Volume Ii Part 27 (1/2)
”Do so,” said Salvator; ”place full confidence in me--you may, for I do not know when a man's face went more truly to my very heart than does yours. The more I look at you the more clear it becomes to me that there is a great likeness in your face to that of the heavenly, G.o.dlike lad--I mean the Sanzio.” Antonio's eyes glowed with flas.h.i.+ng fire; he seemed to strive in vain to find words.
Just then Dame Caterina came in with Father Bonifazio, bringing a draught which he had skilfully compounded, and which the sick man took, and relished better than the Acherontic liquids of the Pyramid Doctor, Splendiano Accoramboni.
Antonio Scacciati comes to high honour through the intervention of Salvator Rosa.--He confides to Salvator the causes of his continual sorrowfulness, and Salvator comforts him, and promises him help.
What Antonio promised came to pa.s.s. The simple, healing medicines of Father Bonifazio, the careful nursing of Dame Caterina and her daughters, the mild season of the year which just then came on, had such a speedy effect on Salvator's strong const.i.tution, that he soon felt well enough to begin thinking of his art, and, as a beginning, made some magnificent sketches for pictures which he intended to paint at a future time.
Antonio scarcely left Salvator's room. He was all eye when the master was sketching, and his opinions on many matters showed him to be initiated in the mysteries of art himself.
”Antonio,” said Salvator, one day, ”you know so much about art that I believe you have not only looked on at a great deal with correct understanding, but have even wielded the pencil yourself!”
”Remember, dear master,” answered Antonio, ”that when you were recovering from unconsciousness, I told you there were many things lying heavy on my heart. Perhaps it is time, now, for me to divulge my secrets to you fully. Although I am the surgeon who opened a vein for you, I belong to Art with all my heart and soul. I intend now to devote myself to it altogether, and throw the hateful handicraft entirely to the winds.”
”Ho, ho, Antonio!” said Salvator, ”bethink you what you are going to do. You are a clever surgeon, and perhaps will never be more than a bungler at painting. Young as you are in years, you are too old to begin with the crayon. A man's whole life is scarcely enough in which to attain to one single perception of the True, still less to the power of representing it poetically.”
”Ah, my dear master,” said Antonio, smiling gently, ”how should I entertain the mad idea of beginning now to turn myself to the difficult art of painting, had I not worked at it as hard as I could ever since I was a child, had not heaven so willed it that, though I was kept away from art, and everything in the shape of it, by my father's obstinacy and folly, I made the acquaintance, and enjoyed the society, of masters of renown. Even the great Annibale interested himself in the neglected boy, and I have the happiness to be able to say I am a pupil of Guido Reni.”
”Well, good Antonio,” said Salvator, a little sharply, as his manner sometimes was. ”If that is so, you have had great teachers; so, no doubt, in spite of your surgical skill, you may be a great pupil of theirs too. Only what I do not understand is, how you, as a pupil of the gentle and tender Guido (whom, perhaps, as pupils in their enthusiasm sometimes do--you even outdo in tenderness, in your work), how you can hold me to be a master in my art at all.”
Antonio coloured at those words of Salvator's; in fact, they had about them a ring of jeering irony.
Antonio answered: ”Let me lay aside all bashfulness, which might close my lips. Let me speak freely out exactly what is in my mind. Salvator, I have never revered a master so wholly from out the very depths of my being as I do you. It is the often superhuman grandeur of the ideas which I admire in your works. You see, and comprehend, and grasp the profoundest secrets of Nature. You read, and understand, the marvellous hieroglyphs of her rocks, her trees, her waterfalls; you hear her mighty voices; you interpret her language, and can transcribe what she says to you. Yes, transcription is what I would call your bold and vivid style of working. Man, with his doings, contents you not; you look at him only as being in the lap of Nature, and in so far as his inmost being is conditioned by her phenomena. Therefore, Salvator, it is in marvellous combinations of landscape with figure that you are so wondrous great. Historical painting places limits which hem your flight, to your disadvantage.”
”You tell me this, Antonio,” said Salvator, ”as the envious historical painters do, who throw landscape to me by way of a _bonne-bouche_, that I may occupy myself in chewing it, and abstain from tearing their flesh. Do I not know the human figure, and everything appertaining to it? However, all those silly slanders, echoed from others----”
”Do not be indignant, dear master,” answered Antonio. ”I do not repeat things blindly after other folks, and least of all should I pay any attention to the opinions of our masters here in Rome just now. Who could help admiring the daring drawing, the marvellous expression, and particularly the lively action, of your figures! One sees that you do not work from the stiff, awkward model, or from the dead lay figure, but that you are, yourself, your own living model, and that you draw and paint the figure which you place on the canvas in front of a great mirror.”
”Heyday, Antonio!” cried Salvator, laughing. ”I believe you must have been peeping into my studio without my knowledge, to know so well what goes on there.”
”Might not that have been?” said Antonio. ”But let me go on. The pictures which your mighty genius inspires I should by no means narrow into one cla.s.s so strictly as the pedantic masters try to do. In fact, the term 'landscape,' as generally understood, applies badly to your paintings, which I should prefer to call 'historical representations.'
