ANECDOTES
OF
PAINTERS, ENGRAVERS,
Sculptors and Architects,
AND
CURIOSITIES OF ART.

BY
SHEARJASHUB SPOONER, A. B., M. D.,
AUTHOR OF “A BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL DICTIONARY OF PAINTERS, ENGRAVERS, SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS, FROM ANCIENT TO MODERN TIMES.”
I N T H R E E V O L U M E S.
VOL. I.
New York:
PUBLISHED FOR THE AUTHOR,
BY G. P. PUTNAM & COMPANY, 10 PARK PLACE.
1853.

PREFACE.

This work is not a mere compilation, or republication of anecdote. It will be found to contain much original matter, and much of the most interesting and instructive portions of the history of art. For a list of authorities, the reader is referred to the author’s Dictionary of Painters, etc., and for a convenient reference, to the Index at the end of vol. iii. The author has studied his subject con amore, for many years, and has gathered abundant materials for three more volumes, should these be favorably received. But he fears lest in these romance-loving days, the recital of the trials, misfortunes, achievements and exaltations of those men of genius and fine sensibilities, to whom the world is indebted for the creation and development of the most beautiful arts, will fail to arrest the attention or move the heart.

Although it does not become a man to prate of himself, yet the author trusts he will be pardoned when he speaks of his labors and their object. For a long period, his labors have been directed to the great object of the restoration and publication of Napoleon’s magnificent works, the Musée Français and the Musée Royal, a notice of which may be found in vol. iii., page 302, of this work. He trusts he may soon be able to present the first numbers to the public. These, and his other achieved undertakings, have made his life one of the most untiring industry. In order to find time for these enterprises, and still attend to the calls of his profession, he has been obliged to deprive himself of repose and relaxation; and during the five years he was engaged in publishing Boydell’s Illustrations of Shakspeare, and in preparing his Dictionary for the press, he spent but one evening out of his study, except those of the Sabbath, relinquishing his toil only at midnight, to be resumed at dawn.

These self-imposed labors have not been assumed through any mercenary or selfish motives. His experience has taught him the precarious results of literary and publishing enterprises of the nature undertaken by him, in the present state of the Fine Arts in our country. The amount of capital and labor he has invested has been enormous, and the risks proportionate; his books admonish him that he has already embarked many thousands of dollars which he can never hope to regain. Still, what he has accomplished is to him a theme of pride and exultation; it has also been a labor of love. His reward is the consciousness of having done something toward awakening a love for, and an interest in art and artists, and that he will leave to his countrymen, for their delight and instruction, so many world-renowned and world-approved specimens of the highest art. Posterity must be his judge; but he cannot forbear to add, that can he now succeed in restoring the great works before mentioned, and leave them as a rich legacy to his country, for the promotion of the Fine Arts in coming time, he will have accomplished his every earthly aspiration.

CONTENTS.

ANECDOTES
OF
PAINTERS, ENGRAVERS, SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS.

EXTRACT FROM TEXT TO PLATE LIII OF THE AMERICAN EDITION OF BOYDELL’S ILLUSTRATIONS OF SHAKSPEARE.

It is deemed appropriate to devote this page to the infelicities which often fall to the lot of men of genius, in hopes to strike a sympathetic chord; since to them the world owes all that is beautiful as well as useful in art. It is well known that men of fine imaginations and delicate taste, are generally distinguished for acute sensibilities, and for being deficient in more practical qualities; they are frequently eccentric, and illy adapted to contend with the coldness and indifference of the world, much less its sarcasm and enmity. The history of Art is full of melancholy examples.

When Torregiano, the cotemporary of Michael Angelo, had finished his exquisite group of the Madonna and Child for the Duke d’Arcos, with the assurance of a rich reward, the nobleman sent two servants, bearing two well-filled bags of money, with orders to bring the work to his palace. The sculptor, upon opening the bags, found nothing but brass maravedi! Filled with just indignation, he seized his mallet, in a moment of uncontrollable rage, and smashed the beautiful group into a thousand pieces, saying to the servants, “Go, take your base metal to your ignoble lord, and tell him he shall never possess a sculpture by my hand!” The infamous nobleman, burning with shame, resolved on a terrible revenge; he arraigned the unhappy artist before the Inquisition, on a charge of sacrilege for destroying the sacred images. Torregiano was imprisoned and condemned to death by torture; but to escape that awful fate, he destroyed himself in the dungeon.

It is not necessary to go back further than the history of this work, to find melancholy examples of the trials of genius. Thomas Banks vainly endeavored to introduce a lofty and heroic style of sculpture into his native country. He could obtain no commissions to execute in marble his most beautiful and sublime compositions, and was compelled to confine himself to monumental sculpture. James Barry, after struggling with poverty and neglect all his days, died in a garret, a raving maniac. A subscription had been started for his relief; but it was all expended in defraying his funeral expenses, and in erecting a monument to his memory in St. Paul’s Cathedral, with this inscription,—“The Great Historical Painter, James Barry. Died, Feb. 1806, aged 65”! His remains were laid out in state, in the Great Room of the Adelphi—the true and appropriate monument of his genius. The Society had requested the members of the Royal Academy to decorate their Room, and when all others declined, Barry nobly came forward, and offered his services gratuitously, which were gladly accepted. He spent seven long years in decorating this apartment with fresco paintings, which the Society publicly declared was “a national ornament, as well as a monument of the talents and ingenuity of the artist”; and Dr. Johnson said, “They shew a grasp of mind that you will find nowhere else.” Observe the contrast: Cunningham says, that when he began this great work, he had but a shilling in his pocket, and during its execution he lived on the coarsest fare, in a miserable garret, subsisting by the sale of an occasional drawing, when he could find a purchaser!

The life of William Blake presents a picture no less melancholy. An eccentric and extraordinary genius, he seemed, in the flights of his wild imagination, to hold converse with the spirits of the departed; and in some of his works there is a truly wonderful sublimity of conception and grandeur of execution. Although not appreciated during his lifetime, he toiled on in abject poverty with indefatigable industry, reveling in visions of future fame. His Ancient of Days was his greatest favorite; three days before his death, he sat bolstered up in bed, and touched it over and over with the choicest colors, in his happiest style; then held it off at arms’ length, exclaiming, “There! that will do! I cannot mend it.” Observing his wife in tears, he said, “Stay, Kate! keep just as you are; I will draw your portrait, for you have been an angel to me.” She obeyed, and the dying artist made a fine likeness. He was cheerful and contented to the last. “I glory,” said he, “in dying, and have no grief but in leaving you, Katharine; we have lived happy and we have lived long; we have ever been together, but we shall be divided soon. Why should I fear death! Nor do I fear it. I have endeavored to live as Christ commands, and have sought to worship God truly.” On the day of his death, Aug. 12, 1827, he composed and sung hymns to his Maker, so sweetly to the ear of his beloved Katharine, that she stood wrapt to hear him. Observing this, he said to her, with looks of intense affection, “My beloved, they are not mine—no, they are the songs of the angels.”

Young Proctor, the sculptor, was a student of the rarest promise, in the Royal Academy. After obtaining two silver medals, the president, Benjamin West, had the suggestion conveyed to him, that he had better execute a historical composition. Accordingly, in the next year, Proctor produced his model of “Ixion on the Wheel,” and in the following year, “Pirithous slain by Cerberus,” both of which excited great admiration. In the third year, he conceived a much bolder flight of imagination, “Diomed torn in pieces by Wild Horses,” which was far more successful than his previous efforts, approaching, in the opinion of the best judges, the grandeur of Michael Angelo, and even the Phidian period of Greek design. But this noble emanation of high native talent could not find a purchaser, and at the close of the exhibition it was returned to the studio of the sculptor, who, stung to the heart by this severe disappointment, instantly destroyed his sublime creation. Derided by his more favored but less deserving cotemporaries, Proctor shunned society, and having exhausted all his means of support to produce this last work, he was reduced to the greatest straits. When Mr. West, after some time, succeeded in ascertaining the place of his obscure retreat, he stated the circumstance to the Academy, who unanimously agreed to send Proctor to Italy, with the usual pension, and fifty pounds besides, for necessary preparations. This joyful intelligence was immediately communicated to the despairing artist, but it came too late! his constitution, undermined by want and vexation, was unable to bear the revulsion of his feelings, and he shortly after breathed his last, “a victim,” says his biographer, “to anti-national prejudices.”

The life of Thomas Kirk, termed the “English Raffaelle,” is another melancholy example of unappreciated genius. Chagrin and disappointment of his ambitious hopes, consigned him to an untimely grave. Taylor, in his History of the Fine Arts in Great Britain, says, that a few years ago, one of Hogarth’s pictures brought at public sale in London, more money than the artist ever received for all his paintings together. Nollekens, the sculptor, bought two landscapes of Richard Wilson, for fifteen guineas, to relieve his pressing necessities. At the sale of the effects of the former after his decease, they brought two hundred and fifty guineas each!

Shall instances like these stain the annals of American Art, or will this free people accord to its gifted sons the encouragement they so richly deserve? May the sympathies of those who can perceive in painting and sculpture, most efficient means of mental culture, refinement, and gratification, be enlisted by these sad memories, to render timely encouragement to exalted genius! It adds to national and individual profit, pride, and glory. How much does America owe Robert Fulton and Eli Whitney? Millions, untold millions!

ADVANTAGES OF THE CULTIVATION OF THE FINE ARTS TO A COUNTRY.

The advantages which a country derives from the cultivation of the fine arts, are thus admirably summed up by Sir M. A. Shee, late President of the Royal Academy, London:—

“It should be the policy of a great nation to be liberal and magnificent; to be free of her rewards, splendid in her establishments, and gorgeous in her public works. These are not the expenses that sap and mine the foundations of public prosperity, that break in upon the capital, or lay waste the income of a state; they may be said to arise in her most enlightened views of general advantage; to be amongst her best and most profitable speculations; they produce large sums of respect and consideration from our neighbors and competitors, and of patriotic exultation among ourselves; they make men proud of their country, and from priding it, prompt in its defense; they play upon all the chords of generous feeling, elevate us above the animal and the machine, and make us triumph in the powers and attributes of men.”

Sir George Beaumont, in a letter to Lord Dover, on the subject of the purchase of the Angerstein collection by the government, speaking of the benefit which a country derives from the possession of the best works of art, says, “My belief is that the Apollo, the Venus, the Laocoön, &c., are worth many thousands a year to the country that possesses them.” When Parliament was debating the propriety of buying the Angerstein Collection for £60,000, he advocated the measure with enthusiasm, and exclaimed, “Buy this collection of pictures for the nation, and I will give you mine.” And this he nobly did, not in the form of a bequest, but he transferred them at once as soon as the galleries were prepared for their reception, with the exception of one little gem, with him a household god, which he retained till his death. This picture was a landscape by Claude, with figures representing Hagar and her child, and he was so much attached to it that he took it with him as a constant traveling companion. When he died, it was sent to its place in the Gallery. The value of this collection was 70,000 guineas. Such instances of noble generosity for public benefaction, deserve to be held in grateful remembrance, and should be “written in letters of gold on enduring marble,” for the imitation of mankind.

After the peace of Amiens, Benjamin West visited Paris, for the purpose of viewing the world’s gems of art, which Bonaparte had collected together in the Louvre. He had already conceived a project for establishing in England a national institution for the encouragement of art, similar to that of the Louvre, and he took occasion one day, while strolling about the galleries in company with Mr. Fox, the British minister, and Sir Francis Baring, to point out to them the advantages of such an institution, not only in promoting the Fine Arts, by furnishing models of study for artists, but he showed the propriety, in a commercial point of view, of encouraging to a seven fold extent, the higher department of art in England. Cunningham relates that Fox was so forcibly struck with his remarks that he said, “I have been rocked in the cradle of politics, but never before was so much struck with the advantages, even in a political bearing, of the Fine Arts, to the prosperity, as well as the renown of a kingdom; and I do assure you, Mr. West, if I ever have it in my power to influence our government to promote the Arts, the conversation which we have had to-day shall not be forgotten.” Sir Francis Baring also promised his hearty coöperation. West was mainly instrumental in establishing the Royal British Institution. Taylor, in his History of the Fine Arts in Great Britain, says, he battled for years against coldly calculating politicians for its accomplishment; at length, his plan was adopted with scarcely an alteration.

“The commercial states of the classic ages of antiquity held the arts in very high estimation. The Rhodians were deeply engaged in commerce, yet their cultivation of the arts, more especially that of sculpture, was most surprising. The people of Ægina were equally engaged in commercial pursuits, but they were also admired for the correctness and elegance of their taste and manners, as well as their sculpture. A more ancient people still, the Phœnicians, Tyrians, Tyrrhenians, Etruscans, or Carthagenians, who were all colonies from one race of men, long before the foundation of Rome, understood and taught others the working in metals, one instance of which is remarkable: Hiram, king of Tyre, cast the brazen sea, and other immense objects in metal, for Solomon’s temple. Let us cast our eyes on Argos, Athens, Corinth, and Sicyon, those ancient abodes of good taste and transcendent genius; each of them were commercial states and cities. The remains of their beautifully-sculptured marbles, which once were in profusion, and of which we now strive to possess even the fragments, at almost any cost, show evidently that their commercial pursuits and relations with other countries had not narrowed, if it had not rather developed, the powers, and given that elastic vigor to the human mind that can, under due encouragement, overcome the greatest difficulties, and produce the grandest or the most enchanting works of utility or imagination. The marble quarries of Paros and Pentelicus were by such encouragements transformed into the noblest temples and most exquisitely beautiful statues of deities, heroes, and men, that it is possible to conceive. Such was the case throughout all the cities on the coast of the Ægean sea and of the Cyclades. Their arts increased their commerce; this was the source of their wealth; and fully aware of these advantages, their wealth reacted again on their arts, and thus there was kept alive that healthful movement of the whole popular mind, directed to the useful and elegant purposes of life.

“Let us come down to much later times, and to states far less remote, and ask what it was that gave such wealth and consequence to Venice, Genoa, Holland, and Flanders, to Pisa, Florence, and Lucca, not one of which states possessed much extent of territory, nor any large amount of population? The answer is, ‘their commercial enterprise and industry did it for them.’ True; but it is equally remarkable, that in all these states and cities the fine arts gave their powerful aid to those pursuits, as the splendid manufactures of these people testify. And where have the arts been fostered with more parental solicitude, or in what region have they shed more glory upon mankind, than they have done in these comparatively small territories? But it was the same principle that produced such splendid works in Greece: the cause and effect were precisely the same, the mode only was changed. But the principles are universal and eternal, and they may be brought to operate in other countries, to the fullest extent, and with as much grandeur, grace, and beauty, as they ever did attain, even in their most prosperous periods, under the guidance of Pericles, when they reached the highest splendor of Chryselephantine art, under the master minds of Phidias and Praxiteles, Callicrates and Ictinus, and at a later period displayed the equally resplendent genius of Apelles, Zeuxis, and Parrhasius, in the time of Alexander—those splendid epochs of painting, sculpture, and architecture, which shed an imperishable lustre upon the most enlightened states of the Hellenodic confederacy, and on the throne of the greatest conqueror of ancient times. We must not omit mentioning their palmy state in the Augustan age of Rome, and their still more glorious elevation there during the memorable cinque cento.

“But to reach these proud eminences of intellectual grandeur and extensive usefulness, the arts must be solicited, ample protection must be afforded to them; similar inducements to those which produced these great results must not only be offered, but substantially and permanently provided for their use. This garden of the human intellect must be regularly and assiduously cultivated with great care, and kept clear of the noxious weeds that would deform its beauties. Under genial treatment, all its charms develop themselves, and an endless variety of interesting and charming creations are called into existence, illustrating the high principles of religion, the noblest traits of moral and heroic conduct, and the sweetest dreams of the poetic muse: but the turmoils of war and high political contention are to them most injurious, blasting their fairest bloom, as the poisonous simoon of the desert withers the gardens of Palestine; and to these two causes, and these only, aided by anti-English prejudice, can we attribute the very slow advances which the arts had made among the natives of Britain until the auspicious period of which we are now treating”—time of George III.—Taylor’s History of the Fine Arts in Great Britain, vol. ii, p. 150.

ANTIQUITY OF THE FINE ARTS.

Homer, who flourished about B. C. 900, gives a striking proof of the antiquity of the fine arts, in his description of that admirable piece of chased and inlaid work—the shield of Achilles. Its rich design could not have been imagined, unless the arts necessary to produce it had arrived to a high degree of perfection in his country at the time he wrote, though we may doubt whether, at the period of the Trojan war, three hundred years before Homer, there existed artificers capable of executing it.

Within a century after the taking of Troy, the Greeks had founded many new colonies in Asia Minor, and the Heraclidæ finally regained their ancient seats in the Peloponnesus. It is worthy of remark that about that period, David built his house of cedars, and Solomon adorned Jerusalem with her magnificent first temple, and that Hiram, king of Tyre, sent to Solomon “a cunning man, endued with understanding,” to assist him in the building of the temple, but more especially to superintend the execution of the ornaments. (1st Kings, vii, 13, and 2d Chron., ii, 14.)

THE PŒCILE AT ATHENS.

The stoa or celebrated Portico at Athens, called the Pœcile on account of its paintings, was the pride of the Athenians. Polygnotus, Mycon, and Pantænus adorned it with pictures of gods, heroes, benefactors, and the most memorable acts of the Athenians, as the incidents of the siege and sacking of Troy, the battle of Theseus against the Amazons, the battle between the Athenians and Lacedæmonians at Œnoe in Argolis, the battle of Marathon, and other memorable actions. The most celebrated of these were a series of the Siege of Troy, and the Battle of Marathon by Polygnotus, more especially the latter, which eclipsed all the others, and gained the painter so much reputation that the Athenians offered him any sum he should ask, and when he refused all compensation, the Amphictyonic council decreed that wherever he might travel in Greece, he should be received with public honors, and provided for at the public expense.

