Part 1 (1/2)
The Best Portraits in Engraving
by Charles Su is one of the fine arts, and in this beautiful fa Another sister is now co to it the charraving, it cannot impair the value of the early masters With them there is no rivalry or competition Historically, as well as aesthetically, they will be , as of printing, hich it was associated in origin School-books, illustrated papers, and shop s are the ordinary opportunities open to all But while creating a transient interest, or, perhaps, quickening the taste, they furnish little with regard to the art itself, especially in other days And yet, looking at an engraving, like looking at a book,of a new pleasure and a new study
Each person has his own story Mine is si s for employment and pastime With the invaluable assistance of that devoted connoisseur, the late Dr Thies, I went through the Gray collection at Caallery Other collections in our country were exa severe medical treatravings, then called Imperial, now National, counted by theof those kindly portfolios, I ratitude, as to benefactors Perhaps so occupation without burden, may find in them the solace that I did Happily, it is not necessary to visit Paris for the purpose Other collections, on a smaller scale, will furnish the same remedy
In any considerable collection, portraits occupy an important place
Their multitude may be inferred when I mention that, in one series of portfolios, in the Paris cabinet, I counted no less than forty-seven portraits of Franklin and forty-three of Lafayette, with an equal nuton, while all the early Presidents were nue coreat portraits of reat poes as with pictures Sir Joshua Reynolds, explaining the difference between an historical painter and a portrait-painter, reeneral, a portrait-painter a particular man, and consequently a defective model”[1] A portrait, therefore, may be an accurate presentment of its subject without aesthetic value
But here, as in other things, genius exercises its accustomed sithout limitation Even the difficulties of a ”defective model” did not prevent Raffaelle, titian, Re portraits precious in the history of art It would be easy toin value to only two or three of his larger masterpieces, like the Dresden Madonna
Charles the Fifth stooped to pick up the pencil of titian, saying ”it becoh; but this unprecedented cone attests the glory of the portrait-painter The feures of titian, so hter, his mistress, and even his Venus, were portraits froreat triumphs in his own peculiar school to portraits of unwonted power; so also did Rubens, showing that in this department his universality of conquest was not arrested To these enius, on fame especially as portrait-painters And what other title has Sir Joshua himself?
[Sidenote: Suyderhoef]
Historical pictures are often collections of portraits arranged so as to illustrate an important event Such is the fa, just presented by a liberal Englishman to the National Gallery at London Here are the plenipotentiaries of Holland, Spain, and Austria, uniting in the great treaty which constitutes an epoch in the Law of Nations The engraving by Suyderhoef is rare and interesting Similar in character is the Death of Chatham, by Copley, where the illustrious states--every one a portrait To this list must be added the pictures by Truton, especially the Declaration of Independence, in which Thackeray took a sincere interest Standing before these, the author and artist said to me, ”These are the best pictures in the country,” and he proceeded to remark on their honesty and fidelity; but doubtless their real value is in their portraits
Unquestionably the finest asse two halls in the gallery at Florence, being autographs contributed by the masters themselves Here is Raffaelle, with chestnut-brown hair, and dark eyes full of sensibility, painted when he enty-three, and known by the engraving of Forster--Julio Romano, in black and red chalk on paper,--Massaccio, called the father of painting, rand,--titian, rich and splendid,--Pietro Perugino, reid butstyle,--and Reynolds, with fresh English face; but these are only exaun as far back as the Cardinal Leopold de Medici, and has been happily continued to the present time Here are the lions, painted by theelo, whose portrait seems the work of another The iroup of historic artists Their portraits excel those of statess accessible to all The engraved heads in Arnold Houbraken's biographies of the Dutch and Flemish painters, in three voluraving to painting is often discussed; but nobody has treated it with hi in his interesting work, _La Calcografia_[3] Dwelling on the general aid it renders to the lovers of art, he clai the portraits of eenerations;”
and, ”better than any other art, serving as the vehicle for the ation of deserved celebrity” Even great monuht and fragile impressions subject to all the chances of wind, water, and fire, but prevailing by their numbers where the s as with books; nor is this the only rese is not a copy or iraver translates into another language, where light and shade supply the place of colors The duplication of a book in the sae is a copy, and so is the duplication of a picture in the sa is not a copy; it does not reproduce the original picture, except in drawing and expression; nor is it a fellow's Dante are presentations of the great originals in another language, so is the engraving a presentation of painting in another e
Thus does the engraver vindicate his art But nobody can exa that it has a merit of its own different froood picture A work of Raffaelle, or any of the great hen than in any ordinary copy, and would probably costis an undoubted work of art, but this cannot be said of many pictures, which, like Peter Pindar's razors, sees also to the engraver, who e of contours, the same power of expression, the sa with sureness of sight as if, according to Michael Angelo, he had ”a pair of coree raver, naturally excelling in portraits But choice portraits are less nu, for the reason, that painting does not always find a successful translator
[Illustration: PHILIP MELANCTHON
(Engraved by Albert Durer fron)]
[Sidenote: Durer]
The earliest engraved portraits which attract attention are by Albert Durer, who engraved his oork, translating hiraver Here he surpassed his predecessors, Martin Schoen in Gerhi does not hesitate to say that he was the first who carried the art from infancy in which he found it to a condition not far froreat place in the history of engraving, it is impossible not to see that he is often hard and constrained, if not unfinished His portrait of ERASMUS is justly fa the prints exhibited in the British Museum It is dated 1526, two years before the death of Durer, and has helped to extend the fame of the universal scholar and approved e filled a sphere not unlike that of Voltaire in a later century There is another portrait of Erasreat artists have contributed to his renown That by Durer is adeneral fineness of touch, with the accessories of books and flowers, shows the care in its execution; but it wants expression, and the hands are far fro portrait by Durer, executed in the same year with the Erasmus, is PHILIP MELANCTHON, the St John of the Reformation, so of hiether warlike, says, ”but Master Philippus co with joy according to the rich gifts which God has bestowed upon hie, and the countenance shows the ostino Caracci, of the Bolognese family, memorable in art, added to considerable success as painter undoubted triuarded with favor; but out of the long list not one is so sure of that longevity allotted to art as his portrait of titIAN, which bears date 1587, eleven years after the death of the latter Over it is the inscription, _titiani Vicellii Pictoris celeberriies_, to which is added beneath, _Cujus noinals by titian hiraver It is very like, and yet unlike the fa by Mandel, fro at it, we are rereat painter, _guidicioso, bello e stupendo_ Such a head, with such visible power, justifies these words, or at least makes us believe the, and instinct with life
This print, like the Eras those selected for exhibition at the British Museuh only paper with black lines, it is, by the genius of the artist, as good as a picture In all engraving nothing is better
[Sidenote: Goltzius]
Contemporary with Caracci was Hendrik Goltzius, at Harlem, excellent as painter, but, like the Italian, pre-eraver
His prints showlike an epoch in its history His unwearied skill in the use of the burin appears in a tradition gathered by Longhi fro co, while the long and bright threads of copper turned up were brushed aside by his flowing beard, which at the end of a day's labor so shone in the light of a candle that his coolden beard” There are prints by hi his masterpieces is the portrait of his instructor, THEODORE COERNHERT, engraver, poet, musician, and vindicator of his country, and author of the national air, ”Williae,” whose passion for liberty did not prevent hi to the world translations of Cicero's Offices and Seneca's Treatise on Beneficence But that of the ENGRAVER HIMSELF, as large as life, is one of thethe numerous prints by Goltzius, these till always be conspicuous
[Illustration: JAN LUTMA