In a deeper sense, it often seems that this or the other rock, that or the other tree, gazes on us with an earnest look: and that this and the other group of strangely-attired people is like some wonderful crag which has come to life. All Nature, moving in marvellous unity, speaks out the sublime thought which glowed within you. This is how I have looked at your pictures, and this is how I am indebted to you, my great and glorious master, for a profound understanding of art. But do not suppose that, on this account, I have fallen into a childishness of imitation. Greatly as I wish I possessed your freedom and daring of brush, I must confess that the colouring of Nature seems to me to be different from what I see represented in your pictures. I hold that, even for the sake of practice, it is helpful to a learner to imitate the style of this or that master: but still, when once he stands on his own feet, to a certain extent, he should strive to represent Nature as he sees it himself. This true seeing, this being at unity with oneself, is the only thing which can produce character and truth. Guido was of this opinion, and the unresting Preti, whom, as you know, they call the Calabrese, a painter who certainly reflected on his art more than any other, warned me in the same way against slavish imitation. And now you know, Salvator, why I reverence you more than all the others, without being in the slightest degree your imitator, in any way.”
Salvator had been gazing fixedly into the young man's eyes as he spoke, and he now clasped him stormily to his breast.
”Antonio,” he said, ”you have spoken very wise words of deep significance. Young as you are in years, you surpa.s.s, in knowledge of art, many of our old, much belauded masters, who talk a great deal of nonsense about their art, and never get to the bottom of the matter.
Truly, when you spoke of my pictures, it seemed that I was, for the first time, beginning to come to a clear understanding of myself, and I prize you very highly just because you do not imitate my style--that you don't, like so many others, take a pot of black paint, lay on staring high lights, make a few crippled-looking figures, in horrible costumes, peep out of the dirty-looking ground, and then think 'There's a Salvator.' You have found in me the truest of friends, and I devote myself to you with all my soul.”
Antonio was beyond himself with joy at the good will which the master thus charmingly displayed to him. Salvator expressed a strong desire to see Antonio's pictures, and Antonio took him at once to his studio.
Salvator had formed no small expectations of this youth who spoke so understandingly about art, and in whom there seemed to be a peculiar genius at work; and yet the master was most agreeably astonished by Antonio's wealth of pictures. He found everywhere boldness of idea, correctness of drawing; and the fresh colouring, the great tastefulness of the breadth of the flow of folds, the unusual delicacy of the extremities, and the high beauty of the heads evidenced the worthy pupil of the great Reni; although Antonio's striving was not, like that of his master (who was overapt to do this), to sacrifice expression to beauty, often too visibly. One saw that Antonio aimed at Annibale's strength, without, as yet, being able to attain to it.
In his first silence Salvator had examined each of Antonio's pictures for a long time. At length he said: ”Listen, Antonio, there is not the slightest doubt about it, you are born for the n.o.ble painter's art. For not only has Nature given you the creative spirit, from which the most glorious ideas flame forth in inexhaustible wealth, but she has further endowed you with the rare talent, which, in a brief time, overcomes the difficulties of technical practice. I should be a lying flatterer if I said you had as yet equalled your teachers, that you had attained to Guido's marvellous delightsomeness, or Annibale's power; but it is certain that you far surpa.s.s our masters who give themselves such airs here in the Academy of San Luca, your Tiarini, Gessi, s.e.m.e.nta, and whatever they may call themselves, not excepting Lanfranco, who can only draw in chalk; and yet, Antonio, were I in your place I should consider long before I threw away the lancet altogether, and took up the brush. This sounds strange; but hear me further. Just at present an evil time for art has begun; or rather, the devil seems to be busy amongst our masters, stirring them up pretty freely. If you have not made up your mind to meet with mortifications and vexations of every kind, to suffer the more hatred and contempt the higher you soar in art, as your fame increases everywhere to meet with villains, who will press round you with friendly mien, to destroy you all the more surely--if, I say, you have not made up your mind for all this, keep aloof from painting! Think of the fate of your teacher, the great Annibale, whom a knavish crew of fellow-painters in Naples persecuted so that he could not get a single great work to undertake, but was everywhere shown the door with despite, which brought him to his untimely grave. Think what happened to our Domenichino, when he was painting the cupola of the chapel of St. Januarius. Didn't the villains of painters there (I shall not mention any of their names, not even that scoundrel Belisario's or Ribera's), did not they bribe Domenichino's servant to put ashes into the lime, so that the plastering would not bind? The painting could thus have no permanence.
Think on all those things, and prove yourself well, whether your spirit is strong enough to withstand the like; for otherwise your power will be broken, and when the firm courage to make is gone, the power to do it is gone along with it.”
”Ah, Salvator,” said Antonio, ”it is scarcely possible that, had I once devoted myself entirely to painting, I should have to undergo more despite and contempt than I have had to suffer already, being still a surgeon. You have found pleasure in my pictures, and you have said, doubtless from inner conviction, that I have it in me to do better things than many of our San Luca men. And yet it is just they who turn up their noses at all that I have, with much industry, achieved, and say, contemptuously, 'Ho, ho, the surgeon thinks he can paint a picture!' But, for that very reason my decision is firmly come to, to get clear of a calling which is more and more hateful to me every day.
It is on you, master, that I pin all my hopes. Your word is worth much.
If you chose to speak for me you could at once dash my envious persecutors to the dust, and put me in the place which is mine by right.”
”You have great confidence in me,” said Salvator; ”but now that we have so thoroughly understood each other as to our art, and now that I have seen your works, I do not know any one for whom I should take up the cudgels, and that with all my might, so readily as I should for you.”