According to Pausanias, Polygnotus represented the hero Marathon, after whom the plain was named, in the act of receiving Minerva, the patroness of Athens, accompanied by Hercules, about to be joined by Theseus, whose shade is seen rising out of the earth—thus claiming Attica as his native soil. In the foreground, the Greeks and Persians are combating with equal valor, but in extending the view to the middle of the composition, the barbarians were seen routed and flying to the Phœnician ships, which were visible in the distance, and to the marshes, while the Greeks were in hot pursuit, slaying their foes in their flight. The principal commanders of both parties were distinguished, particularly Mardonius, the Persian general, the insertion of whose portrait gratified the Athenians little less than that of their own commander, Miltiades, along with whom were Callimachus, Echetlus, and the poet Æschylus, who was in the battle that day. It is evident that the painter did not strictly follow history, but treated his subject in a grand poetic and heroic style, and that too, we may rest assured, with consummate skill, to have elicited such applause from a people too refined to be deceived by any meretricious trickery of art.

MOSAICS.

Mosaics are ornamented works, made in ancient times, of cubes of variously colored stones, and in modern, more frequently of glass of different colors. The art originated in the East, and seems first to have been introduced among the Romans in the time of Sylla. It was an ornament in great request by the luxurious Romans, especially in the time of the Emperors, for the decoration of every species of edifice, and to this day they continue to discover, in the ruins of the Imperial Baths, and elsewhere, many magnificent specimens in the finest preservation. In Pompeii, mosaic floors and pavements may be said to have been universal among the wealthy.

In modern times, great attention has been bestowed to revive and improve the art, with a view to perpetuate the works of the great masters. In this way, Guercino’s Martyrdom of St. Petronilla, and Domenichino’s Communion of the dying St. Jerome, in St. Peter’s Church, which were falling into decay, have been rendered eternal. Also, the Transfiguration of Raffaelle, and other great works. Pope Clement VIII. had the whole interior dome of St. Peter’s ornamented with this work. A grand Mosaic, covering the whole side of a wall, representing, as some suppose, the Battle of Platea; as others, with more probability, one of the Victories of Alexander, was discovered in Pompeii. This work, now in the Academy of Naples, is the admiration of connoisseurs and the learned, not only from its antiquity, but from the beauty of its execution. The most probable supposition is, that it is a copy of the celebrated Victory of Arbela, by Philoxenes.

Vasari says that the art of Mosaic work had been brought to such perfection at Venice in the time of the Bianchini, famous mosaic painters of the 16th century, that “it would not be possible to effect more with colors.” Lanzi observes that “the church and portico of St. Mark remain an invaluable museum of this kind of work; where, commencing with the 11th century, we may trace the gradual progress of design belonging to each age, up to the present, as exhibited in many works in mosaic, beginning from the Greeks, and continued by the Italians. They consist chiefly of histories from the Old and New Testaments, and at the same time, furnish very interesting notices of civic and ecclesiastical history.” There are a multitude of mosaic pictures in the churches, galleries, and public edifices of Italy, especially at Venice, Rome, Florence, Milan; and some of the greatest artists were employed to furnish the designs. In delicate ornamental work, the pieces are multiplied by sawing into thin slabs. Some specimens made of precious stones, are of incredible value.

In working, the different pieces are cemented together, and when dry the surface is highly polished, which brings out the colors in great brilliancy. The ancients usually employed different colored marbles, stones, and shells; the Italians formerly employed brilliant stones, as agate, jaspar, onyx, cornelian, &c., but now they employ glass exclusively.

THE OLYMPIAN JUPITER.

The Greek masters in sculpture have been happily designated as “Magicians in Marble.” The taste which the Grecian people possessed for the beautiful, is well known. It stands among the chief of those characteristics by which they designated persons of great eminence. Their artists considered beauty as the first object of their studies; and by this means they surpassed all other nations, and have become models for all ages.

Of Phidias, the most celebrated sculptor of Greece, the Athenians spoke with rapture which knew no bounds. Lucian says, “We adore Phidias in his works, and he partakes of the incense we offer to the gods he has made.” Pausanias relates, that when this artist had finished his magnificent statue of the Olympian Jupiter, Jupiter himself applauded his labors; for when Phidias urged the god to show by some sign if the work was agreeable to him, the pavement of the Temple was immediately struck with lightning. Such incidents though fabulous, are valuable, inasmuch as they serve to prove the exalted notions the people entertained of the objects to which they relate.

PAINTING FROM NATURE.

Eupompus, the painter, was asked by Lysippus, the sculptor, whom, among his predecessors, he should make the objects of his imitation? “Behold,” said the painter, showing his friend a multitude of people passing by, “behold my models. From nature, not from art, by whomsoever wrought, must the artist labor, who hopes to attain honor, and extend the boundaries of his art.”

APELLES.

Apelles, according to the general testimony of ancient writers, was the most renowned painter of antiquity; hence painting is termed, by some of the Romans, the Apellean art. He flourished in the last half of the fourth century before Christ. Pliny affirms that he contributed more towards perfecting the art than all other painters. He seems to have claimed the palm in elegance and grace, or beauty, the charis of the Greeks, and the venustas of the Romans; a quality for which, among the moderns, perhaps Correggio is the most distinguished; but in the works of Apelles, it was unquestionably connected with a proportionably perfect design; a combination not found among the moderns. Pliny remarks that Apelles allowed that he was equalled by Protogenes in all respects save one, namely, in knowing when to take his hand from the picture. From this we may infer that the deficiency in grace which he remarked in the works of Protogenes, was owing to the excessive finish for which that painter was celebrated. Lucian speaks of Apelles as one of the best colorists among the ancient painters.

Apelles was famed for his industry; he is said never to have allowed a day to pass without exercising his pencil. “Nulla dies sine linea,” is a saying that arose from one of his maxims. His principal works appear to have been generally single figures, and rarely of more than a single group. The only large compositions of his execution that are mentioned by the ancient writers are, Diana surrounded by her Nymphs, in which he was allowed to have surpassed the lines of Homer from which he took the subject; and the Procession of the High Priest of Diana at Ephesus.

In portraits, Apelles was unrivalled. He is said to have enjoyed the exclusive privilege of painting Philip and Alexander the Great, both of whom he painted many times. In one of his portraits of Alexander, which was preserved in the temple of Diana at Ephesus, he represented him wielding the thunderbolts of Jupiter: Pliny says the hand and lightning appeared to start from the picture; and, judging from an observation in Plutarch, the figure of the king was lighted solely by the radiance of the lightning. Apelles received for this picture, termed the Alexander Ceraunophorus, twenty talents of gold (about $20,000). The criticism of Lysippus, upon this picture, which has been approved by ancients and moderns, that a lance, as he had himself given the king, would have been a more appropriate weapon in the hands of Alexander, than the lightnings of Jupiter; is the criticism of a sculptor who overlooked the pictorial value of the color, and of light and shade. The lightning would certainly have had little effect in a work of sculpture, but had a lance been substituted in its place in the picture of Apelles, a totally different production would have been the result. This picture gave rise to a saying, that there were two Alexanders, the one of Philip, the invincible, the other of Apelles, the inimitable.

Competent judges, says Pliny, decided the portrait of Antigonus (king of Asia Minor) on horseback, the master-piece of Apelles. He excelled greatly in painting horses, which he frequently introduced into his pictures. The most celebrated of all his works was the Venus Anadyomene, which was painted for the people of Coös, and was placed in the temple of Æsculapius on that island, where it remained until it was removed by Augustus, who took it in lieu of 100 talents tribute, and dedicated it in the temple of Julius Cæsar. It was unfortunately damaged on the voyage, and was in such a decayed state in the time of Nero, that the Emperor replaced it with a copy by a painter named Dorotheus. This happened about 350 years after it was executed, and what then became of it is not known. This celebrated painting, upon which every writer who has noticed it has bestowed unqualified praise, represented Venus naked, rising out of the ocean, squeezing the water from her hair with her fingers, while her only veil was the silver shower that fell from her shining locks. This picture is said to have been painted from Campaspe, a beautiful slave of Apelles, formerly the favorite of Alexander. The king had ordered Apelles to paint her naked portrait, and perceiving that the painter was smitten with the charms of his beautiful model, he gave her to him, contenting himself with the painting. He commenced a second Venus for the people of Coös, which, according to Pliny, would have surpassed the first, had not its completion been interrupted by the death of the painter: the only parts finished were the head and bust. Two portraits of Alexander painted by Apelles, were dedicated by Augustus, in the most conspicuous part of the forum bearing his name; in one was Alexander, with Castor and Pollux, and a figure of Victory; in the other was Alexander in a triumphal car, accompanied by a figure of War, with her hands pinioned behind her. The Emperor Claudius took out the heads of Alexander, and substituted those of Augustus. The following portraits are also mentioned among the most famous works of this great artist: Clitus preparing for Battle; Antigonus in armor, walking by the side of his Horse; and Archelaus the General, with his wife and daughter. Pausanias mentions a draped figure of one of the Graces by him, which he saw in the Odeon at Smyrna. A famous back view of a Hercules, in the temple of Antonius at Rome, was said to have been by Apelles. He painted many other famous works: Pliny mentions a naked figure by him, which he says challenged Nature herself. The same author says he covered his pictures with a dark transparent liquid or varnish, which had the effect of harmonising the colors, and also of preserving the work from injury.

Pliny says Apelles was the first artist who painted tetrachromes, or paintings executed with four colors, viz.; lamp black, white chalk, ruddle, and yellow ochre; yet, in describing his Venus Anadyomene, he says she was rising from the green or azure ocean under a bright blue sky. Zeuxis painted grapes so naturally as to deceive the birds. Where got he his green and purple? There has been a great deal of useless disquisition about the merits of ancient painters, and the materials they employed. When we take into consideration their thorough system of education; that the sister arts had been brought to such perfection as to render them the models of all succeeding times; that these painters enjoyed the highest honors and admiration of their polished countrymen, who, it must be admitted, were competent to judge of the merits of their works; that the Romans prized and praised them as much as the Greeks themselves; that there were in Rome in the time of Pliny many ancient paintings 600 years old, still retaining all their original freshness and beauty, it can scarcely be doubted that the paintings of the great Greek artists equaled the best of the moderns; that they possessed all the requisite colors and materials; and, if they did not possess all those now known, they had others unknown to us. It is certain that they employed canvass for paintings of a temporary character, as decorations; and that they treated every subject, both such as required those colors suitable to represent the solemnity and dignity of the gods, as well as others of the most delicate tints, with which to depict flowers; for the Venus of Apelles, and the Flower-Girl of Pausias must have glowed with Titian tints to have attracted such admiration. Colonel Leake, in his Topography of Athens, speaking of the temple of Theseus, says that the stucco still bears the marks or stains of the ancient paintings, in which he distinctly recognized the blue sky, vestiges of bronze and gold colored armor, and blue, green, and red draperies. What then becomes of the tetrachromes of Apelles, and the monochromes of previous artists? for Mycon painted the Theseum near 200 years before the time of Apelles.

APELLES AND THE COBBLER.

It was customary with Apelles to expose to public view the works which he had finished, and to hide himself behind the canvass, in order to hear the remarks made by spectators. He once overheard himself blamed by a shoemaker for a fault in the slippers of some figure; having too much good sense to be offended with any objection, however trifling, which came from a competent judge, he corrected the fault which the man had noticed. On the following day, however, the shoemaker began to animadvert upon the leg; on which Apelles, with some anger, looked out from the canvass, and reproved him in these words, which are also become a proverb, “ne sutor ultra crepidam”—“let the cobbler keep to his last,” or “every man to his trade.”

APELLES’ FOAMING CHARGER.

In finishing a drawing of a horse, in the portraiture of which he much excelled, a very remarkable circumstance is related of him. He had painted a war horse returning from battle, and had succeeded to his wishes in describing nearly every mark that could indicate a high-mettled steed impatient of restraint; there was wanting nothing but a foam of bloody hue issuing from the mouth. He again and again endeavored to express this, but his attempts were unsuccessful. At last in vexation, he threw against the mouth of the horse a sponge filled with different colors, which produced the very effect desired by the painter. A similar story is related of Protogenes, in painting his picture of Jalysus and his Dog.

APELLES AND ALEXANDER.

Apelles was held in great esteem by Alexander the Great, and was admitted into the most intimate familiarity with him. He executed a portrait of this prince in the character of a thundering Jove; a piece which was finished with such skill and dexterity, that it used to be said there were “two Alexanders, the one invincible, the son of Philip, and the other inimitable, the production of Apelles.” Alexander appears to have been a patron of the fine arts more from vanity than taste; and it is related, as an instance of those freedoms which Apelles was permitted to use with him, that when on one occasion he was talking in this artist’s painting room very ignorantly of the art of painting, Apelles requested him to be silent lest the boys who ground his colors should laugh at him. On another occasion, when he had painted a picture of his famous war-horse, Alexander did not seem to appreciate its excellence; but Bucephalus, on seeing his own portrait, began to prance and neigh, when the painter observed that the horse was a better judge of painting than his master.

APELLES AND PROTOGENES.

Apelles, being highly delighted with a picture of Jalysus, painted by Protogenes of Rhodes, sailed thither to pay him a visit. Protogenes was gone from home, but an old woman was left watching a large piece of canvass which was fitted in a frame for painting. She told Apelles that Protogenes was gone out, and asked him his name, that she might inform her master who had inquired for him. “Tell him,” said Apelles, “he was inquired for by this person,” at the same time taking up a pencil, and drawing on the canvass a line of great delicacy. When Protogenes returned, the old woman acquainted him with what had happened. The artist, upon contemplating the fine stroke of the pencil, immediately proclaimed that Apelles must have been there, for so finished a work could be produced by no other person. Protogenes, however, drew a finer line of another color; and as he was going away ordered the old woman to show that line to Apelles if he came again, and to say, “This is the person for whom you were inquiring.” When Apelles returned and saw the line, he resolved not to be overcome, and in a color different from either of the former, he drew some lines so exquisitely delicate, that it was impossible for finer strokes to be made. Having done so, he departed. Protogenes now confessed the superiority of Apelles; flew to the harbor in search of him; and resolved to leave the canvass as it was, with the lines on it, for the astonishment of future artists. It was in after years taken to Rome, and was there seen by Pliny, who speaks of it as having the appearance of a large black surface, the extreme delicacy of the lines rendering them invisible, except on close inspection. They were drawn with different colors, the one upon or rather within, the other. This picture (continues Pliny), was handed down, a wonder for posterity, but especially for artists; and, notwithstanding it contained only those three scarcely visible lines (tres lineas), still it was the most noble work in the Gallery, though surrounded by many finished paintings by renowned masters.

This celebrated contest of lines between Apelles and Protogenes, is a subject which has greatly perplexed painters and critics; and in fact, Carducci asserts that Michael Angelo and other great artists treated the idea with contempt. The picture was preserved in the gallery of the Imperial palace on the Palatine, and was destroyed by the first fire that consumed that palace, in the time of Augustus; therefore it could not have been seen by Pliny, and the account must have been related by him from some other work. In regard to its vagueness, one of the principal causes, undoubtedly, is a mutilation of the text; but the whole thing is told with obscurity. Suffice it to say, that in the opinion of Professor Tölken of Berlin, and the best modern critics, this wonderful piece could not have contained only three simple lines, as stated by Pliny, else how could it have been termed “the most noble work in the gallery, and the wonder of posterity.”

At the time this occurrence took place, Protogenes lived in a state of poverty and neglect; but the generous notice of Apelles soon caused him to be valued as he deserved by the Rhodians. Apelles acknowledged that Protogenes was even in some respects his superior; the chief fault he found with him was, that “he did not know when to take his hand from his work;” a phrase which has become proverbial among artists. He volunteered to purchase all the works he had by him, at any price he should name, and when Protogenes estimated them far below their real value, he offered him fifty talents, and spread the report that he intended to sell them as his own. He thus opened the eyes of the Rhodians to the merit of their painter, and they accordingly secured his works at a still higher price.

In Protogenes, the able rival of Apelles, the arts received one of the highest tokens of regard they were ever favored with; for when Demetrius Poliorcetes was besieging the city of Rhodes, and might have taken it by assaulting it on the side where Protogenes resided, he forbore, lest he should do an injury to his works; and when the Rhodians delivered the place to him, requesting him to spare the pictures of this admired artist, he replied, “that he would sooner destroy the images of his forefathers, than the productions of Protogenes.”

ANECDOTES OF BENJAMIN WEST.
HIS ANCESTRY.

Cunningham says, “John West, the father of Benjamin, was of that family settled at Long-Crendon, in Buckinghamshire, which produced Colonel James West, the friend and companion in arms of John Hampden. Upon one occasion, in the course of a conversation in Buckingham palace, respecting his picture of the Institution of the Garter, West happened to make some allusion to his English descent, when the Marquis of Buckingham, to the manifest pleasure of the king, declared that the Wests of Long-Crendon were undoubted descendants of the Lord Delaware, renowned in the wars of Edward the Third and the Black Prince, and that the artist’s likeness had therefore a right to a place amongst those of the nobles and warriors, in his historical picture.”

WEST’S BIRTH.

