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Title: Prints and their makers: essays on engravers and etchers old and modern
Author: Fitzroy Carrington, - To be updated
Language: English
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PRINTS AND THEIR MAKERS
[Illustration: PROFILE BUST OF A YOUNG WOMAN
After Leonardo da Vinci
“Of the prints attributed to Leonardo, the fascinating _Profile Bust of
a Young Woman_ stands out from the rest for the sensitive quality of
its outline, but even here I would be more ready to see the hand of an
engraver like Zoan Andrea.”
Arthur M. Hind.
Reproduced from the unique impression in the British Museum]
PRINTS
AND THEIR MAKERS
ESSAYS ON ENGRAVERS AND
ETCHERS OLD AND MODERN
EDITED BY
FITZROY CARRINGTON
EDITOR OF “THE PRINT-COLLECTOR’S QUARTERLY”
WITH 200 ILLUSTRATIONS
[Illustration]
NEW YORK
THE CENTURY CO.
1912
Copyright, 1912, by
THE CENTURY CO.
Copyright, 1911, 1912, by
FREDERICK KEPPEL & CO.
_Published October, 1912_
THE DE VINNE PRESS
TO
FREDERICK KEPPEL
IN MEMORY OF A FRIENDSHIP OF TWENTY
YEARS THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED BY
THE EDITOR
CONTENTS
PAGE
DÜRER’S WOODCUTS 1
BY CAMPBELL DODGSON, M.A.
SOME EARLY ITALIAN ENGRAVERS BEFORE THE TIME
OF MARCANTONIO 17
BY ARTHUR M. HIND
A PRINCE OF PRINT-COLLECTORS: MICHEL DE
MAROLLES, ABBÉ DE VILLELOIN 33
BY LOUIS R. METCALFE
JEAN MORIN 52
BY LOUIS R. METCALFE
ROBERT NANTEUIL 70
BY LOUIS R. METCALFE
REMBRANDT’S LANDSCAPE ETCHINGS 94
BY LAURENCE BINYON
GIOVANNI BATTISTA PIRANESI 112
BY BENJAMIN BURGES MOORE
FRANCISCO GOYA Y LUCIENTES 153
BY CHARLES H. CAFFIN
A NOTE ON GOYA 164
BY WILLIAM M. IVINS, JR.
THE ETCHINGS OF FORTUNY 166
BY ROYAL CORTISSOZ
PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS OF SIR SEYMOUR
HADEN, P.R.E. 173
BY FREDERICK KEPPEL
THE WATER-COLORS AND DRAWINGS OF SIR
SEYMOUR HADEN, P.R.E. 196
BY H. NAZEBY HARRINGTON
MERYON AND BAUDELAIRE 204
BY WILLIAM ASPENWALL BRADLEY
FÉLIX BRACQUEMOND: AN ETCHER OF BIRDS 220
BY FRANK WEITENKAMPF
AUGUSTE LEPÈRE 228
BY ELISABETH LUTHER CARY
HERMAN A. WEBSTER 239
BY MARTIN HARDIE
ANDERS ZORN--PAINTER-ETCHER 259
BY J. NILSEN LAURVIK
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PROFILE BUST OF A YOUNG WOMAN _Frontispiece_
FACING PAGE
DÜRER. Portrait of Albert Dürer, aged 56 2
The Four Riders of the Apocalypse 3
The Whore of Babylon, Seated upon the Beast with
Seven Heads and Ten Horns 4
Christ Bearing His Cross 5
The Resurrection 6
Samson and the Lion 7
The Annunciation to Joachim 8
The Annunciation 9
The Flight into Egypt 10
The Assumption and Crowning of the Virgin 11
St. Jerome in his Cell 12
The Holy Family 13
Saint Christopher 14
The Virgin with the Many Angels 15
BARTOLOMMEO DI GIOVANNI. Triumph of Bacchus and
Ariadne 18
BOTTICELLI. The Assumption of the Virgin 19
FINIGUERRA SCHOOL. The Libyan Sibyl 20
FINIGUERRA SCHOOL. The Libyan Sibyl 21
MASO FINIGUERRA. The Planet Mercury 22
FINIGUERRA SCHOOL. A Young Man and Woman Each
Holding an Apple 23
ANTONIO POLLAIUOLO. Battle of Naked Men 24
CRISTOFANO ROBETTA. The Adoration of the Magi 25
ANDREA MANTEGNA. The Risen Christ between St. Andrew
and St. Longinus 26
ZOAN ANDREA (?). Four Women Dancing 27
NICOLETTO DA MODENA. The Adoration of the Shepherds 28
JACOPO DE ’BARBARI. Apollo and Diana 29
GIULIO CAMPAGNOLA. St. John the Baptist 30
GIULIO AND DOMENICO CAMPAGNOLA. Shepherds in a Landscape 31
CLAUDE MELLAN. Portrait of Michel de Marolles, Abbé
de Villeloin 38
NANTEUIL. Portrait of Michel de Marolles, Abbé de
Villeloin 39
Jules, Cardinal Mazarin 42
Louis XIV 43
CLAUDE MELLAN. Agatha Castiglione 50
Claude de Marolles 51
MORIN. Louis XIII, King of France 54
Anne of Austria, Regent of France 55
Cardinal Richelieu 58
Pierre Maugis des Granges 59
Henri de Lorraine, Comte d’Harcourt 62
Guido, Cardinal Bentivoglio 63
Nicolas Chrystin 66
Antoine Vitré 67
Jean-François-Paul de Gondi 68
Omer Talon 69
NANTEUIL. Louis XIV 76
Anne of Austria, Queen of France 77
Jules, Cardinal Mazarin 78
Bernard de Foix de la Valette, Duc d’Epernon 79
Jean Loret 82
François de la Mothe le Vayer 83
Nicolas Fouquet 86
Basile Fouquet 87
Jean Chapelain 88
Pompone de Bellièvre 89
Henri de la Tour d’Auvergne, Vicomte de Turenne,
Maréchal de France 90
Jean-Baptiste Colbert 91
REMBRANDT. The Windmill 96
View of Amsterdam 97
The Three Trees 102
Six’s Bridge 103
Landscape with a Boat in the Canal 104
Farm with Trees and a Tower 105
The Gold-weigher’s Field 106
Landscape with a Milkman 107
F. POLANZANI. Portrait of Giovanni Battista Piranesi 112
PIRANESI. Arch of Septimius Severus 113
Arch of Vespasian 114
Arch of Trajan at Benevento, in the Kingdom of Naples 115
The Basilica, Pæstum 116
The Temple of Neptune at Pæstum 117
The Temple of Concord 118
Site of the Ancient Roman Forum 119
View of the “Campo Vaccino” 120
The Arch of Titus 121
The Arch of Titus 122
Façade of St. John Lateran 123
View of the Ruins of the Golden House of Nero, Commonly
Called the Temple of Peace 124
Interior of the Pantheon, Rome 125
Piazza Navona, Rome 126
Interior of the Villa of Mæcenas, at Tivoli 127
The Temple of Apollo, near Tivoli 128
The Falls at Tivoli 129
The Falls at Tivoli 130
St. Peter’s and the Vatican 131
The Villa d’Este at Tivoli 132
Title-page of “The Prisons” 133
The Prisons. Plate III 134
The Prisons. Plate IV 135
The Prisons. Plate V 136
The Prisons. Plate VI 137
The Prisons. Plate IX 138
The Prisons. Plate VII 139
The Prisons. Plate VIII 140
The Prisons. Plate XI 141
The Prisons. Plate XIII 142
The Prisons. Plate XIV 143
FRANCESCO PIRANESI. Statue of Piranesi 146
PIRANESI. Antique Marble Vase 147
Section of one of the Sides of the Great Room, or Library,
of Earl Mansfield’s Villa at Kenwood. Engraved
by I. Zucchi 148
Ionic Order of the Anteroom, with the rest of the Detail
of that Room at Sion House, the Seat of the Duke
of Northumberland in the County of Middlesex. Engraved
by Piranesi 149
Title-page to “Il Campo Marzio dell’Antica Roma” 150
Upper left-hand Portion, bearing a Dedication to Robert
Adam, of Piranesi’s etched plan of the Campus
Martius 151
GOYA. Portrait of Goya, drawn and etched by himself 154
The Dead Branch 155
Back to his Ancestors! 156
“Birds of a Feather Flock Together” 157
They have Kidnapped her 158
“Bon Voyage!” 159
The Infuriated Stallion 160
The Bird-Men 161
Good Advice 162
God Forgive her--It’s her own Mother! 163
Love and Death 164
Hunting for Teeth 165
FORTUNY. Arab watching beside the Dead Body of his
Friend 166
Idyll 167
The Serenade 168
A Moroccan Seated 169
A Horse of Morocco 170
Interior of the Church of Saint Joseph, Madrid 171
PORTRAIT OF SEYMOUR HADEN. At the Age of Sixty-two.
