Part 8 (2/2)
which he read with eagerness again and again. As soon as he could get the necessary sum of money, he purchased a copy; and thus the taste for poetry was early instilled into his soul and found after expression in his charming poems. Scott's first literary effort was the translation of ”Gotz von Berlichengen,” to which Carlyle ascribes large influence on the great novelist's future career. He says this translation was ”the prime cause of 'Marmion' and the 'Lady of the Lake,' with all that has followed from the same creative hand. Truly a grain of seed that had lighted in the right soil. For if not firmer and fairer, it has grown to be taller and broader than any other tree; and all nations of the earth are still yearly gathering of its fruit.”
While in England, not long since, the writer of these pages was told an anecdote relating to Mrs. Siddons which was new to him, and which ill.u.s.trates how often accident has directed the future bent of genius.
When quite a young lady, Sarah Siddons saw in some private gallery an antique statue of great excellence, which had a most electrifying effect upon her. It suggested to her at once the most effective position and manner in which to express intensity of feeling. The arms were close down at the sides, and the hands nervously clenched, while the head was erect, the chest expanded, and the face half in profile. ”I cannot express how indelibly the pose took effect upon my imagination,” said the great actress many years afterwards, ”or the force of the lesson taught me by the marble.” If memory serves us correctly, we recall an old engraving of Mrs. Siddons in the character of Lady Macbeth, which would be nearly a reproduction of the pose described.[178]
Accident developed one of the greatest vocalists the world has ever known. Jenny Lind was at the beginning of her life a poor neglected little girl, homely and uncouth, living in a single room of a tumble-down house in a narrow street at Stockholm. When the humble woman who had her in charge went out to her daily labor, she was accustomed to lock Jenny in with her sole companion, a cat. One day the little girl, who was always singing to herself like a canary-bird, ”because,” as she said, ”the song was in her and would come out,” sat with her dumb companion at the window warbling her sweet childlike notes. She was overheard by a pa.s.sing lady, who paused and listened, struck by the clearness and trill of the untutored notes. She made careful inquiries about the child and became the patroness of little Jenny, who was at once supplied with a music-teacher. She loved the art of song, and had the true genius for it. Jenny made rapid progress, surprising both patroness and teachers, and presently became the great Queen of Song.
The world knows of Jenny Lind's splendid fortune, of her professional triumphs, and of her n.o.ble charities; but few, perhaps, have ever pictured her humble girlhood, cooped up in a cheerless room, with only her cat for a companion, in a dull quarter of the Swedish capital. The plain, awkward girl grew up under favorable culture to be a graceful, lovely woman. The courts of Europe treated her as a revered guest; she was covered with laurels and with jewels, but she was ever in disposition and character the same pure, simple Swedish girl. Adulation had no power to spoil this child of Nature and of art. The Swedish public cherish her name as that of their most favored daughter, and honor her for the n.o.ble educational inst.i.tution which she has so liberally founded in her native Stockholm.
Christina Nilsson, another Scandinavian vocalist, was the daughter of an humble Swedish peasant, born in so lowly a cabin that it was difficult to conceive of the name of ”home” being applied to it. While yet a child she was obliged to work with the rest of the family in the fields and on the mountain-side. Her sweet voice was first heard at the fairs and peasant weddings, where her simple Scandinavian melodies delighted the a.s.sembled crowds. At one of these public gatherings a man of taste and means heard the child's voice, and realized the hidden possibilities it indicated. He was a magistrate, and became her patron, taking her from her humble surroundings and supplying her with suitable teachers. She was carefully taught instrumental as well as vocal music, and became both an eminent pianist and singer, developing like her fair countrywoman, Jenny Lind, into a vocalist of grandest genius, and of such ability as the world affords but few examples.
Taglioni was also Scandinavian by birth, having been born at Stockholm, in 1804, of humble parentage, her father being a dancing-master. She had the genius of an artist, which she patiently developed through many dark hours of toil and deprivation, until she made herself acknowledged as queen of the ballet in the great cities of Europe. Her purity of character added a charm to her public performances, giving her a prestige never before enjoyed by any exponent of her art. She finally ama.s.sed a large fortune, and retiring from the stage married Count Gilbert de Voisins. Doubtless many of our readers have paused in their gondolas beneath the windows of her marble palace on the Grand Ca.n.a.l at Venice, to recall the story of the great danseuse, or have looked with pleasure upon her elegant villa on the Lake of Como.
CHAPTER X.