Galt says Benjamin’s birth was brought on prematurely by a vehement sermon, preached in the fields, by Edward Peckover, on the corrupt state of the Old World, which he prophesied was about to be visited with the tempest of God’s judgments, the wicked to be swallowed up, and the terrified remnant compelled to seek refuge in happy America. Mrs. West was so affected that she swooned away, was carried home severely ill, and the pains of labor came upon her; she was, however, safely delivered, and the preacher consoled the parents by predicting that “a child sent into the world under such remarkable circumstances, would assuredly prove a wonderful man,” and admonished them to watch over their son with more than ordinary care.

HIS FIRST REMARKABLE FEAT.

The first remarkable incident recorded of the infant prodigy, occurred in his seventh year; when, being placed to watch the sleeping infant of his eldest sister, he drew a sort of likeness of the child, with a pen, in red and black ink. His mother returned, and snatching the paper which he sought to conceal, exclaimed to her daughter, “I declare, he has made a likeness of little Sally!” She took him in her arms, and kissed him fondly. This feat appeared so wonderful in the eyes of his parents that they recalled to mind the prediction of Peckover.

LITTLE BENJAMIN AND THE INDIANS.

When he was about eight years old, a party of Indians, who were always kindly treated by the followers of George Fox, paid their summer visit to Springfield, and struck with the rude sketches which the boy had made of birds, fruit, and flowers, they taught him to prepare the red and yellow colors with which they stained their weapons and ornamented their skins; his mother added indigo, and thus he was possessed of three primary colors. The Indians also instructed him in archery.

HIS CAT’S TAIL PENCILS.

The wants of the child increased with his knowledge; he could draw, and had colors, but how to lay them on skillfully, he could not conceive; a pen would not answer, and he tried feathers with no better success; a neighbor informed him that it was done with a camel’s hair pencil, but as such a thing was not to be had, he bethought himself of the cat, and supplied himself from her back and tail. The cat was a favorite, and the altered condition of her fur was attributed to disease, till the boy’s confession explained the cause, much to the amusement of his parents and friends. His cat’s tail pencils enabled him to make more satisfactory efforts than he had before done.

WEST’S FIRST PICTURE.

When he was only eight years old, a merchant of Philadelphia, named Pennington, and a cousin of the Wests, was so much pleased with the sketches of little Benjamin, that he sent him a box of paints and pencils, with canvass prepared for the easel, and six engravings by Gribelin. The child was perfectly enraptured with his treasure; he carried the box about in his arms, and took it to his bedside, but could not sleep. He rose with the dawn, carried his canvass and colors to the garret, hung up the engravings, prepared a palette, and commenced work. So completely was he under this species of enchantment, that he absented himself from school, labored secretly and incessantly, and without interruption, for several days, when the anxious inquiries of his schoolmaster introduced his mother into his studio, with no pleasure in her looks. He had avoided copyism, and made a picture, composed from two of the engravings, telling a new story, and colored with a skill and effect which, to her eyes, appeared wonderful. Galt, who wrote West’s life, and had the story from the artist’s own lips, says, “She kissed him with transports of affection, and assured him that she would not only intercede with his father to pardon him for having absented himself from school, but would go herself to the master, and beg that he might not be punished. Sixty-seven years afterwards the writer of these memoirs had the gratification to see this piece, in the same room with the sublime painting of Christ Rejected (West’s brother had sent it to him from Springfield), on which occasion the painter declared to him that there were inventive touches of art in his first and juvenile essay, which, with all his subsequent knowledge and experience, he had not been able to surpass.” A similar story is told of Canova, who visited his native place towards the close of his brilliant career, and looking earnestly at his youthful performances, sorrowfully said, “I have been walking, but not climbing.”

WEST’S FIRST VISIT TO PHILADELPHIA.

In the ninth year of his age, he accompanied his relative Pennington to Philadelphia, and executed a view of the banks of the river, which so much pleased a painter named Williams, that he took him to his studio, and showed him all his pictures, at the sight of which he was so affected that he burst into tears. The artist, surprised, declared like Peckover that Benjamin would be a remarkable man; he gave him two books, Du Fresnoy, and Richardson on Painting, and invited him to call whenever he pleased, to see his pictures. From this time, Benjamin resolved to become a painter, and returned home with the love of painting too firmly implanted to be eradicated. His parents, also, though the art was not approved by the Friends, now openly encouraged him, being strongly impressed with the opinion that he was predestinated to become a great artist.

WEST’S AMBITION.

His notions of a painter at this time were also very grand, as the following characteristic anecdote will show. One of his school-fellows allured him, on a half holiday from school, to take a ride with him to a neighboring plantation. “Here is the horse, bridled and saddled,” said the boy, “so come, get up behind me.” “Behind you!” said Benjamin; “I will ride behind nobody.” “Oh, very well,” replied the other; “I will ride behind you, so mount.” He mounted accordingly, and away they rode. “This is the last ride I shall have for some time,” said his companion; “to-morrow I am to be apprenticed to a tailor.” “A tailor!” exclaimed West; “you will surely never be a tailor?” “Indeed but I shall,” replied the other; “it is a good trade. What do you intend to be, Benjamin?” “A painter.” “A painter! what sort of a trade is a painter? I never heard of it before.” “A painter,” said West, “is the companion of kings and emperors.” “You are surely mad,” said the embryo tailor; “there are neither kings nor emperors in America.” “Aye, but there are plenty in other parts of the world. And do you really intend to be a tailor?” “Indeed I do; there is nothing surer.” “Then you may ride alone,” said the future companion of kings and emperors, leaping down; “I will not ride with one who is willing to be a tailor!”

WEST’S FIRST PATRONS.

West’s first patron was Mr. Wayne, the father of General Anthony Wayne, who gave him a dollar a piece for two small pictures he made on poplar boards which a carpenter had given him. Another patron was Mr. Flower, a justice of Chester, who took young West to his house for a short time, where he was made acquainted with a young English lady, governess to Mr. Flower’s daughters, who had a good knowledge of art, and told him stories of Greek and Roman history, fit for a painter’s pencil. He had never before heard of the heroes, philosophers, poets, painters, and historians of Greece and Rome, and he listened while the lady spoke of them, with an enthusiasm which he loved to live over again in his old age. His first painting which attracted much notice was a portrait of Mrs. Ross, a very beautiful lady, the wife of a lawyer of Lancaster. The picture was regarded as a wonderful performance, and gained him so much reputation, says Galt, “that the citizens came in such crowds to sit to the boy for portraits, that he had some trouble in meeting the demand.” At the same time, a gunsmith, named Henry, who had a classic turn, commissioned him to paint a picture of the Death of Socrates. West forthwith made a sketch which his employer thought excellent, but he now began to see his difficulties, and feel his deficiencies. “I have hitherto painted faces,” said he, “and people clothed. What am I to do with the slave who presents the poison? He ought, I think, to be painted naked.” Henry went to his shop, and returned with one of his workmen, a handsome young negro man half naked, saying, “There is your model.” He accordingly introduced him into his picture, which excited great attention.

WEST’S EDUCATION.

West was now fifteen years old. Dr. Smith, Provost of the College at Philadelphia, happened to see him at Lancaster, and perceiving his wonderful talents, and that his education was being neglected, generously proposed to his father to take him with him to Philadelphia, where he proposed to direct his studies, and to instruct him in all the learning most important for a painter to know.

WEST’S DEDICATION TO ART.

The art of painting being regarded by the Quakers as not only useless but pernicious, “in preserving voluptuous images, and adding to the sensual gratifications of man,” Mr. West determined to submit the matter to the wisdom of the Society, before giving a positive answer. He accordingly sent for his son to attend the solemn assembly. The Friends met, and the spirit of speech first descended on John Williamson, who, according to Galt, thus spake: “To John West and Sarah Pearson, a man-child hath been born, on whom God hath conferred some remarkable gifts of mind; and you have all heard that, by something amounting to inspiration, the youth has been induced to study the art of painting. It is true that our tenets refuse to own the utility of that art to mankind, but it seemeth to me that we have considered the matter too nicely. God hath bestowed on this youth a genius for art—shall we question his wisdom? Can we believe that he gives such rare gifts but for a wise and good purpose? I see the Divine hand in this; we shall do well to sanction the art and encourage this youth.” The Quakers gave their unanimous consent, and summoned the youth before them. He came, and took his station in the middle of the room, his father on his right hand, his mother on his left, while around him gathered the whole assembly. One of the women first spake, but the words of Williamson, says Galt, are alone remembered. “Painting,” said he, “has hitherto been employed to embellish life, to preserve voluptuous images, and add to the sensual gratifications of men. For this we classed it among vain and merely ornamental things, and excluded it from amongst us. But this is not the principle but the mis-employment of painting. In wise and pure hands, it rises in the scale of moral excellence, and displays a loftiness of sentiment, and a devout dignity, worthy of the contemplation of Christians. I think genius is given by God for some high purpose. What the purpose is, let us not inquire—it will be manifest in His own good time and way. He hath in this remote wilderness endowed with rich gifts of a superior spirit this youth, who has now our consent to cultivate his talents for art; may it be demonstrated in his life and works, that the gifts of God have not been bestowed in vain, nor the motives of the beneficent inspiration, which induces us to suspend the strict operations of our tenets, prove barren of religious and moral effect!” At the conclusion of this address, says Galt, the women rose and kissed the young artist, and the men, one by one, laid their hands on his head. The scene made so strong an impression on the mind of West, that he looked upon himself as expressly dedicated to art, and considered this release from the strict tenets of his sect, as enjoining on his part a covenant to employ his powers on subjects pure and holy. The grave simplicity of the Quaker continued to the last in his looks, manners, and deportment; and the moral rectitude and internal purity of the man were diffused through all his productions.

WEST’S EARLY PRICES.

At about eighteen years of age, West commenced portrait painting as a profession in Philadelphia. His extreme youth, the peculiar circumstances of his history, and his undoubted merit, brought him many sitters. His prices were very humble—$12.50 for a head, and $25 for a full-length; all the money he thus laboriously earned, he carefully treasured, to secure, at some future period, the means of travel and study; for his sagacious mind perceived that travel not only influenced public opinion, but was absolutely necessary for him if he wished to excel, especially in historical painting. There were no galleries in America; he knew that the masterpieces of art were in Italy, and he had already set his heart on visiting that delightful country. He made a copy of a picture of St. Ignatius, by Murillo, which had been captured in a Spanish vessel, and belonged to Governor Hamilton; he also painted a large picture for Mr. Cox, from the history of Susanna, the Elders, and Daniel, in which he introduced no less than forty figures. This work gained him great reputation, and West always considered it the masterpiece of his youth; it was afterwards unfortunately destroyed by fire. After having painted the portraits of all who desired it in Philadelphia, he proceeded to New York, where he opened a studio, and Dunlap says for eleven months he had all the portraits he could execute, at double the prices he had charged in Philadelphia. An opportunity now presented itself, which enabled him to gratify his long cherished desire of going to Italy. The harvest had partially failed in that country, and Mr. Allen, a merchant of Philadelphia, was loading a ship with wheat and flour for Leghorn. He had resolved to send his son as supercargo, to give him the benefit of travel, and West’s invaluable friend, Provost Smith, made arrangements for the young painter to accompany the young merchant. It happened that a New York merchant, of the name of Kelly, was sitting for his portrait when this good news arrived, and West with joy spoke to him of the great advantage he expected to derive from a residence of two or three years in Italy. The portrait being finished, Mr. Kelly paid him ten guineas, and gave him a letter to his agent in Philadelphia, which, on being presented, proved to be an order from the generous merchant to pay him fifty guineas, as “a present to aid in his equipment for Italy.”

WEST’S ARRIVAL AT ROME.

West arrived at Rome on the 10th of July, 1760, in the 22d year of his age. Cunningham thus describes his reception: “When it was known that a young American had come to study Raffaelle and Michael Angelo, some curiosity was excited among the Roman virtuosi. The first fortunate exhibitor of this lion from the western wilderness was Lord Grantham, the English ambassador, to whom West had letters. He invited West to dinner, and afterwards took him to an evening party, where he found almost all those persons to whom he had brought letters of introduction. Among the rest was Cardinal Albani, who, though old and blind, had such delicacy of touch that he was considered supreme in all matters of judgment regarding medals and intaglios. ‘I have the honor,’ said Lord Grantham, ‘to present you a young American, who has a letter for your Eminence, and who has come to Italy for the purpose of studying the Fine Arts.’ The Cardinal knew so little of the New World, that he conceived an American must needs be a savage. ‘Is he black or white?’ said the aged virtuoso, holding out both hands, that he might have the satisfaction of touching, at least, this new wonder. Lord Grantham smiled and said, ‘he is fair—very fair.’ ‘What! as fair as I am?’ exclaimed the prelate. Now the complexion of the churchman was a deep olive—that of West more than commonly fair; and as they stood together, the company smiled. ‘As fair as the Cardinal,’ became for a while proverbial. Others, who had the use of their eyes, seemed to consider the young American as at most a better kind of savage, and accordingly were curious to watch him. They wished to try what effect the Apollo, the Venus, and the works of Raffaelle would have upon him, and thirty of the most magnificent equipages in the capital, filled with some of the most erudite characters in Europe, says Galt, conducted the young Quaker to view the masterpieces of art. It was agreed that the Apollo should be first submitted to his view; the statue was enclosed in a case, and when the keeper threw open the doors, West unconsciously exclaimed, ‘My God! a young Mohawk warrior!’ The Italians were surprised and mortified with the comparison of their noblest statue to a wild savage; and West, perceiving the unfavorable impression, proceeded to remove it. He described the Mohawks, the natural elegance and admirable symmetry of their persons, the elasticity of their limbs, and their motions free and unconstrained. ‘I have seen them often,’ he continued, ‘standing in the attitude of this Apollo, and pursuing with an intense eye the arrow which they had just discharged from the bow.’ The Italians cleared their moody brows, and allowed that a better criticism had rarely been made. West was no longer a barbarian.”

WEST’S EARLY FRIENDS.

The excitement to which West was subjected at Rome, his intense application, and his anxiety to distinguish himself, brought on a fever, and for a time, interrupted his studies; by the advice of his physicians, he returned to Leghorn, for the benefit of the sea air, where, after a lingering sickness of eleven months, he was completely cured. But he found his funds almost exhausted, and he began to despair of being able to prosecute his studies according to the proposed plan. He called on his agents, to take up the last ten pounds he had in the world, when to his astonishment and joy, he was handed a letter of unlimited credit from his old friends in Philadelphia, Mr. Allen and Governor Hamilton; they had heard of his glorious reception at Rome, and his success with the portrait of Lord Grantham. At a dinner, one day, with Governor Hamilton, Mr Allen said, “I regard this young man as an honor to his country, and as he is the first that America has sent out to cultivate the Fine Arts, he shall not be frustrated in his studies, for I shall send him whatever money he may require.” “I think with you, sir,” replied Hamilton, “but you must not have all the honor to yourself; allow me to unite with you in the responsibility of the credit.” Those who befriend genius when it is struggling for distinction, are public benefactors, and their names should be held in grateful remembrance. The names of Hamilton, Allen, Smith, Kelly, Jackson, Rutherford, and Lord Grantham, must be dear to all the admirers of West; they aided him in the infancy of his fame and fortune, cheered him when he was drooping and desponding; and watched over his person and purse with the vigilance of true friendship. West always expressed his deepest obligation to these generous men, and it was at his particular request that Galt recorded their names, and their deeds.

WEST’S COURSE OF STUDY.

West now proceeded with redoubled alacrity, to execute the plan recommended by Mengs. He visited Florence, Bologna, Parma, and Venice, and diligently examined everything worth studying. He everywhere received marks of attention, and was elected a member of the Academies of Florence, Bologna, and Parma. In the latter city, he painted and presented to the Academy, a copy of the famous St. Jerome by Correggio, “of such excellence,” says Galt, “that the reigning prince desired to see the artist. He went to court, and to the utter astonishment of the attendants, appeared with his hat on. The prince was familiar with the tenets of the Quakers, and was a lover of William Penn; he received the young artist with complacency, and dismissed him with many expressions of regard.” West returned to Rome, where he painted two pictures which were highly commended, one of Cimon and Iphigenia, and the other of Angelica and Medora. At Venice, he particularly studied the works of Titian, and Cunningham says, “he imagined he had discovered his principles of coloring.”

A REMARKABLE PROPHECY.

As West was conversing one evening with Gavin Hamilton in the British Coffee House, at Rome, an old man, with a long and flowing beard and a harp in his hand, entered and offered his services as an improvisatore bard. “Here is an American,” said the wily Scot, “come to study the Fine Arts in Rome; take him for your theme, and, it is a magnificent one.” The minstrel casting a glance at West, who never in his life could perceive what a joke was, commenced his song. “I behold in this youth an instrument chosen by heaven to create in his native country a taste for those arts which have elevated the nature of man—an assurance that his land will be the refuge of science and knowledge, when in the old age of Europe they shall have forsaken her shores. All things of heavenly origin move westward, and Truth, and Art, have their periods of light and darkness. Rejoice, O Rome, for thy spirit immortal and undecayed now spreads towards a new world, where, like the soul of man in Paradise, it will be perfected more and more.” The prediction of Peckover, the fond expressions of his beloved mother, and his solemn dedication to art, rushed upon West’s memory, and he burst into tears; and even in his riper years, he was willing to consider the poor mendicant’s song as another prophecy.

WEST’S FONDNESS FOR SKATING.