By C. W. Sherborn 174
HADEN. Portrait of Seymour Haden etched by himself at
the Age of Forty-four 175
Portrait of Sir Seymour Haden. By A. Legros 176
Woodcote Manor. By Percy Thomas 177
Reproduction of a Page of Manuscript in the
Handwriting of Sir Seymour Haden 178
Facsimile of the Certificate of Seymour Haden’s Candidacy
for Membership in the Athenæum Club 179
Whistler’s House, Old Chelsea 180
Battersea Reach 181
Out of Study Window 182
Thomas Haden of Derby 183
PORTRAIT OF SEYMOUR HADEN in 1882 (photograph) 184
PORTRAIT OF SIR SEYMOUR HADEN. By J. Wells Champney 185
Mytton Hall 186
On the Test 187
A By-road in Tipperary 188
A Sunset in Ireland 189
A Lancashire River 190
Sawley Abbey 191
The Breaking-up of the Agamemnon 192
Calais Pier 193
An Early Riser 194
Harlech 195
Salmon Pool on the Spey 198
Old Oaks, Chatsworth 199
Course of the Ribble below Preston 200
Dinkley Ferry 201
Encombe Woods 202
An Elderly Couple, Chatsworth Park 203
BRACQUEMOND. Frontispiece for “Les Fleurs du Mal” of
Baudelaire 206
PORTRAIT OF CHARLES BAUDELAIRE. By Bracquemond 207
PORTRAIT OF CHARLES MERYON. By Bracquemond 208
MERYON. Le Pont au Change 209
Le Petit Pont 210
PORTRAIT OF CHARLES MERYON. By Flameng 211
BRACQUEMOND. Ducks at Play 220
A Flock of Teal Alighting 221
Pheasants at Dawn: Morning Mists 222
The Bather (Canards Surpris) 223
Geese in a Storm 224
Sea-gulls 225
The Old Cock 226
Swallows in Flight 227
LEPÈRE. Rheims Cathedral 228
Belle Matinée. Automne 229
Vue du Port de la Meule 230
Peupliers Tétards 231
Le Moulin des Chapelles 234
A Gentilly 234
La Chaumière du Vieux Pecheur 235
Le Nid 235
Provins 236
L’Eglise de Jouy le Moutier 236
L’Enfant Prodigue 237
WEBSTER. St. Ouen, Rouen 240
La Rue Grenier sur l’Eau, Paris 241
Quai Montebello 242
Le Pont Neuf, Paris 243
La Rue Cardinale 244
La Rue de la Parcheminerie, Paris 245
St. Saturnin, Toulouse 246
Ancienne Faculté de Médecine, Paris 247
Notre Dame des Andelys 248
Port des Marmousets, St. Ouen, Rouen 249
Vieilles Maisons, Rue Hautefeuille, Paris 250
La Route de Louviers 251
Bendergasse, Frankfort 252
Cortlandt Street, New York 253
Lowenplätzchen, Frankfort 254
Der Langer Franz, Frankfort 255
The Old Bridge, Frankfort 256
La Rue St. Jacques, Paris 257
ZORN. Portrait of the Artist and his Wife 260
The Waltz 261
Madame Simon 262
Ernest Renan 263
August Strindberg 264
Sunday Morning in Dalecarlia 265
The Bather, Seated 266
Edo 267
PREFACE
“Good wine needs no bush,” and these essays need no commendatory
word from the Editor. The plan of this book is a simple one. Certain
lovers of prints have been asked to write on the engravers, etchers,
or periods which chiefly interest them and upon which they are best
qualified to speak; and, furthermore, to treat their special subjects
in their own way. So far as subject matter is concerned, the essays
are grouped approximately in chronological order, and the reader may
range from Italian engravers before the time of Raphael and woodcuts
by Albrecht Dürer to contemporary etchings by Zorn, Lepère, and Herman
A. Webster. Throughout the essays one dominant note will be found--a
sincere love of Prints and an interest in their Makers.
FITZROY CARRINGTON.
New York,
September, 1912.
DÜRER’S WOODCUTS
BY CAMPBELL DODGSON, M.A.
Keeper of Prints and Drawings in the British Museum Author of the
Catalogue of German and Flemish Woodcuts in the British Museum and
Honorary Secretary of the Dürer Society
The first decade of the twentieth century lies not very far behind
us, but perhaps it is not too soon to assert that one of its marked
features, in the retrospect of a print-lover, is a great revival or
extension of interest in every form of engraving among cultivated
people who are not specialists. Increased attention has been
paid, among other things, to the German woodcuts of the fifteenth
and sixteenth centuries, which used to be rather despised by the
old-fashioned nineteenth-century collector, with a few enlightened
exceptions, as rough and ugly old things which were curious as
specimens of antiquity or instructive as illustrations of the life and
religion of the generations that produced them, but were not to be
taken very seriously as works of art. That estimate is being revised.
A generation no longer blinded to the merits of primitive art by the
worship of Raphael and the antique is ever tapping fresh sources of
delight and enriching itself by the perception of beauty where its
fathers saw nought but the grotesque and quaint. It is not surprising,
indeed, that German art has made slower progress than Italian on the
road to popularity. Even the primitives, on the south side of the
Alps, shared in the winning grace and suavity of the old Mediterranean
culture, while their brethren in the North, the French excepted,
were indisputably more rugged and barbarous in draughtsmanship and
painting, and few of their engravers, except Schongauer, can vie with
the Florentines if their achievements are judged by the test of formal
beauty. But it is wonderful how, in the North, now and again, art could
suddenly blossom and ripen under the creative impulse of an innovator,
whose successors, rather than the pioneer himself, lay themselves open
to the charge of angularity and uncouthness. The perfection of the
very earliest printed books is a commonplace. Less generally known,
perhaps, is the great beauty to which the earliest of all the German
engravers known to us at all as a personality, though not by name,
was capable of attaining. The “Master of the Playing-Cards,” who was
at work about 1430-40, produced work of extraordinary charm, not only
in some of the figures, animals and flowers of the playing-cards
themselves, but especially in the large engraving of the Virgin Mary
with the human-headed serpent, or Lilith, beneath her feet, which
is one of the most splendid and mature creations of the fifteenth
century. Then, again, the early book illustrators of Augsburg and
Ulm, in the seventies, when the use of blocks for such a purpose had
only recently come in, produced woodcuts that were never surpassed
by any successors in their simple and direct vivacity and strength,
with the utmost economy of line. But the real beauty of some of the
much earlier single woodcuts, illustrating, chiefly, the legends of
Our Lady and the Saints, has been much less generally appreciated.
