Part 33 (2/2)
If the reader has a good memory, he will remember that elsewhere I have spoken of my offers to execute works for their mere cost--that is to say, my proposals to give my time, work, and study _gratis et amore Dei_. He will remember, also, that these offers were not accepted, and that having been taught by so many lessons of this kind, I advised young artists to abjure and chase from their mind these Utopian ideas that experience had fully shown me could not be carried out. To confirm them in this opinion, I must now add a new and more striking instance of a work offered by me that was not accepted; and I trust that the account of this new fact will not be wanting in importance, and will serve as a good lesson.
[Sidenote: CENTENARY OF MICHAEL ANGELO.]
When my excellent friend Commendator Giuseppe Poggi had finished the beautiful Piazzale Michael Angelo, and before the inauguration of the monument designed by him, with the statues of the divine artist himself, had taken place (and this occurred before the centenary), he proposed that the statue of Michael Angelo should be placed in a commanding position under the middle arch of the Loggia that fronts on the Piazzale; and it was his intention (for which I thank him from the bottom of my heart) that this statue should be made by me. Knowing, however, that on account of its colossal proportions, as well as the importance of the subject, it would require no small expense, and as even then the munic.i.p.ality foresaw its present straits, he said to me, in a pleasant and friendly manner, that it was his hope, as well as that of others, that I would make the statue for its mere cost. ”I am ready,”
said I to myself. ”I like the subject, and I can satisfy my friend in his legitimate pride of citizen and artist, and also place there a sign of my veneration for Michael Angelo, and a testimony of affection and disinterestedness to my country, but at no slight sacrifice, it is true--that is to say, by working at least a year _gratis et amore Dei_.”
I am mistaken; there is something else I should add--that is the income-tax and tax on the exercise of my art, &c., that the tax agent would naturally have insisted on exacting, even if it had been proved to him that I was working to gain nothing. But I had given my word, and said I am ready; and when I say I am ready, I stick to it. In the meanwhile time pa.s.sed, the centenary drew near, and the munic.i.p.ality decided nothing about the statue; and, so far, all was well--it meant that they found it inconvenient to give even those few thousand _lire_ required for the marble and the roughing out of the statue; and wished to save them. About this I say nothing, for, in fact, I am in favour of saving; but now comes the best of it. When the day for the famous centenary arrived, the festivities were conducted admirably, with an exhibition of all Michael Angelo's works, a visit to his tomb in Santa Croce, to his house, which is a most precious museum, and, at last, to the Piazzale, where the monument was inaugurated. There was music in the great hall of the Cinquecento at the Palazzo Vecchio, illuminations on the great Piazzale and on the Colli, and everything was done with the utmost order and decorum, thanks to the exquisite tact of our president of the committee for organising the centenary festivals, Commendatore Ubaldino Peruzzi. Among these festive meetings one was arranged to take place in the old Senate Hall, which had for its object the p.r.o.nouncing of eulogies on the great artist; and to all, the Academy of Fine Arts and the Della Crusca Academy were invited, as Michael Angelo was not only to be honoured as an artist supreme in the imitative arts, but also as a philosopher, literary man, and poet. This was splendidly done by the two Presidents of the Academy of Fine Arts and the Della Crusca Academy, Commendatore Emilio de' Fabris and Commendatore Augusto Conti.
They were surrounded by the members of these two Academies united in solemn a.s.sembly, and the semicircle was filled by a crowd of distinguished artists, literary and scientific men, foreign and native, and was honoured by the presence of his Highness Prince Cazignano. My friend De' Fabris spoke of Michael Angelo as an architect, and my friend Conti enlarged upon him as philosopher, citizen, and poet. They had begged me to read a few words on that occasion; but I, being aware of my insignificance, and, to speak frankly, my incapacity to think and speak on so great a subject, at first refused to do so; then I tried jotting down something in writing, and made my friend Luigi Venturi read it--and as he did not dislike what I had written, I accepted, and on the day before mentioned I read my little sc.r.a.p of writing, in which I treated particularly of Michael Angelo as a sculptor.