It is not the author's purpose to treat the names of painters, or indeed those of any other branch of art, especially by themselves. Were any single line to be selected, the peculiarities of its representatives would alone be sufficient to fill a volume. Under the general design of this gossip about genius, the pen is permitted to glide after its own fancy, treating only upon such individuals as readily suggest themselves, and who are ill.u.s.trative of characteristics already introduced.
Upon beginning the chapter before us, we were thinking of John Opie, the distinguished English painter, born in Cornwall in 1761. When Opie was only ten years of age[179] he saw a person who was somewhat accomplished with the pencil draw a b.u.t.terfly. The boy watched the process with marked interest, and as soon as the draughtsman had departed, produced upon a s.h.i.+ngle a drawing equally good, which he showed to his mother.
She, good woman, encouraged him, as Mrs. West did her son on a similar occasion; but the father, being a harsh, rude, low-bred man, was constantly punis.h.i.+ng the boy for laziness, and for chalking figures, faces, and animals on every stray bit of board or flat surface at hand.
The boy had genius, however; what he required was opportunity. Good fortune sent Dr. Wolcott, better known as ”Peter Pindar,” that way. He saw the boy's dawning genius, and helped him with suitable material and some useful suggestions. It was not long before the lad got away from home, quietly aided by his good friend Wolcott, and soon earned money enough to clothe himself decently and to make a start in life. He finally married Amelia, daughter of James Alderson, who afterwards became the well-known auth.o.r.ess Amelia Opie. The husband developed into a distinguished artist, whose historical pictures, ”The Death of Rizzio”
and ”Jephthah's Vow,” were stepping-stones to his election as President of the Royal Academy. Does not this truthful sketch from life, of a poor wood-sawyer's son, read like romance?
Genius will a.s.sert itself; it seems useless to strive against it. The secret suggestions of the soul are true, lead us whither they will.
Salvator Rosa was the son of a poor architect who made ineffectual efforts to thwart his son's predilection for art, but all in vain. The young man, finding that he could not hope for any a.s.sistance from his father, strove all the harder to earn a livelihood by painting, but nearly starved before he reached his majority. About this time the patrons of art in Rome offered a grand prize for the best painting to be submitted at an exhibition to be held in the Eternal City. The young Neapolitan saw his chance, and painted a picture into which he infused all the glowing spirit of the art which burned within him. If it failed, he resolved that no one should know aught of its authors.h.i.+p. It was forwarded anonymously, and received the recognition of being hung in the most favorable position. That picture took the grand prize, the unknown artist being lauded as above t.i.tian. Nought was to be heard for it but praise. This decided the fate of Rosa. He left his humble home near Naples and settled in Rome, where he secured the friends.h.i.+p and intimacy of the greatest men of the day.
Numerous and grand were the pictures sent forth from Rosa's hand; orders pressed upon him faster than he could fill them, and thus he stepped at once into the highest contemporary fame and fortune.[180] ”Salvator possessed real genius,” says Ruskin, ”but was crushed by misery in his youth.” He was not only a painter, but also a poet and a musician; nearly all cultured Italians are the latter. At the grand Carnival of the year 1639 there appeared upon the Corso and in the squares of Rome an actor of fantastic dress, who was marked like all the other revellers on such occasions, but whose name was given as one Formica, of Southern Italy. He attracted both public and private attention by his brilliant wit, his eloquence, and especially by his songs, as he accompanied himself on the lute. He was the hero of the Carnival of that season. By and by the appointed hour arrived when all the revellers unmasked, and lo! the stranger proved to be Salvator Rosa.
Among painters, Rubens is one of the greatest and most familiar names, though Ruskin disparages him by saying that ”he is a healthy, worthy, kind-hearted, courtly-phrased animal, without any clearly perceptible traces of a soul, except when he paints children.” Rubens became an artist from love of art, and his career was one in which there was far more of suns.h.i.+ne than usually falls to the lot of genius. He throve greatly in a business point of view as well as in art, and became a man of wealth in his native city of Antwerp, where he built a comfortable house and adorned it inside with pencil and brush--the whole, as he estimated it, worth about a thousand pounds sterling. Presently there came to Antwerp the Duke of Buckingham, who coveted the artist's house.
A negotiation was opened, and Rubens sold it to the Duke for twelve times what it cost, or say in our currency sixty thousand dollars.
Rubens must have possessed wonderful industry, as we judge by the fact that a hundred of his paintings may be found in the Munich Gallery alone, not to mention those contained in other European collections.
Undoubtedly his ”Descent from the Cross,” now in the Antwerp Cathedral, is his grandest work. Our artist was by no means without his vein of vanity, as evinced by the family picture which he painted, and in which he gives himself due prominence. This picture is placed just above his tomb, back of the altar, in the Church of St. Jacques, at Antwerp. The presumptuousness is increased by the fact that the combined portraits of his first and second wife, his daughter, with his father, grandfather, and himself, are intended to represent a Holy Family, and the painting is typical of that idea. The whole is incongruous and in bad taste.