They are very rare, and most of them repose, in a seclusion seldom
disturbed, in their boxes in the great European print-rooms or even
in monastic libraries. They are only beginning to be reproduced, and
they are rarely exhibited. But such an exhibition of the earliest
German woodcuts as was held at Berlin in the summer of 1908 was truly
a revelation. The soft and rounded features, the flowing lines of the
drapery, in the prints of the generation before sharp, broken folds
were introduced under the influence of the Netherlands, have something
of the charm of Far Eastern art, and the gay coloring with which most
of the prints were finished has often a delightfully decorative effect
when they are framed and hung at a proper distance from the eye. Such
praise is due, of course, only to some of the choicer examples; there
are plenty of fifteenth-century woodcuts in which the line is merely
clumsy and the coloring merely gaudy, but these are more often products
of the last quarter of the century than of its beginning or middle.
It would not be true to say that the advance of time brought with it
progress and perfection in the woodcutter’s art; on the contrary,
the first vital impulse spent itself all too soon, and gave way to
thoughtless and unintelligent imitation.
[Illustration: Albrecht Dürer Conterfeyt in seinem alter
Des L V I. Jares.
DÜRER. PORTRAIT OF ALBERT DÜRER, AGED 56
The rare second state (of 3 states) before the monogram of Dürer and
the date 1527
Size of the original woodcut, 12¾ × 10 inches]
[Illustration: DÜRER. THE FOUR RIDERS OF THE APOCALYPSE
From “The Apocalypse”
Size of the original woodcut, 15¼ × 11 inches]
What was the state of things when Dürer appeared upon the scene?
He did so long before the close of the fifteenth century, for his
first authenticated woodcut is an illustration to St. Jerome’s
Epistles, printed at Basle in 1492. Whether he or an unknown artist
is responsible for a large number of other illustrations produced
at Basle about 1493-95, is a question about which no consensus of
opinion has been formed, and this is not the place to discuss it. All
the woodcuts that the world knows and esteems as Dürer’s were produced
at Nuremberg after his return from the first Venetian journey (1495).
Let us see, for a moment, how they stand comparison with what had
gone before them. The older woodcuts are nearly all anonymous, and if
they bear any signature, it is that of a woodcutter (Formschneider
or Briefmaler) who was a craftsman allied to the joiner, rather than
the painter. Just before Dürer’s time the painter begins to make his
appearance on the scene as a designer of woodcuts. There are a few
isolated cases in which the almost universal rule of anonymity is
broken, and we learn from the preface to a book the name of the artist
who designed the illustrations. Breydenbach’s “Travels to the Holy
Land” (Mainz, 1486) was illustrated by woodcuts after Erhard Reuwich,
or Rewich, a native of Utrecht, who had accompanied the author on
his journey, and the immense number of woodcuts in the “Nuremberg
Chronicle” by Hartmann Schedel (1493) were the work of the painters
Wohlgemuth and Pleydenwurff; to whom the much finer illustrations of
the “Schatzbehalter” (1491) may also safely be attributed. It is now
almost universally believed that the “Master of the Hausbuch,” one of
Dürer’s most gifted predecessors in the art of engraving on copper, was
also a prolific illustrator, the principal work assigned to him being
the numerous illustrations in the “Spiegel der menschlichen Behaltnis”
printed by Peter Drach at Speyer about 1478-80. There are speculations,
more or less ill-founded, about the illustrators of a few other woodcut
books of the fifteenth century, but I believe it is true that the
first book after those already named in which the artist’s name is
settled beyond doubt is Dürer’s “Apocalypse” of 1498.
[Illustration: DÜRER. THE WHORE OF BABYLON, SEATED UPON THE BEAST WITH
SEVEN HEADS AND TEN HORNS
From “The Apocalypse”
Size of the original woodcut, 15¼ × 11 inches]
[Illustration: DÜRER. CHRIST BEARING HIS CROSS
From “The Great Passion”
Size of the original woodcut, 15¼ × 11⅛ inches]
Dr. Naumann, the editor of a recent facsimile of the cuts in the
Speyer book just mentioned, claims for the “Hausbuchmeister” that he
was the first painter, or painter-engraver, who attempted to get the
most out of the craftsmen employed in cutting blocks from his designs.
That is rather a speculative opinion, and the woodcuts in question
are not, from the technical point of view, superior to many other
contemporary illustrations. But there can be no question that Dürer
effected an immense reform in this respect, and carried the technique
of wood-engraving to a perfection unparalleled in its previous history.
Not by his own handiwork, for there is no reason to suppose that Dürer
ever cut his blocks himself. All the evidence points, on the contrary,
to his having followed the universal practice of the time, according
to which the designer drew the composition in all detail upon the
wood block, and employed a professional engraver to cut the block,
preserving all the lines intact, and cutting away the spaces between
them, so that the result was a facsimile of the drawing as accurate as
the craftsman was capable of making it. Dürer set his engravers, we may
be sure, a harder task than they had ever had to grapple with before,
and he must have succeeded in gradually training a man, or group of
men, on whom he could rely to preserve his drawing in all its delicacy
and intricate complexity. This was a work of time, and perfection
was not reached till after Dürer’s return from his second journey to
Venice, when a great increase of refinement on the technical side
becomes noticeable, culminating in that extraordinary performance, the
_Holy Trinity_ woodcut of 1511. But even in the large fifteenth-century
blocks, the “Apocalypse,” the earlier portion of the “Great Passion”
and the contemporary single subjects, much cross-hatching is used
and the space is filled with detail to an extent hitherto unknown.
Without ever losing sight of the general decorative effect, the telling
pattern of black and white, Dürer put in a vast amount of interesting
little things, with the conscientiousness and care that characterized
everything that he did, and every detail of the leaves of a thistle or
fern, or of the elaborate ornament, birds and flowers and foliage and
rams’ heads, on the base of a Gothic candle-stick, had to be reproduced
so that the crisp clearness of the original pen-drawing lost nothing of
its precision. The result was a work so perfectly complete in black and
white, as it stood, that nobody ever thought of coloring it, and that
in itself was a great innovation and advance. The fifteenth-century
“Illuminirer,” or the patron who gave him his orders, seems to have
had an instinctive respect for excellent and highly finished work in
black and white, which made him leave it alone. Line-engravings of
the fifteenth century are very frequently found colored, but they are
usually quite second-rate specimens, and prints by the great men,
such as the “Master E. S.” and Schongauer, were respected and left
alone. But such consideration was not often shown to woodcuts, which
were frequently colored, especially when used as illustrations, well
into the sixteenth century. It was very rarely, however, that any
illuminator laid profane hands on anything of Dürer’s, woodcut or
engraving, and when he did so the result is stupid and disagreeable,
for it is always the work of a later generation, out of touch with
Dürer’s genius.
[Illustration: DÜRER. THE RESURRECTION
From “The Great Passion”
Size of the original woodcut, 15⅜ × 10⅞ inches]
[Illustration: DÜRER. SAMSON AND THE LION
Size of the original woodcut, 15 × 10⅞ inches]
It may be said that if Dürer and his contemporaries did not cut their
own blocks, the woodcuts are not original prints by the masters
themselves. It must be conceded that they are not original prints quite
in the same sense as engravings and etchings, in which the whole work
was carried out upon the plate by the masters’ own hand, but it would
be a mistake to describe them as examples of reproductive engraving.
Such a thing as a reproductive engraving was, in fact, unknown in
the Germany of Dürer’s time. A design originally projected in one
medium might be reproduced in another in a case where an engraving by
Schongauer, or Meckenen, or Dürer himself, was copied by some inferior
woodcutter, as an act of piracy, for a bookseller who was too stingy
to pay an artist to draw him a new Virgin or Saint for his purpose.
But it would never have occurred to any one to reproduce an engraving
or woodcut, a picture or drawing, done for its own sake, as a separate
and complete work of art. Reproductions of pictures scarcely exist
in German art of the sixteenth century; they are commoner in the
Venetian School, among the woodcutters influenced by Titian, and Rubens
established the practice once for all by his encouragement of engraving
from his pictures, a century after Dürer’s time. But when woodcutting
was taken up by the German painters, with Dürer as their leader, for
the purpose of circulating their compositions at a cheaper price than
they could charge for engravings of their own, they always had a
strictly legitimate object according to the canons of graphic art.