There are other minor matters, says Cunningham, which help a man on to fame and fortune. West was a skillful skater, and in America had formed an acquaintance on the ice with Colonel Howe. One day, the painter having tied on his skates at the Serpentine, was astonishing the timid practitioners of London with the rapidity of his motions, and the graceful figure which he cut. Some one shouted “West! West!” It was Colonel Howe. “I am glad to see you,” said he, “and not less so that you came in good time to vindicate my praises of American skating.” He called to him Lord Spencer Hamilton, and some of the Cavendishes, to whom he introduced West as one of the Philadelphia prodigies of skating, and requested him to show them what was called “the Salute.” He performed this feat so much to their satisfaction that they spread the praises of the American skater all over London. West was exceedingly fond of this invigorating amusement, and used frequently to gratify large crowds by cutting the Philadelphia Salute. Cunningham says, “Many to the praise of skating, added panegyrics on his professional skill, and not a few to vindicate their applause, followed him to his easel, and sat for their portraits.”

WEST’S DEATH OF WOLFE.

A change was now to be effected in the character of British art. Hitherto, historical painting had appeared in a masking habit; the actions of Englishmen, says Cunningham, had all been performed, if costume were to be believed, by Greeks and Romans. West dismissed at once this pedantry, and restored nature and propriety in his noble work of “the Death of Wolfe.” The multitude acknowledged its excellence at once, on its being exhibited at the Royal Academy; but the lovers of old art, or of the compositions called classical, complained of the barbarism of boots, buttons, and blunderbusses, and cried out for naked warriors, with bows, bucklers, and battering rams. Lord Grosvenor was so pleased with the picture, that, disregarding the frowns of amateurs, and the cold approbation of the Academy, he purchased it. Galt says that the king questioned West concerning this picture, and put him on his defense of this new heresy in art. “When it was understood,” said the artist, “that I intended to paint the characters as they had actually appeared on the scene, the Archbishop of York called on Reynolds, and asked his opinion; they both came to my house to dissuade me from running so great a risk. Reynolds began a very ingenious and elegant dissertation on the state of the public taste in this country, and the danger which every innovator incurred of contempt and ridicule, and concluded by urging me earnestly to adopt the costume of antiquity, as more becoming the greatness of my subject than the modern garb of European warriors. I answered that the event to be commemorated happened in the year 1758, in a region of the world unknown to the Greeks and Romans, and at a period of time when no warriors who wore such costume existed. The subject I have to represent is a great battle fought and won, and the same truth which gives law to the historian, should rule the painter. If instead of the facts of the action, I introduce fiction, how shall I be understood by posterity? The classic dress is certainly picturesque, but by using it, I shall lose in sentiment what I gain in external grace. I want to mark the place, the time, and the people, and to do this, I must abide by truth. They went away, and returned again when I had finished the painting. Reynolds seated himself before the picture, examined it with deep and minute attention for half an hour; then rising, said to Drummond, ‘West has conquered; he has treated his subject as it ought to be treated; I retract my objections. I foresee that this picture will not only become one of the most popular, but will occasion a revolution in art.’ ‘I wish,’ said the king, ‘that I had known all this before, for the objection has been the means of Lord Grosvenor’s getting the picture; but you shall make a copy for me.’”

MICHAEL ANGELO.

Michael Angelo was descended from the noble family of Canosa. From his earliest infancy, he discovered a passion for drawing and sculpture. It is said that his nurse was the wife of a poor sculptor, or as some say, a mason. His father, Lodovico Simone Buonarotti, intended him for one of the learned professions, and placed him in a grammar school at Florence. Here young Angelo soon manifested the greatest fondness for drawing, and became quite intimate with the students in painting. The decided bent of his genius induced his parents, against their wishes, to place him at the age of fourteen under the instruction of Domenico Ghirlandaio. He made such rapid progress, that he soon not only surpassed all his fellow disciples, but even his instructor, so that he was able to correct Domenico’s drawing.

While pursuing his studies under Ghirlandaio, he was accustomed to visit the gardens of the Grand Duke, (Lorenzo the Magnificent) to study the antique. One day, when he was about fifteen years of age, he found a piece of marble in the garden, and carved it into the mask of a satyr, borrowing the design from an antique fragment. Lorenzo, on seeing the work, was struck with its excellence, and jestingly told the young Angelo that he had made a mistake in giving a full set of teeth to an old man. This hint was not lost; the next day it was found that the artist had broken one of the teeth from the upper jaw, and drilled a hole in the gum to represent the cavity left by the lost tooth. The first work executed by Michael Angelo, on his return to Florence from Bologna, where he had fled on account of the disturbances in the former city, was a Sleeping Cupid, in marble, which considerably enhanced his reputation; but so great was the prejudice in favor of the antique, that by the advice of a friend, Michael Angelo sent his statue to Rome, to undergo the process of burial, in order to give it the appearance of a work of ancient art, before it should be submitted to public inspection. This fraud, like many of a similar kind at this time practiced, succeeded completely; and the Cupid was eagerly purchased by the Cardinal St. Giorgio, for 200 ducats. It was not long before the Cardinal was told that a trick had been played upon him, and he sent a person to Florence, in order to ascertain, if possible the truth of the charge. The latter repaired to the studios of the different artists in that city, on the pretence of seeing their productions. On visiting the atelier of Michael Angelo, he requested to see a specimen of his work; but not having anything finished at the time, he carelessly took up a pen, and made a sketch of a hand. The Cardinal’s messenger, struck by the freedom and grandeur of the style, inquired what was the last work he had executed. The artist, without consideration, answered at the moment, it was a Sleeping Cupid; and so minutely described the supposed antique statue, that there remained no doubt whose work it was. The messenger at once confessed the object of his journey, and so strongly recommended Michael Angelo to visit Rome, that he soon after went to that city, on the express invitation of the Cardinal St. Giorgio himself. Here he executed several admirable works, among which the Pietá, or dead Christ, has been highly extolled for the great knowledge of anatomy displayed in the figure. He afterwards returned to Florence, where he executed his celebrated marble statue of David.

MICHAEL ANGELO AND JULIUS THE SECOND.

Julius the Second, a patron of genius and learning, having ascended the papal throne, Michael Angelo was among the first invited to Rome, and was immediately employed by the pope in the execution of a magnificent mausoleum. On the completion of the design, it was difficult to find a site befitting its splendor; and it was finally determined to rebuild St. Peter’s, in order that this monument might be contained in a building of corresponding magnificence. Thus originated the design of that edifice, which was one hundred and fifty years in completion, and which is now the noblest triumph of architectural genius the world can boast. The completion of this grand monument was delayed by various causes during the pontificates of several succeeding popes, until the time of Paul III. It was not placed in St. Peter’s, as originally intended, but in the church of S. Pietro, in Vincoli. On this monument is the celebrated colossal statue of Moses, which ranks Michael Angelo among the first sculptors, and has contributed largely to his renown.

ST. PETER’S CHURCH.

Michael Angelo’s greatest architectural work was the cupola of St. Peter’s church. Bramante, the original architect, had executed his design only up to the springing of the four great arches of the central intersection. Giuliano di Sangallo, Giocondo, Raffaelle, Peruzzi, and Antonio Sangallo, had been successively engaged, after Bramante’s decease, to carry on the work; but during the inert sway of Adrian VI., and amid the catastrophes of Clement VII., little had been accomplished. At length Paul III. appointed Michael Angelo to the post of architect, much against his will, as he was then seventy-two years of age. He immediately laid aside all the drawings and models of his predecessors, and taking the simple subject of the original idea, he carried it out with remarkable purity, divesting it of all the intricacies and puerilities of the previous successors of Bramante, and by its unaffected dignity, and unity of conception, he rendered the interior of the cupola superior to any similar work of modern times. He was engaged upon it seventeen years, and at the age of eighty-seven he had a model prepared of the dome, which he carried up to a considerable height; in fact, to such a point as rendered it impossible to deviate from his plan; and it was completed in conformity with his design, by Giacomo della Porta, and Domenico Fontana. The work was greatly delayed in consequence of the want of necessary funds, or else Michael Angelo would have himself completed this great monument of his taste and skill. If we are indebted to Bramante for the first simple plan of the Greek Cross of St. Peter’s, and the idea of a cupola to crown the centre, still it must be allowed that to Michael Angelo is due the merit of carrying out the conception of the original architect, with a beauty of proportion, a simplicity and unity of form, a combination of dignity and magnificence of decoration, beyond what even the powers of Bramante could have effected.

Such was the unparalleled eminence which this wonderful genius attained in the three sister arts of sculpture, architecture, and painting. His chief characteristics were grandeur and sublimity. His powers were little adapted to represent the gentle and the beautiful; but whatever in nature partook of the sublime and the terrible, were portrayed by him with such fidelity and grandeur as intimidates the beholder. Never before nor since has the world beheld so powerful a genius. The name of Michael Angelo will be immortal as long as the peopled walls of the Sistine chapel endure, or the mighty fabric of St. Peter’s rears its proud dome above the spires of the Eternal city.

MICHAEL ANGELO’S FIRST PATRON.

Lanzi says that Lorenzo the Magnificent, desirous of encouraging the statuary art, then on the decline in his country, had collected in his gardens many antique marbles, which he committed to the care of Bertoldo. He requested Ghirlandaio to send him a talented young man, to be educated there, and he sent him Michael Angelo, then a youth of sixteen. Lorenzo was so pleased with his genius that he took him into his palace, rather as a relative than a dependent, placing him at the same table with his own sons, with Poliziano and other learned men who graced his residence. During the four years that he remained there, he laid the foundation of all his acquirements.

THE CARTOON OF PISA.

According to Condivi, Michael Angelo devoted twelve years to the study of anatomy, with great injury to his health, and this course “determined his style, his practice, and his glory.” His perfect knowledge of the human body was best shown in his famous Cartoon of the Battle of Pisa, prepared in competition with Leonardo da Vinci, in the saloon of the public palace at Florence. Angelo did not rest satisfied with representing the Florentines, cased in armor, and mingling with their enemies in deadly combat; but choosing the moment of the attack upon the van, while bathing in the river Arno, he seized the opportunity of representing many naked figures, as they rushed to arms from the water, by which he was enabled to introduce a prodigious variety of foreshortenings, and attitudes the most energetic—in a word, the highest perfection of his peculiar excellence. Cellini observes of this work, that “when Michael Angelo painted in the chapel of Julius II., he did not reach half that dignity;” and Vasari says that “all the artists who studied and designed after this cartoon, became eminent.”

This sublime production has perished, and report, though not authenticated, accuses Baccio Bandinelli of having destroyed it, either that others might not derive advantage from its study, or, because of his partiality to Vinci and his hatred to Buonarotti he wished to remove a subject of comparison that might exalt the reputation of the latter above that of the former.

MICHAEL ANGELO’S LAST JUDGMENT.

Lanzi says, “In the succeeding pontificates (to that of Julius II.) Michael Angelo, always occupied in sculpture and architecture, almost wholly abandoned painting, till he was induced by Paul III. to resume the pencil. Clement VII. had conceived the design of employing him in the Sistine chapel, on two other grand historical pictures—the Fall of the Angels, over the gate; and the Last Judgment, in the opposite façade, over the altar. Michael Angelo had composed designs for the Last Judgment, and Paul III. being aware of this, commanded, or rather entreated, him to commence the work; for he went to his house, accompanied by ten Cardinals,—an honor, except in this instance, unknown in the annals of the art.” This sublime work was finished by Michael Angelo in eight years, and was exhibited in 1541. Vasari says that at the suggestion of Fra Sebastiano del Piombo, the Pope desired that it should be painted in oil; but Michael Angelo positively declined to undertake it, except in fresco, saying “that oil painting was an employment only fit for women, or idlers of mean capacity.” Varchio in his funeral oration says, “Such was the delicacy of his taste that no artist could please him; and as in sculpture, every pincer, file, and chisel which he used, was the work of his own hands, so in painting, he prepared his own colors, and did not commit the mixing and other necessary manipulations to mechanics and boys.”

Lanzi says that Michael Angelo must be acknowledged supreme in that peculiar branch of the profession (the nude), at which he aimed in all his works, especially in his Last Judgment. “The subject appeared rather created than selected by him. To a genius so comprehensive, and so skilled in drawing the human figure, no subject could be better adapted than the Resurrection; and to an artist who delighted in the awful, no story more suitable than the day of supernal terrors. He saw Raffaelle preëminent in every other department of the art; he foresaw that in this alone could he expect to be triumphant; and perhaps he indulged the hope that posterity would adjudge the palm to him who excelled all others in the most arduous walk of art.”

“The Last Judgment,” says Lanzi, “was filled with such a profusion of nudity that it was in great danger of being destroyed, from a regard to the decency of the sanctuary. Paul IV. proposed to whitewash it, and was hardly appeased with the correction of its most glaring indelicacies, by some drapery introduced here and there by Daniello da Volterra, on whom the facetious Romans, from this circumstance, conferred the nickname of the Breeches-maker.” Other corrections were proposed by different critics, and some alterations made. Angelo was censured for mixing sacred with profane history; for introducing the angels of revelation with the Stygian ferryman; Christ sitting in judgment, and Minos assigning his proper station to each of the damned. To this profanity, he added satire; in Minos, he portrayed the features of the Master of Ceremonies, who in the hearing of the pope, had pronounced this picture more suitable for a Bagnio than a church; and an officious Cardinal, he placed among the damned, with a fiend dragging him by the testes down to hell.

MICHAEL ANGELO’S COLORING.

The coloring of Michael Angelo has been generally criticised as being too cold and inharmonious, but the best critics now consider that it was admirably adapted to his design. His chief characteristics were grandeur and sublimity, and whatever partook of the sublime and the terrible, he portrayed with a fidelity that intimidates the beholder. It is an error to suppose that he could not color delicately and brilliantly when he chose. During his residence at Florence, he painted an exquisite Leda for Alphonso, Duke of Ferrara. Michael Angelo was so much offended at the manner of one of the courtiers of that prince, who was sent to bring it to Ferrara, that he refused to let him have it, but made it a present to his favorite pupil, Antonio Mini, who carried it to France. Vasari describes it as “a grand picture, painted in distemper, that seemed as if it breathed on the canvass”; and Mariette, in his notes on Condivi, affirms that he saw the picture, and that “Michael Angelo appeared to have forgot his usual style, and approached the tone of Titian.” D’Argenville informs us that the picture was destroyed by fire in the reign of Louis XIII. Lanzi says, “In chiaro-scuro, Michael Angelo had not the skill and delicacy of Correggio; but his paintings in the Vatican have a force and relief much commended by Renfesthein, an eminent connoisseur, who, on passing from the Sistine chapel to the Farnesian gallery, remarked how greatly in this respect the Caracci themselves were eclipsed by Buonarotti.”

MICHAEL ANGELO’S GRACE.

“It is a vulgar error,” says Lanzi, “to suppose that Michael Angelo had no idea of grace and beauty; the Eve in the Sistine chapel turns to thank her Maker, on her creation, with an attitude so fine and lovely, that it would do honor to the school of Raffaelle. Annibale Caracci admired this, and many other naked figures in this grand ceiling, so highly that he proposed them to himself as models in the art, and according to Bellori, preferred them to the Last Judgment, which appeared to him to be too anatomical.”

MICHAEL ANGELO’S OIL PAINTINGS.

It has long been a disputed point whether Michael Angelo ever painted in oil; but it has been ascertained by Lanzi that the Holy Family in the Florentine gallery, which is the only picture by him supposed to be painted in oil, is in reality in distemper. Many of his designs, however, were executed in oil by his cotemporaries, especially Sebastiano del Piombo, Jacopo da Pontormo, and Marcello Venusti. Fresco painting was better adapted to the elevated character of his composition, which required a simple and solid system of coloring, rather subdued than enlivened, and producing a grand and impressive effect, which could not have been expressed by the glittering splendor of oil painting. There are many oil paintings erroneously attributed to him in the galleries at Rome, Florence, Milan, the Imperial gallery at Vienna, and elsewhere. (See Spooner’s Dict. of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors, and Architects; table of Imitators.)

MICHAEL ANGELO, HIS PROPHETS, AND JULIUS II.

When Michael Angelo had finished the works in the Sistine chapel which Julius II. had commanded him to paint, the Pope, not appreciating their native dignity and simplicity, told him that “the chapel appeared cold and mean, and there wanted some brilliancy of coloring, and some gilding to be added to it.” “Holy father,” replied the artist, “formerly men did not dress as they do now, in gold and silver; those personages whom I have represented in my pictures in the chapel, were not persons of wealth, but saints, who were divinely inspired, and despised pomp and riches.”

BON-MOTS OF MICHAEL ANGELO.

Michael Angelo was a true poet. He was endowed with a ready wit and consummate eloquence. His bon-mots, recorded by Dati, rival those of the Grecian painters, and he was esteemed one of the most witty and lively men of his time.

When he had finished his statue of Julius II. for the Bolognese, the Pope thought it too severe, and said to him, “Angelo, my statue appears rather to curse than to bless the good people of Bologna.” “Holy father,” replied the artist, “as they have not always been the most obedient of your subjects, it will teach them to be afraid of you, and to behave better in future.”

Under the pontificate of Julius III., the faction of San Gallo went so far, as to prevail upon the Pope to appoint a committee to examine the fabric. Angelo paid no attention to the cavils of his enemies. Finally the Pope summoned him before him, and told him that a particular part of the church was too dark. “Who told you that, holy father?” said Angelo. “I did,” interrupted the Cardinal Marcello. “Your eminence should consider, then,” said the artist, casting at the prelate a look of cool contempt, “that besides the window there is at present, I have designed three more in the ceiling of the church!” “You did not tell me that,” replied the Cardinal. “No indeed, I did not, sir. I am not obliged to tell you; nor would I ever consent to be obliged to tell your eminence, or any person whomsoever, anything concerning it. Your business is to take care that money is plenty at Rome; that there are no thieves there; to let me alone; and to permit me to go on with my plan as I please.”