That day the idea of the statue was again brought forward, and some of the gentlemen, in the name of the committee, came to my studio and asked me if I would agree to make the statue of Michael Angelo for the mere cost and expenses. I answered that I would, and added that I had promised to do so once before, but that nothing more had been done about it. In the meanwhile a subscription list was sent the rounds, and my ill.u.s.trious friends Meissonnier and Guillaume, who had come to Florence for the centenary festivals, put their names down each for a hundred _lire_. And then, after all, as G.o.d willed it, nothing more was done about it; and in fact, on the spot where the statue was to have been placed, there is now a _cafe restaurant_, very clean and convenient, and of a summer's evening it is enlivened by concerts of a band of music. Looking at the thing from this point of view, it is certainly much more comfortable and amusing than to see a statue of Michael Angelo standing there.
[Sidenote: FIASCO ABOUT THE STATUE OF ANGELO.]
The fact is, that there are sometimes fruitful enthusiasms and sometimes barren enthusiasms: the fruitful enthusiasms are those in which one finds the quickest and most perceptible enjoyment. In these days (it was 1876) there were people running in crowds to see and hear Signora Adelina Patti--spending an amount of money that they would have had great difficulty in spending on an object less sensible, or, rather, less enjoyable, such as in fact a statue might be, that promises to give you the rather meagre enjoyment, it is true, of making its appearance two or three years after it has taken the money out of your pocket.
It is true, however, that the enjoyment of song and sound pa.s.ses in a moment--its waves die upon the air, and our ears catch their last echo--while the view of a statue, with all its beauty and meaning, remains, so to speak, to all eternity. But this is a rather subtle and abstract consideration that not all can understand.
Thinking over it well, I do not believe the _fiasco_ about the statue of Michael Angelo occurred for want of enthusiasm for art or statuary, or much less for the subject. The deuce take it! Michael Angelo is out of the question; besides belonging to the world, he is a Florentine,--and then, too, enthusiasm has not been wanting in any town in Italy, and certainly not in Florence, even when it has been a question of immortalising in marble men oftentimes very unlike Buonarroti. Besides, did one not see about this time, and in fact during these very days, several thousands of _lire_ got together for a bust of Gino Capponi? And why was this? If I had asked to make that statue, it might have been supposed that the artist was not liked, and that no confidence was felt in him; but it was not so: in fact I was looked for and even begged to make it, which is natural when one desires to have work done for nothing but the pure cost and expenses. Confidence in the artist, therefore, was not wanting: there must have been some other reason, and I have found it is this, that work asked for and offered for nothing seems almost as if it had no attraction; no one wants it. One must, if one can, get as much pay as possible. Listen to this other instance; they grow like cherries.
[Sidenote: FIASCO OF ANOTHER STATUE.]
When I had made the ”Christ after the Resurrection,” for which my good friend Ferdinando Filippi di Buti gave me the order, the idea came to the worthy syndic, Signor Danielli, to erect in his village (which seemed as if it ought to be sacred to Minerva, it was so buried in a forest of olive-trees) a statue in honour of Professor del Rosso, who had been such a worthy representative of science and of his native place. The good and most lively Signor Danielli was full of ardour to carry out his project; and to obtain its success, he pressed me to accept this commission at the smallest possible price, almost for its mere cost.
I accepted. The subscription list was sent the rounds, and I know that my ill.u.s.trious friend Professor Conti, an old pupil of Del Rosso, gave himself a great deal of trouble in getting subscriptions; but neither he nor any one else obtained the desired result, and the statue remains where it was--in the future. In the same way, it seems, ended the affair of the bust of Pius IX., that a pious committee in this city proposed to have cut in marble and placed in our cathedral.
[Sidenote: INGRAt.i.tUDE.]
So, as I have said, these instances grow like cherries.