Rarely working even from sketches, never from a work already finished
in another medium, they drew the subjects intended for printing
directly upon the block in a technique adapted for the purpose,
avoiding such combinations of lines as the most skilful craftsmen
would be unable to cut. Their actual handiwork was preserved upon the
surface of the block, much as in the modern original lithograph the
artist’s actual work survives upon the surface of the stone; if it
was in any way disfigured, as often, no doubt, it was, that must be
set down to failure on the cutter’s part. Anything original that the
cutter puts in, any swerving that accident or clumsiness permits him
to make from the line fixed by the painter’s pen for him to follow, is
a blemish, and the best woodcuts of Dürer, Holbein, Baldung, Cranach,
Burgkmair and the rest of their generation have no such blemishes. They
are strictly autographic: the lines that the artist’s pen has traced
remain and are immortalized by the printing-press; the white spaces,
also limited by his controlling will and purpose, result from the mere
mechanical cutting away of blank wood that any neat-handed workman
can perform. So when we speak of the woodcuts of Millais, Rossetti,
Whistler, Walker, Pinwell, Sandys and the rest of the “Men of the
Sixties,” we know that the blocks were cut by Dalziel or Swain, but
every good print is none the less what the designer meant it to be, and
what none but himself could have made it.
[Illustration: DÜRER. THE ANNUNCIATION TO JOACHIM
From “The Life of the Virgin”
Size of the original woodcut, 11⅝ × 8³/₁₆ inches]
[Illustration: DÜRER. THE ANNUNCIATION
From “The Life of the Virgin”
Size of the original woodcut, 11⅝ × 8¼ inches]
Of Dürer’s woodcutters, unluckily, we know nothing till the
comparatively late period when he had been enlisted in the service
of the Emperor Maximilian, whose imposing, but somewhat ponderous and
pedantic, _Triumphal Arch_ was cut from the designs of Dürer and his
school by Hieronymus Andreä. There is much more information about the
Augsburg cutters than about those of Nuremberg, and there is no single
artist in the latter city whose work is so strongly marked out by its
excellence from that of his contemporaries as was Lützelburger’s, who
cut Holbein’s “Dance of Death.”
To understand Dürer’s woodcuts aright, it is necessary to get to know
them in their chronological sequence. In conservative collections,
where they are arranged by order of subject, on the system of Bartsch,
the student is continually confused by the juxtaposition of quite
incongruous pieces, placed together merely because “Jérôme,” for
instance, comes in alphabetical order next after “Jean.” The British
Museum collection has been arranged for more than ten years past in
chronological order, which, in Dürer’s case, is unusually easy to
determine with approximate accuracy, because his methodical turn of
mind caused him to be fond of dates, while the undated pieces can
be fitted in without much difficulty by the evidence of style. The
justification of the system became all the more apparent when the
woodcuts were exhibited for a few months in 1909, and fell naturally
into consistent and coherent groups upon the screens, while separated,
as a matter of practical convenience, from the engravings. Since then
two even more interesting experiments have been made, in exhibitions
held at Liverpool and Bremen, toward a reconstruction of Dürer’s
entire life-work in its chronological sequence, his pictures,
drawings, engravings and woodcuts--represented mainly, of course,
by reproductions--being merged in a single series. That is a timely
warning against the risks of excessive concentration upon one single
side of his many activities, but here we will not digress further from
the woodcuts, which are at present our theme.
[Illustration: DÜRER. THE FLIGHT INTO EGYPT
From “The Life of the Virgin”
Size of the original woodcut, 11⅝ × 8¼ inches]
[Illustration: DÜRER. THE ASSUMPTION AND CROWNING OF THE VIRGIN
From “The Life of the Virgin”
Size of the original woodcut, 11½ × 8⅛ inches]
The series opens magnificently with the group of large and stately
woodcuts, abounding in vitality and dramatic invention, produced by
Dürer between 1495 and 1500. These include the fifteen subjects of the
“Apocalypse,” the seven early subjects of the “Great Passion” (not
completed until 1510-11) and seven detached pieces uniform with the
two series already named in dimensions and style, but independent of
them in subject. The blocks of the majority of these single pieces
are now, by the way, in an American collection, that of Mr. Junius S.
Morgan, but they have suffered sadly from the ravages of the worm.
There is a certain exaggeration and over-emphasis of gesture in the
“Apocalypse” woodcuts, but Dürer never invented anything more sublime
than the celebrated _Four Riders_ or the _St. Michael defeating the
Rebel Angels_, which I regard as at least equal to the subject more
frequently praised. Superb, too, is the group of _Angels restraining
the Four Winds_. The landscape at the foot of _St. John’s Vision of
the Four-and-twenty Elders_ (B. 63) is a complete picture by itself,
and there is a rare early copy of this portion alone, which is itself
a beautiful print, and doubtless the earliest pure landscape woodcut
in existence. _Samson and the Lion_, the mysteriously named _Ercules_
and the _Knight and Man-at-arms_, often described as its companion,
and the _Martyrdom of St. Catherine_ are among the finest of the single
subjects. After this tremendously impressive group, there is for a
time a certain relaxation of energy, or rather Dürer was more bent
on other things, especially engraving. To the years 1500-04 belong
a number of woodcuts of Holy Families and Saints, much smaller than
the “Apocalypse,” and rather roughly cut. Some critics have wished to
dismiss one or another of them as pupils’ work, but for this there is
really no justification. Then comes another very good period, that of
the “Life of the Virgin,” of which set Dürer had finished seventeen
subjects before he left for Venice in 1505, while the _Death of the
Virgin_ and _The Assumption_ were added in 1510, and the frontispiece
in 1511, when the whole work came out as a book, assuredly one of
the most desirable picture-books the world has ever seen! It is
impossible to weary of the beautiful compositions, the details drawn
with such loving care, the tender and homely sentiment, the humor,
even, displayed in the accessory figures of _The Embrace of Joachim
and Anne_, the beer-drinking gossips in the _Birth of the Virgin_,
where the atmosphere of St. Anne’s chamber is sweetened by an angelic
thurifer, and the merry group of angelic children playing round Joseph,
bent on his carpenter’s business, while their elders keep solemn watch
round Mary at her distaff and the Holy Child in the cradle. We find
landscapes at least as beautiful as those in Dürer’s best engravings
in the pastoral background of the _Annunciation to Joachim_ and the
mountainous distance of the _Visitation_. The architectural setting of
the _Presentation of Christ in the Temple_, and the tall cross held
aloft, with the happiest effect on the composition, by the Apostle
kneeling on the left in Mary’s death-chamber, are among the memorable
features of the set.
Beautiful again, especially in fine proofs, is the next and latest of
the long sets, the “Little Passion,” consisting of thirty-six subjects
and a title-page, begun in 1509 and finished, like all the other
books, in 1511. But it has not the monumental grandeur of the earlier
religious sets, and there is an inevitable monotony about the incessant
recurrence of the figure of Our Lord, when the history of the Passion
is set forth in such detail. The most original and impressive subjects,
in my opinion, are _Christ Appearing to St. Mary Magdalen_ and the next
following it, _The Supper at Emmaus_.