When asked why he did not marry, he replied that “his art was his mistress, and gave him trouble enough.” Again, that “an artist should never cease to learn.” When told that some one had performed a remarkable feat in painting with his fingers, he said, “Why don’t the blockhead use his brush?” When shown Titian’s Danaë, he observed, “What a pity these Venetians do not study design.” Of the Gates of Ghiberti, he said, “they are fit to adorn the portals of Paradise.”

WASHINGTON ALLSTON.

“Soon after Allston’s marriage with his first wife, the sister of the late Dr. Channing, he made his second visit to Europe. After a residence there of a little more than a year, his pecuniary wants became very pressing and urgent—more so than at any other period of his life. On one of these occasions, as he himself used to narrate the event, he was in his studio, reflecting with a feeling of almost desperation upon his condition. His conscience seemed to tell him that he had deserved his afflictions, and drawn them upon himself, by his want of due gratitude for past favors from heaven. His heart, all at once, seemed filled with the hope that God would listen to his prayers, if he would offer up his direct expressions of penitence, and ask for divine aid. He accordingly locked his door, withdrew to a corner of the room, threw himself upon his knees, and prayed for a loaf of bread for himself and his wife. While thus employed, a knock was heard at the door. A feeling of momentary shame at being detected in this position, and a feeling of fear lest he might have been observed, induced him to hasten and open the door. A stranger inquired for Mr. Allston. He was anxious to learn who was the fortunate purchaser of the painting of “Angel Uriel,” regarded by the artist as one of his masterpieces, and which had won the prize at the exhibition of the Academy. He was told that it had not been sold. “Can it be possible? Not sold! Where is it to be had?” “In this very room. Here it is,” producing the painting from a corner, and wiping off the dust. “It is for sale—but its value has never yet, to my idea of its worth, been adequately appreciated—and I would not part with it.” “What is its price?” “I have done affixing any nominal sum. I have always, so far, exceeded my offers. I leave it for you to name the price.” “Will four hundred pounds be an adequate recompense?” “It is more than I have ever asked for it.” “Then the painting is mine.” The stranger introduced himself as the Marquis of Stafford; and he became, from that moment, one of the warmest friends of Mr. Allston. By him Mr. A. was introduced to the society of the nobility and gentry; and he became one of the most favored among the many gifted minds that adorned the circle, in which he was never fond of appearing often.

“The instantaneous relief thus afforded by the liberality of this noble visitor, was always regarded by Allston as a direct answer to his prayer, and it made a deep impression upon his mind. To this event he was ever after wont to attribute the increase of devotional feelings which became a prominent trait in his character.”—Boston Atlas.

ALLSTON’S DEATH.

“Notwithstanding the general respect which is manifested to the memory of this distinguished artist, there are unsympathising, ice-hearted men of the world who yet reproach him for uncontrollable events in his career.

The actions of the painter, the poet, and the musician, are dictated often by other motives than those impelling the arm of the mechanic, or the tongue of the advocate. Men of genius are of a more delicate organization than those possessing inferior abilities, and are swayed by emotions the most lofty that can actuate humanity. The world’s neglect, the contempt of critics, depressed spirits induced by pecuniary embarrassments, blast their hopes, enervate their energies, and deprive them of the potency to cope with the heartless world.

Men there are who would visit the generous Allston with censure, because, while laboring under disappointments, ill health, and crushed anticipations, he failed to finish his painting of Belshazzar’s Feast, a theme that possibly became uncongenial to his pencil. May their ill feeling be forgotten, and, if the fountain of their sympathies be not wholly dried up, may it yield a little lenity towards one of America’s noblest sons.

It may not be inappropriate to insert a tribute to the memory of Allston, which will serve to vindicate his character from his aspersers, and exhibit it as traced by one for many years connected with him by the dearest ties of friendship:

‘Paris, November, 1843.

The Duke de Luynes, a French nobleman, has lately given a commission to Monsieur Ingres, the painter, recently Director of the French Academy of Arts in Rome, to decorate his palace at Dampierre with a series of pictures, the subjects of which I have not heard. One hundred thousand francs are allowed to the artist for this work. M. Ingres was a student at Rome, pensioned by his government, at the time Mr. W. Allston and myself were there pursuing the same studies—not, however, aided by a government.

When the melancholy news of the death of my much regretted friend and fellow artist reached here, which was about the time the above favor was granted to M. Ingres, I could not but reflect on the less fortunate destiny of our highly accomplished countryman, whose muse, alas! was doomed to linger out a languid existence in a state of society unfavorable to the arts, or at least where there was little to encourage and sustain them, compared with the capitals in Europe where he had lived and studied. Such an indifference to the arts is not confined to one section of our country, but pervades the whole United States.

It is indeed a subject of regret that so highly-gifted an artist should not have been commissioned to ornament some public building, or private mansion of opulence, with a series of pictures in the free style of fresco, comprising poetical designs and landscapes, in which he was so superior, instead of being subjected to finish a picture which, from some cause, he had become dissatisfied with, for the prosecution of which he found himself debarred of even the advantages of models and costume, not to mention those of a less material nature—the absence of all the great models of art to kindle and inspire his genius, etc. A work of the kind before suggested would admit of a free execution, independent in a degree of models and costume. Such a commission, I am persuaded, would have cheered up his spirit, and called forth fresh images from his fancy. It is ever to be regretted that he was not employed in this way; had he been, our country would no doubt have had a beautiful creation from a highly cultivated and poetic mind, now forever lost.

No one who was ever acquainted with the subject of this notice, but must feel sincere regret, also, that so fair and amiable a character was not soothed in his latter years with all the ease and comfort of mind and body that the world could bestow, which thus far has been seldom if ever the lot of his profession in our country. How many there are who have not undergone half the fatigue, physical or mental, endured by Mr. Allston—not to mention the far greater amount of time and money expended in the acquisition of his profession than in most other pursuits—yet have secured to themselves the means to reach the decline of life in a condition to assure ease and comfort. Such is the unequal compensation of the world.

When I look back some five or six-and-thirty years, when we were both in Rome, and next-door neighbors on the Trinita del Monte, and in the spring of life, full of enthusiasm for our art, and fancying fair prospects awaiting us in after years—and few certainly had more right than my worthy colleague to look towards such a futurity—it is painful to reflect how far these hopes have been from being realized. Such may be the lot of a great many; still we may believe and hope that so melancholy an example rarely occurs.

J. Vanderlyn.”

The Art-Union of New-York have struck a commemorative medal, with Allston’s face on the obverse side; and thus is the great artist rewarded.

Genius, that breaks the fetters encircling the mind, is fated to drink life’s bitterest cup to the dregs. After earth has flung the gem away, she proclaims its value.

Reformers must be martyrs. Every Socrates must quaff his hemlock—every Burns pine in unpitied poverty. In life, the artist appears on the reverse side of the world’s medal—in death, on the obverse.”—Dewey Fay.

AMERICAN PATRONAGE AT HOME AND ABROAD.

The writer has frequently heard our artists bitterly complain of the meanness of their countrymen in patronizing everything foreign, not only at home but abroad. It is mortifying enough to them to see the palaces of many of our merchant princes disgraced, not adorned, with a multitude of modern flashy French pictures, without a single piece by a native artist. How cutting then must be the slight to those young artists, who, having gone to Italy for improvement, are visited in their studios, by their countrymen, who, desirous of bringing home some copies of favorite pictures, give their commissions to foreigners. Our young artists, during their residence abroad, are generally poor, and frequently undergo every privation to enable them to achieve the object of their ambition. Weir says that at one time during his residence at Rome, he was obliged “to live on ten cents a day for a month.” Greenough, during his second visit to Italy, was almost driven to despair. Mr. J. Fenimore Cooper found him in this deplorable state in 1829, and gave him a commission for his beautiful group of Chanting Cherubs. He had already distinguished himself by several admirable busts of John Quincy Adams, Chief Justice Marshall, Henry Clay, and others, but this was the first commission he had ever received for a group. The grateful sculptor says in a letter to Mr. Dunlap, “Mr. Fenimore Cooper saved me from despair, after my second return to Italy. He employed me as I wished to be employed; and has, up to this moment, been a father to me in kindness.”

Mr. Cooper, in a letter published in the New-York American, April 30, 1831, says:

“Most of our people, who come to Italy, employ the artists of the country to make copies, under the impression that they will be both cheaper and better, than those done by Americans, studying here. My own observation has led me to adopt a different course. I am well assured that few things are done for us by Europeans, under the same sense of responsibility, as when they work for customers near home. The very occupation of the copyist, infers some want of that original capacity, without which no man can impart to a work, however exact it may be in its mechanical details, the charm of expression. In the case of Mr. Greenough, I was led even to try the experiment of an original. The difference in value between an original and a copy is so greatly in favor of the former, with anything like approach to success, that I am surprised that more of our amateurs are not induced to command them. The little group I have sent home, (the Chanting Cherubs) will always have an interest that can belong to no other work of the same character. It is the first effort of a young artist who bids fair to build for himself a name, and whose life will be connected with the history of the art in that country which is so soon to occupy such a place in the world. It is more; it is probably the first group ever completed by an American sculptor.”

When this beautiful group had been exhibited a sufficient time in the United States, to bring its merits before the public, Mr. Cooper, in the hope of influencing the government to employ Greenough on a statue of Washington, wrote to the President, and to Mr. McLane the Secretary of the Treasury, strongly urging the plan of a statue of the “Father of his Country,” by the first American sculptor who had shown himself competent to so great a task. He was successful, and Congress commissioned Greenough to execute a statue of Washington for the Capitol. The sculptor received the intelligence with transports of delight, but when he had had time for reflection, he modestly began to doubt his ability to do justice to his subject, and “answer all the expectations of his friends.” “When I went,” says he, “the other morning, into the large room in which I propose to execute my statue, I felt like a spoiled boy, who, after insisting upon riding on horseback, bawled aloud with fright, at finding himself in the saddle, so far from the ground!”

Is it not a burning shame, that the most gifted artists of this great and glorious country should be compelled to go abroad to seek both fame and bread, not fortune? What merchant prince will set his countrymen an example, and, like Sir George Beaumont, bribe Congress and his fellow citizens to form a national gallery, by giving a collection of casts from the antique, first class paintings and engravings, rare works of art, and a library on art, worth 70,000 guineas? It is a mistaken opinion, entertained by many, that the fine arts are of little importance to our country. On the contrary, every person is directly interested. A foreign writer observes that, “silver-plating in the United States, is what tin-smithery is in Paris.” Fuseli terms Venice “the toy-shop of Europe;” better Paris. What a multitude of people are supported in that great city by the manufacture of ten thousand fabrics, exquisitely designed and executed. The Parisians have a keen perception of the beautiful, simply from being educated in a city abounding with galleries and the best models of art, or as Reynolds terms it, “the accumulated genius of ages.”

RAFFAELLE SANZIO DI URBINO.

By the general approbation of mankind, this illustrious artist has been styled “the prince of modern painters.” He is universally acknowledged to have possessed a greater combination of the excellencies of art than has fallen to the lot of any other individual. It is a remarkable fact, mentioned by many artists and writers, that the most capital frescoes of Raffaelle in the Vatican, do not at first strike the beholder with surprise, nor satisfy his expectations; but as he begins to study them, he constantly discovers new beauties, and his admiration continues to increase with contemplation.

RAFFAELLE’S AMBITION.

Raffaelle was inspired by the most unbounded ambition; the efforts of Michael Angelo to supplant him only stimulated him to greater exertions; and, on his death-bed, he thanked God he was born in the days of Buonarotti. He was instructed in the principles of architecture for six years by Bramante, that on his death he might succeed him in superintending the erection of St. Peter’s. He lived among the ancient sculptures, and derived from them not only the contours, drapery, and attitudes, but the spirit and principles of the art. Not content with what he saw at Rome, he employed able artists to copy the remains of antiquity at Pozzuolo, throughout all Italy, and even in Greece. It is also probable that he derived much assistance from living artists, whom he consulted in regard to his compositions. The universal esteem which he enjoyed, his attractive person, and his engaging manners, which all authors unite in describing as incomparable, conciliated the favor of the most eminent men of letters, as Bembo, Castiglione, Giovio, Navagero, Ariosto, Fulvio, Calcagnini, etc., who set a high value on his friendship, and were doubtless ready to supply him with many valuable hints and ideas.

RAFFAELLE AND MICHAEL ANGELO.

“Michael Angelo, his rival,” says Lanzi, “contributed not a little to the success of Raffaelle. As the contest between Zeuxis and Parrhasius was beneficial to both, so the rivalship of Buonarotti and Sanzio aided the fame of Michael Angelo, and produced the paintings in the Sistine chapel; and at the same time contributed to the celebrity of Raffaelle, by producing the pictures in the Vatican, and not a few others. Michael Angelo, disdaining any secondary honors, came to the combat, as it were, attended by his shield-bearer, for he made drawings in his grand style, and then gave them to Fra Sebastiano del Piombo, the scholar of Giorgione, to execute; and, by this means, he hoped that Raffaelle would never be able to rival his productions, either in design or color. Raffaelle stood alone, but aimed at producing works with a degree of perfection beyond the united efforts of Michael Angelo and F. Sebastiano, combining in himself a fertile imagination, ideal beauty founded on a correct imitation of the Greek style, grace, ease, amenity, and a universality of genius in every department of art. The noble determination of triumphing in such a powerful contest animated him night and day, and allowed him no respite. It also animated him to surpass both his rivals and himself in every new work.”

RAFFAELLE’S TRANSFIGURATION.

“This great artist” (Michael Angelo), says Vasari, “had felt some uneasiness at the growing fame of Raffaelle, and he gladly availed himself of the powers of Sebastiano del Piombo, as a colorist, in the hope that, assisted by his designs, he might be enabled to enter the lists successfully with his illustrious antagonist, if not to drive him from the field. With this view, he furnished him with the designs for the Pietà in the church of the Conventuali at Viterbo, and the Transfiguration and Flagellation, in S. Pietro in Montorio, at Rome, which, as he was very tedious in the process, occupied him six years.” It was at this juncture that the Cardinal de Medici commissioned Raffaelle to paint a picture of the Transfiguration, and in order to stimulate the rivalry, he engaged Sebastiano to paint one of the Resurrection of Lazarus, of precisely the same dimensions, for his Cathedral of Narbonne. That Sebastiano might enter the lists with some chance of success, he was again assisted by Buonarotti, who composed and designed the picture. On this occasion, Raffaelle exerted his utmost powers, triumphed over both his competitors, and produced that immortal picture which has received the most unqualified approbation of mankind as the finest picture in the world. Both pictures were publicly exhibited in competition, and the palm of victory was adjudged to Raffaelle—the Transfiguration was pronounced inimitable in composition, in design, in expression, and in grace. This sublime composition represents the mystery of Christ’s Transfiguration on Mount Tabor. At the foot of the Mount is assembled a multitude, among whom are the Disciples of our Lord, endeavoring in vain to relieve a youth from the dominion of an evil spirit. The various emotions of human doubt, anxiety, and pity, exhibited in the different figures, present one of the most pathetic incidents ever conceived; yet this part of the composition does not fix the attention so much as the principal figure on the summit of the mountain. There Christ appears elevated in the air, surrounded with a celestial radiance, between Moses and Elias, while the three favored Apostles are kneeling in devout astonishment on the ground. The head and attitude of the Saviour are distinguished by a divine majesty and sublimity, that is indescribable.

DEATH OF RAFFAELLE.

With his incomparable work of the Transfiguration, ceased the life and the labors of Raffaelle; he did not live to entirely complete it, and the few remaining parts were finished by his scholar, Giulio Romano. While engaged upon it, he was seized with a fever, of which he died on his birth-day, Good Friday, April 7th, 1520, aged 37 years. His body lay in state in the chamber where he had been accustomed to paint, and near the bier was placed the noble picture of the Transfiguration. The throngs who came to pay their respects to the illustrious artist were deeply affected; there was not an artist in Rome but was moved to tears by the sight, and his death was deplored throughout Italy as a national calamity. The funeral ceremony was performed with great pomp and solemnity, and his remains were interred in the church of the Rotunda, otherwise called the Pantheon. The Cardinal Bembo, at the desire of the Pope, wrote the epitaph which is now inscribed on his tomb.

CHARACTER OF RAFFAELLE.

All cotemporary writers unite in describing Raffaelle as amiable, modest, kind, and obliging; equally respected and beloved by the high and the low. His beauty of person and noble countenance inspired confidence, and strongly prepossessed the beholder in his favor at first sight. Respectful to the memory of Perugino, and grateful for the instructions he had received from him, he exerted all his influence with the Pope, that the works of his master in one of the ceilings of the Vatican might be spared, when the other paintings were destroyed to make room for his own embellishments. Just and generous to his cotemporaries, though not ignorant of their intrigues, he thanked God that he had been born in the days of Buonarotti. Gracious towards his pupils, he loved and instructed them as his own sons; courteous even to strangers, he cheerfully extended his advice to all who asked it, and in order to make designs for others, or to direct them in their studies, he had been known to neglect his own works, rather than refuse them his assistance.

LA BELLA FORNARINA.

Raffaelle was never married, though by no means averse to female society. The Cardinal da Bibiena offered him his niece, which high alliance he is said to have declined because the honors of the purple were held out to him by the Pope, who favored him greatly, and made him groom of his chamber. Early in life he became attached to a young woman, the daughter of a baker at Rome, called by way of distinction, La Bella Fornarina, to whom he was solely and constantly attached, and he left her in his will sufficient for an independent maintenance. The rest of his property he bequeathed to a relative in Urbino, and to his favorite scholars, Giulio Romano, and Gio. Francesco Penni.

