in consequence of freer latitude of thought and
action, the school became divided into two branches. One, the
elder, was eclectic and theoretical, basing itself more particu-
larly on academic rules. Ingrés, Couture, Scheffer, Delaroche,
and Hippolyte Flandrin, as we have seen, were its chief orna-
ments. Their art was cosmopolitan in principle. It has noth-
ing distinctively national in it, except style. The motives are
mainly drawn from foreign sources. Allegory, history, poetry,
and religion are each treated in a learned and lofty way. Like
the Latin tongue, it is universally understood by the educated;
but, having little in common with the people at large, it is scarcely
noticed by them.
The younger branch, which now overtops the elder, has a
broader foundation. It equally admits the value of learning,
has even a more genuine aesthetic sense, and further recognizes
the tastes and desires of the public, gives expression to French
ideas and life, and makes itself intelligible to all classes. Its
chief value lies not so much in what it has already accom-
plished as in its promise to lead the people into more correct
280 THE SENSUALISTS AND IDEALISTS.
notions of the relations of nature to art, and of becoming their
mouth-piece of civilization. Perhaps the school has not reached
its culminating point. There are symptoms of progress. Genius
is rare, and talent common. Something is still wanted to inspire
the art-mind to nobler work. It has discovered the road to
nature, but takes to its vices more than its virtues. Truth of
design alone is not sufficient. There is an inferior as well as
superior choice in motives. It depends upon the exercise of
the latter to make art benefit a people. The purest French
artists are sad, serious men; isolated, but scantily recognized ;
not strong enough to change the popular taste, and without any
wide-spread sympathy to uphold them. Delaroche, Ary Schef-
fer, and Flandrin were of this type. I think Corot and Jules
Breton must be also ; for the faith of both, as seen in their art,
has a tinge of melancholy, as if they, too, sorrowed at the public
indifference to its higher meaning.
The strong men are the sensualist-realists, or meretricious
idealists, – Gérome, Doré, Baudry, Cabanal — masters who deal
in the wanton, pretty, and external common; finishers without
thought, of the Meissonnier stamp ; the decorators, exhibitors
of force and spectacular art to glorify the nation. French criti-
cism seldom concerns itself with moral aspects. It is technical,
incisive, spirituel, descriptive, and keen in the external. An in-
quiry into the tendency of art on any higher basis of investiga-
tion, evidently would be voted dull and uncalled for. A school
like this is neither very wise nor very good. Pure ideas and
profound thoughts, to the intent to improve and instruct as well
as to gratify the love of the beautiful, which in itself, rightly
viewed, is a moral quality, find but a limited appreciation. Even
the poetry of art is set aside by the strong appetite for its ma-
terial aspect. It must continue So until there is a moral and
intellectual upheaval of society into a loftier stratum of exist-
ence. The imperial government bestows a vast patronage. At
no period has art been paid as at present, unless it was in the
times of Phidias and the Caesars. The magnitude of the works
ordered for public edifices is astonishing. Frescoes are com-
manded by acres in extent. One wall in a court of the Hotel
des Invalides painted by M. Mapin, one hundred and eighty feet
long, comprises twelve hundred life-size figures, drawn from the
history of France. This is one of four on a similar scale. Horace
Vernet’s “Smala” occupies a canvas sixty-six feet long by six-
teen high. The field and pay of artists in France are alike large.
WHAT THE SCHOOL, LACKS. 281
In Italy, the best mural work was done without mercenary stim-
ulus. Zeal either for religion, the country, or ambition to excel
prompted the Italian master to the accomplishment of those
great paintings, which have ever since been a source of instruc-
tion and a stimulus to effort for all other peoples. Yet his pay
in the fifteenth century, and his social position, were about on
the level of an artisan's. It would seem, therefore, that the
elevation of French painting depends not on money, fashion, or
patronage of government. More serious inspiration is needed
to arouse it to put forth energies and aspirations commensurate
with the high office it ought to take. But until that is gener-
ated, we must take it for what it is, a brilliant and versatile
school, devoted to little else beside decoration, entertainment,
genre-illustration, and in its present spirit, neither a wise nor
prudent example for others.

S & * -º G s-ºſ- gºs
§ſº
$3 ºššč.
CHAPTER XI,
FRIENCET SCULPTURE AND ARCHITECTURE.
(*RENCH sculpture demands but brief notice. Be-
3.) side painting it makes but an indifferent figure,
2. *1 §) tº tº e &
§ tºtº though much the same in spirit. The earlier
gº-ºšº Renaissant sepulchral monuments retain something
of mediaeval decorum of composition and sincerity of purpose,
while the sixteenth century sculpture, more Italian than
French, is chiefly illustrated by Cellini's huge “Nymph,” umat-
tractive in pose and inelegant in outline. As the sculpture be-
came more national, it degenerated from this standard. Goujon’s
“Diana,” is largely done, but looks like a fine lady of the time
playing the chaste goddess. In nothing is there evidence of
true beauty: instead, an amorous desire of the pretty-sen-
Sual.
Pseudo-clas- From this time there is a succession of weak,
sicol work. pseudo-classical work of the dainty-pretty order,
clinging to antique motives or travestying Christian notions and
personages into pagan garbs, as affected in sentiment as meretri-
cious in execution. Incapacity of Original idea and treatment
is apparent in all the sculptors, so that there is not much to
choose between Pilon, Pradier, Chaudet, and the rest of the
classicalists, although there is some distinction among them in
manual dexterity and facility of composing. Their work has
the appearance of acting, not of being, like its Grecian proto-
type. Portrait-statuary alone retains some real life, but this
Soon grows absurd ; draperies broken, confused, and mean,
without connection with the figure, which they overpower, be-
sides wanting in grace and harmony of lines. In preceding
centuries the lords of the soil, when put to sepulchral sleep,
were made decorous in marble or bronze. They kneel, repent,
pray, recognize an authority diviner than theirs, and are costumed
like men. But the Louises of France, beginning with the
thirteenth, changed all this. Royalty posed itself as divinity,
though to ordinary eyesight it looked like a Jupiter Scapin.










ARISTOCRATIC SCULPTURE. 283
It covered itself and its creatures with decorations, embroid-
eries, and curious devices, until the ruler was lost in the mob of
artificial distinctions he had himself invented to represent his
divine right and origin. Sculpture, as one sees in the Louvre,
meant masses of laces, frills, periwigs, buckles, and robes, so
weighty that ancient armor seems light and cheerful in sight of
them ; the whole constituting a hideous or ridiculous stone
monster, painful to view as art, and dispiriting as an exhibition
of human imbecility.
Between A. D. 1620 and 1720, the period of Pierre Puget,
there is some clever work partly influenced by the style of
Michael Angelo and in part by the antique, scholarly in treat-
ment, after the Poussin manner in painting. It is strictly
aristocratic sculpture, — made for a privileged caste, and af-
fected by queens and titled beauties to display such seductive-
ness of limbs and bosoms as the sculptor could model for them,
and by kings and nobles to ape the warrior; ordering the
heroisms and majesty to be carved in stone which failed of
growth in their hearts; ideal humbugs of virtue and beauty.
Now came the fashion of reducing the gods and goddesses of
Greece to statuettes as ornaments for boudoirs. What cour-
tier-sculptor, after essaying to make a Bourbon into a Jupiter,
would venture to make Zeus himself other than a diminutive
individual in comparison 2 Houdon, later, did more justice to
the nude classical. His portrait-busts also have expression;
are Greuze-like in character. In his work, as in David’s, one
sees a genuine love of the antique, though the ecstatic national
vanity of the period perverted its application.
There is now in France abundance of decorative and monu-
mental sculpture of a fair quality and taste, and some excellent
realistic work, especially of animals. Were we, however, to
estimate the national intellect by the intellectual character of
the average busts, and portrait-statues shown in the annual
expositions at Paris, the rest of the world might fancy that the
French mind was relapsing into imanity, or had succumbed to a
passion for personal display and the vanity of decoration. Such
excellence as may be detected, is mechanical and superficial.
The rule is, no ideas, no serious work, no profound motives,
no regard for high art, nothing to indicate a desire to place
sculpture in its rightful position as the incarnation of Mind.
In general, however, the sculpture, being decorative hiodern
in character and motive, appears to better advantage Paris.
284 THE NEW PARIS.
seen in mass with architecture than by itself. In some respects
the Paris of the third Napoleon is considered to be the model
city of civilization, especially for its architectural appearance.
Examine it an instant. Old Paris is erased. A few grand
monuments remain, but restored much as a time-consumed belle
revives her color by enamelling, and replaces missing or dilapi-
dated parts of her frame with such artifices as the repairers of
the human body can invent. The ancient landmarks which
surrounded them have been swept away like so much street
garbage. Never has there been so complete a change in so
short a time in the aspect of a city, unless the transforming of
Rome from brick into marble by Augustus equalled it. If the
health and comfort of the population are bettered, and civic
convenience augmented, no aesthetic considerations or historical
associations should stand in their way; for thorough ventilation,
drainage, pure water, and cleanliness should be had at whatever
cost to the picturesque or sentimental. A sanitary argument
enforces itself, because physical well-being is the basis of pros-
perity and culture in a State. So far, therefore, as Paris has
gained in this respect, the radical policy of Napoleon III, in up-
rooting its old features is commendable. But the new aesthetic
aspect is fairly open to criticism independent of its twin-ques-
tion. There may be unmecessary destruction, absurd restora-
tion, insensibility to beauty or crude taste. Improvements can
be made to harmonize in their aesthetic and sanitary relations,
instead of clashing, as is common. Florence gives the prece-
dence to the beautiful in her municipal policy, completing the
most charming boulevards and drives in Europe in her environs,
while postponing the introduction of wholesome water, and
widening the narrow mediaeval thoroughfares, and taking meas-
ures to improve the foul stone dens, in which the larger number
of her inhabitants do not live out nature's allotted number of
years. Boston goes to the opposite extreme, regarding first the
essentials of physical welfare, and leaving the aesthetic wants of
the population to care for themselves. Napoleon III. evidently
kept both in view, aiming to make his capital the most elegant
as well as the most convenient of the world. In a certain
sense his scheme is a success both ways. New Paris is a well-
scrubbed, waxed, polished, gorgeous town, imposing in its topo-
graphical arrangement, geometrically accurate, and largely con-
ceived, pleasurably adorned after a scenic method, and as an
entirety admirably calculated to make the same agreeable im-
PARIS OF NAPOLEON III. 285
pression on a vast scale on a spectator at first view that one of
its tastefully ordered shop windows or an admirable toilette of
a Parisian lady does in a small way; either being for the mo-
ment so satisfactory in general effect as to indispose the senses
to a critical inspection of the object itself in detail. So far,
therefore, art in all these cases has a gracious mien. But as it is
addressed solely to the external senses, it soon cloys. The hun-
gry mind gets indignant at the imposed famine. It speedily dis-
covers there is no aesthetic conscience or culture in the monoto-
nous street architecture and its wearisome parallel and horizon-
tal lines, stretching mile upon mile in uniform glitter, overspread
with senseless, meretricious carvings of the bastard Renaissant
order, having no relation either to the age or the background
itself, - each avenue, house, and shop the counterpart of its neigh-
bor, so that, having seen a segment of Paris, one has seen the
whole; and worse, it perceives there is no more individuality of
character in the new buildings than in baker's bread, which is
divided into categories according to the paste, pattern, and its
white-of-egg warnish. Just so may the edifices be classified
from the number of gilt balconies, idiotic carvings, trumpery
ornaments, areas of plate glass, or unsightly ranges of arcades
clumsily drawn out into interminable lengths like the peoples’
loaves, brilliant as gaud for the eye, but vanity of vanities as
food for the imagination. Everything seems run in the same
mould ; a one-mind system arbitrarily overruling individual choice
and expression; each object and person reflecting, as the shadow
does the substance, a barren, unaesthetic will, incapable of rising
above a statistical conception of life; holding primarily to stra-
tegic and dynastic aims, and secondly to diverting the national
energies entirely to mercenary considerations and sensual pleas-
ures. We have unity of material outlook, but no intellectual
variety of aspect. Unlike other old cities, little is left to stir
the emotions or arrest the fancy. Everything is spectacular ;
a change of fashions in the shop windows being the chief ex-
citement to the passers. Despotism has made of Paris a bril-
liant bazaar, café, and theatre; in truth, a well-baited trap for
money and morals. Its standard of humanity is low, ambi-
tions narrow, knowledge contracted to selfish aims, and chase
of fleeting pleasure intense. The eye is fed to the stint of the
soul; and it is not all wholesome eyesight; for too much is
sheer artifice, which weakens the faculty of perceiving the true,
creating instead a liking for whatever is scenic, transitory, and
286 DESPOTISM IN ART.
unlike nature, or a passion for coarse grotesque, the exaggerated
sensual, bizarre, and uncommon. It is surface gayety on a
foundation of mental despair or heaviness of heart, arising
from perverted or restrained aspirations; for imperialism is the
enemy to death of human liberty of progress in its own way
and for its highest interests. Imperialism necessarily consumes
itself; for its principle is to take so much care of the people,
that it ends either in emasculating them of manly vigor, or
makes them despise and hate the administering head; both
results destructive to genuine national life. The only wages a
despotism like this can bestow are sensualities which react on
the giver, and deprive him of all hold on the moral sense of the
nation. Hence they corrupt speedily and perish disastrously.
Papacy is no less a despotism, more searching and complete,
but it endures because it feeds the imagination. If it deprives
its subjects of human rights on earth, it offers a consoling future
in its heaven, and threatens more cogently by means of its ter-
rific hell. Some may view these remarks as foreign to my
topic. But they are generated by the spirit which pervades
new Paris— to me a sad one, typified in its general aspect; and
this aspect is due to the one-man system of governing. In any
case the result depends on the probity, intelligence, and sensibil-
ity of the executive mind, be it centred in one person or spread
among many. History conclusively demonstrates that although
the former method sometimes effects notable, radical changes,
its end is never salutary. All noble and fine art, aye, all
thorough work of any character, from the Athens of Phidias
down to our time, has had its root in the will and taste of the
people collectively. Whenever art has been made a monopoly
of a ruler or dependent for expression in his caprices and inter-
ests, it has either decayed altogether, or become foolish and con-
temptible. Nero, Hadrian, the Medici, the Philips of Spain,
Louis XIV. and XV. of France, and finally Napoleon III., are
familiar names in this connection, just as the commonwealths of
ancient Greece, Etruria, the republics of Florence, Venice, the
free cities of Germany, and the civil liberties of Holland and
England are associated with the most flourishing periods of their
art. There is no avoiding the conclusion that freedom of mind
and hand in the multitude is required for a genuine, national
art; and that any state dictation or even excessive patronage is
mischievous, if not fatal, to its being. Even if an arbitrary
ruler is certain to act wisely, the principle is none the less wrong,
TEIE FRENCH AESTHETIC MIND. 287
because it takes away from those whom it most concerns the
practice and experience necessary to complete their artistic edu-
cation, and leaves a whole people dependent on the knowledge
and virtue of one fallible mortal. Those of my countrymen,
therefore, who admire Paris, especially him who said that “All
good Americans go to Paris when they die,” had better pay
more regard to its moral constitution before deciding that it is a
fit beaven for the people of the New World."
The ambition of Napoleon III. to make Paris the finest city
of earth is far better than that of Louis XIV., whose aim was
to construct for himself the finest palace. Each of these men
has impressed himself on the architecture of France with uniform
egoism, and similar unhappy results as regards the public taste.
But all the weakness or evil of a national art inspired by a
despotism does not necessarily originate in the ruler. Neither
of these sovereigns could have achieved what they have, of good
or bad art, had not the national mind been more or less in sym-
pathy with their views. It admires organization, precision, sys-
tem, symmetry, proportion, display, splendor, and a grand style
of work. Much is forgiven the magnificent, munificent despot,
but he must likewise be nice in small things. Frenchmen shine
in making even the common article attractive to the eye, or ex-
aggerating its consequence by sounding epithets and extravagant
claims. Vulgar necessity is embowered in roses. Their aesthetic
taste is not profound, imaginative, or notably pićturesque in ex-
pression, but Specious, scenic, brilliant; chiefly sensuous-pleasur-
able in aim, not according to the old Grecian theory of joyous
SENSTOns, but—superficiat-sentimentariñipatient--They dis-
play a sharp insight into the technics of art; an incisive, analyt-
ical delight in its execution and style rather than a happiness
in its highest intellectual and spiritual qualities. The greatest
pleasure comes from the spirituel element; the more satisfying

1 I commend to his motice the following statistics of his New Jerusalem. The
proportion of illegitimate children born in Paris is now one half the whole num-
ber, or one in two; only Vienna is ahead, its ratio being five hundred and nine
out of every one thousand. The annual births are about fifty-five thousand, of
which nearly thirty thousand die the first year, a large number of which are
effectually put out of the way by the system of “l'allaitement mercenaire,”
which called forth the exclamation of one of the mayors of the communes to
which the babies are largely sent, “ Notre cimetière est pave deces petits Parisiens.”
The annual suicides of imperial Paris vary from eight hundred to nine hun-
dred, steadily increasing, while democratic New York, with a nearly equal popu-
lation, counts but forty to fifty.
288 GOVERNMENT, AESTHETIC IMMORALITY.
if sensual or malicious. Art flavored with sacrilegious wit or
burlesques has a very fine relish. What other people would put
the sign, “La Grace de Dieu,” over a groggery, as may be seen
in Lagny, or dedicate shops where female gear is sold “au
Diable !” That art, however, which most gratifies Gallic vanity
regardless of its truth, is the most relished of all. “If France
be satisfied, the rest of the world may repose in peace,” is heard
with serene satisfaction from the mouth of their sovereign, as an
Olympian fact ; but no other king could utter such a sentiment
without shocking the common sense of his subjects. Nothing so
contents the masses as an effective or elegant appearance. What-
ever be the state of soundness within, the outside must be taking.
Government fosters popular illusions as a source of power to
itself. It has more reliance on a gilt lie than a naked fact.
This principle poisons society, and reacts on the government,
which must continue either to amuse and feed the public at a
vast expense, or divert its bitterness of disappointment on its
neighbors, as the cheapest artifice to save its neck from the
rope of its own twisting. lº present ant of governing France
is simply one form of aesthétic immorality.
By the few initiated, the history and science of art in general
is well understood; its philosophy, too, in a speculative, epigram-
matic manner, though with but little aesthetic feeling of a
serious character, or conscientious regard for the independent
principle of art itself, which is forced to fit sectarian sentiment
by writers of the Rio order, or to afford scope for brilliant
theorizing, or beautiful materialistic compositions by unbelieving
authors, who take it up more as affording opportunity to display
their own artistic cleverness in words than to investigate its
character after the example of the more critical Germans. It
may be presumptuous to say so; but it does seem to me that
the French in art, as in other departments of civilization, ar-
rogate a superiority not warranted by facts. If they possessed
this intellectual superiority, no ruler could so easily master and
bridle them as Louis Napoleon has done; one, too, who, except-
ing some practical sagacity in commercial matters, has evinced
no political wisdom, but rather a curious faculty of obfuscating
truth and juggling with events which he was powerless to con-
trol, and who comes off the loser in encounters with clever, bold
statesmen like Cavour, Seward, or Bismark. His acts and talk
are much after the fashion of most of French art; concocted to
appear better than they really are, or to cover up something that
MAPOLEON III. 289
it is not politic to disclose. Their sound and promise are alike
specious. A Parisian butcher gives his legs of mutton an aes-
thetic look by dressing them in chemises of white paper, per-
forated to resemble lace. With this toilet, aided by fragrant
flowers, he so pleasurably conceals the scent and garb of the
shambles that the most timid lamb might enjoy the spectacle.
Shop-girls make pretty and cheap objects appear twice as charm-
ing and useful as they really are, by a sleight-of-hand arrange-
ment, much like the emperor's talk about liberty, which, as
regards any practical purpose, is as much a mockery as is the
beautifully exhibited trumpery of trade. The success of the
emperor and the deficiency of art are due to the same cause ; not
to lack of intellect and knowledge, but of morality in the coun-
try at large. Louis Napoleon won his precarious position by
appealing to its vanity, fears, and selfishness; gratifying each in
turn by a show-art, show-wars, saving Society from the phantom
of socialism, and developing business so as to change the masses
into quite as eager hunters of the sovereign dollar as the Anglo-
Saxons themselves were said to be by his uncle. For these
benefits, the nation overlooked perjury; the heedless slaughter
of men, women, and children, on the 2d of December, 1851,
by drunken troops ; the subsequent shooting by mistake of
numbers of citizens loyal to the conspirators; the exile of nearly
all eminent men; an enormous increase of debt ; the extinc-
tion of political liberty, whether of press, speech, or legislature ;
a stock-jobbing Mexican expedition, undertaken to secure the
supremacy of the Latin race in the New World, which resulted
in proving their inability to hold their own in the Old World;
in short, a series of crimes and blunders that must have con-
signed to the scaffold an adventurer who had not the dexter-
ity to poise himself on the tip of a bayonet. A like career
is possible only where the standard of right and wrong in
morals, beauty, and trade is low, and all the more possible
if the training of a people is rather for external appearance
than internal soundness; seeming replacing being; prizes offered
for virtue, and, as in the recent case of Josephine Gabriel of
Marseilles, won by hypocrisy. Josephine was crowned as the
most deserving girl of the city. Soon after, she married, per-
suaded her husband to make a will in her favor, and then,
after piously making an offering to the Virgin to secure her
aid, poisoned her spouse in order to use his money to bribe, a
man, of whom she had become enamored, to return her passion.
19
290 NAPOLEON III.
One criminal does not taint a nation; but the active prin-
ciple that brought Josephine Gabriel to the guillotine, placed
Louis Bonaparte on the throne, after he had been rewarded
for supposed virtue by the supreme gift of a deluded race. In
imitation of the French practice, an American Croesus and
amateur of horses has offered prize medals for fine gentle-
men; but this fallacious way of breeding virtue will never
take root where shams are readily exposed. It is a plausible
theory that premiums develop goodness, that money makes
art, fine words an honest public servant, or accumulation of
riches constitutes greatness. The French people having un-
dertaken the experiment on a vast scale, let us wait for the
consummation before deciding to follow in their footsteps.

CHAPTER XII.
ART IN AMERICA.
F this chapter were to be limited to what actually
exists in America of indigenous art, it condition
would be almost as brief as that on snakes and needs.
§§3) in a certain History of Ireland. But the topic is
too serious to be treated only on the negative side. Let us take
a stock-account of what we have, in view of what we need. An
embryo painter like West is no longer obliged to rob the tail of
his mother's cat to make a brush, nor do we as frequently hear º?
grandfathers, like Harding's, say, “I want you to give up this **
course of living ſportrait-painting]. It is no better than swin- ºf
dling to charge forty dollars for one of these effigies. sº
down on a farm, and become a respectable man.” No 1 JThe-
anti-respectable notion of art, the joint offspring of the utilitarian
jīāETS OFTCOTTy new to civilization and the religious tenets of...,
üTitan settlers, has givenplace in the common mind to a notion
almost as one-sided and ignorant in the opposite direction. It
Tinclines to TâRETSéâtitmentarview of the functions of an artist
and his works, as of an exceptional being not amenable to th
(º rules of criticism, and, covering them with poetical haze,
allows the imagination to accept the promise for the fulfilment
This, too, when, as regards art-education, we are only a step in
advance of those rudimentary savages who fail to discriminate
in a painting between a man, horse, house, tree, or ship. We
can do this, and it is about as far as our training as a people in
this direction has gone.
There was an intermediate state of unintelligent curiosity
about art as something strange or wonderful, like a newly dis-
covered plant or a gorilla from Africa. This was the time
when people curious to know what the “Chanting Cherubs” of
Greenough or the “Greek Slave” of Powers could be, were
scarcely to be persuaded to visit them lest their modesty be
shocked at their nudity, or were led to go because they were
naked, and peep at them between their fingers. We are less
J3°