[Illustration: DÜRER. ST. JEROME IN HIS CELL
Size of the original woodcut, 9¼ × 6¼ inches]
[Illustration: DÜRER. THE HOLY FAMILY
St. Anne, attended by St. Joseph and St. Joachim, receiving from His
Mother the Infant Jesus
Size of the original woodcut, 9¼ × 6⅛ inches]
The years 1510 and 1511 were the most prolific of all, and witnessed
the publication of other connected pieces, the _Beheading of John
the Baptist_ and _Salome bringing the Baptist’s Head to Herod_, and
then the three little woodcuts, _Christ on the Cross_, _Death and the
Soldier_, and _The Schoolmaster_, which Dürer brought out on large
sheets at the head of his own verses, signed with a large monogram
at the end of all. The single sheets of 1511 include, besides the
marvelous _Trinity_ already mentioned, the large _Adoration of the
Magi_, the _Mass of St. Gregory_, a _St. Jerome in his Cell_, which is
the best, after the celebrated engraving of 1514, of Dürer’s repeated
versions of that delightful subject; the _Cain and Abel_, which is one
of the great rarities; two rather unattractive _Holy Families_; and the
beautiful square _Saint Christopher_, of which many fine impressions
are extant to bear witness to its technical virtues. The average
level of all the work of the year 1511 is so astonishingly high, that
it must be regarded as the culminating period of the woodcuts, just as
a slightly later time, the years 1513-14, witnesses the climax of the
engravings. In the next few years Dürer’s time was much taken up with
carrying out the emperor’s important but rather tiresome commissions
for the _Triumphal Arch_ and two _Triumphal Cars_, the small one which
forms part of the _Procession_, and the much bigger affair, with the
twelve horses and allegorical retinue, which did not appear till 1522.
All this group offers a rich field of research to the antiquary, but
is simply unintelligible without a learned commentary, and appeals
much less than the sacred subjects to the average collector and lover
of art, who cannot unearth the heaps of pedantic Latin and German
literature in which the motives by which Dürer was inspired, if I
may use the word, lie buried. Inspiration certainly flagged under
the influence of Wilibald Pirkheimer and other learned humanists who
encouraged Maximilian in his penchant for allegory, and compelled
Dürer, probably somewhat against his will, to use a multitude of
symbols, intelligible only to the learned, instead of speaking directly
to the populace in the familiar pictorial language derived from old
tradition but enriched and ennobled by his own matchless art.
The later woodcuts are comparatively few in number. They include a
few that are primarily of scientific interest, such as the celestial
and terrestrial globes and the armillary sphere, besides the numerous
illustrations to Dürer’s own works on Measurement, Proportion, and
Fortification. But among them are the two splendid portraits made from
drawings now in the Albertina, the _Emperor Maximilian_ of 1518 and
the _Ulrich Varnbüler_ of 1522. Of the former several varieties exist,
from no less than four different blocks, and it is now established that
the only original version is the very rare one in which the letters
“ae” of the word “Caesar” are distinct, not forming a diphthong, and
placed within the large “C.” The other cuts are all copies, produced
probably at Augsburg, the fine large one, with an ornamental frame and
the imperial arms supported by griffins, being indisputably the work of
Hans Weiditz. Only three impressions of the original are known, in the
British Museum, the Berlin Kupferstichkabinett, and the Hofbibliothek
at Vienna, in addition to which the École des Beaux-Arts at Paris
possesses a fragment damaged by fire at the time of the Commune, when
it was still in private hands. It is more generally known that the
handsome chiaroscuro impressions of the _Varnbüler_ date, like those
of the _Rhinoceros_, from the seventeenth century, the color blocks
having been added in Holland. The brown and green varieties belong to
different editions, distinguished by the wording of the publisher’s
address at the foot, which in the majority of cases has been cut off.
[Illustration: DÜRER. SAINT CHRISTOPHER
Size of the original woodcut, 8⁵⁄₁₆ × 8¼ inches]
[Illustration: DÜRER. THE VIRGIN WITH THE MANY ANGELS
Size of the original woodcut, 11¹³/₁₆ × 8⅜ inches]
The _Virgin with the many Angels_, of 1518, is one of Dürer’s
most accomplished woodcuts, and quite good impressions of it are
comparatively common to-day. The latest of his compositions of this
class, the _Holy Family with Angels_, of 1526, is, on the other
hand, extremely rare. Some critics doubt its being an authentic work
of Dürer, but in spite of certain rather eccentric and unpleasant
peculiarities in the drawing, I consider this scepticism unfounded.
Quite at the end of Dürer’s life comes that rather fascinating subject,
_The Siege of a Fortress_, unique among Dürer’s woodcuts in the tiny
scale on which its countless details are drawn. Of the many heraldic
woodcuts and ex-libris attributed by Bartsch and others to Dürer, very
few can be regarded as his genuine work, and most of these are very
rare. The best authenticated are his own coat of arms; the arms of
Ferdinand I in the book on Fortification; those of Michel Behaim, of
which the block is extant with a letter written by Dürer on the back;
the arms of Roggendorf, mentioned in the Netherlands _Journal_, of
which only one impression is known, and the arms of Lorenz Staiber, of
which the original version is also unique. There can be no doubt that
the Ebner book-plate of 1516 is by Dürer; the much earlier Pirkheimer
book-plate is intimately connected with the illustrations to the books
by Celtes, and cannot be regarded as a certain work of the master
himself, while the arms of Johann Tschertte are also doubted.
It is a fortunate circumstance for the museums and collectors of
to-day that Dürer’s prints have always been esteemed, and his monogram
was held in such respect and so generally recognized as the mark of
something good that they have been preserved during four centuries,
while so much that was interesting was allowed to perish because it was
unsigned or its signature was not recognized as the work of any one
important. It may be paradoxical to say that Dürers are common; few of
them are to be had at any particular moment when one wants to get them;
but they are commoner than any other prints of their period, and a
large number of impressions of some subjects must come into the market
in the course of every ten years. But the sort of Dürer the collector
wants, the really beautiful, fresh, clean impression, with the right
watermark and genuine, unbroken border-line, is not, and never has
been, common. It is surprising how few, even of the famous museums of
Europe, have a really fine collection of the woodcuts, perhaps because
so many of them were formed some generations ago in uncritical times,
when people were apt to think it enough if the subject was represented,
in whatever condition it might be. The first-rate proofs are scarce,
and getting scarcer every year; when they are to be had, they should be
grasped and treasured.
SOME EARLY ITALIAN ENGRAVERS BEFORE THE TIME OF MARCANTONIO
BY ARTHUR M. HIND
Of the Department of Prints and Drawings, British Museum
Author of “Catalogue of Early Italian Engravings in the British
Museum,” “Short History of Engraving and Etching,” “Rembrandt’s
Etchings: an Essay and a Catalogue,” etc.
Fifteenth-century Italian engraving is not an easy hunting-ground for
the collector, but it is one of the most fascinating not less for its
own sake than for the difficulty of securing one’s prize.
From the time of Raphael onward Italian engraving presents an
overwhelmingly large proportion of reproductions of pictures, and loses
on that account its primary interest. But in the fifteenth and the
early sixteenth century, the engravers, though for the most part less
accomplished craftsmen, were artists of real independence. We may in
some cases exaggerate this independence through not knowing the sources
which they used, but the mere lack of that knowledge adds a particular
interest to their prints. Treated not only in virtue of their special
claim as engravings, but merely as designs, we find something in them
which the paintings of the period do not offer us.
In general, the presence and influence of one of the greater artistic
personalities of the time may be recognized, but seldom definitely
enough for us to trace the painter’s immediate direction. Mantegna is
the most brilliant exception of a painter of first rank who is known
to have handled the graver at this period. But forgetting the great
names it is remarkable how in the early Renaissance in Italy even the
secondary craftsmen produced work of the same inexpressible charm that
pervades the great masterpieces.
One of the most beautiful examples I can cite is the _Triumph of
Bacchus and Ariadne_, which is known only in the British Museum
impression. It has all the fascination of Botticelli’s style without
being quite Botticelli--unless the engraver himself is to account for
the coarsening in the drawing of individual forms. Mr. Herbert P.
Horne, the great authority on Botticelli and his school, thinks it
is by Bartolommeo di Giovanni (Berenson’s “Alunno di Domenico”). But
whether immediately after Botticelli or after some minor artist of the
school, there is the same delightful flow and rhythmic motion in the
design that one thinks of in relation to Botticelli’s _Spring_.