THE GENIUS OF RAFFAELLE.

Raffaelle possessed in an eminent degree all the qualities necessary to constitute a preëminent painter. When we consider the number of his paintings, and the multitude of his designs, (it is said he left behind him 287 pictures, and 576 cartoons, drawings, and studies) to which he devoted so much study, as is shown in his numerous sketches of Madonnas and Holy Families, &c., and especially his great works in the Vatican, in which, in many cases, he drew all the figures naked, in order the better to adapt the drapery and its folds to their respective attitudes; and further, his supervision of the building of St. Peter’s church, his admeasurements of the ancient edifices of Rome with exact drawings and descriptions, the preparation of designs for various churches and palaces, with several collateral tasks, it seems incredible that even a long life were sufficient for their execution; and when we further reflect that he accomplished all this at an age when most men only begin to distinguish themselves, we are struck with astonishment at the wonderful fecundity of his genius.

RAFFAELLE’S MODEL FOR HIS FEMALE SAINTS.

“His own Fornarina,” says Lanzi, “assisted him in this object. Her portrait by Raffaelle’s own hand was formerly in the Barberini Palace, and it is repeated in many of his Madonnas, in the picture of St. Cecilia at Bologna, and in many female heads.”

RAFFAELLE’S OIL PAINTINGS.

“Of his oil paintings,” says Lanzi, “a considerable number are to be found in private collections, particularly on sacred subjects, such as the Madonna and Child, and other compositions of the Holy Family. They are in three styles, which we have before described: the Grand Duke of Florence has some specimens of each. The most admired is that which is named the Madonna della Seggiola. Of this class of pictures it is often doubted whether they ought to be considered as originals or copies, as some of them have been three, five, or ten times repeated. The same may be said of other cabinet pictures by him, particularly the St. John in the Desert, which is in the Grand Ducal gallery at Florence, and is found repeated in many collections both in Italy and other countries. This was likely to happen in a school where the most common mode was the following:—The subject was designed by Raffaello, the picture prepared by Giulio, and finished by the master so exquisitely, that one might almost count the hairs of the head. When pictures were thus finished, they were copied by the scholars of Raffaello, who were very numerous, and of the second and third order; and these were also sometimes retouched by Giulio and by Raffaello himself. But whoever is experienced in the freedom and delicacy of the chief of this school, need not fear confounding his productions with those of the scholars, or Giulio himself; who, besides having a more timid pencil, made use of a darker tint than his master was accustomed to do. I have met with an experienced person, who declared that he could recognize the character of Giulio in the dark parts of the flesh tints, and in the middle dark tints, not of a leaden color as Raffaello used, nor so well harmonized; in the greater quantity of light, and in the eyes designed more roundly, which Raffaello painted somewhat long, after the manner of Pietro Perugino.”

PORTRAITS OF POPE JULIUS II.

There are no less than eight portraits of Julius II. attributed to Raffaelle. 1. The original, by Raffaelle’s own hand, is in the Palazzo Pitti at Florence, the best of all; 2. a scarcely inferior one in the Tribune of the Florentine Gallery; 3. one in the English National Gallery, from the Falconieri Palace at Rome; 4. a very fine one, formerly in the Orleans Gallery; 5. an inferior one in the Corsini Palace at Rome; 6. a very fine one in the Borghese Gallery at Rome; 7. one at Berlin, from the Giustinian Gallery; 8. one in the possession of Count Torlonia at Rome. Most of these are doubtless copies by Raffaelle’s scholars, some of them finished by himself. The original cartoon is preserved in the Corsini Palace at Florence.

MANNERS OF RAFFAELLE.

Raffaelle had three manners; first, that of his instructor, Pietro Perugino, hence many exquisite pictures in the style of that master are erroneously attributed to him; second, the same, modified by his residence and studies at Florence, which continued till his completion of the Theology in the Vatican, though constantly improving; and the third, his own grand original manner, commencing with the school of Athens. For a very full life of Raffaelle, with Lanzi’s admirable critique, see Spooner’s Dictionary of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors, and Architects.

PETER PAUL RUBENS.

This preëminent painter, accomplished scholar, and skillful diplomatist, was born at Antwerp in 1577, on the feast day of St. Peter and St. Paul, for which reason he received at the baptismal font the names of those Apostles. Rubens, in his earliest years, discovered uncommon ability, vivacity of genius, literary taste, and a mild and docile disposition. His father, intending him for one of the learned professions, gave him a very liberal education, and on the completion of his studies, placed him as a page with the Countess of Lalain, in order that his son might acquire graceful and accomplished manners, so important to success in a professional career. His father dying soon afterwards, young Rubens obtained the permission of his mother, to follow the bent of his genius. He studied under several masters, the last of whom was the celebrated Otho Venius. He made such extraordinary progress, that when he had reached his twenty-third year, Venius frankly told him that he could be of no further service to him, and that nothing more remained for his improvement but a journey to Italy, which he recommended as the surest means of ripening his extraordinary talents to the greatest perfection.

RUBENS’ VISIT TO ITALY.

Rubens having secured the favor and patronage of the Archduke Albert, governor of the Netherlands, for whom he executed several pictures, set out for Italy, with letters from his patron, recommending him in the most honorable manner to the Duke of Mantua, that at his court he might have access to his admirable collection of paintings and antique statues. He was received with the most marked distinction by the Duke, who took him into his service, and appointed him one of the gentlemen of his bed-chamber, an honor which was the more acceptable to Rubens, as it gave him greater facility for studying the great works of Giulio Romano in the Palazzo del Te, which were the objects of his particular admiration.

RUBENS’ ENTHUSIASM.

Giulio Romano’s masterly illustrations of the sublime poetry of Homer excited Rubens’ emulation in the highest degree. One day, while he was engaged in painting the history of Turnus and Æneas, in order to warm his imagination with poetic rapture, he repeated with great energy, the lines of Virgil, beginning,

“Ille etiam patriis agmen ciet,” &c.

The Duke, overhearing his recitations, entered the apartment, and was surprised to find the young painter’s mind richly stored with classical literature. Rubens remained in the service of the Duke of Mantua, who had conceived the strongest attachment to him, nearly eight years, visiting Venice, Rome, Genoa, and other cities, executing many commissions, and leaving everywhere superb specimens of his magic pencil. In 1605, the Duke having occasion to send an envoy to the court of Spain, employed Rubens as a person eminently fitted for the delicate mission. He successfully accomplished the negotiations confided to him, painted the portrait of Philip III., and received from that monarch the most flattering marks of distinction.

RUBENS’ RETURN TO ANTWERP.

In 1608, after an absence of eight years, Rubens was suddenly recalled to Antwerp by the severe illness of his mother, who died before his arrival. The loss of his dearly beloved parent was a severe affliction to him. He had proposed to return to Italy, but the Archduke Albert, and the Infanta Isabella, induced him to settle at Antwerp, where he married, built a magnificent house, with a saloon in the form of a rotunda, which he embellished with a rich collection of antique statues, busts, vases, and pictures by the greatest masters. This collection he sold many years afterwards to the Duke of Buckingham for £10,000. Amidst these select productions of art, he passed about twelve years in the tranquil exercise of his great abilities, producing an astonishing number of admirable pictures for the churches and public edifices of the Low Countries.

RUBENS’ HABITS.

In order to continue his mental improvement, to enjoy the sweets of friendly intercourse, and to economize his precious time, Rubens regulated his affairs with a precision which nothing was permitted to derange. He received company at stated times, took regular exercise out of doors, usually on horseback, and it is said that he never painted without having some one to read to him from a classic work of history or poetry. He possessed an extraordinary memory, and understood the ancient and several modern languages, writing and speaking them with ease and fluency. His familiar acquaintance with ancient and modern literature, had enriched his mind with inexhaustible resources.

RUBENS’ DETRACTORS.

Rubens’ great popularity naturally excited envy, and created enemies. Generous and affable to all, and a liberal encourager of art, he found himself assailed by those who were most indebted to him for assistance. With the most audacious effrontery, they insinuated that he owed the best part of his reputation in the great variety of his works, for which he was celebrated, to the talents of two of his disciples, Snyders and Wildens, whom he employed occasionally in forwarding the animals and landscapes in his pictures. The principal of these vilifiers were Abraham Janssens, Cornelius Schut, and Theodore Rombouts; the first had the hardihood to challenge him to paint a picture in competition with him. Rubens treated these attacks with a dignity and philanthropy that shows his exalted mind, and the goodness of his heart; he relieved the necessities of his accusers, and exposed his immortal production of the Descent from the Cross.

THE GALLERY OF THE LUXEMBOURG.

In 1620, Mary of Medicis commissioned Rubens to decorate the gallery of the Luxembourg with a series of emblematical paintings, in twenty-four compartments, illustrative of the principal events of her life. The series was painted at Antwerp, except two pictures, which he finished at Paris in 1623, when he arranged the whole in the gallery. These great works, executed in less than three years, are alone sufficient to attest the abundant fertility of his genius, and the wonderful facility of his hand.

RUBENS SENT AS AMBASSADOR TO THE COURTS OF SPAIN AND ENGLAND.

In 1628, the Infanta Isabella despatched Rubens on a delicate political mission to the court of Spain, relative to the critical state of the government of the Low Countries, and for instructions preparatory to a negotiation of peace between Spain and England. On his arrival at the Spanish capital, he was received in the most gracious manner by Philip IV., acquitted himself of his diplomatic mission to the entire satisfaction of the Infanta and the King, and completely captivated that monarch, and his minister, the Duke de Olivares, by the magnificent productions of his pencil. He executed several great works, for which he was munificently rewarded, received the honors of knighthood, and was presented with the golden key, as a Gentleman of the Royal Bed-Chamber.

In 1629 he returned to Flanders, and was immediately despatched to England by the Infanta, on a secret mission, to ascertain the disposition of the government on the subject of peace. The king, Charles I., an ardent lover of the fine arts, received the illustrious painter with every mark of distinction, and immediately employed him in painting the ceiling of the Banqueting House at Whitehall, where he represented the Apotheosis of his father, James I., for which he received £3,000. Here Rubens showed himself no less skillful as a diplomatist than as a painter. In one of the frequent visits with which the king honored him during the execution of the work, he alluded with infinite delicacy and address to the subject of a peace with Spain, and finding the monarch not averse to such a measure, he immediately produced his credentials. Charles at once appointed some members of his council to negociate with him, and a pacification was soon effected. The King was so highly pleased with the productions of his pencil, and particularly with his conduct in this diplomatic emergency, that he gave him a munificent reward, and conferred upon him the honor of knighthood, Feb. 21, 1630. On this occasion, the king presented Rubens with his own sword, enriched with diamonds, his hat-band of jewels, valued at ten thousand crowns, and a gold chain, which Rubens wore ever afterwards.

DEATH OF RUBENS.

Rubens, after having successfully accomplished the objects of his missions to the courts of Spain and England, returned to Antwerp, where he was received with all the honors and distinction due to his services and exalted merit. He still continued to exercise his pencil with undiminished industry and reputation till 1635, when he experienced some aggravated attacks of the gout, to which he had been subject, succeeded by an infirmity and trembling of the hand, which obliged him to decline executing all works of large dimensions. Though he had now reached his fifty-eighth year, and was loaded with deserved honors and wealth, he nevertheless continued to instruct his pupils, to correspond with his cherished friends, and to paint easel pictures when his torturing malady would permit, till his death, in 1640, aged 63 years. He was buried with extraordinary pomp and solemnity in the church of St. James, under the altar of the private chapel, which he had decorated with one of his finest pictures. A superb monument was erected to his memory.

RUBENS’ NUMEROUS WORKS.

The number of works executed by Rubens is truly astonishing; Smith, in his Catalogue raisonné, vols. ii. and ix., describes about eighteen hundred considered genuine by him, in the different public and private collections of Europe. There can be no doubt that a great number of these were executed by his numerous scholars and assistants, under his direction, from his designs, and then finished by himself. It is well known that he employed his pupils in forwarding many of his pictures, and that Wildens, van Uden, and Mompers, in particular, assisted him in his landscapes, and Snyders in his animals. His principal scholars were Anthony Vandyck, Justus van Egmont, Theodore van Thulden, Abraham Diepenbeck, Jacob Jordaens, Peter van Mol, Cornelius Schut, John van Hoeck, Simon de Vos, Peter Soutman, Deodato Delmont, Erasmus Quellinus, Francis Wouters, Francis Snyders, John Wildens, Lucas van Uden, and Jodocus Mompers. Several other distinguished Flemish painters of the period, who were not his pupils, imitated his style; the most eminent of whom were Gerard Seghers, Gaspar de Crayer, and Martin Pepin. Besides the genuine paintings of Rubens, there are a multitude of doubtful authenticity, attributed to him, most of which were executed by his pupils and imitators. Many such, fine pictures, are in the United States. There are upwards of twelve hundred engravings after works attributed to Rubens; some of which, however, are of doubtful authenticity. Those executed by the Bolswerts, Paul Pontius, and other cotemporary engravers who worked under Rubens’ supervision, are undoubtedly genuine. There are a great number of his works in England in the public galleries and the collections of the nobility; there are nine in the National gallery, fourteen in the Dulwich gallery, and others at Windsor, Hampton Court, and Whitehall. The enormous value set upon his works at the present time, maybe seen by referring to the catalogue of the National gallery; thus, the Brazen Serpent cost £1260; a Landscape, called Rubens’ Chateau, £1500; Peace and War, £3000; the Rape of the Sabines, £3000; and the Judgment of Paris, 4000 guineas. Many of the works of Rubens, like those of other great masters, have suffered greatly from the effects of time, but more from improper cleaning and unskillful restoration, especially in retouching injured parts, by which the original harmony of coloring has been destroyed. Thus his pictures in the Banqueting house at Whitehall, have been three times cleaned, repaired, and painted over, so that little of the original splendor of coloring remains.

THE FIRST PICTURE BROUGHT TO ROME.

The first picture carried to Rome from Greece, according to Pliny, was the famous Bacchus and Ariadne, painted by Aristides of Thebes. It was painted on a heavy panel, and King Attalus offered for it, its weight in gold, which excited the suspicion of the Consul Mummius that it contained some secret charm. He accordingly broke off the bargain, and took it himself to Rome, where he dedicated it in the temple of Ceres. After this example, every Roman commander seems to have been ambitious of adorning the city with the finest pictures and statues of Greece, Asia Minor, Egypt, and Sicily. Julius Cæsar enshrined the two exquisite pictures of Medea and Ajax, by Timomachus, in the Temple of Venus. Augustus hung his forum with pictures of the horrors of war, and the glories of a triumph; and he adorned the temple which he dedicated to the deified Julius with many choice pictures, the most beautiful of which was the Venus Anadyomene of Apelles. Another, scarcely less celebrated, by the same painter, was one of Alexander in triumph, leading War, bound and manacled. This picture was afterwards defaced by Claudius, who caused the head of Alexander to be scraped out, and that of Augustus to be inserted. Another picture of especial note, in the same temple, was one of Castor and Pollux.

Augustus also placed in the Comitium some excellent works, by Nicias of Athens, and others. The Temple of Peace was rich in pictures of the highest class. There was placed the most valued of all the works of Protogenes, the hunter Jalysus with his dogs and game, the Cyclops of Timanthes, and the sea-monster Scylla, by Nicomachus.

In the Temple of Concord, there was a precious picture by Zeuxis—that of Marsyas bound to a Tree; and the Muses and the Helen of the same painter adorned some of the private villas at Rome.

In the Temple of Minerva, on the Capitol, was the Theseus of Parrhasius, with the Rape of Proserpine, and a Victory by Nicomachus.

In the shrine of Ceres, where Mummius had placed the Bacchus and Ariadne of Aristides, were several other works by the same painter.

The Portico of Octavia was adorned with pictures of Greek mythology and history by Antiphilus; and that of Pompey boasted a rare fragment by Polygnotus, of a Soldier upon a Scaling Ladder, probably a part of some great battle-piece, which that illustrious painter had executed in honor of his countrymen. Some suppose it to have been taken from the Pœcile at Athens, where the pictures were not painted in fresco, but on panels. The Portico of Pompey was still further adorned with pictures by Nicias, among which were a large portrait of Alexander, a picture of Calypso, and some animals, which were much prized. There was also a beautiful picture of Hyacinthus, by the same artist, which was so highly valued by Augustus, that, after his death, Tiberius consecrated it to his memory, in the temple dedicated to him.

The Romans did not hesitate to carry off everything appertaining to the fine arts in the countries they conquered. The greatest influx of Greek pictures into Rome, at any one time, was during the edileship of Scaurus, when, on account of a real or pretended debt owing by the people of Sicyon to Rome, all the valuable pictures in that city were seized and conveyed to Italy. Such were a few of the many pictures, the spoils of war, which were carried to Rome, to adorn the temples, palaces, and public places, not to speak of those which decorated the villas of persons of rank and taste.

ETRUSCAN SCULPTURE.

The Romans were so fond of Etruscan statues that they collected them from all quarters. At the taking of Volsinum (now Bolsena), they removed two thousand bronze statues to Rome. The Etruscans were also much employed by the Romans to make bronze statues of their divinities and great personages. One of the most ancient remaining works executed by them for Rome, is the bronze Wolf, “the thunder-stricken nurse of Rome,” preserved in the Capitol, and of which Micali has given an excellent figure. There was a colossal Etruscan Apollo, fifty feet high, placed in the library of the Temple of Augustus, “the bigness of which,” says Pliny, “is not so remarkable as the material and the workmanship; for hard it is to say whether is most admirable, the beautiful figure of the body, or the exquisite temperature of the metal” There was also a colossal Jupiter of the Capitol, cast by Corovillius out of the brazen armor taken from the dead bodies of the conquered Samnites. Pliny says the first bronze statue cast in Rome, was that of the goddess Ceres, the expense of which was defrayed by the forfeited goods of Spurius Capius, who was put to death for aspiring to the dignity of king.