292 A VERA GE AMERICAN ARTIST.
easily shamed now. The French theatre having trained Amer-
ican maidens to look upon actual immodesty with a cool gaze,
real art no longer runs a risk of being unnoticed for “holding
up a mirror to nature.”
What we now want is to train the public to comprehend the
true nature and functions of art. In a brief, imperfect way I
have sought to present some correct notions of them. Before
touching American art itself, there is need of clearing up some
of the fog that either magnifies or obscures it.
The little absolutely noble art of the world is confined to a
few names, and deserves all and even more of the esteem which
Americans give to the fictitious and common. Their sentiment
is right, but wrongly placed. The average artist of Europe is
not a genius; seldom a poet or man of ideas. The average
American artist is of a lower standard of professional éducation,
and seldom possessing an aesthetic temperament. There is no
more loss to mankind in the periodical decay of much of
the work that passes current as art at any time, than in the
dying out of bad or dubious fashions, with the chance of replace-
ment by better. In literature it is the same. Some manu-
scripts leaving a gap in our mental history, no doubt, were lost
in the burning of the Alexandrine library; but the contents of
the great mass must have been as unimportant and ephemeral as
are the great herd of books nowadays. Whatever each gener-
ation can produce for itself, conditions being equal, is better for
its own life than whát is left out of the uses of the preceding;
for otherwise it looks backwards overmuch instead of forward.
Genius being exceptional revelation, its advent can never be
predicted. Whatéver it has given the world in art or science
should be jealously preserved as a permanent legacy to all man-
kind. But there is no special reason for preserving the produc-
tions of ordinary talent or manual dexterity, except as illustra-
tions of history, and to fill up collections of curiosities. The
sooner bad or immoral art perishes, the better. The common
fulfils its purpose in pleasing its contemporaries. As with books,
one class of art gives way to another, in which the same thought
is renewed in a fresh shape, so that, though the dead form de-
cays, the spirit lives and passes on, let us hope, into a superior.
That which I desire now to emphasize is, that the average art
of America is of no more worth that the average literature of
its journals. Both are cheap and rapid productions to meet the
immediate wants of a people, whose standard of culture is
steadily advancing.
*
*A.
*
A VERA GE PATRON. 293
Moveover, the average artist is as easily produced as the
average writerſ the one occupation requiring no more talent or
study than the other. Indeed, it is not uncommon to find suc-
cessful artists, as regards making money, who have begun life
as traders, mechanics, or writers. There is so little real artistic
fibre as yet, that most of those engaged in the one career would
háve met with equal success in the other had circumstances
drawn them to it. Of art, as genius, we have none ; as the ex-
pression of an aesthetic constitution and ambition, very little ; of
conscientious study and profound knowledge, even less ; but as
the fruit of the demand-and-supply principle of business, much.
Commissions are called “orders,” as in trade, and art is, mainly
ordered as one orders a style of calico of a cotton factory. The
ingenious means which are taken by some prominent painters and
sculptors to advertise themselves and their productions, are far
more in unison with commercial than artistic habits, tend to
substitute fictitious notoriety for true fame, and to make imme-
diate success depend more on the tact of the artist in keeping
his name prominently before the public than on skill and devo-
tion to art itself. An increasing number of persons engage in
art for no sincere purpose except to speedily become rich ; their
credit, like that of merchants, being based on the amount of
business they do. y
In England the system is not much better, but the Average
aristocratic and cultivated element of society raises its º
standard somewhat, while America, as yet, has only a *
raw sentiment or crude taste to guide her art; the average artist
himself being as uninformed and uncultured, except as regards
his tychnical processes, as the average patron. This state of
things can be remedied by a systematic training, and the forma-
tion of museums and galleries devoted to the philosophy of art as
exhibited in its best attainable specimens of all epochs, arranged
So as to best show their aesthetic qualities and historical distinc-
tions. Climate and race with us are as favorable to the develop-
ment of the aesthetic instinct and of taste, as with any other
people. Indeed, the fusion of bloods in our civilization, joined to
the absolute freedom of the popular will to follow out its own
convictions, is preparing a more favorable ground in America
than exists elsewhere. f
During the first century of English life in America, or until
the birth of West, there was no sign of enterprise in this
direction. Pictures, if any, were heir-looms or gifts from the
al
*
294 OUR EARLY SCHOOL,
old country. There was a slight movement in the second cen-
tury of colonization, but even then an artist of any ability was
obliged to emigrate to Europe to live, as well as to educate him-
self. West, Copley, Wanderlyn, and Leslie would have starved
at home; abroad they secured either wealth or distinctioni.
Having given their characteristics in the “Art Idea,” it is un-
necessary to say more of them now, or of that well-trained class
of portrait and historical painters, like Stuart, Peale, Trumbull,
and Sully, who illustrated the annals of the Revolution. All-
ston had more ambition, feeling, and knowledge of true art
than manual ability; and both he, Cole, and Horatio Greenough,
who were like him in these respects, can be cited, not as mas-
The ters, but as proofs of innate capacity in the native
* American for high art, and as having inaugurated
their school with lofty intellectual motives. Being in advance of
their time, it is no cause of surprise that they and all since who
prefer idealism to realism, like William Page, Inness, William
Hunt, La Farge, Furness, and Babcock, should receive a scant
recognition in comparison with those who appeal only to the out-
ward eye. Somewhat of their comparative failure is owing to their
manual shortcomings and insufficiency of continuing well-directed
effort ; there being no supreme standard of excellence at home
to animate them always to their best, or of critical knowledge to
appreciate their higher qualities. They have produced charac-
teristic though not great work, and affe an important element,
not so much from what has been done as for being a living pro-
test against the obtrusive realism and superficiality of thought
of more popular painters, and for keeping the imagination and
refinement of manner from dying out altogether. They also,
more than others, show that a fine sense and sentiment of color
are facts of the American temperament. While artists of their
aim and inspiration exist in any school, it holds germs of excel-
lence.
There is another class that disputes with them the palm of
art on the score of absolute fidelity of design, with painstaking
sincerity, rendering the little and great with equal love and pa-
tience, irrespective of ideas and imagination ; seeking chiefly to
give the precise forms and relations of things in their external
look, without other imprint of choice or sentiment in composi-
tion than nature herself at the moment discloses. This phase
is admirably represented in what it undertakes by Charles
Moore and Farrar. They are exact literalists, having a con-
$º-
f
FALLACY IN SCULPTURE. , 295
scientious regard for their specific motive, and doing their work
with a thoroughness of touch and study which affords an ex-
ample to others. Their art thus far relies too much on its local
truth of design and hue, and topographical exactitude of rep-
resentation, and too little on the sentiment of nature or on the
language of color, the strong point of the idealists). It is based
on a misconception of high art, which has a deeper purpose in
view than mere truthful representation of external nature, though
it demands that. If its highest purpose was only to exhibit
form, distance, proportion, local color, and the physical relations
of things in detail and mass, then any instrument which could
measure sufficiently, and take in enough points, could do the
artistic work, or the most of it. But that which gives the
mental or spiritual characterization, whether of man or nature,
evades any grasp of this sort. The artist must find that within,
not without himself. Can we compose beauty by mathematical
receipt, or depict a sigh or smile as they occur by any number of
measurements of the length, depth, and breadth of the ever mov-
ing human features P. Yet there are artists who claim that this
is the true and final rule of art ; a delusion which even their
own inept productions do not dispel. I do not refer to the con-
Scientious painters just mentioned, who begin in the right way,
but do not go deep enough into the truths of nature, but of that
delusion, chiefly confined to sculpture, which comes of the pro-
clivity of the American mind to mechanics. In thus speaking
of the mechanical and commercial spirit of American artists, it
is not that I do not highly value trade and mechanics, but be-
cause their virtues, if applied dominantly to art, become its
vices. Mankind can live without art, but not without them.
Our history, particularly the Rebellion, shows how much we can
Sacrifice for political and moral ideas, and that a nation may be
great and good without being aesthetic, though art alone can tan-
gibly keep alive to distant generations the nobility of thought and
deed of those preceding. Therefore it is the more essential to
the sound development of civilization that each thing be kept in its
right place. The spirit that sustains trade, debases art; that
which is constructive excellence in mechanical labor proper, is
enfeebling in aesthetics. Machine-work is the one great idealism
of our prosaic civilization. Even Story, whose artistic cultiva-
tion ought to preserve him from such an error, advocates, in his .
treatise on proportions in sculpture, the adoption of a formula
by which he claims that he can repeat the feat of Telekles and
296 CHEAP ART, POOR ART.
Theodorus, artists who wrought so perfectly by rule, that the
half of a Pythian Apollo was made by one at Samos, and the
other half at Ephesus by his companion, the halves fitting, when
brought together, as precisely as if the statue had been the work
of one hand. If this mechanical success of parts were the true
aim of art, we should establish separate manufactories of statues
in pieces, as of watches, to be put together as needed, with extra
members warranted to fit in case of loss of any of the first
Set.
Painting, fortunately, cannot be reduced, like sculpture, to
such a mechanical system. It may be wanting in mind, super-
ficial in treatment, and empty of feeling, yet the painter must
in some degree Represent himself in his work; whereas, by the
above principle, machines could be constructed to turn out sculp-
ture, as they do any other kind of strictly conventional orna-
mentation. In fact, we have a system of machine-statuary by
patent. Of course, no intelligent artist advocates this. Story
evidently means that he would make a model so perfect by his
rule of proportions as to present to the workmen a guide so
anatomically faultless that it would be a matter of indifference
if the whole were put into marble in one block, or distributed
in limbs to different studios. Whether each laborer saw the
entire model or not, his portion would be certain to be accu-
rately done in relation to the mass.
This fallacy obtains extensively with our sculptors, and de-
ludes them into mistaking means for ends. Indeed, several advo-
cate the theory of measurements as the only necessary guide in
sculpture. Agreeing too well with the national bent of mind,
it is widely accepted without examination into its merits. For
it is also particularly acceptable in its promise of saving mental
and manual labor, in view of finally cheapening the article.
Here again comes in a notion all right as respects mechanics,
and all wrong as regards art. Cheap art is always poor art,
or no art. It is like a vessel carrying contraband under favor of
a false flag. An opinion exists that genius works with a rapid
hand; consequently quick work is a sign of genius, no matter
how it is produced. An artist, therefore, is tempted to employ
any means of economizing labor and expense to enable him to
respond to the popular notion, irrespective of the quality of his
art ; also to encourage a delusion which disguises his manual de-
ficiencies and disinclination to severe study. Genius may con.
ceive with the rapidity of light, but elaboration' is the result of
NEW AMERICAN SCHOOL. 297
long and diligent practice. Thought and manual labor differ
widely in their economy of time. An idea which is to change
the aspect of the world, may be born in one second ; but the
means by which the revolution is effected, may be centuries in
maturing. Just so is it with fine art. A sketch suggestive of
a master's hand can be thrown off in an hour, but its complete
execution is most often the patient labor of months or years.
Work that falls short of this, is almost always intended for spe-
cific effect in certain positions for definite purposes, and is with-
/out disguise more or less slight in execution, or it is absolute
scenic artifice, actually intended to present as imposing a look
with as little expenditure of means as possible, in order to cheat
the public. *
Both sculpture and painting indulge in this latter practice,
aided and abetted by the illogical and ignorant ideas of the pub-
lic at large, principally grounded in the confounding of mechan-
ical with artistic qualities, though with good ends in view. A
little reflection will show that sculpture reduced to a mechanical
system can make no advance, and that the first work of a sculp-
tor done by it, is as likely to be as good as his last, while it ig-
nores that vital characterization which is the play of mind, and
which mind alone transmits to the clay through the fingers, and
not by the points of any instrument. | * *
Infinite pointings cannot place the modelling of the modern
sculptor on a par with that of Phidias or Michael Angelo, nor
will any theory of the “canons of measurement” reveal the
Secret principles by which they put unconscious life into stone:
These come and go with the master's life-blood. Neither can
any painter of to-day, by charlatanism of brush or time-saving
instruments, rival the old men who put first their minds and
then their fingers with unsparing energy and fidelity into their
work.
America at last has a class of painters of realistic ten- The new
dency, eclectic and scientific in practice, as sincere and ſº
chaste in motive as the English school, though not its *
equal yet in execution, nor on the level of the best style of the
French, to which it seemingly aspires. This class is respect-
ably represented by Eastman Johnson, Elihu Vedder, Winslow
Homer, and others of their stamp. These already contest with
the landscapists the popular favor. If they have not as yet suc-
ceeded in notably raising the standard of idea in art, consider-
able has been accomplished in elevating its execution. But
298 DEUTZE, BIERDSTADT, CHURCH. *
their principal service is the reproof they offer to the slop-work
of the melodramatists, of whom Leutze was chief. Of all his
frantic compositions, the fresco of “Westward Ho! ” in the glass
method, painted in the Capitol at Washington, is the maddest.
A more vicious example in composition and coloring, with some
cleverness of details, could not be presented to young painters.
Confusion reigns paramount, as if an earthquake had made
chaos of his reckless design, hot, glaring coloring, and but ill
comprehended theme.
We owe, also, to the new men an infusion of fresh life into
the old academic routine of conventional dulness and weakness
which was fast putting all America, before they came upon the
scene, as regards idealistic painting, much into the condition of
the good people of Sleepy Hollow, reducing our aesthetic con-
dition to a level of the understanding required to appreciate the
Peter Parley style of literature. Thanks to them, a picture now
must be something besides so many square feet of meaningless
coloring and infant-school drawing.
In genré, which is coming into fashion, nothing more note-
worthy has been done than to attempt it sincerely, with an oc-
casional tendency to humor. The Great Exposition of 1867 at
Paris, taught us a salutary lesson by placing the average Amer-
ican sculpture and painting in direct comparison with the Euro-
pean, thereby proving our actual mediocrity. Whistler's freaks of
coloring were original, and his Tiepolo-like touch effective ; but
his pictures were rather suggestions of power than complete art.
Some of Hunt's portraits displayed a refinement of characteriza-
tion and delicacy of handling not seen in the more labored, con-
ventional European portraiture. We most failed in our lauded
landscapists. Bierdstadt’s “Rocky Mountains,” superior to sub-
sequent work, looked cold and untruthful. Its interest was
confined to a tableau-like inventory of an extensive view, while
its effect on the mind was similar to sounding phrases of little
meaning. His more recent work is no less illusive and spectac-
ular, thinner in color, and may be compared to mere rhetorical
oratory. Church’s “Niagara,” with no more sentiment, a cold,
hard atmosphere, and metallic flow of water, gave greater local
truth, and was a literal transcript of the scene. Bradford, like-
wise, is clever in topographical narration in a pictorial form;
sometimes rendering the action and forms of waves with con-
siderable accuracy. But none of this class of landscapists com-
prehend the language of color, or show a nice executive sense
R_4,PH AEL'S LANDSCAPE. 299
of its use and capacity, as does Inness in one way and Vedder
in another, quickening it with imagination original in tone and
feeling. Bierdstadt gives scenic combinations of certain outside
facts of nature, generally on a large scale, disenfranchised of sen-
timent and imagination. The enterprise of the sensational lar.d-
scapists, in seeking out Nature's marvels amid the icebergs of
Labrador, the recesses of the Andes, or the deserts of Arabia,
is laudable ; but the return to the spectator who thinks, or has
the spiritual faculty, is not worth the cost. Yet they do address
significantly the majority of Americans, who associate them with
the vulgar idea of “big things,” as business. In reality, they
are bold and effective speculations in art on principles of trade;
emotionless and soulless ; possessing not even the pseudo-roman-
tic spirit of the Poussin method of treating the landscape ; still
less those delicious technical qualities and that subtle poetical feel-
ing which renders Corot's style so attractive to persons of a sensi-
tive, refined temperament. Nature's best is left out. Instead, we
get a misuse of artistic power and industry, which, if more sin-
cerely and interpenetratingly directed, might produce something
one would care to remember.
In his youth Raphael painted a picture of surpassing The “Apollo
excellence even for him, “Apollo listening to Mar- º;
syas’ playing the flute in rivalry of the god. This Raphael.
picture is still in fine condition, and belongs to Mr. Morris Moore
of Rome. The figures of the god and satyr are thoroughly clas-
sical in motive and style of execution, possessing that statuesque
grace and perfection of modelling which belongs to the best
Grecian period. Nothing more vital in form and characteriza-
tion has been conceived by Christian art. It is impossible to
give an adequate idea of the majesty of Apollo as he stands in-
tently listening to the notes of the rash Marsyas, so absorbed in
"his music as to be unconscious of the presence of his divine
listener. No one who has not seen this painting, can realize
the entire merit of Raphael as a painter, how thoroughly he
enters into the spirit of the antique, and his capacity of putting
its poetical myths into a fresh and beautiful shape. His concep-
tions of Christian topics seem in comparison conventional and
constrained, as if he felt himself in intellectual bondage to
ideas not in exact harmony with his own consciousness of the
beautiful, except, as with his madonnas and children, he repre-
sented the emotions common to all humanity.
But it is of his landscape I would now speak, as the most
300 HOTCHKISS.
striking and precious contrast to the pretentious illusions or pro-
saic barrenness of the popular American School. Raphael com-
posed his landscape only as a locality for his figures, to which
it is strictly subordinated. The whole picture is only twelve
inches broad by fifteen high. Nevertheless out of a few simple
details of hill, river, distant town, and appropriate middle and
foreground, he has got more distance, breadth, transparency of
shadow, more vivid light of subtlest gradation of tone, and a
greater suggestion of the variety of nature out of a few perfectly
rendered details, set in an exquisite unity of warm coloring,
than can be seen in any of the mammoth landscapes which have
come into vogue from Claude's time to our own. He painted
the landscape as though he loved it, doing thoroughly what-
ever he chose out of it for an accessory to his main motive, and
easting over the whole the spell of his own subtle insight and
observation.
We have one young man, Hotchkiss of Rome, who appreciates
the qualities of the mediaeval landscapists, and unites them, in his
own work, to the greater variety and more distinctive realism
of the best style of modern landscape-painting, as the old men
did, solidly, conscientiously, and truthfully.
Medvocrity If the standard of American painting be one of
of American º * * * *
Sºulpture. mediocrity, what is to be said of the style of its
sculpture? Everywhere, except in Italy, where linger some
traditions and many examples of better days, sculpture falls be-
hind painting. American sculpture is more ambitious in some
respects than its sister art, aspires to a higher range of motives,
and is feeling its way towards what may be called, if not
original treatment, one more in accord with modern ideas than
that of European sculpture in º There is springing up
a large and munificent demand for it in the shape of public mon-
A uments; it is coming into fashion as an adjunct to architecture;
§ and there is a bounteous call for costly busts, portrait-statues,
\ cheap copies of classical marbles and dear-at-any-price originals
of Eves, Judiths, White Slaves, and other crude fancies of
second-hand sentiment, or bad effigies in stone of imperfect
nudity in the flesh. Unlike the Grecian, the American ideal
sculpture has no perfected standard of beauty, but vibrates from
one interior model to another, with such original touches-as-the-
ancy of the sculptor supplies for its betterment. ... So far as-the–
stimulus of buying is concerned, the American sculptor is the
most fortunate of modern artists. If ample patronage can
...ass.<re-as->~ * ~ ** *** *-* *.
§

THE “ BEAUTIFUL ** AND “ RIDI (, ULOUS..” 301
create a national school, we shall have one soon. But the de-
mand having preceded knowledge and skill, we are obtaining
our sculpture to the detriment of our taste. It forces an inept
art on an unprepared public as its standard of good in this direc-
tion. Some benefit may come of its effigies by familiarizing
the people with the idea of art in general, and in time begetting
a desire for better work. But for the moment the tendency, as
before shown, is to view it more in the prosaic light of the busi-
ness instincts of the masses than in a strictly aesthetic sense. So
strongly ingrained is the desire of the beautiful in the Italian mind
that it applies the word for it to remote or quite opposite associa-
tions; for instance, “La casa e bella e fitta,” “The thing is beat-
tifully done" (whatever it may be, even a crime); “Egli e bello
morte,” “He is beautifully dead” (meaning quite dead). The
vender of fruit beneath my window is now proclaiming his mer-
chandise, not literally “Ripe oranges for sale,” but by a poetical
appeal to the senses as follows: “ Ch'odore, che gusto, che colore,”
“What odor, what flavor, what color 1 ° in musical accents,
leaving the hearer's fancy to finish his sentence, and whet the
appetite. Americans, being sensitive to the absurd, in speaking
of solemn emotions, often say, “I felt (or, it was) ridiculous,” or,
as they use their still more favorite verbal idealization, “a big
thing,” meaning something grand, noble, or sublime. b:
idioms will tell us without fail when we have risen above 'the
“big” or “ridiculous” apprehension of ideas and facts to the
beautiful perception of them. Å But our speech cannot change
until the feeling that seizes on the big or absurd as a synonyme
of excellence and supremacy is diverted to a higher intellectual
phase. To attain an end laudable or otherwise, the common
rule is to talk “big” and work fast, without a moment's concern
if it all ends in the ridiculous. A young woman in a leisure
moment designs or compiles a grandiose monument to the mar-
tyr Lincoln, which is to cost several hundred thousand dollars,
one which would have occupied a Michael Angelo perhaps
years to have brought to a satisfactory condition ; and instantly
a committee adopt it, issuing a circular to the nation, in which
this hasty composition is called “the greatest achievement of
modern art,” the completion of which “will place our country
in art, as she is in freedom, in arms, in commerce, in manufac-
tures, in science, and in skill in all that makes a nation great,
in the front ranks of the nations of the earth !”
Either artist and committee, meaning noble, achieve foolish
302 OUR MONUMENTS.
things, or else, happy is the land where is born the woman who
can thus elevate the entire people by one slight effort of her
will and skill ! This unfortunate conception of art and artist
is filling our land with gigantic inanities in stone, miscalled
monuments, but which are mechanical monstrosities. There
are a few exceptions, like the unfulfilled design of Billings for
the “Pilgrims' Monument” at Plymouth, Mass., which is appro-
priate and imposing, though the best figures are evidently
suggested by the Sibyls or Prophets of Michael Angelo. But
the greater number of our monuments have no unity of parts
or purpose ; are crude or commonplace in conception ; either
made up hastily for the market, or unadvisedly stolen or altered
from preceding work, and calculated to reflect no honor on the
dead or living. Soon there will be seen, in high places and in
low, huge effigies, in bronze and stone, of volunteers on guard,
at corners of columns, obelisks, and shafts of every conceivable
degree of disproportion, misapplication, and inappropriate or-
namentation, dedicated to the heroes of our late contest. Alas
for them, or rather for us! For they are gone where the beau-
tiful reigns paramount. We must remain a while longer where
ugliness will, if we persist in paying an enormous bounty for it.
I remember, recently, on going into a studio where one of these
extraordinary State monuments was in process of manufacturing,
of being confronted by one of the accessory “boys in blue”
some thirty feet tall, and bringing away with me only a confused
sensation of “big” buttons.
A clever sculptor will do good work in spite of unfavorable
costume. Look at the statue of St. Alessio in the garb of a
pilgrim, on the façade of Santa Trinita, Florence. Here is life-
like movement and character, although intended merely for out-
door decoration. Cacini, knowing the human anatomy, instead
of piling trousers on boots, coat on trousers, shirt-collar and hat
over all, and calling the heap of old clothes a statue, leaving the
spectator to construct the bones and flesh out of his own con-
Sciousness, makes his man wear his clothes naturally and easily.
Having something human to fit to, of themselves they suggest
a man, and not a scarecrow of a cornfield, as do the limp statues
with which Boston adorns its streets, like the “Horace Mann,”
The statues formless and void, holding out the sleeve that does
* duty for an arm as if for charity; “Webster,” built
up after an intense study of his last suit of clothing; while the
granite “ Hamilton’ seems intended for one of the Athenian
w = er-º. --- *** -
****** ****r-seercºverte"
Y
BOSTON STATUES. 303

Hermá in a Yankee guise, his head being the only human sug-
estion about it. The graceful “Everett’ is bursting off his
jº, a frantic attempt to box the sky, or to hail George
Washington to stop for him. Anything in the shape or action of
a spinal column to these statues, not to mention actual limbs with
muscles and articulations, is considered superfluous, if the clothes
be correctly creased and buttoned, and some of the most striking
points of the face given, on which is lavished what talent the
sculptor possesses. Sculpture of the “Everett’ pattern is no
better than rank fustian, altogether unworthy of the modeller of
the effigy of Judge Story at Mount Auburn.
How are we to secure better ? There are two means. One,
by competition. The point with the public is to get good sculp-
ture, at prices which remunerate the artist proportionately to
the talent or genius displayed. Anything over is almsgiving, or
else a premium awarded to ignorance and charlatanism ; if less
than the work merits, the public forces the true artist into com-
peting with the false in misleading the people, that he may gain
his daily bread. Some stand out manfully, and abide their day
of rightful appreciation ; but the many go over to the ranks of
the empirics, and, as things go, win fortunes. I shall enlarge on
this aspect of the question, further on. Now the point is how to
compel the sculptor to do his best. As he puts his profession on
a level of trade, the patron must meet him on the same ground.
Give the work to him who will do it best at a given price. To
this it may be objected, Who is to be the judge? Adopt the sys-
tem, and the competition and the criticism that must ensue, will
speedily instruct both the sculptor and his patron. The imme-
diate effect doubtless would be to turn a large part of the com-
missions now given by hazard or friendship to Americans into
Italian hands, which, for one third the money at present so reck-
lessly wasted, would return an equal amount of respectable
mediocrity in marble and bronze, beside saving the nation from
being made absolutely ridiculous in so much of its statuary. If
we do not exact the fulfilment of the bond, who is to blame the
artist for getting as much money for as little art as possible *
Let us examine into the practical working of the present sys-
tem, for it is an important question, as respects both the money
it costs, and the standard of art it creates. A distinguished man
passes on to the other life. His form and character are to be
transmitted to the future, in some enduring material. The pres-
ent generation demands that he shall look life-like, even to the
304 STYLE OF OUR SCULPTURE.
transitory fashion of his clothes. An artist is chosen by a com-
mittee of subscribers to the fund, almost invariably on personal
considerations, without any special regard to his fitness for the
work, of which few among them have trained themselves to
judge, and without his being called upon to give any special
proof of his capacity for it, or any one else being invited to do
so. A photograph of the deceased, together with his latest gar-
ments, are furnished ; and the contract is signed with little if any
inquiry into the actual cost or value of the equivalent to be ren-
dered. In due time a statue is made, and put up with much
ceremony and laudation of the press. At this state all the
parties are content; for the artist has his fame and money, and
the public have got one more statue which they have welcomed
in amiable faith at its being what they bargained for. Soon,
however, a reaction begins. I tell what I have witnessed. One
spectator, more hardy in his opinions than the mass, ſails to dis-
cover in the effigy him they sought to honor. The doubt spreads,
criticism is awakened, and the fact is proven. If it were a ship,
locomotive, or style of goods not up to the contract, it would be
returned to the maker. But a statue, although done on business
rules, claims an exemption in its own favor. Though it be so
ridiculous in pose that every street-boy flings his joke at it as he
runs by, it must be put up, and tenderly cared for, at much ad-
ditional cost, forever. An ordinary nuisance may be abated
by a grand jury, but for such an one there is no remedy except
in some great catastrophe of nature or outbreak of human
wrath.
º: If we employed, irrespective of nationality and
good Sculp- tº * g
ture. personal engineering of claims, whoever could most
faithfully and thoroughly execute the desired object, there would
be no increase of these spineless figures whose clothes are either
torn asunder from overstuffing, like an overloaded sack of grain,
or else seem as if dropping from want of a supporting anatomy;
no more stone-dolls to amuse the wits of society, perplex the
honest student of art, exasperate the descendants of the dishon-
ored dead, or vex the living. Instead, if we had nothing greatly
to admire, there would be nothing greatly to condemn. Suppose
our average portrait-statues were no better than those of the emi-
nent Florentines that adorn the cortile of the Uffizi; they would
be respectably done, serve their purpose very well, and cost not
one third of what is now given for abortions. Indeed, even less,
for these were notoriously cheap. Some were made for less than
COST OF SCULPTURE. 305
six thousand francs, or twelve hundred dollars, the artist finding
his own marble.
As my aim in this chapter is to be as practical as Prices of
possible, I will add a few words here regarding prices. **
It is due to the givers that they should have some criterion of
the actual cost of what they buy in this shape, especially as the
disposition now is to give lavishly without inquiry. I do not
refer to works of genius. In no age have they ever been paid
for as merchandise, nor should they ever be, if we would preserve
genius untouched of worldliness. I refer to the excessive prices
given for mediocre or worthless work, which ought to be regu-
lated on the same principles of cost of production, and the actual
value of the article, that obtain in every other business matter.
Talent in art deserves to be as well remunerated as in science
and trade : but there is no reason why it should command excep-
tional prices in America, in the form of painting or sculpture,
while in France or Italy the compensation given is based on the
ordinary laws of demand and supply. A Michael Angelo builds
St. Peter's without price, toils eighty years in ascetic privation,
leaves a modest sum to his relatives and a sublime legacy to
the world. A Bernini lives in luxury, and dies a millionnaire.
Raphael receives thirty crowns for his “Ezekiel,” Frith £8,000
for a “Derby Day,” and Bierdstadt $25,000 for a picture of the
“Rocky Mountains.” In this way the common mind discrimi-
nates between genius and talent. It seems hard on genius; but I
doubt if it would be kept altogether faithful to its best instincts,
were it much petted and lavishly paid.
Consummate talent should not be grudged its gains, however
large, because they are the legitimate fruit of labor, and the
world largely benefits by it. But why pay as much or more
for the inept or commonplace as would content the greatest
skill? The “Webster” of Powers is by universal criticism con-
sidered to be as indifferent a representation of that statesman as
could be fashioned, and without any redeeming aesthetic features.
For the original statue lost at sea, the public paid $12,000; and
for the present duplicate $7,000; in all, $19,000. It cost to
cast these statues in Florence, bronze included, within a fraction
of $3,300, which leaves almost $16,000 as the sum paid for the
fabrication of the “clay model,” the equal of which any clever
artist could put up in a short time." In these days, when monu-
1 The cost of making an ideal bust in Florence, including the marble, like the
20
306 EFFECT OF COMPETITIVE ART.
ments to cost hundreds of thousands of dollars are put without
reflection into hands to be executed that have never given proof
of their capacity to excel in art, it is expedient to pause awhile
over the pecuniary responsibility at stake. I am not speaking
of works that display actual beauty, or energetic invention, or
any really strong, characteristic trait. An American who could
model a “Demosthenes” or “Aristides,” would be cheaply paid
at fifty thousand dollars, while one who did no better than the
newly found gilt “Hercules” at Rome, would be dearly paid at
five thousand for a similar monster. An author may employ
ten times as much toil and brains on a book as it took to model
the “Webster” or “Everett,” and he would be esteemed fortu
nate were he to receive one tenth of their cost for his copyright.
When we can secure a sculptor who can model like Donatello
or Lucca della Robbia, or paint our walls like Piero della Fran-
cesca or D. Ghirlandajo, not to mention greater names, all
the money we lavish on them will be a blessing to the world,
and only a limited compensation to the artist. But every false
or weak man brought forward, crowds out a true one. As
we have only a limited time and capacity to enjoy, it is impor-
yº that our means be not wasted and our desires frustrated.
w If competition be freely invited, the fear of losing his position
would spur the American sculptor to that amount of study
which is absolutely necessary for him, if he would compete with
the European in the quality of his work, not to speak of surpass-
ing him, - which I believe he could, judging from the progress
made in busts, and some ideal statues and compositions of per-
sons not yet known to fame, were he to pay the same attention
to his preliminary education that his rival does. With Amer-
icans, and English too, it is quite common, after learning to draw
a few common objects in a common way, to open a studio, and
usual run of fancy heads, is eighty to one hundred dollars by contract. A por-
trait-bust, life-size, costs higher, and it is less remunerative because seldom re-
peated; but two hundred dollars would cover the cost of the bust, including the
time in taking the clay model. A heroic-sized statue in marble costs about two
thousand dollars to make; repetitions of the ordinary parlor statues, Eves,
Greek Slaves, Judiths, and their like, from eight hundred to ome thousand.
The profit on large monuments is so large as to turn towards sculpture consid-
erable ordinary business talent, which, as regards art, had better be left to its
common pursuits. The “Cavour’’ statue, second quality of Carrara marble,
sixteen feet high, imposing and respectable, lately erected at Leghorn, cost by
contract twenty-five thousand francs. We often pay ten thousand dollars for
statues no better executed, of ol duna y luſe-size.
STUDIES FROM LIFE. 307
advertise themselves as sculptors, sometimes obtaining great
commissions before giving evidence of ability to draw the human
figure correctly. UNow something more is necessary to make a
sculptor than to be able to pat clay into a seeming likeness of a
man or woman, and then give the model to cheap workmen to ,
Të fashioned into marble, while théjàodèlºſſkgº spends more