[Illustration: TRIUMPH OF BACCHUS AND ARIADNE
After a design by a close follower of Botticelli, possibly by
Bartolommeo di Giovanni
“But whether immediately after Botticelli or after some minor artist of
the school, there is the same delightful flow and rhythmic motion in
the design that one thinks of in relation to Botticelli’s _Spring_....
We could ill afford to lose the charm of the early Florentine _Triumph
of Bacchus and Ariadne_ for all the finished beauty of Marcantonio’s
_Lucretia_, and it is still the youth of artistic development, with its
naïve joy and freshness of outlook, which holds us with the stronger
spell.”
Arthur M. Hind.
Reproduced from the unique impression in the British Museum
Size of the original engraving, 8⅛ × 22 inches]
[Illustration: THE ASSUMPTION OF THE VIRGIN
Florentine engraving, in the Broad Manner, after a design by Botticelli
“Most important of all the contemporary engravings after Botticelli
is the _Assumption of the Virgin_.... An original study by Botticelli
for the figure of St. Thomas, who is receiving the girdle of the
Virgin, is in Turin, and clinches the argument in favor of Botticelli’s
authorship. The view of Rome, a record of Botticelli’s visit, is an
interesting feature of the landscape.” Arthur M. Hind.
Size of the original engraving, 32⅝ × 22¼ inches]
Botticelli was in early life under the immediate inspiration, if not
in the very service, of the great goldsmith Pollaiuolo (witness his
picture of _Fortitude_ in Florence). One almost expects in consequence
that he may at some period have tried his hand at engraving, but there
is no proof that he did anything besides supplying the engravers with
designs. His chief connection with the engravers was in the series of
plates done for Landino’s edition of Dante’s “Divine Comedy” (Florence,
1481). Altogether nineteen plates (and a repetition of one subject)
are known, but although spaces are left throughout the whole edition
for an illustration to each canto, it is only in rare copies that more
than two or three are found. Even the fine presentation copy to
Lorenzo de’ Medici (now in the National Library, Florence) is without
a single plate, showing perhaps the small regard that was paid to
engraving for book decoration at that period. This lack of appreciation
and the difficulties (or double labor) the printers experienced in
combining copperplate impressions with type led soon after this and
a few other experiments of the period to the use of woodcut as the
regular mode of book illustration for well over a century. Apart from
the plates to this edition, Botticelli’s devotion to Dante is shown in
the beautiful series of pen drawings--in the most subtly expressive
outline--preserved at Berlin and in the Vatican. It seems on the whole
probable that they are later than the 1481 edition, so that we cannot
point to the original drawings for the prints.
Most important of all the contemporary engravings after Botticelli
is the _Assumption of the Virgin_, the largest of all the prints of
the period (printed from two plates, and measuring altogether about
82.5 × 56 cm.). An original study by Botticelli for the figure of St.
Thomas, who is receiving the girdle of the Virgin, is in Turin, and
clinches the argument in favor of Botticelli’s authorship. The view of
Rome, a record of Botticelli’s visit, is an interesting feature of the
landscape.
This engraving is produced in what has been called the BROAD MANNER
in contradistinction to the FINE MANNER, e.g. of the _Dante_ prints.
In the BROAD MANNER the lines are laid chiefly in open parallels,
and generally the shading is emphasized with a lighter return stroke
laid at a small angle between the parallels. Its aim is essentially
the imitation of pen drawing after the manner of such draughtsmen
as Pollaiuolo and Mantegna. The FINE MANNER on the other hand shows
shading in close cross-hatching (somewhat patchy and cloudy in effect
in most of the early Florentine prints), and gives the appearance of
imitating a wash drawing.
The two manners may be well compared in the series of “Prophets and
Sibyls,” which exists in two versions, the earlier being in the Fine,
and the later in the Broad Manner. The first series shows a craftsman
who drew largely from German sources (putting a _St. John_ of the
Master E. S. into the habit of the _Libyan Sibyl_). In the second we
have an artist who discarded all the ugly and awkward features which
originated in the German originals, and showed throughout a far truer
feeling for beauty and a much finer power of draughtsmanship than
the earlier engraver. Mr. Herbert Horne suspects, rightly I think,
that Botticelli himself directly inspired this transformation of the
“Prophets and Sibyls.”
Through our lack of knowledge of the engravers of this early period
in Florence we are driven to a rather constant use of the somewhat
unattractive distinctions of the Fine and Broad Manners. We may
claim, however, to have advanced a little further in the elucidation
of questions of authorship, though the great German authority on
this period, Dr. Kristeller of Berlin, would still keep practically
all the early Florentine engravings in an unassailable anonymity.
This is of course better than classing all the engravings of the
period and school, both in the Fine and Broad Manners, under the
name of Baccio Baldini, which has long been the custom. A certain
“Baccio, _orafo_” has been found in documents as buried in 1487,
but there is practically nothing to connect his name with the
substance of our prints. We would not on that account regard him as
a myth, but are reduced at the moment to Vasari’s statement that
“Baldini, the successor of Finiguerra in the Florentine school of
engraving, having little invention, worked chiefly after designs by
Botticelli.” Considering the fact that both Broad and Fine Manners
(in all probability the output of two distinct workshops) show prints
definitely after Botticelli, we are still in entire darkness as to the
position of Baldini.
[Illustration: THE LIBYAN SIBYL
From a series of the “Prophets and Sibyls,” engraved in the Fine Manner
of the Finiguerra School
Size of the original engraving, 7 × 4¼ inches]
[Illustration: THE LIBYAN SIBYL
From a series of the “Prophets and Sibyls,” engraved in the Broad
Manner of the Finiguerra School
Size of the original engraving, 7 × 4¼ inches]
With regard to an important group of Fine Manner prints, Sir Sidney
Colvin has given strong reasons for the attribution to Maso Finiguerra,
made famous by Vasari as the inventor of the art of engraving.
Considering Vasari’s evident error in regard to the discovery of
engraving (for there were engravings in the north of Europe well before
the earliest possible example of Finiguerra), modern students have
been inclined to regard Finiguerra as much in the light of a myth as
Baldini. But there is no lack of evidence as to his life and work, and
without repeating the arguments here, which are given in full in Sir
Sidney Colvin’s “Florentine Picture-Chronicle” (London, 1898), we would
at least state our conviction that a considerable number of the early
Florentine engravings, as well as an important group of nielli, must be
from his hand. Vasari speaks of him as the most famous niello-worker
in Florence, and he also speaks of his drawings of “figures clothed
and unclothed, and histories” (the “figures” evidently the series
traditionally ascribed to Finiguerra in Florence, but now for a large
part labeled with an extreme of timidity “school of Pollaiuolo”; the
“histories,” probably the “Picture-Chronicle” series, acquired from
Mr. Ruskin for the British Museum). Then considering Vasari’s fuller
statement that Finiguerra was also responsible for larger engravings in
the light of a group of Florentine engravings which correspond closely
in style with many of the only important group of Florentine nielli
(chiefly in the collection of Baron Édouard de Rothschild, Paris) as
well as with the Uffizi drawings, we can hardly escape the conviction
that Vasari was correct in his main thesis. A curiously entertaining
side-light is given by one of these engravings, the _Mercury_ for the
series of “Planets.” Here we see the representation of a goldsmith’s
shop in the streets of Florence, stocked just as we know from documents
Finiguerra’s to have been. And the goldsmith is evidently engaged in
engraving, not a niello, but a large copperplate.
[Illustration: THE PLANET MERCURY
Florentine engraving in the Fine Manner, attributed to Maso Finiguerra,
or his school
“A curiously entertaining side-light is given by one of these
engravings, the _Mercury_ for the series of ‘Planets.’ Here we see
the representation of a goldsmith’s shop in the streets of Florence,
stocked just as we know from documents Finiguerra’s to have been. And
the goldsmith is evidently engaged in engraving, not a niello, but a
large copperplate.” Arthur M. Hind.