CAMPUS MARTIUS.

The Campus Martius was a large plain without the city of Rome, which was adorned with a multitude of statues, the spoils of war; also with columns, arches, and porticos. The public assemblies were held there, the officers of state chosen, and audience given to foreign ambassadors; there, also, the Roman youths performed their exercises, learned to wrestle and box, to throw the discus, hurl the javelin, ride a horse, drive a chariot, etc.

ELECTIONEERING PICTURES AT ROME.

The Roman commanders made a singular use of painting to advance their interests. Their inordinate love of military fame discovered a mode of feeding that ruling passion by means of this charming art. According to Valerius Maximus, Massala was the first who, when he offered himself for the consulship, instead of sitting in the market-place, dressed in the white robe of humility, and pointing to his wounds like Coriolanus,

“Show them the scars that I would hide,
As if I had received them for the hire
Of their breath only,”

caused a picture to be hung up in the portico Hostilia, representing the battle of Messana, where he had vanquished both the Carthagenians and Syracusans. The picture told the story of his achievements to the best advantage, and secured his election. Scipio Africanus was greatly incensed against his brother, Lucius Scipio, for placing in the Capitol a picture of the battle near Sardis, which won him the title of Asiaticus, but in which, his nephew, the son of Africanus, was taken prisoner. Again, Scipio Emilianus was highly offended at the display of a picture of the Taking of Carthage, exhibited in the market-place by Lucius Hostilius Mancinus. It appears that Mancinus was the first to enter the city, and on his return to Rome, being desirous of the consulship, he had a picture painted, representing the situation of the town, its strong fortifications, all the machines used in the attack and defense, and the actions of the besiegers, in which care was taken that those of Mancinus should be most conspicuous. This he hung up in the Forum, and personally explained to the people in such a manner, that he won their good will, and gained the consulship. We learn from Quintilian that the lawyers of Rome often made use of pictures in their pleadings for the purpose of moving the judges.

DRAMATIC SCENERY AT ROME.

It is related that when Claudius Pulcher, during his edileship, exhibited dramas publicly at Rome, the scenery, representing trees, houses and other buildings was so naturally depicted, that the ravens and other birds came to perch upon them. Many such anecdotes are related as having occurred in all ages of the history of the art, but they are not so sure a test of excellence as people generally imagine, for animals are easily deceived. The writer has made experiments to satisfy himself on this point; he has seen a whiffet dog bark obstreperously at the portrait of a person it disliked; birds approach a picture of fruit, and bees one of flowers. He has a picture of three dogs, so naturally painted, that almost every dog, admitted into the room, not only looks at it, but endeavors to smell of it. Every sportsman knows that it is easy to decoy wild ducks with an artificial one.

APELLES OF EPHESUS AND PTOLEMY PHILOPATOR.

During a voyage in the eastern part of the Mediterranean, Apelles was driven into Alexandria, in Egypt, by stress of weather. Not being in favor with king Ptolemy, he did not venture to appear at the court; but some of his enemies suborned one of the royal buffoons to invite him to supper in the king’s name, Apelles attended accordingly, but Ptolemy, indignant at the intrusion, demanded by whom he had been invited; whereupon the painter, seizing an extinguished coal from the hearth, drew upon the wall the features of the man who had invited him, with such accuracy, that the king, even from the first lines, immediately recognized the buffoon, and thenceforth received Apelles into his favor.

APELLES’ FAMOUS PICTURE OF CALUMNY.

According to Lucian, the reputation of Apelles, and the favor he enjoyed at the court of Ptolemy, excited the jealousy of Antiphilus, a celebrated Egyptian painter, who unjustly accused him of having participated in the conspiracy of Theodotus of Tyre. Apelles was thrown into the dungeon, and treated with great severity, but his innocence being clearly established, Ptolemy endeavored to make reparation, presented him with one hundred talents, and condemned Antiphilus to be his slave. Apelles, however, was not satisfied with this reparation, and on returning to Ephesus, painted in retaliation his famous picture of Calumny, in which Ptolemy acted a principal part. Lucian saw this picture, and thus describes it:

“On the right, is seated a person of magisterial authority, to whom the painter has given ears like Midas, who holds forth his hand to Calumny, as if inviting her to approach. He is attended by Ignorance and Suspicion, who stand by his side. Calumny advances in the form of a beautiful female, her countenance and demeanor exhibiting an air of fury and hatred; in one hand she holds the torch of discord, and with the other, she drags by the hair a youth personifying Innocence, who, with eyes raised to heaven, seems to implore succor of the gods. She is preceded by Envy, a figure with a pallid visage and emaciated form, who appears to be the leader of the band. Calumny is also attended by two other figures who seem to excite and animate her, and whose deceitful looks discover them to be Intrigue and Treachery. At last follows Repentance clothed in black, and covered with confusion at the discovery of Truth in the distance, environed with celestial light.”

This sketch has been regarded as one of the most ingenious examples of allegorical painting which the history of the art affords. Raffaelle made a drawing from Lucian’s description, which was formerly in the collection of the Duke of Modena, and was afterwards transferred to the French Museum.

Professor Tölken, of Berlin, has shown that this Apelles was not the great cotemporary of Alexander, for the persons mentioned in connection with the story, lived more than a hundred years after the death of Alexander—or about the 144th Olympiad. This reconciles many contradictory statements with regard to Apelles, both by ancient and modern writers. See Spooner’s Dictionary of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors, and Architects.

SIR GODFREY KNELLER.

Soon after Kneller’s arrival in England, he painted the portrait of the Duke of Monmouth, who was so much pleased with it that he persuaded the king, his father (Charles II.) to have his portrait painted by the new artist. The King had promised the Duke of York his portrait, to be painted by Sir Peter Lely, and unwilling to go through the ceremony of a double sitting, he proposed that both artists should paint him at the same time. Lely, as the king’s painter, took the light and station he liked; but Kneller took the next best he could find, and went to work with so much expedition, that he had nearly finished his portrait, when Lely had only laid in his dead coloring. This novelty pleased, and Lely himself had the candor to acknowledge his merit. Kneller immediately found himself in the possession of great reputation and abundant employment, and the immense number of portraits he executed, proves the stability of his reputation. He was equally patronized by Kings Charles, James, and William, and he had the honor of painting ten sovereigns. His best friend was King William, for whom he painted the beauties of Hampton Court, and by whom he was knighted in 1692, and presented with a gold chain and medal, worth £300. In the latter part of this reign, he painted the portraits of the members of the famous Kit-cat Club, forty-two in number, and the several portraits now in the gallery of the Admirals. He lived to paint the portrait of George I., who made him a Baronet. He died in 1723. His body lay in state, and he was buried at his country-seat at Wilton; a monument was erected to his memory in Westminster Abbey.

KNELLER AND JAMES II.

It was while sitting to this artist, that James the Second manifested a most surprising instance of coolness and shrewdness united. Kneller was painting his portrait as a present to Pepys, when suddenly intelligence arrived of the landing of the Prince of Orange. The artist was confounded, and laid down his brush. “Go on, Kneller,” said the king, betraying no outward emotion; “I wish not to disappoint my friend Pepys.”

KNELLER’S COMPLIMENT TO LOUIS XIV.

When Kneller painted the portrait of Louis XIV., the monarch asked him what mark of his esteem would be most agreeable to him; whereupon he modestly answered that he should feel honored if his Majesty would bestow a quarter of an hour upon him, that he might execute a drawing of his face for himself. The request was granted. Kneller painted Dryden in his own hair, in plain drapery, holding a laurel, and made him a present of the work; to which the poet responded in an epistle containing encomiums such as few painters deserve.

“Such are thy pictures, Kneller! such thy skill,
That nature seems obedient to thy will,
Comes out and meets thy pencil in the draught,
Lives there, and wants but words to speak the thought.”

KNELLER’S WIT.

The servants of his neighbor, Dr. Radcliffe, abused the liberty of a private entrance to the painter’s garden, and plucked his flowers. Kneller sent him word that he must shut the door up; whereupon the doctor peevishly replied, “Tell him he may do any thing with it but paint it.” “Never mind what he says,” retorted Sir Godfrey; “I can take anything from him but physic.” He once overheard a low fellow cursing himself. “God damn you, indeed!” exclaimed the artist in wonder; “God may damn the Duke of Marlborough, and perhaps Sir Godfrey Kneller; but do you think he will ever take the trouble of damning such a scoundrel as you?” To his tailor, who proposed his son for a pupil, he said, “Dost thou think, man, I can make thy son a painter? No, God Almighty only makes painters.” He gave a reason for preferring portraiture to historical painting, which forms an admirable bon-mot, for its shrewdness, truthfulness, and ingenuity. “Painters of history,” said he, “make the dead live, and do not begin to live till they are dead. I paint the living, and they make me live!”

KNELLER’S KNOWLEDGE OF PHYSIOGNOMY.

In a conversation concerning the legitimacy of the unfortunate son of James II., some doubts having been expressed by an Oxford Doctor, Kneller exclaimed, with much warmth, “His father and mother have sat to me about thirty-six times apiece, and I know every line and bit of their faces. Mein Gott! I could paint King James now by memory. I say the child is so like both, that there is not a feature of his face but what belongs either to father or mother; this I am sure of, and cannot be mistaken; nay, the nails of his fingers are his mother’s, the queen that was. Doctor, you may be out in your letters, but I cannot be out in my lines.”

KNELLER AS A JUSTICE OF THE PEACE.

Sir Godfrey acted as a justice of the peace at Wilton, and his sense of justice induced him always to decide rather by equity than law. His judgments, too, were often accompanied with so much humor, as caused the greatest merriment among his acquaintance. Thus, he dismissed a poor soldier who had stolen a piece of meat, and fined the butcher for purposely tempting him to commit the crime. Hence Pope wrote the following lines:

“I think Sir Godfrey should decide the suit,
Who sent the thief (that stole the cash) away,
And punished him that put it in his way.”

Whenever he was applied to by paupers, he always inquired which were the richest parishes, and settled them there. He could never be induced to sign a warrant to distrain the goods of a poor man, who could not pay a tax, and he took pleasure in assisting the honest poor with his advice and purse. He disliked interruption, and if the case appeared trivial, or was the result of a row, he would not be disturbed. Seeing a constable coming to him one day, with two men, having bloody noses, and a mob at his heels, he called out to him, “Mr. Constable, do you see that turning? Go that way, and you will find an ale-house—the sign of the King’s Head. Go and make it up.” A handsome young woman came before him one day to swear a rape; struck with her beauty, he continued examining her as he sat painting, till he had taken her likeness. Perceiving from her manner that she was not free from guilt, he advised her not to prosecute her suit, but seek some other mode of redress. These instances show the goodness of his heart, and refute the many absurd and malicious stories that are told of him.

KNELLER AND CLOSTERMANS.

When Clostermans, an inferior artist, sent a challenge to Kneller to paint a picture in competition with him for a wager, he courteously declined the contest, and sent him word that “he allowed him to be his superior.”

THE CAVALIERE BERNINI.

Giovanni Lorenzo Bernini, whose renown filled all Europe in the seventeenth century, was called the Michael Angelo of his age, because, like that great artist, he united in an eminent degree, the three great branches of art—painting, sculpture, and architecture, though he was chiefly renowned in the two last.

BERNINI’S PRECOCITY.

Bernini manifested his extraordinary talents almost in infancy. At the age of eight years, he executed a child’s head in marble, which was considered a wonder. When he was ten years old, his talents had become so widely known, that Pope Paul V. wished to see the prodigy who was the astonishment of artists, and on his being brought into his presence, desired him to draw a figure of St. Paul, which he did in half an hour, so much to the satisfaction of the pontiff that he recommended him to Cardinal Barberini, saying, “Direct the studies of this child, who will become the Michael Angelo of this century.”

BERNINI’S STRIKING PREDICTION.

During Bernini’s distinguished career, Charles I. of England endeavored in vain to allure him to visit his court. Not succeeding in this, he employed Vandyck to paint two excellent portraits of himself, one in profile and the other in full face, and sent them to Bernini, to enable him to execute his bust. The sculptor surveyed them with an anxious eye, and exclaimed, “Something evil will befall this man; he carries misfortune in his face.” The tragical termination of the monarch’s career, verified the sculptor’s knowledge of physiognomy. Bernini made a striking likeness, with which the king was so much pleased, that, in addition to the stipulated price, six thousand crowns, he made him a present of a diamond ring, worth six thousand more.

BERNINI AND LOUIS XIV.

Bernini received the most flattering and pressing invitations from Louis XIV. to visit Paris. At length, he was persuaded by the great Colbert to undertake the journey, and having with great difficulty obtained permission of the Pope, he set out for France, at the age of sixty-eight, accompanied by one of his sons, and a numerous retinue. Never did an artist travel with so much pomp, and under so many flattering circumstances. By order of the King, he was received everywhere on his way with the honors due to a prince, and on his arrival at Paris, he was received by the king with every mark of distinction, and apartments assigned to him in the royal palace. Louis defrayed all the expenses of his journey, and to immortalize the event, had a medal struck, with the portrait of the artist, and on the reverse, the Muses of the Arts, with this inscription, “Singularis in singularis; in omnibus, unicus.” When he returned to Rome, Louis presented him with ten thousand crowns, gave him a pension of two thousand, and one of four hundred to his son, and commissioned him to execute an equestrian statue of himself, in marble, of colossal proportions. The statue was executed in four years, and sent to Versailles, where it was afterwards converted into Marcus Curtius, and where, as such, it still remains.

BERNINI’S WORKS.

Bernini designed and wrought with wonderful facility; his life was one of continued exertion, and he lived to the great age of eighty-two years, so that he was enabled to execute an astonishing number of works. Richly endowed by nature, and favored by circumstances, he rose superior to the rules of art, creating for himself an easy manner, the faults of which he knew well how to disguise by its brilliancy; yet this course, as must ever be the case, did not lead to a lasting reputation. “The Cav. Bernini,” says Lanzi, “the great architect and skillful sculptor, was the arbiter and dispenser of all the works at Rome, under the pontificates of Urban VIII. and Innocent X. His style necessarily influenced those of all the artists, his cotemporaries. He was affected, particularly in his drapery. He opened the way to caprice, changed the true principles of art, and substituted for them the false. At different times, the study of painting has taken the same vicious course; above all, among the imitators of Pietro da Cortona, some of whom went so far as to condemn a study of the works of Raffaelle, and even to decry, as useless, the imitation of nature.” Bernini lived in splendor and magnificence, and left a fortune of 400,000 Roman crowns (about $700,000), to his children.

BERNINI AND THE VEROSPI HERCULES.

When the Verospi statue of Hercules killing the Hydra was first discovered, some parts of it, particularly the monster itself, were wanting, and were supplied by Bernini. Some years after, in further digging the same piece of ground, they found the hydra that originally belonged to it, which differs very much from Bernini’s supplemental one; yet the latter is given in Maffei’s Statues, and other books of prints, as the antique. The statue was removed from the Verospi palace to the Capitol, where it now is; and the original hydra, with a horned sort of a human face, snakes for hair, and a serpentine body, is there also, in the same court.

FANATICISM DESTRUCTIVE TO ART.

Queen Elizabeth was a bitter persecutor of art; she ordered all sacred pictures in the churches to be utterly destroyed, and the walls to be white-washed, so that no memorial of them might remain. In her reign, it became fashionable to sally forth and knock pictures and images to pieces. Flaxman says, “The commands for destroying sacred paintings and sculpture prevented the artist from suffering his mind to rise to the contemplation or execution of any sublime effort, as he dreaded a prison or a stake, and reduced him to the lowest drudgery in his profession. This extraordinary check to our national art occurred at a time which offered the most essential and extraordinary assistance to its progress.” Flaxman proceeds to remark, “the civil wars completed what fanaticism had begun, and English art was so completely extinguished that foreign artists were always employed for public or private undertakings.”

Charles I. was a great lover and patron of the fine arts, and during his reign they made rapid advances in England; but the blind zeal of the Puritans dispersed his splendid gallery, and destroyed almost every vestige of art. In the Journal of the House, July 23d, 1645, it is “Ordered, that all pictures having the second person of the Trinity, be burnt.” Walpole relates that “one Blessie was hired at half-a-crown a day to break the painted windows in Croydon church.” One Dowsing was employed from June 9th, 1642, to October 4th, 1644, in this holy business, and by calculation it is found that he and his agents had destroyed about 4660 pictures, evidently not all glass, because when they were glass he so specified them.

“The result of this continued persecution,” says Haydon, “was the ruin of high art, for the people had not taste enough to feel any sympathy for it independently of religion, and every man who has pursued it since, who had not a private fortune, and was not supported by a pension, like West, became infallibly ruined.”

PAINTINGS EVANESCENT.

“Few works are more evanescent than paintings. Sculpture retains its freshness for twenty centuries. The Apollo and the Venus are as they were. But books are perhaps the only productions of man coeval with the human race. Sophocles and Shakspeare can be produced and reproduced forever. But how evanescent are paintings, and must necessarily be! Those of Zeuxis and Apelles are no more, and perhaps they have the same relation to Homer and Æschylus, that those of Raffaelle and Guido have to Dante and Petrarch.