time in studying the means to open the purses of patrons than"
to perfect himself in-sculpture~. How many.giouſ sºulpløs, ig
Tº instance, can draw the human figure, much less design a great
composition or group 2 European galleries are filled with the
drawings of the Giotteschi, Donatello, Ghiberti, and their peers;
the modern European academicians and artists are rigorous in
their life-studies, and we see the results in their superior knowl-
edge and practice of form. But what will our galleries have
to show, centuries hence, of original sketches and drawings
in evidence of the imposing but fleeting reputations of the
day ? It is as easy to hire an accomplished professional designer
in Italy as an experienced modeller; but no talent on their part
will suffice to carry the fame of another to posterity, unless it is
likewise based on his own capacity to execute, and the public
find manual proof of it in his own handiwork. Recently a
young Englishman advertised himself as a sculptor in one of the
chief Italian cities. There chanced to enter his studio a dis-
tinguished painter, who asked him if he knew anything of draw-
ing. He showed him some crude efforts of his school-days in
evidence that he did. The painter kindly pointed out their
utter unfitness as a qualification for his profession, advised him
to take down his sign and to study seven years at least in life-
chools before putting it out again, which, to the credit of the
ood sense of the premature sculptor, he determined to do.) The
rtist whose heart is in his work, allows nothing to leave his
studio which has not the marks of his hand. There is a name-
less something which he alone can bestow; and that cannot be
mechanically copied by the most skilled stone-cutter. Michael
Angelo, the sincerest, greatest, loftiest-minded type of an artist
that modern civilization has begotten, worked assiduously, night
and day, on his statues, knowing well that no hireling could
carry out his thought to its entire fulfilment, however service-
able he might be in preparing the statue to receive the final
touches of his chisel. Examine, also, his numerous drawings
and designs; the preparatory wax or terra-cotta models; the
unmistakable evidences of the intense study which he bestowed
308 HARRIET HOSMER.
on every object before he deemed it to be worthy of being given
to the public. As he practised, so did Razzi, Raphael, Leo-
nardo, Giorgione, Titian, Correggio, and the whole galaxy of the
“old masters,” whose example, considering what they did, de-
serves to be more followed than it is at present by those of our
men who look with pity, if they look at all, upon them, for
being obliged to study so much.
If they will not imitate the old men, I commend to
them the example of a new woman, who has in this
respect achieved reputation, and with it fortune. I speak of
Harriet Hosmer. ſº robust talent is the result of robust
FI. Hosmer.
study and energy. Having determined to become a sculptor,
the first thing to learn was the anatomy of the human figure, as
well as scientific design." She is inclined to overdo the material
in man, but it eacists, whether as “Benton,” “Puck,” or a “Faun.”
They are solid, substantial beings, the fruit of a certain intellect-
ual grasp of her subject, or facility of adaptation of the labors
of others, mingled, when needs be, with genuine humor of her
own. Despite the cumbersome, conventional “Zenobia,” a clap-
trap statue intended for popular exhibitions, the influence of
Miss Hosmer is a sound one, inasmuch as it is based on fun-
damental study, and a determination to win her position by hard
work. It is also evident that she thinks the old masters can
teach her something, by the use she at times makes of their
conceptions. Her style is a decided rebuke to inane sentimental-
ists of the Powers class, which is a weak echo of the third-rate
classical manner after it had abandoned beauty for prettiness.
Miss Hosmer’s manner is thoroughly realistic. Her attempt at
the pretty in “Zenobia’’ was a decided failure, because her inven-
tion and skill do not run in this direction. She has a knowledge
of form not possessed by the sentimentalists whose works are so
commonly praised for that feature, and their charming idealism
of character, though really without merit in either. With them
one type of head, borrowed from the antique, made characterless
in the transmission, does duty for numberless types of sentiments,
all bearing the same monotonous outlines of features and same-
ness of expression. | Idealism of this sort cloys the brain as
sweetmeats the stomach. If beauty, unlit of soul, soon becomes
tiresome, mere prettiness does much sooner. In this kind of
Statuary there is a certain mechanical roundness and smoothness
of surface, which passes for art. But let the spectator go
straightway from their daintily polished limbs, so like ivory turn-
AMERICAN TYPE OF BEAUTY. 309
ing, to good examples of antique and mediaeval work, say from the
* , , , 22
Parthenon, the “Athlete" of the Vatican, or the “ St. George” of
Donatello, and he will at once detect the vital distinction between
e—ºxº .*.* **** 3:-º-tºº--º-º- **** -- ~ * ~" *T*:::::::3% ºz º.º. º. 33: …’s tº *.*
D] 0.Wºl. Q-liſlf
delicate exterial finish and audiuliárm. Life in a statue is
immºnſ; in a man in its organic appearance, so far as
form can express it. |. it has the same structural look of
a surface answering th the anatomy within, bones, joints, muscles,
nerves, veins, viscera, heart, lungs, and brains beneath, so to
speak, a flexible, marble skin, fitting them, as in the live being,
with an imperceptible gradation of curves that respond to every
movement or position, — unless the statue suggests in some de-
gree this organization, it is an artistic failure. The Greek
sculptor, by close observation of the vital functions of nature,
joined to the assiduous use of his chisel, acquired a certain
instinct or feeling for form which guided him aright, and imparts
itself almost unconsciously to the spectator. Regard for a mo-
ment the time-eaten “ Torso " of the Vatican. Beneath its rid-
dled surface, so exquisitely graduated in action and shape to the
internal organs, we see the immense muscular power and gigan-
tic strength of frame. Despite the mutilation, it asserts itself a
complete, living being; the whole idea leaps from the broken
mass, and, like the “Prisoners” of Michael Angelo in the
Louvre, it dwarfs all adjacent work, by whomsoever done.
Elaboration of surface fails to compensate for the loss of that
structural unity which puts each part in its exact relation to
the organic wholeº But something more is requisite. A
statue presumes º of intellectual as well as anatomical char-.
acterization. TNo work-challenges criticism so boldly. “It says,
in public, as one man meets his peer, “Know me.” If there
be defect in modelling, yet strength of character, the greater
truth charitably hides the absence of the latter, and we recog-
nize our friend. The drawback to American sculpture in gen-
eral is its defective modelling and character; Palmer evidently
seeks to avoid inane idealism, but goes too far in the opposite
direction. He has fancy, but errs in selection. His principle
of going direct to nature is correct; but the choice becomes
ignoble or common. The American type of female beauty,
which he aims to express, in his hands becomes heavy and com
monplace; the limbs often look spongy, and the features, though
naive, coarse and unrefined. This is the more to be regretted,
because the spiritual and intellectual elements of our best de-



310 OUR EQUESTRIAN STATUES.
veloped women are such that, joined to their extremely fine
physical organization, we might expect to combine out of them
for sculpture an idealism of type and form which should mark
for our race a higher standard of beauty and aim in life than
even the old Grecian.
It would be folly to consider some sculpture seriously. Clark
Mills' equestrian statues look like prodigious congressional jokes
on art, or amiable weaknesses, similar to the commission for a
heroic statue given to a young miss who had never seen a real
one, and which must be constructed out of her own conscious-
ness. The nation now looks for this by-play periodically at the
hands of its Conscript Fathers. But the humor becomes too
broad when it puts the grave Washington astride a Bucepha-
lian burlesque, with the horse's tail curling so tightly between
his legs as to make him recoil, as if bracing firmly against a
Brown. whirlwind. This, too, when Brown had already
Ball. shown his capacity to treat the subject so worthily in
the dignified and spirited “Washington’ of Union Square, New
York. Ball's, in Boston, does more justice to the action of
the horse than his rider, who sits well, is conscientiously and
patiently modelled, giving a fair likeness of the original as to
form and costume, but is no adequate appreciation of his
greatest qualities, besides showing a fiddler-like movement of
the right arm, with the drawn sword. Ball's realism is too
sturdy. His subjects are so intensely homely and external as
to make one, while looking at them, all but disbelieve in the im-
mortality of the soul.
Jackson's realism is broader and more inventive. He realizes
character, and hints at considerable undeveloped force in him-
self. His allegorical group, to be placed over one of the gates
of the reservoir of New York, is a well-composed, decorative
work, appropriate and forcible in detail and mass.
Ward is a realist of still superior stamp. He and
his productions have an artistic ring of the older
time, joined to the vigorous new thought of the present. Both
Ward and Brown do what they know, and know what they do.
Wanting as we are in idealistic art proper, we may safely
place the reputation of our sculpture, in comparison with the
living European, in their hands. Ward’s “Indian Hunter,” as
did Hosmer’s “Sleeping Faun,” upheld American sculpture
with honor for clever invention and realistic force, particularly
the “Hunter,” which was an indigenous idea, in the Exposition
of 1867 at Paris.
TWard.
WILLIAM STORY. 311
When I wrote the “Art-Idea,” I hoped so much
of American art that now, in looking over the prod-
uct of the intervening time, I fear my wishes misled my judg-
ment. For a brief moment it really appeared as if in Story
we had, at last, something that savored of genius. But a
closer examination of his numerous efforts dispels this illusion.
Industrious he assuredly is, possessing fancy and some skill
of invention ; but his strong point is his receptive faculty,
which gets good from others, and strains it through his own
mind. His antiquarian knowledge serves him well in the
decorative part of his sculpture. Ornaments and accessories
are rightly chosen and tastefully placed, though the choice of
motives appears somewhat sensational. “Cleopatra poisoning
Herself,” “Judith having slain Holofernes,” “ Medea intend-
ing the Murder of her Children,” “Delilah after betraying
Samson,” “Saul mad,” and “Sappho meditating Suicide,” are
hazardous topics even for genius. How genius works, small
things show as well as great; indeed, the little fact becomes the
new and great one by its treatment. There is a masterly
sketch in the Vatican of “St. Jerome,” by Leonardo. The
usual way, even with the best of the “old masters,” was to
make the lion a sleek, well-behaved animal, quietly sleeping,
while the saint pounded his breast with a stone until it was
gory. Leonardo's lion smells the blood, and, with the instinct
of the forest, turns and roars at him in maddened sympathy.
Da Vinci comprehended what a wild beast must do under the
circumstances, and by the exhibition of its instinct, though sub-
dued in its rage by the miraculous magnetism of the saint, brings
most forcibly home to us the agony of his desert-life.
The “Moses” of Michael Angelo is every inch a prophet-
king, majestic and fearful to gaze upon, while the action that
intensifies his character is his unconscious handling of his long
beard. Only a great artist conceives and executes details like
this and that of the lion in such a way as to emphasize the entire
conception. The “Saul’’ of Story is his best work, because, hav-
ing the “Moses” at hand, he bestows on it a somewhat similar
feature and treatment. Contrast, however, the idea and feeling
as it passes from genius to talent, and note the gulf between
them “Saul’ has a certain breadth and imposingness of whole
which make one marvel more at the weak points of other statues.
But it may be doubted if the action which was suited to the ab-
Sorption in thought of the prophet, is one characteristic of a man
ory.
312 WILLIAM STORY.
on the verge of frantic madness. It implies the repose of deep,
sane meditation, not incipient frenzy. I have before me an ar-
chaic statuette in bronze of “Confucius,” seated on a rock, hold-
ing his writings in his right hand. The Chinese artist, in his
rude way, intended the philosopher and lawgiver of his nation
to appear imposing, somewhat after the style of the “Moses.”
Instead, he looks burly and smiling, but is deeply reflecting, and
apparently watching the world beneath him, while with his
left hand he toys unconsciously with his venerable beard.
Genius, for this action is a touch of it in the Oriental im-
age, speaks the same language in the Chinese and Tuscan artists,
though so widely separated by time and distance. The Amer-
ican, in appropriating, misapplies it.
Story's workmanship is solid and good, but he gives little
evidence of a feeling for beauty, or even grace. Prettiness,
however, in his hands has not the insipidity of the ordinary sen-
timentalists. In his “Sphinx” and “Cupid,” his manner is melo-
dramatic, with a tendency to forced conceit. The motive is taken
out of the sublime into the little ; the mystical let down to the
curious-sensual, with whatever compensation dainty finish can
bestow.
So much ambitious ideal work as his studio shows, inter-
spersed as it is with heroic-sized portraiture, of which the
“Quincy * is the best, and “Everett’’ the worst example, and
bad busts like the Brownings, to be well done, cannot be
crowded into a few years. Such haste of conception and exe-
cution necessarily causes many defects. Though the expression
of passionate sorrow in “Delilah “ is strongly given, the
shoulders are weak and ill proportioned; “Sappho “ has a
vapid face and a feeble figure; the drapery of “Medea' clings
too tight; “Cleopatra’ sits uneasily because of awkwardly
placed hips; and Story has forgotten that she was wholly
Greek in race and culture; her face has no ethnographical de-
cisive type, and the mouth is vulgar. Noses are in general
ignoble and carelessly modelled. The African “Sibyl" is the
most original and best executed. These productions, although
Superior in thought and aim to most of those of the school, leave
the impression of incompleteness of idea and superficial treat-
Iſlent.
American Perhaps America is destined to make its most rapid
*chitecture artistic development in architecture. Its national ex-
igencies point to this, because a wealthy democracy has as great
STYLE OF OUR ARCHITECTURE. 313
a passion to be housed magnificently as any aristocracy. The
most beautiful palaces of the Old World were built by merchants.
Ours imitate them in cost, if not in taste. The present aim is
sumptuous comfort and upholstery decoration; and it is seldom
that an architect of correct principles is permitted to carry out
his ideas. He is required to be a house or shop builder, and
forego his highest functions of beauty builder, which, if allowed,
he might make to agree with the former. The effect is seen in
its worst in the prevailing centipede style of stores, mounted as
they are on spindle iron legs and a substructure of plate-glass,
than which anything move viciously threatening in appearance
and incongruous in adaptation could not be invented." Both
dwellings and shops have become greedy of ornamentation, inside
and out ; but its laws are so misapplied, that taste is mostly
Sacrificed to a crude display of inappropriate or unmeaning dec-
orative detail, or jumbled from various types of architecture,
the whole resulting in a patchwork of styles almost as strangely .
ugly and ill chosen as what came into vogue during the later
Renaissance. Still, as knowledge is increasing and better ex-
amples multiplying, we may hope for the development of a
national architecture which, while securing the essentials of
light, ventilation, and shelter, shall admit enough of beauty
to gratify the instinctive craving for it. Our wants and aims
are more diversified and freer in expansion than those of any
past people. There must arise a corresponding expression in
architecture, the concrete growing out of the abstract, just as
the rock and plant come from the primary elements in nature,
adapting themselves with unerring instinct to their parent soils.
How, when, and by whom our art will thus be crowned, is a
secret of God. When the white workman turned rebel, a negro
assistant completed the cast of Crawford’s “Liberty,” which
now surmounts the dome of the Capitol at Washington.
Architecture cannot be properly treated in my brief space. I
can only hint what it wants by telling what it is. Its present
* If much money and some architectural invention or pretension, as in the
Sears' buildings, Boston, are attempted, the constructive effect of the whole and
beauty of detail are certain to be marred or wholly lost by extravagant adver-
tising signs. Indeed, the majority of expensive edifices in America for business
purposes are but prodigious show cards; whole costly façades being hidden by
huge letters of the alphabet. That advertising and architecture can be made
to agree in general effect, and the former made an agreeable feature of the orna-
mentation of the latter, the newly erected façade of the Corsi palace at Flor-
ence sufficiently demonstrates.
314 OUR STANDARD OF KNO WI, EDGE.
features are transitory, borrowed of the Old World, and either tor-
tured into inelegance or fashioned into crudity, just as the am-
bitions of wealth, and exigencies of trade, without any aesthetic
cravings, demand. Painting and sculpture speak to us as we
speak to one another. However fast our friendship, there is
something in every man that does not come up to our ideal. So
in the individual arts. But, as I have before remarked, archi-
tecture puts them all in unity with its mass, and appeals to our
consciousness on the great plane of nature itself, evoking prima-
rily a synthetic pleasure in it as a whole rather than an analytic
delight of detail. In this respect it moves us as does orchestral
music. This unspoken sympathy with our highest aspirations
is most soothing and cheering. I never pass Giotto's Campanile
without feeling my heart lightened, as if a celestial ray had
descended upon me. When sorrowing or suffering, I go to his
Duomo, walk about it, and am comforted in its presence, not
from any association of creed, but because it is a triumphant ex-
pression of the great human soul of its belief in the Infinite.
|Until America has produced something analogous to the genius
of the Old World in art, it behooves us, in speaking of our juve-
nile efforts, to place them on their actual level in the scale of
civilization.
Were the standard of knowledge of art with us equal to that
of almost any other branch of education, the most of what I
have said, would be needless truism. I give it because of the
much conceited assertion and many questions of elementary na-
ture, that come to me from persons by whom I am only too happy
to be instructed in those matters of science or general affairs to
which they have given thought. This ignorance is the result of
imattention and indifference to the subject. The latter invari-
ably disappears with the former. But it is extremely difficult
to get an American to look at it seriously, other than in an utili-
tarian or conservative aspect. Consequently, in the present ap-
athy of feeling in regard to art, those who would urge its claims
with a sincere desire to have them considered, must first advance
those which really are secondary, fundamentally viewed. The
imperative, absolute, final function of art is enjoyment. But the
essentials of its being are such that it cannot exist in a healthful
condition without political and religious liberty, and those intel-
lectual and social conditions which best promote the moral and
physical welfare of society. Art creates a Central Park. Its
beauty and Sanitary advantages are just so much counterpoise to
DECEPTIVE CRITICISM. 315
the criminal contagion and foul air of the slums of New York.
Besides, therefore, their purely aesthetic features, public parks
are moral physical reformers on a scale that reaches every in-
habitant of a city. I might enlarge on the taxable property and
new industries they create; but this is too obvious an argument
to require mention in this connection.
The educational advantages of galleries and museums, and
their conservative and refining influence on Society, in teaching
respect for the past, and affording the means of estimating the
actual progress of manners and ideas of various races, are less
notably considered. In America the popular notion of them is
simply as depositories of curiosities to amuse an idle hour,
but not of sufficient importance to be critically examined.
The general impression of their contents is that they are well
enough for those who made them, but we have got beyond all
this. Even for no higher purpose they deserve to be multi-
plied; for they beguile many from haunts of vice, and in the
end will assuredly come to be esteemed on more rational if not
aesthetic grounds. As it has taken several centuries to reduce
the sense of beauty in us as a race to a mere negative state,
probably it will take as many more of culture and encourage-
ment in the opposite direction to make it a vital force again.
Meantime, it is wise in its advocates to urge it onward by pre-
senting it in that shape which commends it most strongly to the
interests and intelligence of the people, even if its highest as-
pects are momentarily obscured.
It will be urged against me, as it has already been, that I
depreciate my country's art, and am hostile to her artists. But
what do we gain in the end by exaggerations of any sort 2 If
we deceive ourselves, the rest of the world sees the truth, and
jeers us for lying. Bonaparte's false bulletins do not make
him any greater as a general, but infinitely less as a man. I
must give the truth in art precisely as I see it in relation to the
universal point of view from which I have tried to comprehend
the subject as a whole. Artists and nationality become of Sec-
ondary consideration to art itself. Much as I value the good
will of every one, I cannot consent to suppress my own convic-
tions lest offence be taken by those who look at the topic in a
narrower or more personal sense. Yet those who have made a
study of art, have no need of my experiences. On the other
hand, those to whom they may be necessary, are likely to dislike
me for criticising their favorite notions, or reject them in disgust
316 LOT OF THE ART CRITIC.
at first sight. There are already too many either absolutely ig-
norant critics or those who wish to make every one feel comfort-
able at the expense of truth and the hindrance of real progress :
amiable optimists, whose fulsome, indiscriminating praise must
be disagreeable to every right-minded artist. The existence of
“The Nation” weekly paper of New York proves that an inde-
pendent criticism of men, political measures, and literature, irre-
spective of party and clique, although a new feature, is welcome
to an increasing class of readers. In time it will be so with my
theme. Meanwhile, I have to thank the “London Reader” of
October, 1864, in its notice of “Art-Idea,” for its appreciation of
my endeavor. It says, “The fervent gravity with which the
author treats the subject as a whole, the deep importance which
he attaches to fine art as a manifestation of the human Soul and
one great influence upon it, the missionary [thanks for the word]
energy wherewith he preaches his creed,” etc. “To say that
this American author is quite up to the general European level
of cultivated opinion on such topics, would be too little ; whether
in Europe or America, he would belong to the select few
who have spent a deal of time and thought upon the subject,
and whose opinion may mostly be accepted, and, when not ac-
cepted, still acknowledged as qualified.” Also the “Saturday
Review º' observes, “We venture to advise Mr. Jarves to em-
ploy his powers of observation and language in a detailed criti-
cism of the modern European schools. This might confer on
the English-reading public a benefit which they have not yet
received.”
I plead guilty to egotism in these quotations; but without
Some words of recognition and encouragement from qualified
persons, I should scarcely be justified in urging an unwelcome
theme on my countrymen from only my own sense of duty, with-
out other endorsement than individual judgment or enthusiasm.
In the present condition of art at home, the sole compensation
for the time and toil given to the subject, lies in the approval of
the few who also study it as a means to a great national end, as
well as personal culture.
None but the experienced can know the weight of public op-
probrium and social misconception that is the lot of an art critic,
if his opinions run counter to the views of interested parties.
The topic itself is a delicate one, and the artistic temperament,
when not well balanced by intellectual training, sensitive and
not unfrequently irritable and jealous. An author receives a
criticism with thankfulness that would make many an artist con-
f
JUST CRITICISM. 317
sider himself to be the most ill used of men. But this morbid
sensitiveness is only an additional reason why he should be sub-
jected to the same rules of criticism as any other profession.
n unjust review is as likely to spoil the sale of a book as of a
icture. | just criticism, if accepted as given, will help educate
:author add artist. Either, in publishing his work, ‘akes his
chance of success, as a general in giving battle. Whatever hap-
pens, in the main the result lies in him. Some fight for one sort
of victory, and some for another. He who fights for truth, must
expect to take as well as give hard knocks. If the artist fights
for less, his reward will be apportioned to his aim. Even in
those, rare instances of excessive sensitiveness or incapacity of
obtaining a hearing, real merit is sure in the end to beat blatant
self-assertion and flimsy execution. The wronged must work
and wait. f
Most criticism, until recently, has been done in behalf of some
private consideration rather than in the interest of the people at
large. Duty to the public is imperative ; friendship is a side-
issue, agreeable or painful, as it may happen. Sometimes there
is a naïveté in the complaints of injustice done which makes one
heartily wish he could do all that is desired. Roe once said to
me of Doe, “I think your remarks are just, but you say too
much of him and too little of me.”
Possibly Roe was in the right. But the artist who keeps
primarily in view art itself, that is to say, its “vertu,” or the
completed perfection and fitness of its resources and means to
the contemplated end, clinging to the vital sense of the Latin
“virtus” (meaning the manhood or the supreme excellence of
an object) as his final aim, - such an one will say to any critic
what was said once to me by a sensitive, right-minded sculp-
tor: “I prefer to have the shortcomings of my work pointed
out, than to have it inordinately praised in the ordinary tone
of our criticism, rºgardless of any intelligent understanding
of its qualities.” ſº genuine artist is sometimes discour-
aged at the apparent insensibility of the average patron to his
finest ideal conceptions, and the readiness with which he buys
the commonest realistic yºſ like the “Boy on the Tub whit-
tling,” or the “Girl untying Mer Shoe,” etc. Each style has its
distinct aim ; one to bestow ideas and beauty on those who
can appreciate them, the other to get as much money in ex-
change for as little brains and labor as possible. To effect this,
a business tact is requisite. As most patrons are business men,
who buy on the whim of the moment, without having bestowed
3.18 FRESEI MOTIVES.
any serious consideration on art, they are readily attracted by
those mental qualities and personal habits most in accord with
their own Mistaking secondary for primary effects, they are
easily put into sympathy with the business artist, who is so
intelligible in his speech and acts, and whose works have a
prosaic character or material aim. On the other hand, the
unbusiness-like temperament and manner of a true artist are
liable to misconception, while his ideas and ambitions are apt
to be antagonistic to those who have not made art a special
study, or whose feelings do not flow in the same aesthetic cur-
rent. Hence the fictitious artist will make money, while the
real one must all but starve until his merit becomes known to
cultivated amateurs. I am surprised at the little shrewdness
shown even by the practical-minded artists, especially our sculp-
tors in their choice of motives from others, adhering as they do
so largely to stale classicalisms, personages of the Bible, and
the commonplaces of every-day life, when Blake's designs, the
Campana bas-reliefs, and the numerous illustrated works on an-
tique and mediaeval monuments, and sculpture and painting in
general, published during the past one hundred years in Italy,
open to them rich mines of motives and suggestions almost
unknown, certainly unworked, in this generation. Could any
thing be more sublime, more Christian in idea, or better adapted
to a sepulchral monument than Blake's illustration of “Death’s
Door” in Blair's “Grave.” His “Book of Job" is literally alive
with glorious hints to sculptors. So also are the best Etruscan
compositions. It is not needful to plagiarize outright, but to
adopt and adapt the great and beautiful conceptions of the past
to our own spiritual needs; filling the gap which exists in high
art between the actual genius of other days and the prolific
talent of our own, with works of a suggestive character until the
time arrive for original genius to descend to us in fresh forms.
Meantime there is a favorable symptom for ideal art in the
recent attempts of some of the younger men to produce work
of a superior character. Vedder's characteristic conceptions,
as yet unrealized in permanent paintings, I spoke of in the
“Art-Idea.” Since then I have seen a sketch for a great pic-
ture, by Craig of Florence, called the “Vanishing of the Il-
lusions of Youth,” quite Blake-like in feeling and meaning.
Gould's breezy “West Wind” is another ingenious attempt to
escape from the bondage of effete personifications into fresher,
pertinent styles; and his colossal head of “Christ,” as an op-
posing conception to that of “Satan,” also by him, both now in
CONNOLLY'S “ DEATH AND HONOR.” 319
his studio at Florence, is one of the finest felt and conceived
idealisms in modern sculpture. Gould has shown the rare
faculty, genius it really is, of throwing into form, in a broad,
interpenetrative way, the essential feeling and character of the
Tempter and of the Saviour, as the impersonifications of the
evil and good principles inherent in humanity, irrespective of
any tamperings with his own individuality, or being misled into
the little or pretty. They are positive conceptions; both of a
high, although widely differing quality of physical beauty ; in-
tellect paramount in the “Devil,” love in the “Christ; ” each
largely treated, Shakespearian in force of personality. So far
as my observation extends, they are the most complete and
profound idealisms in our sculpture; and the time will come in
America when, as with Blake's compositions in England, their
merits will be appreciated, if not by the multitude, by those who
comprehend what high art aspires to render. Brackett's bust
of John Brown, owned by Mrs. G. Stearns, Medford, is of
similar characteristic excellence. Exhibiting with Olympian
breadth of sentiment the intense, moral heroism of the re-
former, it is an American type of a Jove, one of those rare sur-
prises in art, irrespective of technical finish or perfection in
modelling, which shows in what high degree the artist was im-
pressed by the soul of his sitter. Connolly's allegorical group
of “Death and Honor,” consisting of five figures and a horse in
vigorous action, on which Death sits, revelling in slaughter, hav-
ing just struck down Courage, Perseverance, and Strength, but
stopped and disarmed by Honor, if not all a nice aesthetic taste
would require in its treatment, is a profound idea, harmoniously
put into plastic form, and calculated to incite the ambition of
other of our young sculptors. Its drawbacks are inexplicable
disturbing draperies, defective muscular modelling, and some
want of unity in proportions, an introduction of unnecessary
lines, which knots it into a somewhat confused mass and super-
fluous action, like the tearing down by Honor of the banner of
Death, causing a rhetorical redundancy, as it were, of composi-
tion, at the expense of artistic repose and simplicity, and some
slight crudity of application in the allegory as an entirety.
Criticism, however, is not the object of this book. It has
been secondary and partial, and indulged only to illustrate the
rules and principles which underlie art in general. There is
much of good and bad art, not necessary to mention in this
connection. But that which is given may assist the reader to
be his own critic.
CHAPTER XIII.
&EIE MINOR ARTS. – ORNAMENT AND DECORATION.
N the preceding chapters, I have more especially
kept in sight painting, sculpture, and architecture
in their superior aesthetic and natural aspects. My
aim would be incomplete were not a glance given
to art in its more social and domestic phase, in which,
asserting its being exclusively for its own sake, irrespective
of teaching, worship, or illustration, it enters into familiar
relations with every individual and object, in the shape of
Ornament or Decoration ; its purpose being to gratify taste by
superadding beauty to utility, as well as to evoke it regardless
of any practical use. In this form, art is an aesthetic distribu-
tion and combination of details, rather than of masses. It
adorns speech, literature, manners, dress, utensils, buildings and
grounds, public and private ; in short, every thing man in-
vents; for there is nothing too homely or common, not to be
made more gratifying to our senses by fitting ornamention or
graceful outline. Without this aesthetic addition, although the
utility of an object be complete, our satisfaction in it is incom-
plete.
Final anºm The final aim of ornamentation is to produce intel-
%:..." lectual repose, or that mental quietude which comes of
pose. gratified cravings after the ideal, just as a belief in the
immortality of the soul becomes a consolation in its immediate
shortcomings. Every human being, from the baby in arms or
the untutored savage to the most cultivated mind, feels the force
of this instinct, and in some way or other strives to gratify it.
However much people may disagree in their definition of beauty,
they all desire it, unless they be of that rare defective mental or-
ganization which cannot see deity or beauty in any created thing.
ZEsthetic repose comes from harmony, fitness, and adaptation;
the subordination of the minor functions to the major, and the
perfect interblending of the part with the whole. Excessive
decoration, like exaggeration of language, destroys the intent.
**