Size of the original engraving, 12¾ × 8⁹⁄₁₆ inches]
[Illustration: A YOUNG MAN AND WOMAN EACH HOLDING AN APPLE
A Florentine engraving in the Fine Manner, attributed to the school of
Finiguerra
“One of the “Otto Prints” (so called from the eighteenth-century
collector who possessed the majority of the series), _A Young Man and
Woman Each Holding An Apple_, is in the Gray Collection, Harvard, and
it is a charming example of the amatory subjects of the series, prints
such as the Florentine gallant might have pasted on the spice-box to
be presented to his _inamorata_. The badge of Medici (the six “palle”
with three lilies in the uppermost) added by a contemporary hand in
pen and ink suggests that this one may have been used by the young
Lorenzo himself between about 1465 and 1467, which accords well with
the probable date of the engravings.” Arthur M. Hind.
(The inscription above reads _ò amore te qª_ (questa) and _piglia qª_:
“O Love, this to you” and “Take this.”)
Size of the original engraving, 4¼ × 4¼ inches]
The engravings most certainly by Finiguerra, such as the _Judgment
Hall of Pilate_ (Gotha), the _March to Calvary and the Crucifixion_
(British Museum), _Various Wild Animals Hunting and Fighting_ (British
Museum), are of course rarities which most collectors can never hope to
possess. The same may also be said of somewhat later prints in the same
manner of engraving (which may be the work of the heirs of Finiguerra’s
atelier, which is known to have been carried on by members of his
family until 1498), such as the Fine Manner “Prophets and Sibyls” and
the “Otto Prints.” We will in consequence devote less space to these
rarities, possessed chiefly by a few European collections, than their
artistic interest would justify, keeping our argument henceforward
more to the engravings that the American amateur has the chance of
seeing or acquiring at home.
One of the “Otto Prints” (so called from the eighteenth-century
collector who possessed the majority of the series), _A Young Man and
Woman Each Holding An Apple_, is in the Gray Collection, Harvard, and
it is a charming example of the amatory subjects of the series, prints
such as the Florentine gallant might have pasted on the spice-box to
be presented to his _inamorata_. The badge of Medici (the six “palle”
with three lilies in the uppermost) added by a contemporary hand in
pen and ink suggests that this one may have been used by the young
Lorenzo himself between about 1465 and 1467, which accords well with
the probable date of the engravings.
The only known engraving by the goldsmith and painter Antonio
Pollaiuolo, the large _Battle of Naked Men_, shows a far greater artist
than his slightly elder contemporary Finiguerra. They had both studied
in the same workshop and probably continued a sort of partnership
until Finiguerra’s death. Pollaiuolo’s draughtsmanship evinces a grip
and intensity that Finiguerra entirely lacks in his somewhat torpid
academic drawings, and it is seen at its best in this magnificently
vigorous plate. An excellent impression, surpassed by few in the
museums of Europe, is, I believe, in the collection of Mr. Francis
Bullard of Boston.
Before leaving Florence for north Italy we would allude to that
attractive engraver of the transition period, Cristofano Robetta. His
art has lost the finest flavor of the primitive Florentine without
having succeeded to the sound technical system of the contemporaries
of Dürer, but it has a thoroughly individual though delicate vein of
fancy. The _Adoration of the Magi_, one of his finest plates, is a
free translation of a picture by Filippino Lippi in the Uffizi, but
the group of singing angels is an addition of his own, and done with
a true sense for graceful composition. Fine early impressions of this
print are of course difficult to get, but it is perhaps the best known
of Robetta’s works, because of the number of modern impressions in the
market. The original plate (with the _Allegory of the Power of Love_
engraved on the back) belonged to the Vallardi Collection in the early
nineteenth century, and is now in the British Museum, happily safe from
the reprinter.
Among the greatest rarities of early engraving in north Italy is
the well-known series traditionally called the “Tarocchi Cards of
Mantegna”--somewhat erroneously, for they are neither by Mantegna, nor
Tarocchi, nor playing-cards at all. As in the case of the “Prophets
and Sibyls,” there are two complete series of the same subjects by two
different engravers. Each series consists of fifty subjects divided
into five sections and illustrating: (1) the Sorts and Conditions of
Men; (2) Apollo and the Muses; (3) the Arts and Sciences; (4) the Genii
and Virtues; (5) the Planets and Spheres. A considerable number of the
earliest impressions known are still in contemporary fifteenth-century
binding, and it seems as if the series was intended merely as an
instructive or entertaining picture-book for the young. There is the
most absolute divergence of opinion as to which is the original series,
and the student is encouraged to whet his critical acumen on the
problem by the excellent set of reproductions which has recently been
issued by the Graphische Gesellschaft and edited by Dr. Kristeller.
Unfortunately Dr. Kristeller takes what seems to me an entirely wrong
view of the matter. I cannot but feel that the more finely engraved
series is at the same time the more ancient, and almost certainly
Ferrarese in origin, so characteristic of Cossa is the type of these
figures with large heads, rounded forms, and bulging drapery. The
second series shows a more graceful sense of composition and spacing
(the heads and figures being in better relation to the size of the
print), but its very naturalism is to me an indication of its somewhat
later origin. The less precise technical quality of this second series
is closely related to the Florentine engravings in the Fine Manner,
and I am inclined to regard it as the work of a Florentine engraver of
about 1475 to 1480, i.e. about a decade later than the original set.
[Illustration: ANTONIO POLLAIUOLO. BATTLE OF NAKED MEN
“The only known engraving by the goldsmith and painter Antonio
Pollaiuolo, the large _Battle of Naked Men_, shows a far greater
artist than his slightly elder contemporary, Finiguerra. Pollaiuolo’s
draughtsmanship evinces a grip and intensity that Finiguerra entirely
lacks in his somewhat torpid academic drawings, and it is seen at its
best in this magnificently vigorous plate.” Arthur M. Hind.
Reproduced from the impression in the Print Department, Museum of Fine
Arts, Boston
Size of the original engraving, 15¹¹⁄₁₆ × 23⁷⁄₁₆ inches]
[Illustration: CRISTOFANO ROBETTA. THE ADORATION OF THE MAGI
“Cristofano Robetta’s art has lost the finest flavor of the primitive
Florentine without having succeeded to the sound technical system of
the contemporaries of Dürer, but it has a thoroughly individual though
delicate vein of fancy. The _Adoration of the Magi_, one of his finest
plates, is a free translation of a picture by Filippino Lippi in the
Uffizi, but the group of singing angels is an addition of his own, and
done with a true sense for graceful composition.” Arthur M. Hind.
Size of the original engraving, 11⅝ × 11 inches]
Leaving the pseudo-Mantegna for the master himself, we are in
the presence of the greatest of the Italian engravers before
Marcantonio--if not of all time. Like the Florentines, Mantegna was an
ardent lover of antiquity, but his spirit was far more impassive, far
more like the antique marble itself. His classical frame of mind was to
some extent the offspring of his education in the school of Squarcione
and in the academic atmosphere of Padua. His art has a monumental
dignity which the Florentines never possessed, but it was without the
freshness and inexpressible charm that pervade Tuscan art. An engraving
like the _Risen Christ between St. Andrew and St. Longinus_ is an
indication of the genius that might have made one of the noblest
sculptors, and one regrets that he never carried to accomplishment the
project of a monument to Vergil in Mantua, which Isabella d’Este wished
him to undertake.