Vand.y.k.e, Teniers, and Denis Calvart, the instructor of Guido Reni, were all natives of Antwerp. The city owes its attraction to travellers almost solely to the fact that here are so many masterpieces of painting.
William Hogarth was a great and original genius, who wrote comedies pictorially, satirized vice, and depicted all phases of life more in detail than is possible with the pen. He was early apprenticed to a silversmith; but the natural bent of his genius was too apparent and promising not to be encouraged by the study of art. In the dramatic and satirical departments of design he has never been excelled. It has been objected that his pictures are vulgar; but when we remember the period in which they appeared, and also the fact that they undoubtedly convey useful lessons of morality, we shall find ample excuse if not commendation for the artist. In 1753 he published his ”a.n.a.lysis of Beauty,” in which he maintains that a waving line is essential to beauty. Hogarth composed comedies just as much as did Moliere. It was a singular characteristic of this able designer and artist that he could not successfully ill.u.s.trate another's work; he is known utterly to have failed in the attempt, though never in the successful ill.u.s.tration of his own ideas. Hogarth was also a historian, inasmuch as every picture he produced represented the manners and customs of the period. The interior scenes give us the exact style of the furniture and minutest domestic surroundings; while out of doors we have all the various modes of conveyance in use, and a faithful picture of the street architecture.
Hogarth died in 1764.
James Spencer, who was a personal friend of Hogarth, began life as a London footman; but the genius of an artist was born in him, and it gradually forced its way to the front. At odd moments he practised drawing and even painting with oils, whenever and wherever he could seize upon a brief chance. It happened that a professional portrait-painter was engaged to make a portrait of the head of the family where Spencer had long acted as footman. When the likeness was finished, he heard his master express some just dissatisfaction at its want of resemblance to the original. Spencer very humbly asked permission of his master to copy the painting and see if he could not get a good likeness. After expressing some astonishment at the request, his master a.s.sented. In a much briefer period than the first artist occupied, and without a single sitting on the part of his employer, Spencer astonished the family by producing not only a remarkable likeness, but an entirely satisfactory painting. With such a start the footman became a professional portrait-painter, and acc.u.mulated the means ere long to set up a fine London establishment.
In an earlier part of this volume we gave numerous instances of genius being at its best in early youth, when, as Burke says, ”the senses are unworn and tender, and the whole frame is awake in every part.” Of this early development we know of no more striking instance in art than that of Sir Thomas Lawrence, who at the age of ten years surpa.s.sed most of the London portrait-painters both in his certain likenesses and in the general effect of his portraits. He was a remarkable genius, and for a considerable period was the talk of all London.[181] Added to his ability as an artist, young Lawrence was remarkably handsome. Prince h.o.a.re saw something so angelic in his face that he desired to paint him in the character of Christ. In about seven minutes Lawrence scarcely ever failed of producing in crayon an excellent likeness of any person present, and in a manner expressive of both grace and freedom. He succeeded Sir Joshua Reynolds, in due time, as first painter to the king, was knighted in 1815, and five years later became President of the Royal Academy.
To realize under what shadows many an artist has lived, worked, and died, yet who is known to us of the highest genius, we have only to recall some familiar names. Correggio was of very humble birth: and though one of the most original of all the brilliant masters of the sixteenth century, he enjoyed little contemporary fame. His works to-day are held at as high a valuation as those of Raphael, t.i.tian, or Murillo.[182] His modesty was characteristic; his pretension, nothing.
His pictures speak for him, and exhibit the softness, tenderness, and harmony of his nature. Nearly all his work was done at his native city of Correggio and at Parma; nor is he believed ever to have visited Rome.
It was he who, after gazing on one of Raphael's finest productions, exclaimed, ”I also am a painter!”
Correggio was chosen by the canons of the cathedral at Parma to paint for them the ”a.s.sumption of the Virgin.” It was a subject well fitted to his style, and his conception and execution of the painting were beyond criticism. It may be seen, mellowed by age, in the Parma Cathedral to-day. When the work was done, the priests meanly haggled and found fault with it, in order to reduce the price, which had been previously agreed upon. Finally, they only paid the artist half the promised sum, stealing the balance to supply their secret luxuries. To add insult to their meanness, the priests paid the artist the price in copper coin. He could not refuse the money, for his poverty-stricken family awaited his return with it to supply their pressing needs.
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