RULE OF FASHION. 321
Misplaced ornament is equivalent to mistakes in grammar, caus-
ing confusion and vulgarity. The style of dress, manners,
speech; the character of the things a man surrounds himself
with ; the degree and quality of his ornamentation; these an-
nounce his intellectual rank to his neighbor. As taste begets
refinement, the “rough * disappears before the gentleman. I
now confine my view to aesthetics as a refining social element,
admitting that a cultivated taste and irreproachable exterior can
accompany a selfish and depraved will. Still the world gains
by this disguise; for without it there would exist the brutal vil-
lain, while no one can act the gentleman or acquire an accom-
plishment without benefitting society, and mitigating the evil
within himself.
I shall not give a technical exposition of ornamentation, but
only refer to some of its rules and general features. A fact
that has had its natural birth, growth, and death, eludes resusci-
tation; but the principle which was the germ of the fact be-
longs to whoever can detect and apply it. Modern practice
overlooks this law of nature too much. Instead of seeking to
inform itself of those subtle laws which were discovered and
applied to decoration by the ancients and mediaevalists, it spends
its means and labor in futile attempts to repeat their works by
the cheapened processes of manufacture. We get heaps of
classical and mediaeval designs, without the informing life of
the originals, and their conscious sympathy with their own
times. Far better is it to preserve the models for instruction
in museums than to debase their forms, and pervert their spirit,
by mechanical enterprises for our adornment. Animated by
their beauty, we might then hope to see invented forms no less
appropriate and beautiful, as regards our civilization, than theirs
appear in the light of antiquity. No great work has ever been
written in a dead tongue. Whatever mind there is in the repro-
duction of antique ornaments, it is a voice from the tomb of na-
tions, which comes to us as hollow as the language of ghosts
How can it be otherwise ? These objects are re- Ride of
vived simply as caprices of fashion, which would miss *
its purpose were it to bring into vogue anything of permanent in
terest and value. If by hazard it hits on the beautiful, it hastens
to substitute for it some fresh, ignoble conceit, lest the good one
should take firm root in popular favor. In old times, when
brains guided hands in fashioning objects of art, the mind of
the artist got into his work, and no two things were ever made
21
322 MODERN ORNAMENT.
precisely alike. Our age holds to cheapening and multiplying
articles, rather than to their artistic worth. Hence its produc-
tive energies tend to substitute mechanical for aesthetic excel-
lence, and to employ machinery in place of fingers. Everywhere
we meet lifeless repetitions of the emasculated ancient, or weari-
some ones of modern invention, manufactured, rather than MADE,
as ornament once was, to the detriment of the growth of original
artistic talent in this direction. Most modern inventions betray
poverty of thought, and lack of feeling; a want of comprehen-
sion of aesthetics and levity of choice, giving the preference to the
meretricious pretty or grotesque ugly over the actually beauti-
ful. Especially do they fail in coloring and graceful form in
comparison with the old, though they excel in nice finish and
accurate workmanship ; in fine, those mechanical points which
have been gained at the loss of superior qualities; so that the
standard of excellence by which the one is judged differs essen-
tially from that of the other, while artistic instinct and training
have deteriorated accordingly during the past two centuries.
Reference is not made to the production of the endless vari-
ety of objects which may be called the gossip of art, the chief
site of manufacture of which is Paris, with the sole intent to
tickle the eye for an instant and then give way to a fresher nov-
elty equally without any serious reason of being, but to those
that make a distinctive claim to art. Nor would I include in
ornamentation proper the representation of natural objects, like
animals, birds, flowers, and insects exactly after life. As illus-
tration, they have an appropriate value. Ornament does not aim
at giving realistic truth; for it rejoices not in teaching or repre-
Senting the natural fact, but in giving sensuous or suggestive de-
light, doing for the eye what music does to the ear. It prefers
to soothe or seduce the imagination and senses into dreamy en-
joyment by mystical harmonies of form and color, which may
hint at the variety of the seen or unseen in nature without liter-
ally representing anything of either world. Next to preaching
a moral, the worst style of ornament is that of exact imitation.
The best ornament has no meaning or common sense to it. Its
interpretation must come from the spectator, and be different
from his neighbor's. Like cloud-forms and hues, each change of
mood or position should put a new aspect on its shapes and col-
ors. This is its Supreme test. As it falls short, it fails of its
legitimate purpose.
Judged by this criterion, those races which we esteem to be
INSTINCT OF BARBAROUS IRA CES, 323
the most heathen or savage have the finer instincts, and the
Anglo-Saxons the coarser. A Polynesian, Hindoo, or native of
Japan sucks in with his mother's milk a sense so keen and clair-
voyant in respect to ornament, that he appears as if endowed
with a special faculty for it of an almost spiritual quality of ap-
prehension, while the American and Englishman are quite desti-
tute, not only of this, but of that subtile mental appreciation of
its true purpose which equally distinguish them. In compensa-
tion, we have gumption, or that faculty that looks more to get-
ting force and comfort out of the universe than sensuous beauty
or mystical delight in it. Yet the Asiatic's life is more sensual
than the European's, whose imagination, when moved, takes a
purer view both of art and matter.
Whatever feeling for beauty the coming American may pos-
sess, that of the present one is the most obtuse or wanting of
any people, except the English. On them, however, cultivation
begins to tell, while among Americans the mixture of bloods
derived from the more asthetic races has the same effect. Still
no means are provided, as in England, to educate the instinct;
nor is there yet any practical apprehension of the value of art
in giving more life to its manufactures, and enabling them to
compete in elegance, as they do in other respects, with those of
foreign nations. Nothing is more apparent than the absence
of beauty in the article itself, and the utter unconsciousness of
it in the artisan and the public, though the aim be to make it
pleasurable as well as useful. The end in view is to make the
thing as serviceable as possible at the least possible cost.
No rule could more effectually extinguish beauty, and make the
masses forget its functions, even in ornamental work, like jewelry
or plate. Whatever of good is seen is sure to have come from
a foreign source. Yet the American, while adhering closely to
his utilitarian and economical principles, has unwittingly, in some
objects to which his heart equally with his hand has been de-
voted, developed a degree of beauty in them that no other nation
equals. His clipper-ships, fire-engines, locomotives, and some of
his machinery and tools combine that equilibrium of lines, pro-
portions, and masses which are among the fundamental causes
of abstract beauty. Their success in producing broad, general
effects out of a few simple elements, and of admirable adapta-
tion of means to ends, as nature evolves beauty out of the com-
mon and practical, covers these things with a certain atmosphere
of poetry, and is an indication of what may happen to the rest
324 EFFECT OF PURITANICAL TRAINING.
of his work when he puts into it an equal amount of heart and
knowledge.
Out of a similar love of his paddle or war-club, the savage
makes us overlook their uses in their fineness of lines, and deli-
cate carving of meaningless, varied patterns, for which he has
no law, but an instinct derived from a close observation of na-
ture. He can give no reason for them, except that they please
him. But his blind feeling is a truer guide in ornament than
much of the teaching of civilized schools of design. For in-
stance, the colors of the tapas of the Polynesian women are
often so judiciously massed and balanced as to produce agree-
able effects, such as our paper or print manufacturers, with all
their science, fail to rival.
Give a New England girl worsted colors and a needle, and
forthwith she works out a moral sampler and pictorial alphabet
or multiplication-table, hideous in design and unharmonious in col-
oring. These samplers are embryonic in her blood, as is her nat-
ural aptitude for ugliness in dress, her home adornments, and
whatever in this stage of her aesthetic development represents
her passion for beauty. She shows a decided preference of
angles to curves, of tidy stiffness and whitewash cleanliness to
aesthetic disarray and opalescent gleam of colors. Many genera-
tions of puritanical training have wrought in her this abnegation
of one of the most fertile sources of happiness God has implant-
ed in the human mind; and it will take several generations of
opposite training to recall it. Our English ancestors, a few cen-
turies ago, had as keen an enjoyment of their cathedrals, cos-
tumes, and ceremonies as other Europeans had of theirs; but
it died out when it was confused with moral questions and at-
tacked on religious grounds. Its resuscitation will be quickened
by its being again needed in the higher interest of civilization
as an antidote to the soul-wilting materialism which, Sooner or
later, comes to a life that fears beauty as a sin, and is incapable
of discriminating between the false and true in religion.
There is as wide a difference of artistic qualities between the
best European and Asiatic textile fabrics as between the Yankee
Sampler and the Hawaiian tapa. The finest French calicoes and
shawls are gross in texture and garish in color beside the best
productions of Hindoo fingers and toes, for both are made to
work. By countless generations of training, the Hindoo has
developed an organization so acute to discern and apply to his
textile fabrics the subtlest laws of design and coloring, that the
ROOT OF FRENCEI FASHIONS. 325
European, though aided by scientific machinery, cannot rival
him. That East Indian taste in ornamentation and dexterity of
fabrication is much superior to the best European, their “woven
air,” as their finest muslin is poetically termed. amply shows.
No costly fabrics of French looms equal this. However splen-
did and durable they may be, the Asiatic fabric surpasses them
in both ; uniting strength of substance to an exquisite delicacy
of coloring and mystic design to a degree that imparts to them
an almost spiritual element. The Hindoo's taste has none of the
fickleness of the European. Having invented something which
really becomes him, he adheres to it for centuries. On the con-
trary, no sooner have we fashioned a garment into some sem-
blance of beautiful adaptation to its purpose than we hasten to
bring it into disrepute to benefit those who cater to the public
ignorance and caprice. Fashion, which might be made a friend
of taste, in the main is its enemy; for it never looks twice at
beauty without trying to destroy it. The French fix the fash-
ions for modern civilization, but with questionable benefit.
Though having some taste in dress and the minor arts, they sub-
ordinate it to the desire to gain money in the briefest time at the
expense of all other peoples, by a constant succession of “novel-
ties,” made to sell and be consumed quickly. Their principle,
instead of repose, is to beget restlessness of device and rapid
disaffection ; than which nothing can be more opposed to true
aesthetic training. All that is picturesque and graceful in in-
digenous costumes and life, is disappearing before Parisian toilets
and habits. The selfishness of trade enslaves the taste of
France, and hinders or debases that of the rest of the world.
It must continue to be so as long as the public of any country
are too ignorant or apathetic to decide for themselves what best
befits them, but permit the expression of taste to be the monop-
oly of one class, whose interest is to banish all individual judg-
ment as to what is best, regardless of a neighbor's style, to
reduce all consumers to a monotonous resemblance or imitation
of one another, and never allow anything of permanent value to
remain long enough in sight to familiarize the public with its
merits. Virtually, the European law of fashion is the negative
of that of beauty, besides being inconstant as the winds, despotic,
and mercenary. Both governments and manufacturers esteem
that national prosperity which shows the greatest balance-sheet
of consumption, whether the article is needed or not, or is mor-
ally or aesthetically wholesome. Such trade is discreditable to
326 FREE INDI WIL) UAL TASTE.
the judgment; for it reacts on its agents, and exposes them in
their turn to selfish competitions, and the disastrous flyctuations
occasioned by the periodical surfeits and changes of the things
themselves, which are not permitted the opportunity even to at-
tain perfection after their kind. If it be objected in the aesthetic
point of view that a variety is essential, I answer, when the in-
dividual is trained to comprehend the laws of ‘beauty, and given
freedom of choice, his knowledge and free agency lead him to
adopt whatever style best suits him and his position. We thus
secure as great a variety in details as there are shades of char-
acter and taste, while remaining loyal to those fundamental prin-
ciples which put the whole into a harmonious unity of national
life. In his aesthetic being, the Oriental shows more common
sense than the European, inasmuch as his fashions are more in-
dependent of the caprices of the manufacturer and the bizarre
desires of a restless, unartistic public. With him a thing of
beauty is a joy quite beyond the ban of fashion to cast into the
mire, or be supplanted at a day's notice by some hideous inven-
tion of a crafty tradesman. Few persons consider how absurd
is the common deference to fashion-plates, and their low origin
and aim. Just as people begin to think for themselves in mat-
ters of taste, as in ethics or politics, will they decide on their
Independen, own styles of decoration for their person and homes,
taSte. and make them representative of their lives and means.
Taste will then have an individualistic and educational value,
instead of being the livery of a traffic, displayed for no better
reason than leads one sheep to follow another in a heedless
Scamper. It will also stamp the nation’s aesthetic character on
the whole in the same way that a few great minds in science or
literature represent its intellectual standard to others. Each
race should be stimulated to develop its strength and beauty in
those directions to which nature and circumstances most obvi-
ously incline it. The current slavishness to France is most
foolish in itself, and pernicious in its effects to the manhood of
that nation, as well as to those that submit to its dictations.
Considering only her gain in money, it is natural that she makes
prodigious efforts to keep her supremacy. But her success is
only that of a great bazaar and caterer of amusements. As one
after another of the false despotisms over mind or body that
afflict mankind, disappear, real progress is made. When all na-
tions become equally free, a harmonious variety of action and
intelligence will make up that great human unity which is des-
tined to give “peace and good will to men.”
INFLUENCE OF MUSEUMS, 327
We must not confound the vulgar aspect of fashions with those
great changes which come over art at stated intervals of time,
and are as fixed and systematic in operation as organic matter
itself. Each creates definite types in accordance with underly-
ing ideas. Evolved from permanent principles, though their
forms are transitory, their inherent loveliness endures, and is
cherished as a precious legacy of a lost art, even if the feeling
that produced them has passed as completely out of our reach as
the spent fragrance of a flower.
Consider the moral aspect of a museum as a repos- noza, in-
itory of the embodied ideas of a people We wag flººſe
our heads as we go by grave-yard epitaphs, knowing
them to be as great liars as the old Cretans. If one could always
see the true epitaph in letters of fire shining within the outward
one, he would be aghast at the difference. A museum confesses
that of the dead which their epitaphs hide. No need of clairvoy-
ance here to read the truth; each ſact discloses its origin and pur-
pose, and a little education reveals the entire mystery. History
thus becomes a tangible revelation, indiscreet at times as disturb-
ing our prejudices, but a great dispeller of misconceptions and
leveller of vanities. In this way it does its best service. To con-
serve beauty for our admiration and enjoyment is praiseworthy ;
but to make it show up our shortcomings, to give the means of
measuring ourselves with others; to take the boasting out of peo-
ple, by proving that their best, though differing from another's
best, is no better, perhaps not its equal ; to supplant pride by
charity, ignorance by information, self-exultation by generous
competition; this is the great service of a museum.
In this connection allusion must be made to a few of the
phases of ornamental and decorative art, which have established
for themselves a claim to be preserved for universal edification,
but whose special inspirations having disappeared with their
sources of being, their outward forms will never reappear in his-
tory as the visible talk and emotion of one of its brilliant periods,
whatever effort may be made to imitate them as curiosities. In
a large sense, taste is the image of the current morality of an
epoch or individual, which books inadequately render. Writing
therefore fails to give that impression of them which can come
only from the objects themselves. There being no collections in
America to refer to in support of my words, I shall make them
as few as can be, in order not to seem to exaggerate in fact or
theory.
328 PA GAN ORNAMENT.
The best period of ornament is the most remote one of Euro-
pean civilization; a fact which should make us somewhat less
boastful of the nineteenth century after Christ. It does not de-
tract from our advantages to admit that other times and peoples
have not been left without profit and joy in their lives, though
differing widely from ours.
Classweal Ancient Greece and Etruria afford the purest and
... most elegant forms of ornamental art, of consummate
320). skill of workmanship and exquisite finish in bronze,
ceramic ware, gems, jewelry, glass, in fine every durable mate-
rial. The perfection attained in the superior forms of art was
heightened, if possible, in its transmission to the lesser. There
exist intaglii, vases, medals, and small bronzes, replete with the
vital beauty of the contemporary sculpture; and yet on so small
a scale is the design of some that the unassisted eye fails to take
in all their truth and delicacy. The Romans initiated this fine
work with spirit and skill, but with inferior manual precision as
well as idealization. Italy retains her fashion of terra-cotta
mouldings and reliefs, but coarse in execution and commonplace
in invention in comparison with those which decorated the
houses of their Etruscan ancestry. The same is true of the
varied, light, and graceful vases and patera, whose phantom fig-
ures in mythological guise and broad, harmonious tints, make
them one of the most intellectually suggestive of all known
forms of ornament. Indeed, the Grecian and Etruscan instinct
for fine forms and lines is as keen as that of Persians and East
Indians for massing, balancing, and gradation of colors, with
this notable difference, that whereas the latter retain some of
their ancient skill, the former have lost theirs by the attrition of
new ideas and fashions.
Complete isolation is the only safeguard in the course of time
of any distinctive national trait or skill. In the highest Apen-
Alines, at St. Angelo in Vado, cut off from intercourse with the
world, there still is made jewelry after the antique Etruscan
style, though of ruder workmanship than the beautiful specimens
now to be seen in the Gregorian, British, and Louvre museums,
and Castellani’s private collection at Rome.
The Orient furnishes the most exquisite ornamentation, in
which color is the marked feature. In bronzes of their peculiar
type, the Japanese and Chinese excel in varied design, move-
ment, and quality of material. I speak only of their best artis-
tic work of former periods; for, like the Occidentals, they now
ORIENTAL PORCELAINS. 329
make much cheap ornament merely to sell, and since Europe
has come into competition with them in the Eastern markets,
and increased the demand for their specialities, their skill and
taste have greatly degenerated. Idealism with them is either
transcendental nonsense, burlesque horror, or superlative ugli-
ness. Apparently they aim at inventing what the Greeks
avoided as a sin. Indeed, the imaginations of the European
and Asiatic are as wide apart as possible in their creative and
inventive art. The aim and feeling of the latter are too alien
to our thought for much profit or enjoyment therefrom ; but we
can get intense delight from their porcelains, enamels, and lac-
quer work, in which form is secondary and color the supreme
object. The finest specimens of these articles are shut up in the
private collections of Europe, and only to be seen by the public
on some such rare occasion as the Exposition at Paris of 1865.
No one who has not seen what porcelain is in the on...a,
hands of the ancient Chinese artisan, can form any porcelains
idea of its exquisite beauty and lightness. Some styles seem as
if they were made of an amalgam of precious stones of every
hue by a process known only to the gods, and which as far sur-
pass, in varied magnificence of coloring and etherealness of
make, the dainty prettiness and misplaced art of Sévres and
Dresden as their porcelain is finer than ordinary crockery.
If the best Oriental porcelain be characterized by delicacy
and melody, so to speak, of tints, its cloissonnée enamels are
not less so by a brilliancy and harmony which are actually ob-
tained from rich stones in the shape of an adamantine paste.
They constitute a vivid illustration, as to design and coloring,
of the fundamental truth of ornament pure, namely, that it should
not directly imitate nature or attempt to compete with its forms,
but should base itself on a close observation of its methods and
forces. We thus get a new and pleasurable sensation out of a
novel combination of its elements, without any suggestion of in-
feriority to mature. Yet, in direct reproduction of its forms, the
Japanese bronzists, lacquerists, and draughtsmen render animal
and vegetable life with such vital correctness of design and
action that the best drawn quadrupeds, birds, and vegetation of
European artists appear heavy and spiritless beside them. They
have a conscience for ideal color as the Greeks had for ideal
form, and this is a sure guide in their several purposes of orna-
mentation. Hence everything is well done in relation to the
desired effect. The grammar of ornament being at their fingers'
330 JAPANESE ENAMELS.
ends we are seldom troubled with those violations of harmony
unity, fitness, and truth of design, and that confusion of purpose,
which are common to European work. I have before me in
lacquer-relief on ivory a hawk in silver perched on a golden tree,
which, thus mentioned, seems extremely artificial and conven-
tional. But so delicately are the metallic tints gradated, and so
perfectly are the forms rendered, that while the effect of the
whole as ornament is most rich, there is also more of the actual
life of bird, tree, trunk, and leaf suggested than one finds in our
best plates of natural history. In painting, sculpture, and architect-
ure proper, neither the Japanese nor Chinese compete with the
European, or have anything worthy of note as fine art. But
in the minor sphere of decorative art, they excel in the variety
and agreeableness of design and splendor of coloring.
Japanese The finest Japanese enamels have the harmonious
enamels, delicacy and intricacy of patterm of Venetian lace.
Were it not for the solidity of their materials, one might fear
they would melt away like a dissolving view. Chinese enamels
are more magnificent in general effects; colors are massed more
for brilliant contrasts, are broader and more vehement in tone,
more architectural in expression, with infinite inventive detail
combined into an original structural whole; the entire mass,
like those immense globes and vases which were taken from the
summer palace at Pekin when it was sacked by the French and
English, forming a symphony in color, or firmaments in min-
iature lined with jasper, lapis-lazuli, amethyst, ruby, Sapphire,
and all manner of precious stones in a sea of gold.
Scarcely less beautiful, though of the frailest material, are the
Japanese straw-mosaics in the form of boxes, which have the
quiet, rich sheen of the finest birds of the tropics, the patterms
being arranged in geometrical lines, but preserving a resplen-
dent harmony of colors of the liveliest contrasting lines. We
call Oriental taste bizarre, but their fancy in design and color
is based on a closer insight into nature than Europeans display
in their decorative art. It seems equally founded in realism
and mysticism, or compounded of them; for while nothing can
be more accurate than their observation and comprehension of
the forms and instincts of vegetable and animal life, they baptize
facts in the waters of an imagination that has no counterpart
in the European mind for versatility of invention and strange-
mess of types, which, although grotesquely monstrous and impos-
sible, look natural in functions and conformation. These super-
SARA CENIC ORNAMENT. 331
nal creations of the diabolism of art are much less common in
Europe. Leonardo da Vinci, indeed, succeeded in making a mon-
ster of new and hideous mien ; but almost every other artist who
has attempted it, has only invented impotent caricatures of mys-
tic forces, so palpably impossible in themselves as not to frighten
a baby, or seem to be other than the grotesque imagery of a
fancy untutored in the facts of nature. But the Japanese is so
shrewd an observer of them that he does not find it difficult
to construct new forms, invest them with vitality, infuse into
them the mysticism of his demon-loving imagination, and force
them to do its bidding. To him they are as substantial beings
as are, or were Satan, Charon, or the great dragon of the
Apocalypse to the Europeans; and being thus real, he makes us
feel their presence in whatever material their ugliness is fash-
ioned into, just as we are vitally conscious of the joy in beauty
of the best Greek, and the spirit of sacrifice in the best medi-
aeval art. Unfortunately modern commerce has almost extin-
guished the art of the Orient by reducing it to the prosaic level
of cheap manufacture.
Moresque or Saracenic ornamentation is the aes- Moºn,
thetic reaction of an imaginative race against the relig- ornament.
ious proscription of their faith to paint or carve forms of animal
and human life. It culminated in the Alhambra, which is the
most complete example of the intellectual as opposed to sensu-
ous or sensual spirit in architectural decoration. Although it
gives a certain satisfaction to the eye and mind, it is a limited
one, partaking more of the feeling one experiences in solving a
difficult problem and finding it beautiful in theory, than of that
enjoyment which comes from less restricted scopes of art.
There is no completed pleasure in its complex involutions; in-
stead, a sense of bewilderment, as of a puzzle which provokes
to a solution without a suggestion of other repayment than in
unravelling the mysteries of graceful lines and meandering
designs void of meaning and shape. It is mathematical science
playing art rather than art absolute, with whatever fascination
of color it chooses to add. Instead of stimulating the imagina-
tion to seek Gatisfaction in the external world, it tends to turn
it back on itself for a suggestion of the unseen, and in this
respect is admirably adapted to keep pure that abstract idea of
God which is the great principle of Mohammedanism.
The Arab put admonitory texts into his ornamentation. The
Greek fashioned heroism, human and divine, into color and shape.
332 LUCCA DELLA ROBBIA WARE.
Whatever was an example or benefit to men, stimulated his faith,
or fed his love of beauty, he found everywhere in sight — on
temple, furniture, utensil, and jewelry, pictorial and carved
lessons and tales to instruct and amuse him. Even the tiles,
spouts, cornices, friezes, and floors of his dwellings had a higher
purpose than material use. They were alive with the stories
of his beautiful mythology, encouraging his waking hours or
inspiring his dreams with examples of good fighting evil, and
happiness banishing pain.
Mediaevalists and Byzantines filled their ornamentation with
virtues conquering demons, face of angel, cherub, Seraph, Saint,
and hero; the saving sacrifice of self instead of the delight in
it of the ancient religions; emaciation and untidiness of body
in place of the whiteness and roundness of pagan limbs; but
always in sight, their doctrine of Salvation.
The Renaissance perverted the virtue and beauty of both
periods into infidelity and sensuality of symbolism, losing even
sensuously whatever was best in them. That which befell its
architecture, equally affected its ornament. Not that it was
wholly wrong and unlovely when free of the dictation of
princes who guided its destinies; for some of its works, whether
of classical or mediaeval motive, are almost as satisfying as their
prototypes.
Lucca della Lucca della Robbia invented his glaze before the
Robbia ware. Renaissance had corrupted art. His object was, by
giving a vitreous surface to the clay model, to save the expense
of cutting it in marble or casting it in bronze. This process was
the most successful ever invented to cheapen sculpture, and
make it in some respects even more durable, without an obvious
loss of its finer properties. In the hands of its inventor, it was
of inestimable value to fine art, as it multiplied its objects at
Small cost, and enabled them to resist the weather in localities
which would have proved detrimental to other material, preserv-
ing for an indefinite period that clearness of surface and Jus-
trous sharpness of outline which enables the spectator to detect
subtle qualities of expression and truth of modelling at a dis-
tant point of view. Thus it happens so often in remote or dirty
by-ways of Italy, like St. Fiore in the Tuscan Maremma, or the
present crowded and filthy market-place of Florence, in the
exterior of dilapidated buildings or inside poverty-stricken
churches, we meet with compositions of this master that are
literally visions of angelic hosts to lift the thoughts out of the
LIMOGES ENAMELS. 333
mire of life heavenwards. Costly marbles would never have
been placed in such localities or remained intact, had they been.
But after nearly or quite four centuries of the vicissitudes of
climate and history, they often exist to-day as perfect of surface
and as replete with spiritual life as when Lucca threw his pious
Soul into them, and fixed it there. In his works there is no
touch of the levity or sensuality of the Renaissance. The purity
of their great “white light,” and the thoroughness of the charac-
terization he bestows upon Saints, angels, prophets, martyrs, the
Virgin, Saviour, and God himself— the plastic clay retaining
those subtle touches which are somewhat lost in their transfer
to less ductile material — all this makes them reflect in a high
degree the ineffable language of religion.
As ornament apart from sculpture proper, his invention ad-
mitted of great variety and expansion of design, beside the free
use of indestructible color; but the secret died with his family.
Since his time repeated but fruitless attempts in various coun-
tries have been made to revive the process. The results thus
far make us regret all the more our great loss in the disappear-
ance of the receipt for the glaze, which tradition says is con-
cealed in the head of one of Lucca's numerous statues.
Somewhat later, Palissy discovered a method of
glazing terra-cotta and clay analogous to the Rob-
bian ; but it was thin and brittle, and more suited for in-door
decoration and cabinet specimens than adapted to the uses of the
Italian process. Its artistic aim was simply decorative, but the
lively invention and delicate taste of Palissy, especially as dis-
played in the borders of his dishes and their exquisite coloring,
place its best compositions almost in the domain of fine arts.
The well-known bizarre Reptile plates, being moulded directly
from nature, are an exception to this remark, and are now made
in France almost equally as good as his.
Limoges enamels in their earlier stage were much
like the Byzantine in motives and workmanship, de-
voted to religious subjects, and of crude design, though brilliant
in color. After the Renaissance they became more pagan in
sentiment and meretricious in coloring, but with superior draw-
ing and composition. In garish brillancy nothing excels them.
There are some in gray chiaro-scuro of almost classical elegance.
The manufacture is now revived at Paris, but fails, less in ac-
curacy of design than in the beauty of composition and intense
glow of color, to rival the old.
Palºssy.
Limoges.
334 ITALIAN MA.JOLICA.
Every recent attempt to revive and equal obsolete styles of
ornamentation has been a comparative failure. Though to the
experienced eye the ceramic ware of Naples, made in imitation
of the ancient Grecian and Etruscan, is a success, it really is
deficient in those points which constitute the true excellence of
their originals, even to the manual finish and fineness of the mas
terials. Ginori's revival of Italian majolica at Flor-
ence, beautiful as it undoubtedly is, falls short of its
patterns made at Gubbio, Urbino, Pesaro, and Faenza in the
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, in the essentials of a strong,
clear enamel, depth, fusion, and gradation of tints; in fine of
those special mechanical qualities which are the heir-looms of the
families that perfect them, and perish with their blood. It seems
easier to invent the new than to repeat the old, which has served
out its time. Better so Each phase of civilization has its
own defined feelings and purpose, which are best expressed in an
art of its own creation. Worn-out faiths, customs, or ideas de-
generate into conventionalisms which no patronage can awaken
into real life again. Apparently it is easy for science to redis-
cover old methods, and by rule renew old results; but she does
not succeed in her attempts. Analysis can recall a chemical re-
ceipt; but the skill which gave it value, comes not back with it.
In all the fine ornament of the past there is a subtle something,
an imponderable product of brains and fingers, which will not
serve new masters. An imitation may appear splendid, and, at
a Superficial glance, even superior to its model; but a close ex-
amination of both soon shows its inferiority. This is especially
true of what is called the “réfet metallique,” or iridescent ma-
jolica, of Gubbio, the secret of which was confined to Maestro
Giorgio Andreoli and his son, though there were other and less
fine applications of the process to merely decorative dishes and
vases, introduced into Italy before his time by the Sicilian Arabs.
The dukes of Urbino were the principal patrons of these
fine qualities of majolica, which were made for royal gifts, and
whose designs were the work of the most distinguished artists.
Here I ought to remark, as one reason of the artistic superiority
of all old decoration over all modern, that the artist and work-
man was either the same person, or there was no such distinc-
tion between them as now obtains. They worked in common
for a common end, each comprehending the other's part. Majo-
lica ware was strong enough to be used, as it was made of a
coarse, tough earth, thickly glazed ; but the object of the finer
Majolica.
MAESTRO GIORGIO IRIDESCENT WARE. 335
sort was merely a novel and effective kind of wall or sideboard
decoration, or even out-door ornament. Culture gave this ordi-
nary class its refinement, and made it a companion of princes.
With Sévres porcelain it is its pretty dress alone that pleases.
The creative minds of the artist and scientist were forever fixed
in glowing colors by means of an adamantine enamel on the
majolica plate, which nothing could obliterate, and only rude
strength destroy.
Majolica of the Maestro Giorgio iridescent surface and Xano
or Fontana compositions is one of the most satisfactory kinds of
ornament ever invented, because of its broad artistic motives and
treatment, and its wonderful use of some of the most lovely
effects of nature to heighten its charms. The difficulties attend-
ing its make were so many that it is rare to find a specimen in
which the glaze is uniformly transparent and lustrous, and the
design equally correct throughout. That dazzling white glaze
seen in the perfect specimens was obtained from a varnish made
from tin, into which the pottery was plunged when half baked.
Before it had time to dry, the composition must be drawn and
painted, a process all the more difficult because the varnish tend-
ed to absorb the color. Those prismatic lustres which make the
best plates vie with the sheen of an Impeyan pheasant, or the
glitter of an haliotis shell, which glisten and scintillate like gems
or winter's stars, or give reflections of ruby and opalescent light
to a half-darkened room that keeps within its walls a warm glow
as of a perpetual sunset, are mystic preparations of lead, copper,
silver, and gold, that no modern experiments have been able to
repeat.
Glass presents a striking contrast between its old
and new forms as ornament. In richness and variety
of colors, antique glass exceeds the modern ; but we see it sel-
dom in perfect condition. The ancients acquired a skill in
working it analogous to that shown on gems. Indeed, the prin-
ciple on which it was worked was purely artistic, except when
made for the most ordinary purposes of trade. Our cut, en-
graved, and colored glass excels in transparency, polish, outline,
and lucidity of design, – mere mechanical excellences; and we
meet, as in all other ornament, a wearisome repetition of the
same patterns and styles, each the exact counterpart of the other,
to satisfy the modern desire to have sets of objects. Now the
ancient artisan, not being the slave of machinery, and confined
to one species of labor or portion of the article, learned all that
Glass.
336 GEMS, BRONZES, ARMOR, AND LEATHER.
was requisite to make it as a whole, using his own taste and dis-
cretion in fashioning everything committed to his charge. Con-
sequently, his was emphatically work of the mind; and he could
not if he would, and would not if he could, repeat it without
number, as our workmen, trained to the monotony of machine-
labor, and allowed no exercise of their own inventive faculties,
are compelled to. Examine the fantastic glass of the Venetian
Republic. So flexible, light, varied, and gleesome are its tinted
or lucid forms that it seems like the crystallized laughter of the
immortals, — frozen breath which the next warm breath will
dissolve into new shapes of air-like matter. -
In this connection I might speak of gems, ivories, bronzes,
and precious metals, in all of which the ancients excelled the
moderns, not excepting Cellini and his school. On account of
its perishable nature, we have no means of knowing what amount
of beauty the Greeks imparted to iron; but their superiority in
bronze attests an equal capacity for working the more common
metal. The mediaeval and Renaissant artisans wrought it into
wondrously beautiful complex and grotesque forms for keys and
other domestic objects, besides the splendid inlaid and repoussé
armor which was a speciality of the age of chivalry, giving to
iron almost as much mystic grace and significance as to glass.
Even leather was stamped with loveliness. But it is unneces-
sary to enumerate more articles in proof of the general desire
to put the homely and ugly out of sight, and to clothe utility in
aesthetic costume, – a desire which succeeded in its aim because
all classes comprehended and enjoyed artistic beauty. Public
taste was trained from the cradle in this direction. It liked to
See the distinctions of rank and office, religious rites, and even
trades marked by richness and variety of costumes and ceremo-
nies. There was a constant rivalry in pomp and magnificence
as attributes of station and wealth, – a rivalry, not as now of
sheer luxury of life, but of its pleasures, strength, and beliefs in
the highest symbolisms of art, at a period when its objects, were
so abundant and excellent that every gamin of the street was
a sounder critic, and had more joy in them, than now has the
average citizen of any people.
Were it possible, I would burn it into the heart of every one
whose instincts are not wholly sordid or animal that taste alone
gives the capacity to enjoy art, and that that comes only by sys-
tematic training. Life is hard and angular, unless it be rounded
and refined by aesthetic education. What benefit is it to a blind
ENGLISH SCHOOLS OF DESIGN. 337
man to take him to the Bay of Naples, or place him before the Vic-
toria Regia in blossom P A people who know not beauty, make
a mock of those who would bestow it on them, if they do not
turn upon and rend them for their pains. The more deformed
and senseless an object is, if it only be called ornamental, the
more it is popular, and the less anything truly beautiful is es-
teemed. In America, the present is an epoch of monstrous
plaster figures, daubed with crazy paint; of mammoth cast-iron
wash-basins, called fountains; of cast-iron architecture and clum-
sy gate-ways to public parks; of shoddy portrait-statues and
inane ideal ones; of ornaments, pictures, and sculpture made to
gull and sell; of rude though not unkindly manners and speech;
lakes of tobacco-spit, and heels higher than heads where ladies
pass; of polluting the balmiest airs of heaven with fumes of
filthy pipes; and of the thousand and one sins of omission and
commission by the selfish and thoughtless, that make life tenfold
less enjoyable than it needs be. Ornament our lives and char-
acter consistently, and we refine and elevate our neighbor as well
as ourselves. There must, however, be a general diffusion of
correct aesthetic principles before the public mind is able to dis-
criminate between right and wrong in art. Wedgewood a cen-
tury ago invented new and lovely forms of pottery; but, the
English not then comprehending their merits, they failed of
commercial success. But what was then despised, has now be-
come popular, owing to diffused culture and a practical acquaint-
ance with fine art by means of schools of design and institutions
like the Kensington and British museums. Within one gener-
ation these have raised the knowledge and skill of the artisans
of Great Britain so much, that instead of being dependent on
other nations for works of taste, she is now a large exporter of
them, to the great benefit of her exchequer." The United States,
1 It was not until 1851 that the real art-education of England began. It com-
menced with a reform of ordinary utensils, by showing how that even pots and
kettles could be made as comely as solid. The latent desire of beauty existed,
but needed an impulse to bring it out, and instruction to turn it to good account.
Cne came with the Exhibition of the art of other nations in the great Glass Pal-
ace, and the other with the establishment of national schools of art under the
direction of the Committee of Council on Education, aided by museums, and
stimulated by prizes for drawing and design. The first parliamentary grant
to the schools, seventeen in all, was ºf 6,850, which sufficed for 2,482 students.
In 1863, the schools had increased to ninety, the pupils to 16,180, while the sub-
sidy was reduced to £4,005; and the year after, so flourishing had they become
that the House of Commons recommended that they should for the future be left
to rely on their own resources, which view was adopted by the Privy Council.
22
338 MECESSITY OF MUSEUMS.
although possessing greater natural resources and actually more
native capacity, does not produce any objects of artistic value,
but contents herself with buying the dregs of those of other na-
tions at an enormous cost, simply because of its indifference to
art in general, and inability to distinguish between garish igno-
rance and actual taste.
This condition is of our own choice. Plainly speaking, we
not only prefer the vulgar and debased, but we pay a large pre-
mium for it. The sole remedy is in establishing museums and
Schools of design, making art a branch of general education, and
importing from Europe and Asia objects and professors to in-
struct us. In time we may attain to a taste that shall make us
as independent of foreign nations for works of art in general as
we are for cereals.
Not that in pursuing this we should neglect those solid mate-
rial foundations of health and prosperity which legitimately take
precedence in the march of civilization, when only one of the
two can exist at once. The old Etruscans were wise in this
respect. They looked first to good drainage, water, air, and ag-
riculture. Yet they so rapidly accumulated precious objects that
Dionysius of Sicily, in a filibustering expedition, plundered one
of their sea-side fanes of gifts of the value of twenty million
our oppor- dollars. America is right in looking first to sanitary
tumvty. and economical measures. These accomplished, let us
consider our aesthetic wants. Only by so doing shall we establish
for ourselves that foremost rank in modern civilization which the
vulgar oratory of the land already claims as ours. As yet we
are foremost in nothing absolutely great except the opportunity
which the best government yet devised gives to freemen. Our
future depends on the use we make of that OPPORTUNITY
CHAPTER XIV.
AMATEURSHIP.
HE nascent ambition evinced by Ameri- Dilettante-
cans to establish galleries of paintings is “”
a favorable symptom, especially as in several in-
stances they are projected as much for the public as
individual enjoyment. But be the motives of the
originators what they may, this method of developing taste is
yearly assuming larger proportions and more definite aim,
although as yet confined to modern pictures. For this narrow-
ness of choice there is no remedy until experienced amateurs in
all branches of art, as in Europe, have grown up among us, to
incite specific tastes and render aesthetic culture, in some degree,
indispensable to a general education. Public galleries we are
certain to possess in time; and that time is nigh or remote ac-
cording to the quality and extent of individual connoisseurship.
Just now the empirical admirer of fine arts sways the fashion
that directs their course. Until dilettanteism is superseded by
connoisseurship no collections of permanent interest are likely to
be founded. Everywhere, amateurship is the sieve which
catches and sifts the wheat from the chaff, investigates the
origin and history of objects, establishes their value, preserves
and makes them known, and finally secures for them a home in
national museums. All the great galleries have been begun
either on the basis of private collections, sometimes royal, or
formed by the purchase of articles from the collections of con-
noisseurs in general.
The training of eye and mind required to pronounce intel-
ligently on the merits of contemporary painting and sculpture is
readily acquired in comparison with the experience requisite to
decide about works whose motives and styles have nothing in
common with the present. But even these demand a more
critical study than the ordinary American amateur finds leisure
to bestow on them. Hence the immediate results, as seen in
the collections formed, are not as fair a showing of modern art