Let us remember, although above I have spoken about the necessity of getting well paid, yet at times, either as a matter of duty, friends.h.i.+p, or grat.i.tude, one can and one ought to work for little. I remember a young scholar of mine who enjoyed a little pension, given to him by a gentleman from his village, who, to enable the young man to work from life, went so far as to allow him to model his head, and, to encourage him, desired that he should put it into marble,--but before giving him the commission, wanted to know what the expense would be. The youth, in telling me this, asked me what he ought to ask for it. I answered, ”You must ask nothing; the gentleman is over and above good to give you the pension. Would you also ask him to pay for the bust? You will give this answer: I have asked my master about the expense of the marble and the roughing of it out, and he has answered me that one hundred _lire_ is necessary for the marble and two hundred for the roughing it out; as to finis.h.i.+ng it, I will finish it myself, and so learn to work on marble, because no one can call himself a sculptor who does not work on the marble himself.”
But the youth showed no judgment, did not follow my advice, and asked the gentleman a thousand _lire_, and the avidity and ingrat.i.tude thus shown by the person he had benefited so disgusted him, that he did not let him make it. When I heard how matters had gone, I did not fail to call him an a.s.s, and he really was one. Born and bred a peasant, he had learnt nothing in town by mixing with educated young men. He was tall of person, and endowed with uncommon strength; he used to exercise himself--making it more a business than a simple pastime--at the game of _forma_, and, challenged or challenger, was always the winner. He died from breaking a blood-vessel in his chest; and for the matter of that, as no one was left behind to weep for him, for he was an orphan, and as he had no talent or judgment, it was better so.
[Sidenote: BUILDING ONE'S OWN MONUMENT.]
Let us therefore understand each other. One must always get one's pay, excluding the case or cases of grat.i.tude like the one I have mentioned above, and even between friends, there must not be one that gives and the other that takes. I remember now, many years ago, that Luigi Acussini made my portrait, and I his; and later, Cisere painted my portrait and that of my wife, and I made a bust of his wife, _amici cari e borsa del pari_. Presents don't answer well, and therefore it is rare to find those who make them; and if any one with heart and no head does so, he makes a _fiasco_.
A singular taste, and one that I can enter into completely, is that of preparing one's own place of burial whilst living; and for those who can, besides the burial-place, also the chapel and monument. It does one good to see, whilst living, the place where one will sleep the last sleep. Amongst those who agree with me in this, besides Marchese b.i.+.c.hi Ruspoli of Siena, and Signor Ferdinando Filippi di Buti--whose monuments I made some fifteen years ago, and who are still living, hale and hearty, so that I even think that the thought of death and the sight of the monuments prolong their lives--is the Baroness Favard de Langlade, who also wished to have her monument made; and after having had the ill.u.s.trious architect Giuseppe Poggi construct the beautiful chapel in the park of the villa at Rovezzano, which is adorned by the beautiful paintings of Annibale Gatti, she ordered from me the monument wherein her body is to rest.
[Sidenote: THE FAVARD MONUMENT.]
The difficulty of this kind of work is not to give umbrage to the modesty of the person who gives the commission. At first sight it seems like vanity and pride to order one's own monument; but besides the fact that he who orders a monument does not order it for himself alone, but also for his family, the artist composes his work in such a way as not to give the least offence by adulation and flattery, which is the more contemptible in the person who offers it in measure as the adulated person is in a high position. The artist, however, who has a proper respect for his own dignity, and wishes that of the person in question also to be respected, will find a way of making his work, even though it be grandiose, so as to enable both him and the person who is to die to look at each other in the face without blus.h.i.+ng.
The subject that I treated for the Favard monument was the Angel of the Resurrection, who, poised on his wings, offers his hands to the dead woman, who is in the act of rising, to lead her to heaven. She has half lifted herself up on the sarcophagus where she was laid out, and her expression shows her happiness in awakening to eternal day. The only adulation--excusable, I think--that I offered to that lady was having made her appear younger than she was,--not more beautiful, for one can still see that she must have been most beautiful. I regret that this work of mine is almost hidden--first of all, because it is far from town, as I have already said,--at Rovezzano; for although the n.o.ble lady has given orders to have it shown to any one who asks to see it, yet the double difficulty of the distance and the asking prevents many--those who are lazy and who are lukewarm, who are the most in number--from being able to see it. It is still worse as concerns my ”Christ after the Resurrection,” which is on a hill in the neighbourhood of Buti, a little village, nearly hidden from view and out of hand, between Pisa and Lucca.
CHAPTER XXIII.
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