“There is however, one refuge from the despondency of this contemplation. The material part, indeed, of their works must perish, but they survive in the mind of man, and the remembrances of them are transmitted from generation to generation. The poet embodies them in his creations, and the systems of philosophers are modeled to gentleness by their contemplation; opinion, that legislator, is infected with their influence; men become better and wiser; and the unseen seeds are perhaps thus sown which shall produce a plant more excellent than that from which they fell.”—Shelley.

There is at least another refuge. Paintings are now rendered as permanent as books by engraving, or statuary, by mosaics. In the time of Pliny, there were Greek paintings in Rome 600 years old. There is a painting at Florence dated 886. It is also to be hoped that christianity and civilization have made such advances, that no more Goths, Vandals, Turks, and fanatics, will take pleasure in demolishing works of art as in ages past.

THE ENGLISH NATIONAL GALLERY.

“A fine gallery of pictures is a sort of illustration of Berkeley’s theory of matter and spirit. It is like a palace of thought—another universe, built of air, of shadows, of colors. Everything seems palpable to feeling as to sight: substances turn to shadows by the arch-chemic touch; shadows harden into substances; ‘the eye is made the fool of the other senses, or else worth all the rest.’ The material is in some sense embodied in the immaterial, or at least we see all things in a sort of intellectual mirror. The world of art is an enchanting deception. We discover distance in a glazed surface; a province is contained in a foot of canvass; a thin evanescent tint gives the form and pressure of rocks and trees; an inert shape has life and motion in it. Time stands still, and the dead reappear by means of this so potent art!

“What hues (those of nature mellowed by time) breathe around, as we enter! What forms are there woven into the memory! What looks, which only the answering looks of the spectator can express! What intellectual stores have been yearly poured forth from the shrine of ancient art! The works are various, but the names the same; heaps of Rembrandts frowning from their darkened walls—Rubens’ glad gorgeous groups—Titian’s more rich and rare—Claude always exquisite, sometimes beyond compare—Guido’s endless cloying sweetness—the learning of Poussin and the Caracci—and Raphael’s princely magnificence, crowning all. We read certain letters and syllables in the catalogue, and at the well-known magic sound a miracle of skill and beauty starts to view.

“Pictures are a set of chosen images, a stream of pleasant thoughts passing through the mind. It is a luxury to have the walls of our rooms hung round with them, and no less so to have such a gallery in the mind,—to con over the relics of ancient art bound up ‘within the book and volume of the brain, unmixed, (if it were possible) with baser matter.’ A life passed among pictures, in the study and love of art, is a happy, noiseless dream: or rather it is to dream and to be awake at the same time, for it has all ‘the sober certainty of waking bliss,’ with the romantic voluptuousness of a visionary and abstracted being. They are the bright consummate essence of things, and he who knows of these delights, ‘to taste and interpose them oft, is not unwise!’”—Hazlitt.

THE NUDE FIGURE.

“It is difficult to discover any settled rules of propriety in the different modes of dress, as all ages and nations have fluctuated with regard to their notions and fashions in this matter. The Greek statues of the Laocoön, Apollo, Meleager, Hercules; the Fighting and Dying Gladiator, and the Venus de Medicis, though altogether without drapery, yet surely there is nothing in them offensive to modesty, nothing immoral: on the contrary, looking on these figures, the mind of the spectator is taken up with the surprising beauty or sublimity of the personage, his great strength, vigorous and manly character; or those pains and agonies that so feelingly discover themselves throughout the whole work. It is not in showing or concealing the form that modesty or the want of it depends; that rises entirely from the choice and intentions of the artist himself. The Greeks and other great designers came into this practice (of representing the figure undraped) in order to show in its full extent the idea of character they meant to establish. If it was beauty, they show it to you in all the limbs; if strength, the same; and the agonies of the Laocoön are as discernible in his foot as in his face. This pure and naked nature speaks a universal language, which is understood and valued in all times and countries, where the Grecian dress, language, and manners are neither regarded or known. It is worth observing also that many of the fair sex do sometimes betray themselves by their over-delicacy (which is the want of all true delicacy) in this respect. But I am ashamed to be obliged to combat such silly affectations; they are beneath men who have either head or heart; they are unworthy of women who have either education or simplicity of manner; they would disgrace even waiting-maids and sentimental milliners-.”—Barry.

“There is no more potent antidote to low sensuality than the adoration of beauty. All the higher arts of design are essentially chaste, without respect of the object. They purify the thoughts, as tragedy, according to Aristotle, purifies the passions. Their accidental effects are not worth consideration. There are souls to whom even a vestal is not holy.”—A. W. von Schlegel.

DIFFERENT SCHOOLS OF PAINTING COMPARED.

“The painters of the Roman school were the best designers, and had more of the antique taste in their works than any of the others, but generally they were not good colorists. Those of Florence were good designers, and had a kind of greatness, but it was not antique. The Venetian and Lombard schools had excellent colorists, and a certain grace, but entirely modern, especially those of Venice; but their drawing was generally incorrect, and their knowledge in history and the antique very little. And the Bolognese school of the Caracci is a sort of composition of the others; even Annibal himself possessed not any part of painting in the perfection which is to be seen in those from whom his manner is composed, though, to make amends, he possessed more parts than perhaps any other master, and all in a very high degree. The works of those of the German school have a dryness and ungraceful stiffness, not unlike what is seen amongst the old Florentines. The Flemings were good colorists, and imitated nature as they conceived it—that is, instead of raising nature, they fell below it, though not so much as the Germans, nor in the same manner. Rubens himself lived and died a Fleming, though he would fain have been an Italian; but his imitators have caricatured his manner—that is, they have been more Rubens in his defects than he himself was, but without his excellencies. The French, excepting some few of them (N. Poussin, Le Sueur, Sebastian Bourdon), as they have not the German stiffness nor the Flemish ungracefulness, neither have they the Italian solidity; and in their airs of heads and manners they are easily distinguished from the antique, how much soever they may have endeavored to imitate it.”—Richardson.

THE OLD MASTERS.

“The duration and stability of the fame of the old masters of painting is sufficient to evince that it has not been suspended upon the slender thread of fashion and caprice, but bound to the human heart by every chord of sympathetic approbation.”—Sir J. Reynolds.

PRICES OF GALLERIES.

The prices given for the three great collections of paintings sold in England within the last century, may perhaps not be uninteresting. The Houghton gallery, of two hundred and thirty-two pictures, collected by Sir Robert Walpole, was sold to the Empress Catharine of Russia for £43,500. The Orleans gallery of two hundred and ninety-six pictures was sold in London, in 1798, for £43,555; and the Angerstein collection of thirty-eight pictures was bought by the British government, in 1823, for £57,000. This last purchase was the commencement of the English National Gallery.

LOVE MAKES A PAINTER.

Quintin Matsys, called the Blacksmith of Antwerp, was bred up to the trade of a blacksmith or farrier, which business he followed till he was twenty years of age, when, according to Lampsonius, his love for a blue-eyed lass, whose cruel father, an artist, refused her hand to any one but a painter, caused him to abandon his devotion to Vulcan, and inspired him with the ambition to become a worshipper at the shrine of the Muses. He possessed uncommon talents and genius, applied himself with great assiduity, and in a short time produced pictures that gave promise of the highest excellence, and gained him the fair hand for which he sighed. The inscription on the monument erected to his memory in the Cathedral of Notre Dame, at Antwerp, records in a few expressive words the singular story of his life:

“Connubialis amor de Mulcibre fecit Apellem.”

JOHN WESLEY JARVIS.

Jarvis, though a wayward and eccentric man, unfortunately for himself and the world too much given to strong potations, was “a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy,” whose “gambols, songs, and flashes of merriment were wont to set the table on a roar.” He was a merry wag, and an inimitable story-teller and mimic. Some of his stories were dramatized by Dunlap, Hackett, and Matthews, the best of which is the laughable farce of Monsieur Mallet. Dunlap says, “Another story which Matthews dressed up for John Bull, originated with Jarvis. From a friend I have what I suppose to be the original scene. My friend was passing the painter’s room, when he suddenly threw up the window, and called him in, saying, ‘I have something for your criticism, that you will be pleased with.’ He entered, expecting to see a picture, or some other specimen of the fine arts, but nothing of the kind was produced—he was, however, introduced with a great deal of ceremony, to Monsieur B——, ‘celebrated for his accurate knowledge of the English language, and intimate critical acquaintance with its poetry—particularly Shakspeare.’ Mr. A——, as I shall call my friend, began to understand Jarvis’ object in calling him in. After a little preliminary conversation, Jarvis said, ‘I hope, Monsieur B——, you still retain your love of the drama?’ ‘O certainly, sir, wid my life I renounce it.’ ‘Mr. A——, did you ever hear Monsieur recite?’ ‘Never.’ ‘Your recitations from Racine, Monsieur B——, will you oblige us?’

“The polite and vain Frenchman was easily prevailed upon to roll out several long speeches, from Racine and Corneille, with much gesticulation and many a well-rounded R. This was only to introduce the main subject of entertainment. ‘Monsieur B—— is not only remarkable, as you hear, for his very extraordinary recitations from the poets of his native land, but for his perfect conquest over the difficulties of the English language, in the most difficult of all our poets—Shakspeare. He has studied Hamlet and Macbeth thoroughly—and if he would oblige us—do, ‘Monsieur B——, do give us, “To be, or not to be.”’ ‘Sur, the language is too difficult—I make great efforts to be sure, but still the foreigner is to be detected.’ This gentleman’s peculiarities were in extreme precision and double efforts with the th and the other shibboleths of English. The unsuspecting and vain man is soon induced to give Hamlet’s soliloquy, the th forced out as from a pop-gun, and some of the words irresistibly comic. ‘But, Monsieur B——, you are particularly great in Macbeth—that “if it were done, when it is done,” and “peep through the blanket,”—come, let us have Macbeth.’ Then followed Macbeth’s soliloquies in the same style. All this was ludicrous enough, but upon this foundation Jarvis raised a superstructure, which he carried as high as the zest with which it was received by his companions, his own feelings, or other circumstances prompted or warranted. The unfortunate Monsieur B—— was imitated and caricatured with most laugh-provoking effect; but to add to the treat, he was made not only to recite, but to comment and criticise. ‘If it were done,’ ‘peep through the blanket,’ and, ‘catch with the sursease, success,’ gave a rich field for the imaginary critic’s commentaries—then he would expose, and overthrow Voltaire’s criticisms, and give as examples of the true sublime in tragedy, the scene of the witches in Macbeth.

“‘Huen shall we thtree meet aggen?’ but, ‘mounched, and mounched, and mounched,’ was a delicious feast for the critic—and ‘rrump fed rronion,’ gave an opportunity to show that the English witch was a true John Bull, and fed upon the ‘rrump of the beef,’ ‘thither in a sieve I’ll sail and like a rat without a tail, I’ll do—I’ll do—I’ll do,’ being recited in burlesque imitation, gives an opportunity for comment and criticism, something in this manner. ‘You see not only how true to nature, but to the science of navigation all this is. If the rat had a tail, he could steer the sieve as the sailor steer his ship by the rudder; but if he have no tail, he cannot command the navigation, that is, the course of the sieve; and it will run round—and round—and round—that is what the witch say—“I’ll do—I’ll do—I’ll do!”’ But how can the humor of the story-teller be represented by the writer—or how can I dispose my reader to receive a story dressed in cold black and white—in formal type—with the same hilarity which attends upon the table, and the warm and warming rosy wine? The reader has perceived the want of these magical auxiliaries in the above.”

Jarvis was equally ludicrous in his readings from Shakspeare, in imitation of the stutterer and lisper. The venerable Dr. C. S. Francis, who was intimately acquainted with the painter, says, “Dr. Syntax never with more avidity sought after the sublime and picturesque, than did Jarvis after the scenes of many-colored life; whether his subject was the author of Common Sense or the notorious Baron von Hoffman. His stories, particularly those connected with his southern tours, abounded in motley scenes and ludicrous occurrences; there was no lacking of hair-breadth escapes, whether the incidents involved the collisions of intellect, or sprung from alligators and rattlesnakes. His humor won the admiration of every hearer, and he is recognized as the master of anecdote. But he deserves to be remembered on other accounts—his corporeal intrepidity and his reckless indifference of consequences. I believe there have been not a few of the faculty who have exercised, with public advantage, their professional duties among us for a series of years, who never became as familiar with the terrific scenes of yellow fever and of malignant cholera as Jarvis did. He seemed to have a singular desire to become personally acquainted with the details connected with such occurrences; and a death-bed scene, with all its appalling circumstances, in a disorder of a formidable character, was sought after by him with the solicitude of the inquirer after fresh news. Nor was this wholly an idle curiosity. Jarvis often freely gave of his limited stores to the indigent, and he listened with a fellow feeling to the recital of the profuse liberality with which that opulent merchant of our city, the late Thomas H. Smith, supplied daily the wants of the afflicted and necessitous sufferer during the pestilence of 1832.

“We are indebted to Jarvis for probably the best, if not the only good drawing of the morbid effects of cholera on the human body while it existed here in 1832. During that season of dismay and danger our professional artists declined visiting the cholera hospitals, and were reluctant to delineate when the subject was brought to them. But it afforded a new topic for the consideration of Jarvis, and perhaps also for the better display of his anatomical attainments, he with promptitude discharged the task. When making a drawing from the lifeless and morbid organs of digestion, to one who inquired if he were not apprehensive of danger while thus employed, he put the interrogatory, ‘Pray what part of the system is affected by the cholera?’ ‘The digestive organs,’ was the reply. ‘Oh no, then,’ said Jarvis, ‘for now you see I am doubly armed—- I am furnished with two sets.’”

THE BIGGEST LIE.

Jarvis resided a long time at Charleston, S. C., where his convivial qualities made him a great favorite. On one occasion, at a large dinner party, after the wine had freely circulated, banishing not only form, but discretion, some one of the company proposed that they should make up a prize to the man who would tell the greatest and most palpable lie. It was purposely arranged that Jarvis should speak last. The President began. They

“Spoke of most disastrous chances,
Of moving accidents by flood and field.”

Lie followed lie; and as it is easy to heap absurdity upon absurdity, and extravagance on enormous exaggeration; and as easy to excite laughter and command applause, when champaigne has been enthroned in the seat of judgment, each lie was hailed with shouts of approbation and bursts of merriment. One of the company, who sat next to Jarvis, had exceeded all his competitors, and unanimous admiration seemed to ensure him the prize. The lie was so monstrous and palpable, that it was thought wit or ingenuity could not equal it. Still, something was expected from the famous story-teller, and every eye was turned on the painter. He rose, and placing his hand on his breast and making a low bow, gravely said, “Gentlemen, I assure you that I fully and unequivocally believe every word the last speaker has uttered.” A burst of applause followed, and the prize was adjudged to the witty artist.

JARVIS AND BISHOP MOORE.

Jarvis painted the portrait of Bishop Benjamin Moore, who used to relate one of his quick strokes of humor with great glee. The good Bishop, during one of the sittings, introduced the subject of religion, and asked Jarvis some questions as to his belief or practice. The painter, with an arch look, but as if intent upon catching the likeness of the sitter, waved his hand and said, “Turn your face more that way, Bishop, and shut your mouth.”

JARVIS AND COMMODORE PERRY.

When Jarvis painted the portrait of Commodore Perry, he wished to infuse into the likeness of the hero the fire which he supposed animated him during the terrible contest on Lake Erie. During two or three sittings he tried in vain to rouse him by his lively conversation; he would soon sink into a reverie; it was evident that his thoughts were far away. The painter now had recourse to artifice. He deliberately laid down his palette and pencils, got up, and seizing a chair, swung it over his head in a menacing manner. This strange conduct instantly brought Perry to his feet, his eyes flashing fire, and every feature lit up with the desired expression. “There, that will do,” said the painter; “please sit just as you are.” The result was the admirable picture which now adorns our City Hall, representing the hero standing in his boat, with his flag in one arm, triumphantly waving his sword, as he left the dismantled St. Lawrence for the Niagara, to renew the contest, resolved to conquer or die.

JARVIS AND THE PHILOSOPHER.

Jarvis was a great wag as well as an inimitable story-teller. Whenever he met with an eccentric genius, he delighted to make him indulge in strong potations, and then engage him on his favorite hobby. On one such occasion, a gentleman who had a smattering of Zoology, declared it as his opinion, that it was possible to change the nature of animals; for instance, that by cutting off the end of dogs’ or monkeys’ tails for a few generations, they would become tailless. “That is capital logic,” said Jarvis, “I wonder that the Jews have now any tails!” The philosopher shot out of the room amidst shouts of laughter.

JARVIS AND DR. MITCHELL.

Jarvis could not forbear to crack a joke on the learned Dr. Mitchell, whose profundity sometimes led him to analyze cause and effect in a hyper-philosophical manner. “Can you tell,” said he one day to the learned Doctor, who was sitting for his portrait, “why white sheep eat more than black ones?” “But is it a fact?” enquired the Doctor. “Most assuredly,” said the painter, “as every farmer will tell you.” The Doctor then went on to give sundry philosophical reasons why white sheep might require more food than black ones. “Your reasons are excellent—but I think I can give you a better one. In my opinion the reason why white sheep eat more than black ones is, because there are more of them!”

JARVIS’ HABITS.

Jarvis, in his more prosperous days, was always improvident and recklessly extravagant. Dunlap says, “when he went to New Orleans for the first time, (in 1833) he took Henry Inman with him. To use his own words,—‘my purse and my pockets were empty; (when he went to N. O.) I spent $3000 there in six months, and brought $3000 to New York. The next winter I did the same.’ He used to receive six sitters a day. A sitting occupied an hour. The picture was then handed to Inman, who painted upon the background and drapery under the master’s directions. Thus six portraits were finished each week.” His prices at this time were $100 for a head, and $150 for head and hands.