340 DILETTANTEISM.
as will be seen when connoisseurship becomes a serious pursuit,
and a public has been educated to comprehend and enjoy the
results of aesthetical studies. There are more shares in the path
of the dilettante than he dreams of, besides the vulgar falsifica-
tions of the works of popular artists, which are periodically
foisted on our public as originals by jockeying dealers from
Europe. Artists themselves have been known to jockey, buy-
ing cheap copies of their favorite pictures, adding a few touches,
and selling them as their own work. Art, I am sorry to say,
has its tricks of trade. Sometimes a reputation is acquired by
the labors of others. Count D'Orsay gained office, money, and
distinction as an artist, by employing a clever draughtsman and
modeller and an experienced painter, who had been an assistant
to Mr. Pickersgill, the English academician. These men were
regularly salaried, working in his studio, but kept out of sight
of his patrons. The count himself had so confused a notion of
flesh-coloring that he was obliged to have “palettes made with
the names of the colors painted in their order on their rim,” 1 and
his assistants were in despair when called on to rectify his work,
while being no less at their wits' end to repair the injuries he
did to theirs, which was to be palmed off as his own. Were
the critic to go often behind the scenes, he could demonstrate, by
other conspicuous instances, how easy it is to delude a public by
a fictitious show of talent into bestowing patronage and reputa-
tion on an empiric, especially in sculpture, in a land like Italy,
where skilful modellers and designers may frequently be hired
for less than the wages of a common laborer in America, and
where the facilities for plagiarism are so abundant and tempting.
Undoubtedly the counterfeit artist in time discloses his own
secret. But what we Americans need in general is the capacity,
founded on knowledge, of not being taken in by appearances,
of comprehending genuine work under any name, of exposing
the fictitious, and of appreciating excellence wherever seen.
Connoisseur. The pathway to this capacity lies in connoisseur-
ship. ship. We accumulate riches in families so rapidly
that an intellectual safety-valve becomes an urgent necessity to
turn idle talents to use, and prevent their self-destruction. Act-
ually it is a grave social problem to know what to do with
the increasing numbers of young men born to great in-
comes ; rather for them to know what to do with themselves
after leaving college. None will deny that they ought to use
* See Cornhill Magazine, June, 1864, “Story of a Spoiled Life.”
CONNOISSE URSHIP. 341
their means and endowments to benefit Society, or at least to
improve their own minds. How different the usual practice is,
every observer of the gilt-edge youth can discern. One of
their number said to me, on my inquiring about his circle of in-
timates on his return to Europe after a short visit to his native
city, “Those who had not the delirium tremens, had committed
suicide.” Soon after, he poisoned himself; and another I knew,
buried his lassitude of life in the turbid Thames. These are
floating straws, but they show the set of one of the eddies of
American life. - f
The least intellectual of those who have the misfortune to be
born to great riches, are less likely to be the victims of ennui ;
for they find consolation in field-sports, the turf, and similar em-
ployments. Pursuits of a higher interest must be provided for
men of a finer mental fibre, after their animal pleasures have
been dulled by satiety, if they are to be kept clear of melan-
choly or self-destruction, which is none the less suicide, whether
by bottle or pistol. For them there is a sure resource in fine-
art amateurship. There are two sorts of collections: one based
on connoisseurship, acute, learned, sincere, stimulated by the
enthusiasm for the beautiful, accumulating objects to study
their history as well as to gratify taste, and partaking of a
degree of happiness such as no other intellectual passion more
intensely confers : the other is deeper-rooted in ostentation ; the
desire to possess what is rare, curious, or in fashion, without
regard to its intrinsic merits; a makeshift to kill time or for
speculation; a collection no sooner formed than dispersed, either
for gain or to begin on something new. Such amateurs are as
prone to light on the garbage as the jewels of art. Swayed by
caprices, they slight one day what they buy the next at enor-
mous cost, and are quite as ready to hug to their bosoms, in the
ecstasy of bearing it off from rivals as foolish as themselves, the
halter that hung the last murderer as the finest antique medal
of Syracuse.
But a mania for collecting objects of no artistic value is pref-
erable to mania a potu. A series of the most common or ugly
things directly or indirectly illustrates a period of history or the
progress of national industries. Rich idlers do well, therefore,
to become collectors as a corrective to ennui, and to benefit the
public. It matters not if, like the Marquis of Hereford, they pay
thousands of pounds sterling for a few porcelain vases; like
Signor Campana of Rome, spend nearly two millions of dollars
342 FREEBOOTERS ON ART.
in amassing a vast multitude of classical and mediaeval objects
with but little sagacity or discrimination; or display the taste
and knowledge of a Soltikof and a Blagas in forming, at
a moderate expenditure, cabinets of antiquities of inestimable
value. Rich idlers, in doing any of these things, cannot fail of
pleasurable excitement, and wisely investing their spare capital,
if they be sagacious in their acquisitions. Every great collec-
tion, when dispersed at auction, has enriched its owners, if judi-
ciously managed, as did that of the late Count Pourtales of Paris,
whose miscellaneous gathering of antique bronzes, gems, pot-
tery, sculpture, mediaeval works, and old and modern paintings,
by no means the finest, brought to the heirs fivefold their
original cost. It is safe, therefore, to say that a collection
formed by a connoisseur, not a dilettante, is a sound investment
of time and money as well as brains.
The critics There is another aspect to amateurship. It is a
*** conservative, refining, expanding, social element, be-
getting respect for the ideas and labors of other races or times,
collating and comparing the particular civilization with the
general, and local truth and beauty with universal. The moral
and intellectual bearing of it is obvious to any one who sincerely
takes it up. But without museums America has no means of
forming a class of connoisseurs at home. Neither can she form
museums until she can have at command the knowledge as well
as the money needed. Every premature attempt will be a
failure; the more ridiculous in consequence of the crude notions
disseminated by a class of literary guerillas, who, without study-
ing it, assault any topic that offers booty to their purses or feeds
their greed of motoriety. These freebooters are of two sorts.
Neither spare any reputation or subject that, like the stately
ship for the parasitical barnacle, presents a big bottom for them
to fasten to. The healthy brain soon cloys on an oversweet-
ened or highly spiced diet of aesthetic cooks. I may cater no
better myself. But as a detective, I am bound to apprise the
public that sugary platitudes in the common style of most of
“our own correspondents,” discovering a Phidias or Titian in
every American artist abroad, and a Pericles in every patron, are
an amiable delusion. Even if it were so, the writers, not having
qualified themselves to decide on such matters any more than to
sit on the bench of the Supreme Court, could not announce the
fact on their own judgments. As a specimen of the sort of critic
who traffics in transcendental flights of a less indiscriminating
RUSSELL STURGIS, J.R. 343
but more inflammatory character, to the utter bewilderment of
simple minds not equal to the “cool, full shock of his style,” or
comprehending how he “freshens the driest mind” by covering
“the gravest and meanest subject with the very foam of human
speech,” see a popular writer on art and men in the “Galaxy of
New York” for January, 1869. 'Pon honor, I quote correctly;
not the titbits either, as any one may read in the article, in
which the flamboyant writer tells his readers “with what vim
and raillery” does the “Corinthian Hurlburt demonstrate Sum-
ner's legs and Tilton's limbs,” and how “he whinnies, and cara-
coles, and prances,” etc. By some such adroit catering for our
magazine public as is practised by wily concocters of “American
drinks” for thirsty customers with sensational palates, certain
Bedouins of the pen have established themselves as authorities
in matters of art, without giving it other serious thought than to
try to “whinny, caracole, and prance ’’ themselves into notoriety
on its back.
American taste, however, is indebted to Russell Sturgis, Jr.,
and Clarence Cook for aesthetic ideas and principles clearly stated
and practically applied. They have raised the standard of ex-
ecution among artists by insisting on their best, and pointing out
their shortcomings in the interest of art itself, and to enlighten,
not confuse or disgust, buyers and amateurs. These may not
accept all their conclusions, but must respect their zeal and the
example they set of studying a subject before criticising it." It
is another encouraging sight for us that critics of their calibre
are at work without being seduced into the common practice of
making everything pleasant for everybody at the expense of
critical discernment and honesty. So few risks are taken in
the interests of any truth that instances in art are doubly wel-
COIſle.
I strive to exaggerate neither our advantages nor disadvan-
tages, but to present a true view of their situation. Poor criti-
cism, like poor art in its beginning, prepares the way for better.
Could it be done, it would be as impolitic to quench it, as to
1. As an architect, Mr. Sturgis's studies of late have been particularly directed
towards plans and designs for public museums and galleries, which he makes a
specialty. Aided by counsel from Europe, and the experience recently acquired
in the new structures erected for purposes of art in England, Germany, and
France, Mr. Sturgis has in hand the means of providing our public with designs
for similar edifices, which shall leave us in no whit behind the best abroad in
their essential points for the accommodation and exhibition of objects of art.
344 LIMITATIONS OF ARTISTS.
consign to the lime-kiln all iname sculpture. It would do no
good for the public taste to get far ahead of current art and
criticism. All must advance together, each interest aiding the
other. One means of increasing aesthetic knowledge would be
to introduce schools of design into our common-school system,
which could be done as readily as has been the introduction of
vocal music. The effect on our industrial arts, taking the ex-
perience of England in evidence, I have alluded to in Chapter
XIII. It is easier to compute the material advantages of such
a step than to exhibit the improvement in morals and manners
which would accrue from new sources of rational happiness, and
the changes that would occur in the general aspect of the land
when each citizen not merely acquired a knowledge of the ele-
mentary principles of art with other branches of public instruc-
, tion, but with it the ambition to make his home as much a
thing of beauty as it is now of comfort.
Another means of acquiring the knowledge needed to make
a sound connoisseur is his mistakes. Nothing hits harder than
an exploded folly or delusion. After wasting money on ugliness
or falsehood, the true and beautiful become clearer and dearer
to us. Even the wily fraud of the dealer may in the end prove
a cheap lesson. We may miss the coveted object, but have ob-
tained in its stead that practical knowledge of good and evil
which is of more account than the finest art by itself. Life needs
instruction in detecting both as one means of its moral and intel-
lectual development. We see one of our ideals, or think we do,
and pursue it only to be cheated. What then P. We have dis-
covered the full measure of another soul, and something besides
of a hitherto undetected weakness of our own to be changed
into strength or despair at the option of the will. Thieves,
Sneaks, and liars do more good than they know.
Apply this principle to amateurship. The best judges of ob-
jects of art in general are found not among artists, but those
who stake their money and reputations on them as dealers, re-
storers, or connoisseurs. Most artists limit their instruction to a
speciality of their epoch. Seldom do they interest themselves
in what does not immediately concern their own studies or
aims. As a class they are more indifferent to old art of any
kind, and less versed in its history, character, motives, and
methods, than amateurs. Andrea del Sarto could buy for
Francis I, the best works of the Florentine school, because he
was a competent judge of his contemporaries. So might a
AMATE URS THE BEST JUDGES. 345
Velasquez, Rubens, or Sir Joshua Reynolds for their employer
or themselves; for they knew by practical studies their highest
tests of consummate art, besides having that faculty of constitu-
tional recognition of genius which one great mind has for an-
other. Holman Hunt, Millais, Gérome, Leys, and any artist of
their critical acumen, would decide better on the technical merits
of other masters than an amateur. But as America has not as
yet artists of similar training, no competent committee could be
formed of them, to meet the requirements of a public gallery,
although certain ones, who have a liking for specific schools or
individual old masters, might make useful suggestions in relation
to their favorites. Artists of all ages, with rare exceptions, have
been noted for predilections, prejudices, rivalries, and a narrow-
ness of view regarding art as an entirety that largely disquali-
fies them to judge candidly and wisely of works foreign to
their special tastes or methods. I state this historical fact be-
cause it is frequently asserted that none but artists are compe-
tent for the office in question. Having had a varied experience
with amateurs, dealers, and artists of several nations, I draw on
it, as well as current history, for hints of practical value.
The late Director of the British National Gallery, Sir Charles
Eastlake, although an accomplished artist himself, and an emi-
ment art scholar, seldom bought pictures for the public on his
own responsibility, preferring to repose his judgment on the
critical eye of Otto Mündler, whose knowledge was gained
in large measure as a dealer. Count Nieuwerkerke relies
on the authority of M. Reisét and of F. Willot, amateurs of
distinction; he, as likewise his predecessor, D'Orsay, owing
his position of Chief Director of the Imperial Museums of
France to the friendship of the emperor, without reference to
any special qualifications for the post. The director of one
important gallery, otherwise a gentleman of culture, acknowl-
edges his unacquaintance with all pictures, not being able to dis-
criminate between even eminent artists of the same schools. A
cursory acquaintance with the management of European galler-
ies serves to show that artists have small part in it. Indeed,
the practical administration is confided to amateurs or scholars,
like the above named, and to Waagen, Cavalacaselle, Forster,
Passavant, Morris Moore, Layard, and similar students, while
the mominal chiefs are not unfrequently ornamental names, in-
debted to anything else than their knowledge for their enviable
distinctions.
346 ORIGINT OF FOREIGN GALLERIES.
A foreign gallery is by no means the infallible authority
which its reputation would imply. Many of them were begun
by princes who bought pictures on the recommendation of in-
terested parties, or acquired them for Ostentation, caprice, or as
a sort of alms-giving to needy artists, as is often done now, with-
out regard to the merit of the works themselves. In the fifteenth
and sixteenth centuries, however, several sovereigns were dis-
tinguished for connoisseurship. Lorenzo de Medici, Francis I.,
Charles V., and some of the popes took to amateurship seriously.
As great artists then abounded, it was easier to acquire first-class
works than it has been since, and with less risk of deception,
though there are instances on record of Renaissant statuary
being palmed off on princely buyers for classical. But there
could be no mistake in regard to paintings the execution of
which were watched by the sovereigns themselves. The few
thus done, or specially ordered by religious corporations, now
constitute the masterpieces of modern galleries. But there
were also obtained with them scores of inferior or worthless
works, which it would be well to discard. Dresden, Madrid,
Pitti, Uffizi, the Louvre, and other royal galleries were thus
initiated ; consequently they are better exponents of the indi-
vidual tastes that originated them than of an erudite system of
collecting works in reference to their historical sequence, motives,
and aesthetic functions. The later formed collections of Ber-
lin, Munich, and London have more of this scientific, catholic
spirit; an example which has forced their predecessors to begin
to conform to the true requirements of national museums, both
in acquisitions and arrangement. But it would be superhuman
virtue if the management of any great gallery could be kept
free of the jobbery that seems inseparable from every institution
in which the public have an interest.
An English peer once told me how two votes in Parliament
were gained to the ministry by the purchase of two inferior pic-
tures, at the owners’ valuation, and no questions asked. It
would be entertaining and instructive to expose the weak points
of the chief galleries of Europe with a view to reform and re-
organization : to point out how that the wholesale plunder by
Napoleon I. of the works of art was not the greatest evil which
befell them ; for French restorers were permitted to torture their
best life out of many of the finest pictures subsequently re-
stored to their legitimate owners, – a fact which may account for
the disappointment at first view to many on seeing some of the
TEIEIR WEAK POINTS AND DEFECTS. 347
world’s masterpieces: and further to explain by what confusion
of ideas in regard to his own and the property of the state,
Napoleon III. permitted some of the best pictures of the
Louvre to be taken from it to adorn the private residences of
his particular friends, following the example of the empress,
in placing in her nursery the finest Murillo in the gallery:
further, to show how such a master has been repainted out of
all look of the original; how this one has no trace of the
artist’s brush left in sight on it; why such an inane picture or
ruined example of a great name got in, and how such a distin-
guished one got out; why under one Direction a picture gets
one baptism only to be rebaptized under another; how it is that
attributions acknowledged to be wrong are kept ; how few pic-
tures have authentic genealogies; the means by which the oc-
casional libels on great masters are intruded; the forgeries,
jockeyism, and flunkeyism a great gallery draws in its train;
the secret reasons why large prices are sometimes paid for in-
different specimens of an artist when superior ones can be had
for much less; the chicanery by which the sum paid by the
government for an object is made so much in excess of what
the owner would be glad to receive were it not for intermediate
agencies; in fine, to unmask the pretensions and empirical man-
agement of art in high places, of which the general public can
know nothing. Criticism is, however, slowly but surely doing a
good work in all these points. The public applauds the Direc-
tion of the Louvre in paying upwards of one hundred thousand
francs for a small portrait by Antonella da Messina because it is
a masterpiece of a rare artist in fine condition, but it scorns
the jugglery which baptizes the new “St. John in the Desert” of
the Long Gallery by the name of Raphael; it deplores that many
of the old masters, notably the fine Perugino bought of the
King of Holland in 1850, should be left so wretchedly repainted
in the bad method recently in vogue, and which has ruined the
aspect of thousands of excellent paintings throughout Europe,
simply to give jobs to favored restorers, who either wholly oblit-
erate or obscure the works confided to them, and often make
pictures of different artists and times all seem as if painted by
one hand; the public very justly condemns this, and rejoices to
perceive that now there is a move in the right direction, by re-
moving some of the uncalled-for repaintings, and restoring them
to their genuine though injured condition.
There are three modes of restoring pictures. First,
& * Restorations.
the only sensible one of such local repairs as are
348 RESTORATION OF PICTURES.
necessary to confine it to its original canvas or panel, or to trans-
fer it bodily to a new one, leaving the age of the picture to
speak for itself, and every drag of the artist's brush intact. No
old picture can be as absolutely sound as when it left its parent
easel; but with ordinary precaution, it will continue for many
centuries to fairly represent its maker. This is all we should ex-
pect, and what we ought to have. Secondly, the foolish mode
of wholly repainting the original surface in various ways, the
worst of which is by stippling, to the utter loss of those condi-
tions of the painting which were a guarantee of its authenticity,
and replacing them by the rarely better and almost invariably
worse treatment of another hand. I am the less inclined to
quarrel with this exploded method of restoration, inasmuch as
when the original surface has not been subjected to overmuch
abrasion under the plea of cleaning, it has been the means of
preserving numberless fine works, which can be made to shine
in almost pristine splendor by simply removing with care —
better by the knife than by liquids, though each picture, like a
patient, requires its special treatment — the superimposed color-
ing. Italian restorers endeavored to retain the original aspect
of their work; but the French method changed it entirely,
making it pretty and modern, or bungling it so as to make it
seem neither ancient nor recent. I refer to Italian pictures. In
the restoration of Flemish and German paintings, they were
more skilful, while Italian restorers are quite ignorant.
Thirdly, there exists the dishonest method of restoration,
done with the sole intent of deception. The original picture
in this instance is either of no merit, or it has been entirely
ruined, with but few touches or a bare outline remaining. In
the former event, the intention is to make the work of an infe-
rior hand, or an old copy, appear to be a veritable original of a
great master, and, in the latter, to pass off the wreck of a fine
picture for a perfect, intact one. Either case is as much a fraud
as the issuing of false notes. It does not behoove me here to
expose the various processes by which these forgeries are ef-
fected, but I simply state the fact; also that they are numerous,
and that there are few galleries or amateurs but have been
gulled by them. -
The superiority of the “old master” which is left to speak
for itself, even if, as in the instance of the “Mona Lisa,” the
surface is greatly abraded, and shadows darkened, depriving as
they do this powerful portrait of its highest excellence, is still
PAINTINGS IN PRIVATE HANDS. 349
evident when contrasted with the flatness, inharmony, weakness,
and general poverty of aspect which characterize those pictures,
like the Perugino already cited and Raphael’s “St. Marga-
ret,” which have been treated by foolish restorers, or those more
solicitous to make up a large bill for unnecessary work than to
respect the rights of better men. -
I cite these few examples to illustrate my personal remarks
on the actual condition of European galleries. If America
were ready to profit by the experience of the Old World, the
topic could be enlarged upon. Meantime it is sufficient to state
that neither foreign museums nor their administration are infal-
lible. There is enough, however, to which no exception can be
taken, to guide and instruct the amateur ; only, if he would get
at the unadorned truth, he must occasionally go behind the
scenes. Public galleries have not yet absorbed all of the old
masters. There still exist, in the collections of amateurs and
in families, paintings which compare favorably with the best
in the museums. Prince Napoleon owns the loveliest fresco
head of the Virgin, intact, by Luini, now in existence; a head
which for beauty and sentiment in its way may be put in
comparison with those qualities in the “Muse of Cortona’’ de-
scribed in Chapter II. As fine an example as any of the early
manner of Raphael remains in the possession of the Connes-
tabile family of Perugia, for whom it was painted, while the
“Apollo and Marsyas,” owned by Morris Moore, is unexcelled
as a specimen of his best manner, inspired by one of the beau-
tiful classical motives, for which he had a special predilection.
Upwards of sixteen of his recorded easel productions are yet
missing, as are several Leonardos and one Michael Angelo, the
celebrated “Leda.” Some of these may come to light at any
moment. Important, characteristic compositions of the latter
two, intact, are also in private hands in Europe. America
can found a national gallery to compare favorably with the best
European, if she resolutely sets about doing it ; one which shall
leave no serious vacancy, unless it be of the last mentioned
master. Some of the great artists would be represented by
their smaller easel pictures; but even these could be such as
would fairly present their technical qualities and average merits.
It is true that the cost of objects of art of the first class aug-
ments yearly, but so does the price of everything else of abso-
lute value. There is, however, no call to follow the example
of many European galleries, in accumulating scores of the pic-
350 IMPORTANCE OF GALLERIES.
tures of the same artist. Enough to show the general scope
and style of the chiefs of each school, are all that is required.
Repetitions are to be avoided, because they fatigue the eye, dis-
sipate the attention, and drain resources that had better be re-
served for what is wanting to make a gallery a complete exposi-
tion of art universally. Unartistic and common work of any
period, unless it has an archaic or historical value, should be
excluded. Nor is it advisable to follow far the decadence of
any branch; for all that comes after its climax is passed, is certain
to go from bad to worse in rapid sequence. In general, art in its
decadence is as loose in its principles as vulgar and faulty In
execution. Consequently, both the taste and morals of a com-
munity are safer, if spared any unnecessary parading before
them of false and degraded styles.
Few persons have any conception of the crowd of
visitors a gallery attracts. A conjecture of the num-
ber that visit the Louvre and Versailles museums, may be haz-
arded from the fact that more than three hundred thousand
francs are received annually from the sale of catalogues which
are probably not bought by one visitor in twenty. Before
canes and umbrellas were admitted with their owners, one
hundred thousand francs were taken in one year from their de-
posit at the doors. At the current fee of two sous each, this
sum would represent one million persons who brought these
articles with them. Undoubtedly there were very many more
who did not thus encumber thepmselves. It is notorious that
the inhabitants of any city are less disposed to enjoy their own
sights than those who are obliged to journey to see them.
Hence it is reasonable to compute that the one million Paris-
ians do not furnish one tenth part of the frequenters of their
galleries. The statistics of the British museums give corre-
sponding results. They exhibit indirectly the pecuniary advan-
tages conferred on those communities which possess artistic
attractions of sufficient interest to draw to them vast concourses
of sight-seers, independent of the instruction and enjoyment
they proffer to the inhabitants themselves. Indeed, not a few
towns in Europe may be said almost to live on their old art,
which really, especially in Italy, constitutes for the whole coun-
try a productive capital of untold value, supporting a large num-
ber of people. As is natural in America, we think more of estab-
lishing railroads and other channels of commerce. But were
one of our towns to own a great museum, visitors would flock
Galleries.
AESTEIETIC QUALITY OF RACES. 351
thither from all parts of the Union in such numbers as would
soon repay its outlay, and leave it, as it were, a free gift to pos-
terity, with a prolific income for the benefit of the citizens at
large. The pecuniary gain would be none the less because
chiefly flowing in from indirect sources. Providence so regu-
lates cause and effect, that the best things morally, intellectually,
and aesthetically, are certain of the best consequences, in not
merely these respects, but ultimately in material well-being.
To use an expressive Americanism, Central Parks “pay.” So
do national museums, as that city will discover which is the
first to found one on a Central Park scale of organization and
administration.
Isometimes think that there is more aesthetic bottom AEsthetic
to the half-fledged American people than to any of the %.
older races at this moment. It has often happened to me to
witness the impressions received from works of art by amateurs
of different nations, and their constitutional varieties of tempera-
ment as regards them. The average Englishman — I speak of
the cultivated amateur — is an intellectual lover of art in rela-
tion to its historical antecedents rather than its aesthetic aspects.
He appreciates the relative power of names, styles, and charac-
terization in a serious way, without exuberance of feeling;
judges cautiously, but dogmatically, and on the whole fairly,
though apt to let his strong likings take the transient impress
of a fashion for this or that object or artist. A Frenchman .
gets animated, analyzes keenly technical points, compares quickly,
criticises decisively and incisively, generally from the material
aspect of art, though prone to discover and enjoy the spirituel
element. His delight is positive and detective ; somewhat nar-
row in its spiritual apprehension, but intense in its peculiar di-
rection. Germans manifest more genealogical and historical acu-
men, perceiving details, and drawing inferences overlooked by
others, and are prone to speculate thereon. Theirs is a sound,
hearty, and learned enjoyment; slightly “dry-as-dust,” but in-
structive. The Russian is more of a cosmopolitan amateur,
with no very decided preferences, but disposed to enjoy every-
thing after its kind, without tormenting himself with carping
criticism or superfluous investigation. If he be less informed
than the other nationalities, he has a compensation in a quick eye
and active sensibilities. An Italian amateur is chiefly made up of
the traditions of his past; has but slight knowledge or interest
in the present; rejoices in the reflected glory of the old masters;
352 THE AMERICAN A MATEUR.
is local and isolated in taste and judgment, but aesthetic in feel-
ing, and sensitive to impressions; less disposed to critical anal-
ysis and independent judgment than the Frenchman, but more
appreciative of the whole. He accepts a reputation as it has
descended to him, understands the good points of his special
School, and retains something of the old disturbing jealousy
which magnifies one's own city at the expense of a rival’s.
This sketch is superficial, but has recognizable fact for a
foundation. In remarking that the American amateur may
have more aesthetic bottom than the European, I do not imply
that he is his equal in culture, but that his incipient taste has a
freer range; that he has a nice detective instinct, is quick at
apprehending and applying, has no prejudices of national train-
ing to uproot, — his drawbacks to a catholic comprehension of
art being more negative than positive, – that he inclines to the
true and beautiful, enjoying both just as fast as he has an op-
portunity to get acquainted with them; that he is either ex-
tremely reticent or enthusiastic in his preference; and, finally,
that as to form the American type of man all civilizations are
fused into one new being, so the coming American amateur
bids fair to be more susceptible to aesthetic influences than any
other. With this large susceptibility, there is dawning an equal
ambition, crude and unformed now, but only lacking the knowl-
edge which comes from culture and experience, to do away
from America the reproach now cast on it by learned Europe-
ans, of being a great nation destitute of any art.
My purpose in this chapter would be but partially fulfilled,
Were I not to give such of my own experience in amateurship
as may prove of use to those of similar inclinations. As has
been already said, the deceptions practised on amateurs, and the
risks they run of being cheated, are one of the surest, if not
the most agreeable means of acquiring the needful knowledge.
Presuming equal caution and good sense, there are no more
risks attending the buying works of arts than other objects.
So far as my own experience goes, I have been more successful
in receiving an equivalent for my money in them than in the
usual channels of business. I have met with quite as much hom-
esty and liberality at the hands of dealers in pictures and curiosi-
ties as any other class of traders. It is the more incumbent on
me to state this, that the only important exception I have to nar-
rate may not be taken as the rule of the class of merchants
With whom the amateur is brought into close relations.
A BORN COLLECTOR. 353
I was born a collector. As soon as promoted to the dignity
of pockets, I collected shells, then minerals, coins, Indian rel-
ics, rare books, and whatever America in my boyhood had to
offer that was strange and interesting to one of my means
and opportunities. Besides the wholesome physical occupation
given by these pursuits, there is much and varied instruction to
be gotten, which becomes a prolific source of intellectual en-
joyment in riper years. The genuine collector has in him a
force of enthusiasm that sometimes makes a fool of him, but in
the end carries him triumphant through many a strait, giving
to his labors a pleasurable Zest such as can be appreciated only
by those who have partaken of it. Looking back now in the
decline of life, with a judgment sobered down to the standard
of advice once given me by a veteran dealer of Rome, “Never
to buy a picture with a hot head,” I almost covet the return of
the delicious thrills of earlier times, when my desire to possess
was more urgent than prudence, and my imagination more act
ive than reason. A born collector can no more avoid taking
impromptu risks and committing extravagances than the gosling
fail to take to swimming. Yet in an experience of more than
thirty years, though sometimes mistaken in an attribution, or
in the actual condition of an article, I have but once paid
dearly for a lesson. This was in part due to the confidence
bred in me by the fairness with which I had been treated by
picture-dealers in general, especially Italians, and partly to my
desire to make my collection of early Italian paintings more
worthy of the public position which its friends desired for it,
as the basis of an American gallery, showing the chronological
and historical sequence of Italian art from its revival in the
thirteenth century to its decadence in the seventeenth. That
competent student and critic, Russell Sturgis, Jr., says, “It
would be very difficult now, and it will not be less at any
future time, to form another collection of an hundred and
twenty pictures which should at all approach this one in value,
etc.” –fortifying his own judgment by eminent European
authorities.
1 “Introductory Essay ” to Manual of the Jarves Collection of Early Italian
Pictures deposited in the Galleries of the Yale School of Fine Arts. New Haven:
Published by Yale College, 1868. Also the New-Englander for January, 1848."
Extract from a letter to the authorities of the College from Charles E. Norton
of Cambridge: “It is several years since I saw this collection, and I have no
doubt that its value and importance have been much increased by the additions
which Mr. Jarves has made to it; but even as I knew it, it was a collection of
23
354 A SPURIOUS LEONARDO.
Every genuine first-class work added to a collection enhances
the interest and value of the whole. Hence one is tempted to
pay more largely for such an acquisition than if it were to stand
by itself, especially if it fills an important gap in the series.
I state this to account for my endeavor to have my collection
still more satisfactorily represent the schools and masters whose
epoch it covers, and also why I hazarded a sum of money on 3
single picture which I never should have ventured solely for
personal gratification. My zeal at this juncture had been stini-
ulated by the apparently fair prospect of speedily seeing estab-
lished a free gallery of art on a large scale in my native town, –-
Boston.
So much for my openness to being swindled. This is how it
was done. There was in Paris a picture-dealer whose position
and clientage to a stranger as naturally inspired confidence as
those of any eminent banker. Inquiring of him in 1865 if he
had any genuine first-class Italian pictures, I was shown, among
others, three which pleased me ; a Giorgione, Luini, and a Leo-
nardo da Vinci, the latter represented to be the missing “Saint
Catherine” described in Rigollot’s “Catalogue of the Works of
Leonardo,” and also in Lépicié’s “Catalogue Raisonné des Tab-
leaux du Roi Louis XV., A. D. 1752,” with whose description it
agreed. He says, “ St. Catherine est représenté avec une limbe
autour de la tête ; elle est couronnée de jasmin , de la main
droite elle tient un livre ouvret ; et de la gauche elle paroit tournée
wn feuillot. Un des deua, anges qui sont auprés de la sainte
tient un palm et l'autre l’instrument de martyr.” "
Without wearying the reader with the subtle statements by
which I was induced to believe that the picture was that de-
scribed by Lépicié, I will merely say that I finally bought it
and the two others, on the assurance of their authenticity and
sound condition, of Woolsey Moreau, their owner. Soon after,
discovering that the “St. Catherine” was a falsification, I brought
a suit for the restitution of my money, the purchase having
been made for the round sum of 90,000 francs. Although the
the highest value in this country, as illustrating by well chosen examples the
historical development and progress of Italian art. There are few collections
in Europe, if we exclude the galleries in the great capitals, which surpass it in
this important respect, and very few in which the proportion of valuable and
interesting pictures is as great, as compared with the whole number. Such a
collection would make a truly magnificent foundation for a gallery, and the
institution that would acquire it, would have an easy prečminence over all
other schools of art in America.”
1 Vol. i. p. 11.
THE TRIAL. 355
other two pictures were genuine, they made a part of the con-
tract, counting in the apprisal at considerably less than half the
price asked for the Leonardo, which was the chief inducement.
The evidence on which I based my claim was derived from
eminent Italian and French experts, including artist-restorers
like Ugobaldi of Florence, Hossin Déon, restorer of the pictures
of the “Musées Nationaux,” Roehn, Gérome, Baudry, and
other distinguished painters, all of whom concurred in testifying
to the falsity of its attribution. But the chief proof of decep-
tion rested on the declaration of the artist-restorer, M. Cordeil,
who testified that M. Moreau had placed this picture in his hands
about three years and a half previous, after it had been trans-
ferred from an old panel to a new one, and enlarged several
inches at the sides and bottom. The figures, without being
modern, are not of the epoch of Leonardo, but were subjected
to the modifications in measurements and design which were
requisite to make the picture seem to be the lost one in ques-
tion, giving in detail the exact nature of the alterations made,
and the technical treatment the picture underwent by the in-
struction of M. Moreau, to enable him to give to it the false
attribution by which it was finally sold. It also was shown
that the picture was bought in 1861 at the Hôtel Druot for
twelve hundred and seven francs, which could not have been
done had it been the genuine work of Leonardo, of the value
of fifty thousand francs, the price asked by Moreau.
The trial before the Cour Impérial might have been even a
more complete exposure of the methods of changing ancient
copies or the works of inferior men into old masters of repute,
if the court had permitted the witnesses to be cross-examined
before them, instead of simply receiving their written declara-
tions, and, still better, of subjecting the painting itself to the proof
which would have rendered all such testimony unnecessary.
My counsel demanded that either the picture should be tested
in the presence of the court, or that a commission of artist-
restorers should be officially appointed to report its precise con-
dition, agreeing on my part that if the picture proved to be
genuine, I would submit to the detriment and loss occasioned by
the process; while its falsity would be incontestable as soon
as the repaintings and changes done by the command of M.
Moreau were taken off, and the original condition of the pic-
ture as described by M. Cordeil revealed. This was refused,
and the decision given against my appeal, on the ground that I
\
356 DECISION OF THE COURT.
had experience in buying old masters, and M. Moreau had given
every means he possessed for the identification of the painting."
On his part M. Rémond gave an opinion that the picture had
been subjected only to legitimate restorations, while the character
of the original design and modelling was so “irreproachable,”
it was impossible for M. Cordeil to have made the alterations he
had testified to ; in fine, he had never touched the picture at all.
As the judgment of the court, without absolutely declaring the
authenticity of the painting implied it, I soon after received a
proposition to the following effect: “You have been ‘ volé,
every one knows, but the court indirectly guarantees immunity
to the seller. Naturally you want to get your money back.
Put the picture into our hands to be disposed of, and you shall
receive, when sold, a sum that will at least partially reimburse
you for the swindle.”
So far as the decision of the court confirmed the legality of
the sale by M. Moreau and denied to me the absolute means of
proving the falsification of the picture by unveiling it before the
tribunal, perhaps I had acquired the same legal right of selling
it as a Leonardo that he had had. Instead, however, I Sub-
jected it at the hands of a competent person who was unac-
quainted with its history, to the same chemical process by
which I had begged the court to test its genuineness. By my
directions and in my presence, he removed from one half of the
picture the repaintings to which it had been subjected by M.
Moreau, leaving the remaining portion in the condition in which
it had been sold. The result confirmed in every particular the
testimony of M. Cordeil. Apparently it was a greatly damaged
old copy,” not of a Leonardo, but of the “ St. Catherine’ by Luini
once at Nuremberg. The composition had been enlarged from
sixty-six centimetres in height and fifty-seven wide, to eighty-
two by sixty-six centimetres; the new portion being entirely the
work of the restorer, while the contour of the figures and other
details had been varied to fit them more precisely to the charac-
ter of the composition in question, as known by engravings and
description, with such variations in small points as might sug-
gest Leonardo's hand, as well as the obscurations of time and
the hard, cracked, enamel-like surface, which the old masters
show, even beneath repairs and varnishes. There were three
1 See Gazette des Tribunaua, 29th and 30th April, 1867, Paris, for the official
report.
* Some good judges say an original, by Luini.
JUSTICE IN FRANCE. 357
distinct repaintings, one in tempera, one in oil, and the other in
the technical method called, by the Italians, “restauro a vernice.”
A few days after the decision, a M. Detrimont, picture-mer-
chant, who had sold for three thousand five hundred francs to
M. Verdier, a Frenchman, an original sketch of an unfinished
work attributed to Eugene Delacroix, bought for four hun-
dred and eighty francs, and subsequently converted into an
apparently complete work of that master, was condemned to
refund the price paid, and pay fifteen hundred francs damages.
The argument was that it was high time to give a severe lesson
to the falsifiers of objects of art, “qui se reneontrent partout.”
“Il me faut pas qu' à Paris on puisse vendre impunément de
faua tableaua.”" The severity of the court against M. Detri-
mont, in view of the fact that he established the authenticity of
the sketch, and pleaded that the changes were simply retouches
of which the buyer was made cognizant, is the more remarkable,
coming so soon after the “Cour Impérial” had made it lawful
for a dealer to give any attribution he pleased to a repainted
picture, which the most eminent experts pronounced to be not
by the master by whose name it was sold. I could cite from
the records of the French tribunals a number of instances
similar to that of M. Bossel de Mouville in 1858, who was
deceived into purchasing some false enamels and dishes of
Palissy ware, which prove their strictness in punishing fraud
whenever a Frenchman is the victim. The seller in this case
was condemned to fifteen months’ imprisonment and a heavy
fine. A curiosity-dealer, named Barre, sold to M. Dauble for
six thousand francs a Louis XVI. chest of drawers stated
to have belonged to Marie Antoinette. The purchaser, find-
ing it was repaired in various places, and parts were quite
new, brought a suit to recover his money. The defence was
that the authenticity of it had not been guaranteed, and that
it actually was an article called by the trade a Louis XVI.
chest of drawers. But Barre was condemned to refund the
money and interest. The late Baron James Rothschild, an
amateur of infinitely more experience than myself, had had no
difficulty in obtaining restitution when he was cheated into buy-
ing false candlesticks, and having the fradulent seller punished.
Facts like these misled me into believing that the same
principle of justice, based upon the Article 1353 of the Code
Napoleon, which permits the intention of fraud to rest upon
1 Gazette des Tribunawa, 3 Mai 1867, Paris.
358 MISTAKES AND SIVINDLES,
“présomptions graves, precises et concordantes,” to quote from
the decision of the Civil Tribunal of the Seine, would be impar-
tially applied to every one without distinction. But before my
case was adjudicated, I had been indirectly advised, from high
authority, that my appeal was hopeless. Had the decision been
against Moreau, it would have shaken rudely the value and
prestige of many pictures which had passed from his secret
studio into distinguished collections. There would have been a
full disclosure of how they were manufactured by clever artists
liberally provided with means for amusing themselves, besides
their regular salaries, and kept carefully out of the observation
of buyers; and this would have been, as was argued, greatly to
the detriment of what rogues call a lawful commerce. No
dealer, however unscrupulous, sells only false works. To make
these salable, he must obtain a reputation for genuineness. The
same merchant can, therefore, sell true or false objects, or mingle
them, according to the degree of confidence or ignorance of his
client. Probably no other American amateur would be gulled
as I was. But if disposed to purchase in Paris, he is welcome
to profit by my experience in learning how that “caveat emptor.”
is the principle applied by the courts to the foreigner, and
“caveat actor * to the native.
I should not, however, have said so much of myself in this
matter, were it not that the result of the suit, based on the
official decision, which ignored the proof of the falsity of the
Leonardo, and even gave to it the air of genuineness, had
been widely circulated by the European and American press,
occasioning many questions to me from various parties, which
are now answered. The picture I keep as a proof of the
injustice of a judgment compelling me to pay for a forgery
the price of a genuine work, to show how these forgeries are
executed, and as a monitor should another costly hallucina-
tion threaten. Few amateurs go free of similar experiences.
Although an artist of repute, Sir Charles Eastlake was egregi-
ously taken in more than once in buying for the National Gal-
lery, while neglecting to secure genuine pictures of real im-
portance for less sums than were paid for spurious or ruined."
The authorities of the Louvre bought a forged bust of Benivieni
for one of the school of Donatello. Frequent instances might
be cited of mistakes made by those whose official positions
and long experience should be a guarantee against imposi-
1 See Report from the Select Committee on the National Gallery, London, 1855.
TWO CLASSES OF AMATE URS. 359
tions. They serve to show that there is a fallible side to the
best informed. The real point of interest to the public is that
the mistakes should not be so covered up as to mislead the
student, and a false or worthless object exhibited as a real one
to save wounded reputations or regain wasted money.
Besides those who collect for speculative purposes or os-
tentation, there are two classes of amateurs proper. The num-
ber of the first is legion, embracing royal and noble families,
and persons of all ranks and professions, down to the seedy vag-
abonds of the streets, who hawk dirty works of art as the
needy Jew does old clothes. A multitude of individuals in
Europe increase their incomes, or gain their livelihood one way
with another by this traffic, which is approved by many who
would scorn a regular business. Even the legitimate amateur
is often drawn into it, by buying at times more than he de-
sires to keep, in order to secure a coveted article, or replace
an inferior by a superior one, whether he collects only in refer-
ence to beauty and rarity, or by system to illustrate a period or
school, confining himself to a special purpose rather historical
than aesthetic. It is less the money than sound judgment and
perseverance that secures a valuable collection of either sort.
One of the finest museums of mediaeval arts was got together
by M. Sauvageot out of a slender salary as a violinist to a
theatre in Paris, and by him bequeathed to the nation. The
Marquis of Hereford’s various acquisitions are an example of
what lavish expenditure can command on the whim of the mo-
ment. In my case, I had to spend only what was gained by
my own exertions, or saved by economies in other directions.
The chief value of the old masters I got together, consists not
so much in a few masterpieces of great cost, as in a series of
characteristic specimens of the leading Italian painters, illustrat-
ing the motives, progress, and styles of the various schools, and
affording as yet the only opportunity in America of their com-
parison and study. There are, however, a number of special
importance and rarity, worthy of any foreign gallery, and which
have been either engraved or noticed in standard works on art.
I may be permitted here to name a few on the authority of well
known Names, not to forestall the judgment of connoisseurs,
for the highest evidence of the value of any object of art must
be found in itself, but to show to the general reader that I have
neither collected nor spoken at random. Further, as the ap-
preciation of such studies for the present must be almost en-
360 HIGHEST SATISFA CTION.
tirely European, I am warranted in giving to the American
spectator some testimony, beside my own, that my effort to be-
gin a gallery for my native country has borne genuine fruit, as
regards the pictures themselves, whether the final object of a
public museum based on it in one of the chief cities of our
Union be attained or not. The highest satisfaction of all, that
of making as it might be the personal acquaintance of so many
distinguished artists of the past, entering into their lives so as
to feel them bodily present as friends with whom I hold rich
converse, believing I may continue in another life the inter-
course begun here, reckoning intervening centuries as naught, —
this supreme satisfaction which has cheered and sustained me
through many vicissitudes, cannot be imparted to another. If
I had not had this spiritual communion with generations gone,
through the medium of what they have left behind visible to
our senses, it would have been impossible to have written this
book. Whatever reception it may meet from those whose eyes
are still unopened to the profounder aspects of art, my own
treasure of association and experience must remain undimin-
ished. The American amateur of fine art has no audience at
home. He must fortify his spirit against the common preju-
dice, which views his occupation as a frivolous pursuit, if not
worse, and against the special ignorance and indifference some-
times of his warmest friends, who will bluntly call his superb
Maestro Giorgio an old pudding-dish, or his beautiful Sano di
Pietro a Chinese daub. It requires intellectual pluck to be
a collector in America of unknown things. But when appre-
ciation does come, it is heartfelt, and sincerely expressed.
Both ignorance and sympathy here are honest. Gladly
would I have offered in these pages, and in my collection,
entire loaves of art. Failing in power to do this, some
of the crumbs which I have picked up from the tables of the
masters with whom for many years I have broken bread,
may be acceptable to a few. But they must accept them as
mere crumbs.
By a sort of compensation for my ill-fortune in Paris, already
narrated, I did obtain a picture which proved to be a gen-
uine Leonardo, in excellent condition, representing the “Ma-
donna and Child,” with a background, on one side, of the
Castle of Ferrara, and on the other one of the Lombardy lakes,
presenting, in exquisitely finished but largely conceived details,
the force of chiaro-scuro, power of modelling, theory of light
A GENUINE LEONARDO. 361
and coloring, and intense characterization which are the chief at-
tributes of this rare master. On seeing it, A. F. Rio, author of
the “Poetry of Christian Art,” wrote to me, “I have not the
least hesitation in declaring that I fully believe it to be the
work of that master. I cannot help envying your good luck
in making such a valuable acquisition. The genuine pictures
of Leonardo are so rare that the want of one has left to this
day a sore gap in the gallery of many a sovereign.”
Baron Hector Garriod, eminent Italian authority, concludes
a long letter covering the technical argument as to its authentic-
ity, as follows: “The tone also of your painting — ‘wn brun
ardoise’ — is that peculiar hue of Leonardo's — his ‘aeil de
couleur’—r which connects itself particularly with the chemical
and scientific processes of that great man. The tone of his imita-
tors is quite different. With Luini it is golden, violet with
Solaris, brilliant and Raphael-like with Cesare da Sesto, reddish
with Mario D'Oggione and Beltraffio, and too free and carac-
terisé with Giovanomi or Sodoma, to be confounded with his,
I dare predict for you a signal success in the arena, which your
painting deserves to enter, and to dispute with a very small
number of concurrents, the coveted honors of so elevated a rank.”
The late Professor Migliarini, Director of the Uffizi Gallery,
himself an artist and critical connoisseur of European reputation,
after a severe examination of the picture left in his hands, writes
a lengthy artistic criticism, showing its originality, of which it is
only necessary to give a short extract. “I will not enumer-
ate the many different artists of whom you have obtained beau-
tiful specimens, such as Cimabue, the Giotteschi, Pollajuolo,
Ghirlandajo, and many others, but confine myself to that gem
of Leonardo da Vinci, which it seems to me incredible that
you should have been able to fall in with and possess,” etc.
But the most familiar authority to Americans, as well as
graphic description, comes from the pen of Holman Hunt, whose
letter, dated Florence, November 21, 1868, is as follows: —
“MY DEAR SIR,-- ~
“For the last two weeks, I have had my hands so full of
work, that I have been unable to write to you about your two pic-
tures, the Luini and the Leonardo da Vinci, which pleased me
so much when you were last kind enough to let me see your
pictures. The first-named, with the exception of some parts of
the face of the infant Saviour, seems to me to be in a very per
362 DETTER OF HOLMAN FIUNT.
fect condition, and to be a very excellent example of the com-
bination of qualities of great simplicity, and almost heroic dig-
nity of beauty, withs a richness of painting and color which
together are found only in the works of the Lombard school
after Leonardo's time. The Roman and Florentine Schools are
both wanting in lusciousness of texture and tint — while the
Venetian school is certainly inferior in ideality of form. I say
this, not by way of finding fault with either, but only to illustrate
what I mean in saying that the Milanese combined both : to be
more exact, I might particularize and add my conviction that,
while in design and beauty the Milanese were not inferior in
any degree to the Roman school, in painting, although superior to
all other provinces, they were not equal to the Venetians. Yet in
looking at their works, one has no feeling of there being some-
thing wanting in this respect, as is certainly the case when I am
looking on even the best Raphael or Michael Angelo. Your
Luini, considering the great difficulty of getting any gallery pic-
ture of his, is to me a very beautiful and satisfactory example of
this Milanese compound excellence. I see no reason whatever
to doubt its genuineness. The head of the Virgin is full of
beauty, and the management and painting of the background
would honor any reputation.
“The Leonardo was painted by the man who made the
school, but who had no leisure to study the beauty that might
come in sweetness of touch, in mellowness of tint, in reflected
lights, and richness of color. He was, as it were, staring into
black vacancy with the determination to conjure up a solid
dream of beauty of form as his single thought ; his color, as his
ight and shade, served principally to distinguish — to make
more tangible his conception. However, even while he had
the whole anxiety of making his changing visions into per-
manent pictures, and thus, bit by bit, developing the grand Italian
style of invention, he was equal as a colorist and chiaro-scurist
to Raphael — and, therefore, to any other Roman painter, and
Superior in modelling. Your little picture quite satisfies me as
a small example of work. I am a bad bargainer in saying all
this, and then asking you, if circumstances should leave you free
to sell it, to let me have the first offer of the Leonardo, but an
artist must say what he feels about a picture, whether it be to
his own loss or not — and certainly I would not appear to put
any check upon myself, in treating with you in such a matter.
“Should you be able to sell, and I be able to buy, you may
YALE SCHOOL OF FINE ARTS. 363
have the comfort of feeling that while circumstances leave it at
all possible, it will remain in my studio, free from danger of
every kind, such as it would meet with in the hands of picture
dealers and restorers.
“Believe me, yours faithfully,
“ W. HOLMAN HUNT.”
Sig. Emilio Burci, Inspector of the Uffizi Gallery, writes to
me, “I congratulate you upon a selection of paintings of our
older Tuscan schools, which must have cost you much persever-
ing research and money. Among the number, by no means
small, of excellent ones, permit me to especially notice as very
remarkable and rare, even among us, the ‘Rape of Dejanira,
by Antonio Pollajuolo, the beautiful “Madonna and Child, by
Botticelli, ‘St. Girolomo, by Fra Fillipo Lippo, ‘Annunciation,”
by Lorenzo di Credi, ‘Sacra Familia, by Lo Spagna, and the
extremely rare and beautiful ‘Adoration of the Magi, by Luca
Signorelli.”
I might fill many pages with similar testimonials from Eu-
ropean amateurs and officers of various academies and galleries,
but enough have been given to prove that these old masters
merit the attention of those interested in the culture of art in
our country. The best credentials are the objects themselves,
but as yet there are comparatively few Americans qualified to
pronounce on them.
There are one hundred and twenty pictures now temporarily
deposited — not sold, as it is often stated in the public prints —
in the Yale School of Fine Arts; and about twenty-five 4 others,
including some of the most valuable and important, still in
Europe, awaiting, a convenient opportunity to be added to
those in New Haven. But this depends on finding an insti-
tution devoted to Art, in one of our cities, willing to carry
out my plan of a public gallery based on historical sequence
of motives and the regular progress of technical improvement
and changes of style, so arranged that the best aesthetic effect
as a whole shall be produced. In most European galleries
of old foundation, notably the Pitti, the pictures are sacrificed
to the exigencies of localities not designed in reference to
light or artistic effect. Hence in this and the Uffizi there is
a conglomeration of styles, epochs, and masters, joined to in-
efficient light, exceedingly confusing to the student and detri-
1 See London Athenæum, of June 5th, 1869.
364 SHALL WE HAVE A GALLERY?
mental to the objects themselves. By a judicious rearrangement
and uniting of the Pitti, Uffizi, and Belle Arti galleries, be-
sides the adoption of a system of national exchanges by which
the redundant Florentine masters might be bartered for those of
other schools which are wanting, separating sculpture from
painting, grouping the Titians, Raphaels, Leonardos, and chief
masters each by themselves, Florence would have a unique
gallery. Spain, France, England, and Germany, each might be
induced to exchange some of the surplus masterpieces of their
own artists for Italian, to their mutual benefit. America, in the
outset, can erect galleries which shall secure the essentials of
light, ventilation, and systematic aesthetic distribution. But
until there is something to put into them they would be useless
structures. Having labored so long in this cause I am not will-
ing to abandon it except in the last personal extremity, or until
convinced that Americans have no sympathy whatever with it.
At the risk of being charged with obtrusive egoism I venture to
make a final appeal in this form, inviting any of my country-
men who do sympathize, or any institution making art culture
an object, to confer with me on a feasible plan of aesthetic edu-
cation and keeping together for public use the collection of old
masters as a basis of a free gallery. Up to this time I have
never been able to exhibit the entire gallery in America. Even
the beautiful edifice at New Haven founded by Mr. Street,
which is all that could be desired for light, is crowded with the
portion that is hung there. Were I a rich man, I could not
possess a house ample to contain and exhibit them. Nothing
short of a large public museum, erected expressly to accommo-
date works of art, would suffice. If dispersed, as they must soon
be, unless a suitable building is prepared to receive them, how-
ever pleasing the isolated pictures might be to private owners,
the benefit of the series collectively would be lost to the public,
as also to myself the aim of eighteen years of expenditure, toil,
and study ; although for my own daily gratification, and the in-
struction of my children, I would greatly prefer to select my
favorite pictures to hang on my own walls. As it now exists, it
offers a modest foundation for other amateurs of more means
and knowledge to establish on it a museum of art, which may
be enlarged so as to meet the aesthetic wants of one of our
cities as agreeably and usefully as does the newly established
museum at Kensington that of London.
* > SºS
, ºr-- Sº 22–sº sº. S
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Wºź sº
3.
CHAPTER XV.
THE ART OF THE FUTURE.
HE brief summary given of past and present phases
of the aesthetic life of nations naturally suggests
Some thoughts regarding its future. As a basis
we must take a retrospective view of each domi-
nant principle and aspect of the several great peri-
ods which underlie the art of to-day. It is unnecessary to recall
the specific styles of early paganism ; to wit, the Egyptian, Hin-
doo, Etruscan, or Assyrian, but we can limit our glance to its
highest form, the Grecian. To this there is to be opposed the
antagonistic mediaeval art, its special reaction towards classical
influences under the guise of the late Renaissance, and those
democratic motives which are coextensive with the spread of
Protestant ideas.
Art is the material representative of the ideal, whether it be
on a spiritual, intellectual, or sensual basis. Hence, to predicate
of the art of an epoch we have first to get a clear vision of its
immediate passion, or what it most covets. The basis, there-
fore, of any profound art, is in the popular religion. What-
ever a man absolutely loves, that he worships or esteems
dearest to his soul. The Greeks, passionately loving beauty,
strength, and wisdom, made of these abstract ideals a faith, and
of their ideal forms an art. Theirs was essentially the poetical-
imaginative ; its primary and final significance being aesthetic
pleasure.
Imagination equally controlled mediaeval art, which was the
offspring of an even more profound human love ; not of present
pleasure but of future bliss. As has been shown, the pagan,
Seeing in his earthly organization the means of realizing his
ideal, strenuously sought to reach it by the cultivation of his
physical and mental powers. But the Christian, viewing the
sensuous faculties as Snares, put them under a ban. Stimulating
his imagination by an intense belief in a delightsome life beyond
the grave, he projected into his art corresponding pictures of the


366 RETROSPECTIVE VIEW,
occupations and conditions of his future home in the heavens;
and to keep the hunger and thirst of spiritual joys more acute
in his soul, he let loose on his outward senses an ideal world
of physical horrors, or the bottomless pit of burning torments
called a hell, preaching the while with fanatical fervor, asceti-
cism, as an additional safeguard against the seductions of his
material being. Though the means were so antagonistic, the
ends in view of pagan and Christian art were similar. Each
acted on a common principle of an ideal happiness. But the
Christian scope and application was even more one-sided and
limited than the other. Excluding. if it might, every element
of the sensuous and sensual, it sowed the seeds of its overthrow
in its own bosom. These grew up into the shapes of the bastard
Renaissance, that based its ideal on corrupt mundane pleasures
and human power as opposed to divine power. Both classical
and mediaeval art had worshipped the godlike, as each compre-
hended the term, with noble effect in their respective forms.
Even the element of Fear in the latter, as exhibited in the effigies
of devils and the damned, was a restricted one when compared
with that of Love. The beautiful-ideal in the shape of angels,
holy Virgins, and the bright beings that administer to the spirit-
ual comfort and joy of men, everywhere abounded, while the
pictures and plastic representations of the demon-side of Chris-
tianity were comparatively sparse and rare. But when the Re-
naissance became degraded into a vulgar worship of man-power
and an exhibition of the aristocratic ideal of tyranny and lusts,
art lost its saving grace and became a wretched epitome of hu
man foolishness, until the democratic spirit born of Protestant-
ism, rescued it from exclusive hands, and breathed into it new
forces of life. An ideal founded wholly on worldly ambitions
and passions, necessarily partakes of their transitory, material
nature, and is devoted to presenting them in every possible vari-
ety as the ultimate of human desire. Its forms may be legiti-
mate and wholesome. They are apt to be selfish, sensual, or
foolish. But the moment human aspiration rises above a mun-
dane level into an ideal atmosphere of the godlike, be it of
Olympus or Paradise, it lifts art bodily into a more elevated
sphere. However greatly the virtue of pagan may differ from
the virtue of Christian art proper, both seek to exalt humanity by
presenting to it examples of an ideal perfection, and eliminating
whatever corrupts and makes a lie. We may have an agree-
able art speaking to the sensations, or an intellectual one to the
T'WO WA YS OF HAPPINESS. 367
mind, on the plane of the worldly ideal; but no art can be pro-
foundly great, beautiful, and good, unless its aspirations are stim-
ulated by hopes and visions that have not their exact counter-
part and fruition in our earthly being. In its largest sense,
religion is that state of soul which ardently craves ideal good-
ness, beauty, and felicity. Art that ignores it has no perma-
nent, universal value.
Two ways present themselves of securing the spiritual happi-
ness held in store as a compensation for trials in present life ;
one founded on a divine revelation of man's ideal, calling for
unquestioning faith, and the other on all-sifting reason, which
by means of human philosophy, would subject all faiths to the
scrutiny of exact science. Before the period of the Reformation
of Luther, the spiritualistic way most obtained. Mankind, how-
ever, was not so much spiritual-minded, in the true acceptation
of this phrase, as prone to emotional life ; their passions, senti-
ments, and imaginations, whether superstitiously or devoutly led,
being more exercised than their logical faculties. Profound re-
ligious feeling at that time permeated art. But it lost its force
and gradually passed into oblivion, as it was brought in contact
with the growing rationalistic tendencies of the era of printed
books. What art lost in profundity and spirituality it gained in
breadth and variety; in naturalness, so to speak, on the com-
mon plane of humanity. Passing first from ecclesiastical, then
from aristocratic control, it grew more and more democratic and
commercial ; more domestic in its motives; more disposed to
illustrate the facts of ordinary men's lives, their hopes, beliefs,
passions, and deeds; to adorn the fireside rather than the palace
or cathedral; to go to common nature for subjects; to catch her
passing, and record fier permanent truths in a realistic sense ; in
fine, art, under Protestant guidance, became less abstract, less
ideal, either as ecstatic joy or ascetic suffering, and more a thing
of home life, suited to the popular apprehension and tastes.
The change has been a radical one, though not yet completed.
Art is in a condition of transition. Dogma, as a vital authority,
has ceased to govern it. Then, too, the old spiritual ideal has
passed away while the new is yet unformed. So it happened to
classical art. The interregnum then, however, was one of igno-
rance, superstition, and debased conceptions. Now, if we have
no high art, we possess a wholesome, pleasurable, natural, in-
structive one. I speak in a general sense, referring especially
to the sound morality and comprehensive motives of the Prot-
368 SPIRIT OF OUR CENTURY.
estant schools and the French purists. Not content with illus-
trating modern life in its every-day moods, like Hamon and his
followers, or Leys and his, they go back to mediaeval scenes and
pagan homes for motives, vividly bringing before our eyes the
picturesque, historic, and domestic past. The old art was more
restricted in knowledge, science, and ideas, though more intense
and ecstatic. Its capacity of comfort and hope to individuals of
a certain temperament or training undoubtedly was greater, but
as a means of happiness and improvement to the masses, its
power was less. Yet the promise of our present art is far be-
yond its actual realization. This must continue to be materi-
alistic and unimaginative so long as it gives more stress to the
outward fact than the inward life, refuses to admit the inspira-
tion of a purer religious faith than that of the past, and does not
attain that just balance of thought, Science, and imagination
which is needed to produce consummate work.
The spirit of our century, however defective, is still eminently
humanitarian in contrast with all preceding. If the dogmatic
forms of Christianity have lost much of their power, peoples be-
gin to comprehend better the gospel meaning of “peace and
good will to all men; ” to take a more intelligible view of divine
goodness and wisdom; and, as a whole, more seriously inquire
what they shall do to be saved. Thought being freed, truth
comes to the light as never before. Science is no longer made
to be an enemy to religion. Mediaevalists in the main were con-
tent, or forced to be, to believe whatever was told them by the
Church, without self-inquiry. Moderns, rejecting monopolies
of all sorts, decide more on personal responsibility those prob-
lems which most affect individual welfare now and hereafter.
Theology, as a science, is descending from the keeping of a caste
to the understandings of the many, greatly to the spread of
those universal principles of love, faith, and charity which soften
the hearts of men, and cause them to regard each other more
fraternally as children of one Father.
This speculative, moral view of humanity may be viewed as
foreign to my topic. But if we admit that religion is the sound-
est basis of a noble art, then whatever gives more breadth, vigor,
and depth to the religious sentiments must proportionally affect
art. Rationalism is in the ascendant just now, and wisely; for
it sifts, probes, and justifies all things, though it does not always
See SC far, deeply, or intently as the imaginative faculties. Our
highest art is now the abstract in book-forms. But will it al-
ways remain there 2
FRESH HEA VENS OPENED. 369
Whenever the pure ethics of the gospel of Jesus shall exor-
cise from religion the narrowness, bigotry, irrationalism, and dis-
turbing influences of sectarian dogmas, the freed imagination
will see visions of celestial things more radiant than ever. Æs-
thetics, morality, philosophy, and faith must come more into har-
mony. Out of the great joy and progress thus begotten, fresh
heavens will be opened to mortal eyes, which shall become a
model for a new sacred art, far exceeding in beauty the departed.
A thousand years in HIS sight are as one day. None can tell
the hour of the coming of the Lord. Neither can one foresee
the whole nature and functions of the new phase. But may we
not conclude that the abstract, dogmatic, and symbolical will give
way to a more vivid and rational apprehension of spiritual life
than has hitherto obtained ? Angels will then be “the spirits
of just men made perfect,” needing no wings to symbolize their
celestial functions. There will be more Virgins than one ; com-
plete women, chastely maternal, fulfilling duties with holy joy.
Saints will increase, requiring no martyrdom of their bodies to
confirm their titles to salvation. The Word, whether received
as the Father, Son, or the Spirit, will be approved to human in-
telligence as Divine Love, Wisdom, and Beauty. Then may
men be moved by their new ideal of a heaven not made with
hands, to construct edifices consecrated to their new happiness,
such as art has not yet conceived. Hitherto, the current
theology or belief in God and Devil has overflowed in fanat-
ical extremes on to this earth, making of religion to the many.
either a forced sacrifice, irrational belief, or dark despair; evil
so often overcoming good as to beget the gross materialism
which now so widely obtains in Italy, France, and Spain, to
the loss of the former repose in sacred art and rites, without
so far substituting in the masses the logical convictions, en-
terprise, and restlessness leading to liberal progress that is
found in America. It is only the bravest of freethinkers in
those countries that dares to die unreconciled to the ecclesiastics
whose authority they contemned while in health. Even an ex-
communicated Cavour sends for the Sacraments in his death-hour.
In my own family an Italian maid disbelieves altogether in fu-
ture existence, and yet dares not neglect any ordinance of the
Church. Few Italians can now be found to say with St. Fran-
cis in his mediaeval hymn, “Praised be my Lord for our sister,
the death of the body.” If there be anything they especially
dread it is death; next, growing old. Their heaven for centu-
24
370 OLD DIVERSION; MODERN INFIDELITY.
ries, like that of the French, has settled more and more into
the earth, carrying both peoples down with it.
The mediaevalist had more diversion. So did the Greek.
Their art soothed and gladdened their lives. But their succes-
sors, deprived of all of their faith except its fear, have become
sad and timid; half skeptic, half hypocrite; not knowing either
how best to enjoy this existence, or secure a firm hold on a bet-
ter. The perpetual struggle of Paris to look gay, fresh, and
prosperous on the outside is a mournful fact of its phase of mod-
ern civilization. A grimace on every lip, and a worm in every
heart. Sad is it to him who sees what is behind the gas-lights,
and detects the wrinkled skin underneath the enamelled face.
Americans are charged with not knowing how to amuse them-
selves. But there is far more real animation of heart, of social
and civic life, faith in themselves, their country, and their God;
more vitality and absolute rational enjoyment of existence in
America than in Europe, especially outside of England and
Germany. This intenser spirit is not due to any constitutional
superiority of one race over another, but to a fuller liberty of
self-development. An upheaval of old conditions of society in
view of reconstruction is apparent everywhere, but nowhere is
the movement more active than in the Great Republic. Our
new solutions of social and political problems are having a more
quickening effect in Europe than we receive from the fruits of
their long tried civilizations. What we get back in ideas or
populations speedily disappears in the more powerful solvent of
American institutions, to reappear in forms indigenous to the
continent. That which Europe receives in return each year
leavens it more profusely with American results, which are
steadily sapping the foundations of its old political fabric. It
was not until that shout of joy went up from the throats of the
European aristocracy at the supposed overthrow of the American
Union by rebels, that America became conscious of her moral
weight abroad. Sometimes we cavil at the name of America
for not being sufficiently distinctive of our nationality. But it
seems as if Providence had bestowed it on us as a token that
we are to occupy the entire continent as one people of one name
and will.
The art that is to grow out of such a destiny will be com-
mensurate to its grandeur and beneficence. Lavater says, “He
only who has enjoyed immortal moments can reproduce them.”
Three we have already had ; the Landing of the Pilgrims, the
IMMORTAL MOMENTS. 371
War of Independence, and the late Rebellion, each deciding im-
mortal destinies. One more may be in store to decide as firmly
and finally the principles of religious liberty as have been those
of political and material progress. The ethical constitution to
regulate social rights and secure exact justice to all has yet to
be promulgated, either as a result of discussion and experiment,
or of actual warfare. Great events form the character and Sol- .
idarity of peoples; art illustrates them. Our latest “immortal
moment” has caused the projection of innumerable monu-
ments to commemorate the sacrifices and virtues that secured
the victory for right. A still severer struggle, growing out of
the more profound instincts of the soul at stake, would give to
art, to reproduce in material form, an even more illustrious mo-
ment of history.
Shall we possess an art capable of this? Looking only at its
present superficial aspect, its common range of motives, its thor-
oughly realistic bias and materialistic treatment, its prevailing
mistake of the pretty-sentimental for the beautiful-ideal, its vul-
gar basis of mere business, the indifference and ignorance of the
people at large, and the misconceptions of intellectual classes
represented by a scholar like Theodore Parker, — looking at
American art only on this side, one might despair of its future.
“The fine arts do not interest me,” said Parker, “so much as
the coarse arts which feed, clothe, house, and comfort a people.
I should rather be a great man as Franklin than a Michael An-
gelo; nay, if I had a son I should rather see him a mechanic,
who organized use, like the late George Stephenson in England,
than a great painter like Rubens, who only copied beauty.”
AEsthetic culture only can remedy these deficiencies, and open
the senses of all classes to the efficacy of art as a potent civilizer
and dispenser of happiness. If every painter were a Rubens in
selection and treatment of topics, there might be some force to
the point of Parker, for he painted but little that is calculated
to inspire the mind with lofty sentiment or refined pleasure. He
was chiefly a painter of vanities for courts, academic sacred art
for a degenerate, persecuting church, and coarsenesses for the
populace. Even he created more than he “copied ” beauty, such
as it was. But his standard of beauty, low and sensual as it
undoubtedly is, has a charm for many minds incapable of being
touched by anything purer and higher, and which serves to raise
them aesthetically and intellectually somewhat above their natu-
ral material level of thought and action. Indeed, we may test
372 ISSUE BETWEEN THE MATERIAL AND SPIRITUAL
the fallacy of the argument of Parker on its own basis of
USe.
Which is most useful to man, that which adds to his physical
comfort or mental and spiritual welfare P This is the real issue
between representative men of the extremes of utilitarianism
and aesthetics, like Franklin and Michael Angelo. I endorse
most comprehensively the value of the “coarse arts” that “feed,
clothe, house, and comfort ’’ peoples, and rejoice in the advent of
each benefactor in their line. But can an improved stove, cheaper
bread, handier building materials, more rapid locomotion, or any
of the multiform results of our laws on patents, do for the mind
what the fine art of a Michael Angelo does? The one is a
fresh convenience to the body, easily replaced or readily for-
gotten. Purely material in structure and application, it has no
direct connection with the soul, which lives as serenely in its
immortal atmosphere without the physical object as with it.
But the fine art that gave us Leonardo’s “Last Supper;” Raph-
ael’s “Madonna del Sisto; ” the “Eve’ and “ St. Sebastian * of
Sodoma; the heavenly hosts of Fra Angelico; the revelations
of the misery of sinners by Luca Signorelli and Orgagna ;
the sympathy with despairing labor that Jules Breton shows;
the symbolism and conscience of Holman Hunt; the good cheer
and gush of human emotions that Millais puts into his pic-
tures; the lofty idea, in plastic form, of Africa awakening to a
new life, essayed by Anne Whitney; the robust truth of form
and character of Ward; the passionate glow of suggestive color
of Inness; all these and their like comfort the mind. Did not
Parker's own Teacher say, referring to the excessive material-
ism of his times, “Take no thought for your life what ye
shall eat or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body what
ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat and the body
more than raiment?” “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and
his righteousness.”
Ideas and emotions once received into the soul are a constit-
uent part of it forever. Their superiority of use, therefore, is
as incontestable as their origin and office are nobler than those
of tangible objects that administer only to the physical well-
being. Socrates could command but a mite of worldly re-
sources, had not a patented object in his mean habitation, never
heard of steam, the telegraph, or cheap clothing and fuel for the
million, but he left a legacy of mental and moral riches to his
fellow men, such as in comparison makes all that the countless
WHAT FINE ART DOES. 373
treasure of the Rothschilds can buy, seem but poverty itself. If
access to the soul be shut out by over service and luxury to
the body, fine intellectual appeals fall on organizations too cal-
lous to heed them. The distinction of offices between him
who works only for the physical wants and he who administers
to the growth of the soul, is indeed a marked one. I might add
that fine art reacts even more conspicuously on the material
prosperity of a nation than the “coarse arts” do on the finer.
It would require the cost of many railroads or cotton mills to
buy up the fine art of Italy as an investment, because of its
being a vast productive capital, supporting a large number of
people, and adding yearly to the accumulative public wealth with
but little outlay to keep it. Improved machinery and locomo-
tion cheapen articles of common consumption and promote circu-
lation. Fine art galleries do as much, and help the buying ca-
pacity of the cities where they exist. I should consider these
facts unnecessary to present, were not so many otherwise intelli-
gent persons deluded by the apparent common sense of the
Parkerian theory of use, which is sheer foolishness. In favor of
the spread of fine art in America we have a fresh aesthetic con-
stitution and temperament, the increasing passion of decoration,
ornament, and festivals; a keen native instinct for color and
form; the patriotic desire to commemorate public men and
events; a vast wealth, each year more liberally given to benefi-
cent purposes by living benefactors; increasing means of culture;
a juster appreciation of national defects and deficiencies in art,
an intenser spiritual apprehension of life, arising from the varied
religious agitations, as an offset to the redundant realism founded
on rapid material progress, and above all, the growing recogni
tion of humanity at large as the true object of effort, to make
the earth more pleasant for man's temporary abode while school-
ing for a higher existence. The passion of the Greek for
beauty made his art beautiful, just as the emotional fervor of the
mediaevalist made his spiritual. We are not called to repeat
either Minervas, Venuses, Queens of Heaven, or any of the
effete forms of effete mythologies, but to create anew according
to more advanced notions of heroisms, celestial and mundane.
Each after its kind in art ; realism, or “the glory of the terres-
trial,” as St. Paul defines the idealisms of earth, and “the glory
of the celestial” those of heaven. “As we have borne the image
of the earthly, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly.”
The artist should beware of confounding the spiritual in art
374 THE COMING AMERICAN SCHOOL.
with the realistic. Both are legitimate phases. Only, however,
as we are able to make art appear immortal and incorruptible
do we raise it to the standard of the just made perfect. The
American school will be born of our own material and spiritual
life; our own faith in and sacrifices for humanity; and of those
profound social, political, and religious convictions that make up
a religion of the heart, whose fruit shall be the divinely an-
nounced “Peace and Good-will” of Bethlehem.

ARTISTS AND WORKS OF ART CITED IN THIS VOLUME,
Æsop, bust of, 30. Beltraffio, 361.
“Ajax and Médea,” 21. Benvenuti, his frescoes, 169.
Albano, 217. Bernini, 71, 305.
Albert Durer, 140, 186. Bierdstadt, 298, 305.
Altamura, 168. (cited) “Rocky Mountains.”
(cited) “Destruction of the Cimbri | Billings, Hamatt, 302.
by Marius.” (cited) “Plymouth Monument.”
Andrea del Sarto, 231, 252. Blake, William, 6, 205, 318.
~ Andreoli, Giorgio (see Giorgio, Maes- (cited) The “Grave,” “Sons of
tro ) * God,” “Morning Stars,” “Ancient
Angelo, Michael, 6, 46, 73, 83, 91, 140, of Days,” “Satan,” the “Spirit,”
307, 311, 349, 372. “Crucifixion,” “Jerusalem.”
(works cited) “Night and Day,” Bonheur, Auguste, 272.
“Il Penseroso,” “Duke Guliano,” Bonheur, Rosa, 248.
“Moses,” “Bacchus,” “The Prison- Botticelli, 363.
ers,” “Last Judgment,” “Frescoes (cited) “Madonna and Child.”
of the Vatican,” “Fortune,” “Mes. | Boucher, 6, 241, 242.
siah,” “Almighty,” “Leda.” Bourdon, Sebastian, 237.
“Antimous” of the Capitol, 66. Boun Tiyê, 222.
Antonella da Messina, 847. Brackett, 319.
Apelles. 18, 21, 200. (cited) Bust of John Brown.
Apollo. 23, 29, 65. Bradford, William, 298.
Aristides, 21. Bramante, 125.
Apollodorus, 133. Breton, Jules, 266–8, 372.
Ary Scheffer, 248,250. (cited) “Evening,” “The Reapers.”
(cited) “Francesca da Rimini.” Brown, 310.
Athlete (of the Vatican), 30. (cited) Equestrian statue of Wash-
Auchenback, 224. ington.
Browne, Henrietta, 264.
Babcock, William, 294. Brunelleschi, 124.
Bacchus (Leucotea and Ninfé), 23, 71. Buonarotti (see Angelo).
Ball, Thomas, 319. Burci, Emelio, 363.
(cited) Equestrian statue of Wash-
ington, Cacini, 302.
Bastianini, 171, 358. (cited) Statue of St. Alessio.
(cited) Bust of Benivieni. Calame, 273.
Baudry, 260, 261. Cano, 177.
(cited) “Diana.” Carbarel, 268.

376 INDEX.
Delaroche, 248, 250.
“Descent of Ulysses into Hell,” 21.
Desgoffe, 264.
Desportes, 242.
Diaz, 272.
Dionysius (see Bacchus).
Domenichino, 385. ---
Donatello, 82, 170, 306.
(cited) “Expulsion of Adam and
Carlo Dolce, 6.
2 Carracci, Agostino, 69.
(cited) “ St. Jerome.”
2Carracci the, 141. –
2^ Cellini, Benvenuti, 168, 282.
Cesare da Sesto, 361.
Chantrey, 195.
Chaudet, 282.
“Chimera,” the Etruscan, 48.
Church, William, 224, 298.
(cited) “Niagara,” “Heart of the
Andes.”
Claude Lorraine, 6, 232, 236, 300.
Clouet, François, 231.
Cole, 294.
Compte, 258.
Conolly P., 318.
(cited) group of “Death and Honor.”
Copley, 294.
Cornelius, 189.
Correggio, 83, 88, 141, 200.
Corti, 174.
(cited) The “Devil” in sculpture.
Courbet, 274.
(cited) “Last Judgment.”
Couture, 254.
(cited) “Romans of the Decadence.”
Craig, 318.
Youth.”
Crawford, 313.
(cited) Statue of “Liberty.”
Credi, Lorenzo di, 363.
Eve from Paradise.”
|
2 Carravaggio, 237.
Cheou-lao, god of longevity, 229.
Cimabue, 361.
Confucius, bronze statuette, 312.
Corot, 273, 299.
Cousin, Jean, 232.
(cited) “Vanishing of Illusions of
(cited) “Annunciation.”
Daphne (and Apollo), 72.
Daubigny, 272.
David, Louis, 244.
Décamps, 245, 249.
Delacroix, 248, 256, 357.
(cited) “Apollo and Python,” “Mas-
sacre of Scio,” “Charon's Bark,”
his frescoes.
\
(cited) “St. George.”
Doré, 6, 141, 223, 274.
(cited) “Spanish Gypsy,” “Wander-
ing Jew,” “Bible,” “Don Quixote,”
“Contes Drólatiques,” “Atala,” etc.
Dupré, 170.
(cited) “Pieta,” “Cain,” “Abel.”
Durer (see Albert Durer).
Eastlake, Sir Charles, 358.
Farrar, 294.
Fedi, 168.
(cited) “Rape of Polyxena.”
Flandrin, Hippolyte, his frescoes, 248,
251.
Flaxman, 195.
Fleury, 248, 249.
“Flora,” of Naples, 65.
Fontana, 335.
Fra Angelico, 47, 70, 80.
Frère, 265.
Frith, 202, 305.
(cited) “Derby Day,” “Railway
Station.”
Fromentin, 264.
Furness, 294.
Gainsborough, 200.
Gariod, Baron Hector, 361.
Gellée (see Claude Lorraine).
Gérard, 245.
(cited) “Psyche.”
Géricault, 245.
(cited) “Wreck of the Medusa.”
Gérome, 258. $
(cited) “Siamese Ambassadors,”
“Augurs,” “Phryne,” “King Can-
daules,” “Almeh,” “Alcibiades with
Lais.”
Ghiberti, 81.
(cited) Gates of.
Ghirlandajo, Dominico, his frescoes,
82,252, 306.
INDEX.
Gibson, 195.
Giorgio, Maestro, 334, 335, 360.
Giorgiome, Barbarelli, 253, 354. '
(cited) “Malatesta and the Pilgrim.”
Giottino, 170.
(cited) Tomb of Ubertino di Bardi.
Giotto, 44, 81, 140, 314.
Giovanni di Bologna, 71.
Girodet, 247.
(cited) “Deluge,” “Atala.”
Gladiator (the Dying), 62.
Glycére, portrait of, 21.
Goujon, 282.
(cited) “Diana.”
Gould, Thomas, 174, 318.
(cited) Busts of Christ, Satan, statue
of “ West Wind.”
Greenough, Horatio, 291, 294.
Greuze, Jean Baptiste, 242.
(cited) “Malediction,” “Broken
Pitcher,” “Sin Punished.”
Gros, 246.
(cited) “Battle of Eylau,” “Plague
at Jaffa.”
Grotesque, heathen and Christian, 69.
Harding, 291.
Hay, Mrs. Benham, 213.
(cited) The “Florentine Procession.”
Hereford, Marquis of 359.
Hogarth, 201.
Holbein, Hans, 31, 140, 187.
Homer, Winslow, 297.
Hosmer, Harriet, 308.
(cited) “Zenobia,” “Puck,” “Ben-
ton,” “Faun.”
Hotchkiss, 300.
Houdon, 283.
Hunt, Holman, 212, 361, 372.
(cited) “Finding in the Temple,”
“Light of the World,” letter of.
Hunt, William, English painter, 212.
Hunt, William, American painter, 294,
298.
(cited) Portraits.
Inness, 294, 372.
Ingres, 248.
(cited) “Roger,” his cartoons, “Ho-
mer Deified.”
Jackson, 310.
377
(cited) Allegorical group for Croton
Reservoir.
Jalysus, the hunter, 21.
Jebis, Japanese Neptune, 229.
Johnson, Eastman, 297.
Jouvenot, 234.
(cited) “Descent of the Cross.”
Kaulback, 189.
La Farge, 294.
| Lambinet, 272.
Lambron, 268.
(cited) “Virgin and Child Jesus.”
Landseer, 203.
Laokoon, 61.
Lar, 26.
Ile Brun, 238.
Le Brun, Madame, 245.
L’Hariden, 270.
Leech, 204.
Leighton, 212.
Lely, Sir Peter, 198.
Leonardo, 6, 21, 31, 83, 140, 200, 311,
354, 360.
(works cited) “Jaconda,” “The Last
Supper,” “Leda,” “St. Catherine,”
“St. Jerome,” “Madonna and
Child.”
Leslie, 204, 294.
Leys, 345.
Le Sueur, 233,235.
Leutze, 298.
(cited) Fresco of “Westward Ho.”
Lippo, Fra Fillipo, 363.
(cited) “ St. Jerome.”
Lo Spagna, 363.
(cited) “Sacra Familia.”
Lucca della Robbia, 82, 170, 306, 332.
(cited) Tomb of “Frederigo,” sculp-
tures in the Uffizi.
Luini, Bernardino, 349, 354, 361, 362.
(cited) “Holy Family.”
Lysippus, 30, 31.
Manet, 269.
(cited) “Olympia,” “Jesus Mocked.”
Mapin, 280.
Marochetti, 195.
Masaccio, 81.
378
Menelaus and Helen, Etruscan bas-re-
lief, 72.
Mercury, 71.
Mèrle, 266.
Meissonnier, 258, 259.
Migliarini, Professor, 361.
Mignard, Pierre, 238.
Millais, 212, 372.
(cited) “Sower of the Seed.”
Millet, 266, 267.
Mills, Clark, 310.
(cited) Equestrian statue of Washing-
ton.
Modesty, statue of 30.
Moore, Charles, 294.
Moore, Morris, 345.
Morales, 177.
Moreau, Woolsey, 359.
Morelli, 171.
Muller, 257.
(cited) “Call of the Condemned.”
Murillo, 141, 177, 179, 347.
“Muse of Cortona,” 18.
-->
Niccola Pisano, 81.
Niobe, group of, 68.
Oggione, Mario d’, 361.
Oksai, 222.
Orsay, Count d’, 340.
Orgagna, 44, 95, 170.
(cited) Tomb of Nicolo Acciajuoli.
Oudry, 241.
Overbeck, 189.
Page, William, 200, 294.
Palissy, 333.
Parrhasius, 21, 70.
Paul Potter, 182.
(cited) “La Vache que p — ”
Peale, Rembrandt, 294.
Perugino, 82, 160, 347.
Phallus, 26.
Phidias, 18, 29, 32, 65.
(cited) Statues of Jupiter, Minerva,
“Elgin Marbles,” Theseus.
Pickersgill, 340.
Piero della Francesca, 82, his frescoes,
158, 206.
Pilon, 282.
Pindar, 34.
Pollajuoli, Antonio, 361.
INDEX.
(cited) “Rape of Dejanira.”
Poussin, Nicholas, 233,299.
(cited) “Judgment of Solomon,”
“Adulterous Woman,” “Holy Fam-
ily,” etc.
Powers, Hiram, 64, 302, 305.
(cited) Panoramic Hell, “Greek
Slave,” “Webster.”
Pradier, 282.
Praxiteles, his nude Venus, 33.
Primaticcio, 231. ,
Protogenes, 21.
Prud’hon, 245.
Puget, Pierre, 283.
Punch, 204.
Pyrecius, 28.
Quanwero, 229.
Raphael, 6, 31, 82, 140, 299, 347, 372.
(works cited) “Galatea,” “Cupid
and Psyche,” “Marsyas,” his Ma-
donnas, Bible stories, “Ezekiel,”
“St. John,” “St. Margaret.”
Razzi, 42, 92, 140, 161, 361.
(cited) “St. Sebastian,”
“Epiphany.”
Rembrandt, 141, 182.
(cited) “Guard House.”
Reynolds, Sir Joshua, 199.
Ribot, 269.
Rimmer, Dr., 302.
(cited) Statue of Hamilton.
Rio, A. F., 362.
Rosa (see Salvator).
Rosetti, Dante, 212.
Rousseau, Philippe, 264.
Rousseau, Theodore, 272.
Rubens, 141, 179, 182, 371.
(cited) “Rural Fête,” Allegories in
the Louvre. /
Salvator, Rosa, 130, wº
Sam Gallo, 125.
Sano di Pietro, 360.
Sansovino, 125.
Sauvegeot, M., 359.
Scarabeus, 26.
Scheffer, 261.
(cited) “Henry II. Fête.”
Schreyer, 263.
(cited) “Artillery Charge.”
{{ Eve,’ y
INDEX.
Settignano, 171.
Sigalon, 238.
(cited) “Vision of St. Jerome.”
Signol, 268.
Signorelli, Luca, 44, 363, 372.
(cited) “Adoration of the Magi.”
Silence, statue of, 30.
Sneyders, 203.
Sodoma (see Razzi).
Solaris, 361.
Stebbins, Miss, 174, 302.
(cited) The “Devil,”
Mann.”
Story, William, 295, 303, 311, 312.
(cited) “Cleopatra,” “Medea,”
“Judith,” “Sphinx,” “Sappho,”
“Saul,” “African Sibyl,” “Deli-
lah,” “Quincy,” “Everett,” busts
of “Brownings,” “Chief Justice
Story.”
Street, Academy of Fine Art, New
Haven, 364.
Sturgis, Russell, Jr., 343.
Stuart, 294.
Sully, 294.
“Horace
Telekles, 295.
Tenerani, 89.
(cited) “Angel” of the Minerva,
“Descent from the Cross.”
Theodorus, 296.
Tiepolo, 298.
Titian, 6, 31, 83, 186.
(cited) “Venus,” portraits of Canaro,
“the Unknown of the Pitti,” “Peter
Martyr.”
“Torso" of the Vatican, 309.
Torso de Belvidere, 66.
Troyon, 248.
Trumbull, 294.
Turner, 6, 31, 141, 215.
(cited) “Ulysses deriding Polyphe-
379
mus,” “Dragon of the Hesperides,'
“Angel standing in the Sun,” “Cross-
ing the Brook,” “Old Teméraire,”
“Burial of Wilkie.”
Ugobaldi, 355.
Ulysses, bas-relief, 72.
Ussi, 167.
(cited) “Expulsion of the Duke of
Athens from Florence.”
Valentin. 237.
Wanloo, 241.
Wanderlyn, 294.
Van Eyck, 259.
Vedder, Elihu, 297, 318.
Vela, 174.
(cited) “Dying Napoleon.”
Velasquez, 31, 141, 177, 179. —
Venus de Milo, 65.
“Venus " of the Tribune, 65.
Venus and Mars, 71.
Wernet, Horace, 248. —
Wernet, Joseph, 242.
(cited) “Marseilles.”
Veronese, Paul, 242.
Vinci, da (see Leonardo).
Volunni, tomb of, 44.
Ward, –, 310, 372.
Watteau, 241, 242.
Wedgewood, 387.
West, Sir Benjamin, 291.
Whistler, 248.
Whitney, Anne, 372.
(cited) “Africa.”
Wilkie, 203.
Winterhalter, 265.
Wren, Sir Christopher, 125.
Xanto, 335.
Zeuxis, 6, 21.

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