Seven of the engravings attributed to Mantegna (including the _Risen
Christ_) are so much above the rest in subtle expressiveness, as well
as in technical quality, that we cannot but agree with Dr. Kristeller’s
conclusion that these alone are by Mantegna’s hand, and the rest
engraved after his drawings. They are similar to Pollaiuolo’s _Battle
of Naked Men_ in style, engraved chiefly in open parallel lines of
shading with a much more lightly engraved return stroke between the
parallels. It is this light return stroke, exactly in the manner of
Mantegna’s pen drawing, which gives the wonderfully soft quality to
the early impressions. But it is so delicate that comparatively few
printings must have worn it down, and the majority of impressions that
come into the market show little but the outline and the stronger lines
of shading. Even so these Mantegna prints do not lose the splendidly
vigorous character of their design, but it is of course the fine early
impressions which are the joy and allure of the true connoisseur. The
seven certainly authentic Mantegna engravings are the _Virgin and
Child_, the two _Bacchanals_, the two _Battles of the Sea-Gods_, the
horizontal _Entombment_, and the _Risen Christ_, already mentioned.
[Illustration: ANDREA MANTEGNA. THE RISEN CHRIST BETWEEN ST. ANDREW AND
ST. LONGINUS
“Of all the early Italian engravers, Andrea Mantegna is by far the most
powerful, though scarcely the most human. Like many of the Florentines,
he was an ardent lover of antiquity, but his spirit was far more
impassive than theirs, and far more like the antique marble itself. His
art has a monumental dignity which the Florentines never possessed, but
it lacks the freshness and inexpressible charm that pervade Tuscan art.
His was a genius that would have made one of the noblest sculptors: the
engraving of the _Risen Christ_ shows what he might have achieved in
the field.” Arthur M. Hind.
Size of the original engraving, 15⁷⁄₁₆ × 12¹¹⁄₁₆ inches]
[Illustration: ZOAN ANDREA(?). FOUR WOMEN DANCING
This engraving, based on a study by Mantegna for a group in the Louvre
picture of _Parnassus_, is one of the most beautiful prints of the
school of Mantegna. It is most probably by Zoan Andrea.
Size of the original engraving, 8⅞ × 13 inches]
Nearest in quality to these comes the _Triumph of Caesar: the
Elephants_, after some study for the series of cartoons now preserved
at Hampton Court. But it lacks Mantegna’s distinction in drawing, and
Zoan Andrea, who is probably the author of one of the anonymous
engravings of _Four Women Dancing_ (based on a study for a group in the
Louvre picture of _Parnassus_), one of the most beautiful prints of
the school, was certainly capable of this achievement. Even Giovanni
Antonio da Brescia, who did work of a very third-rate order after
migrating to Rome, produced under Mantegna’s inspiration so excellent a
plate as the _Holy Family_.
Other prints attributed to Mantegna, such as the _Descent into Hell_
and the _Scourging of Christ_, possess all Mantegna’s vigor of design,
and reflect the master’s work in the manner of the Eremitani frescos,
but we can hardly believe that they were engraved by the same hand
as the “seven,” even supposing a considerably earlier date for their
production.
Each of Mantegna’s known followers (Zoan Andrea and G. A. da Brescia)
entirely changed his manner of engraving after leaving the master; in
fact, except in his immediate entourage, Mantegna’s style was continued
by few of the Italian engravers. For all its dignified simplicity,
it is more the manner of the draughtsman transferred to copper, than
of the engraver brought up in the conventional use of the burin. We
see Mantegna’s open linear style reflected in the earlier works of
Nicoletto da Modena, and the Vicentine, Benedetto Montagna, but each of
these engravers tended more and more in their later works to imitate
the more professional style of the German engravers, and of Dürer in
particular. Dürer was constantly copied by the Italian engravers of the
early sixteenth century, and details from his plates (chiefly in the
landscape background) were even more consistently plagiarized.
In the example of Nicoletto da Modena, the _Adoration of the
Shepherds_, which we reproduce, it is Dürer’s immediate predecessor,
Martin Schongauer, from whom the chief elements in the subject are
copied. But in this example the background, with its vista of lake with
ships and a town, suggested no doubt by one of the subalpine Italian
lakes, is thoroughly characteristic of the South, while Schongauer’s
Gothic architecture is embellished with classical details. Isolated
figures of saints or heathen deities against a piece of classical
architecture, set in an open landscape, became the most frequent
type of Nicoletto’s later prints, which are practically all of small
dimensions.
Like Nicoletto da Modena, Benedetto Montagna gradually developed
throughout his life a more delicate style of engraving, entirely
giving up the large dimensions and broad style of his _Sacrifice of
Abraham_ for a series of finished compositions which from their smaller
compass would have been well adapted for book illustration. Several of
these, such as the _Apollo and Pan_, illustrate incidents in Ovid’s
“Metamorphoses,” but there is no evidence for, and there is even
probability against, their having ever been used in books. Several of
the subjects are treated very similarly in the woodcuts of the 1497
Venice edition of Ovid in the vernacular. When engravings and woodcuts
thus repeat each other, the woodcutter is generally the copyist, but in
this case the reverse is almost certainly the case, as the Ovid plates
belong to Montagna’s later period, and could hardly have preceded 1500.
[Illustration: NICOLETTO DA MODENA. THE ADORATION OF THE SHEPHERDS
“In the _Adoration of the Shepherds_ it is Dürer’s immediate
predecessor. Martin Schongauer, from whom the chief elements in the
subject are copied. But in this example the background, with its
vista of lake with ships and a town, suggested no doubt by one of the
subalpine Italian lakes, is thoroughly characteristic of the South,
while Schongauer’s Gothic architecture is embellished with classical
details.” Arthur M. Hind.
Size of the original engraving, 9⅞ × 7¼ inches]
[Illustration: JACOPO DE’ BARBARI. APOLLO AND DIANA
“Jacopo de’ Barbari is of peculiar interest as a link between the
styles of Germany and the South. Whether of Northern extraction or not
is uncertain, but the earlier part of his life was passed in Venice.
Dürer was apparently much impressed by his art on his first visit to
Venice between 1495 and 1497, and ... even seems to have taken an
immediate suggestion for a composition from Barbari, i.e. for his
_Apollo and Diana_. Dürer’s version shows a far greater virility and
concentration of design, but for all its power it lacks the breezier
atmosphere of Barbari’s print.” Arthur M. Hind.
Size of the original engraving, 6¼ × 3⅞ inches]
Apart from Mantegna, Leonardo and Bramante are the two great names
which have been connected with engravings of the period. But I incline
to doubt whether either of them engraved the plates which have been
attributed to them. The large _Interior of a Ruined Church_, splendid
in design and reminiscent of the architect’s work in the sacristy of S.
Satiro, Milan, might equally well have been engraved by a Nicoletto da
Modena, with whose earlier style it has much in common. Of the prints
attributed to Leonardo, the fascinating _Profile Bust of a Young Woman_
(p. 252), unique impression in the British Museum, stands out from the
rest for the sensitive quality of its outline, but even here I would be
more ready to see the hand of an engraver like Zoan Andrea, who after
leaving Mantua seems to have settled in Milan and done work in a finer
manner influenced by the style of the Milanese miniaturists (such as
the Master of the Sforza Book of Hours in the British Museum).
In Venice Giovanni Bellini’s style is reflected in the dignified
engravings of Girolamo Mocetto, and in the region of Bologna or Modena
one meets the anonymous master “I B (with the Bird),” whose few
engraved idyls are among the most alluring prints of the lesser masters
of north Italy.
More individual than Mocetto and far less dependent on any other
contemporary painter is Jacopo de’ Barbari, who is of peculiar interest
as a link between the styles of Germany and the South. Whether of
Northern extraction or not is uncertain, but the earlier part of his
life was passed in Venice. Dürer was apparently much impressed by
his art on his first visit to Venice between 1495 and 1497, and his
particular interest in the study of a Canon of Human Proportions was
aroused by some figure-drawings which Barbari had shown him. Dürer even
seems to have taken an immediate suggestion for a composition from
Barbari, i.e. for his _Apollo and Diana_. Dürer’s version shows a far
greater virility and concentration of design, but for all its power it
lacks the breezier atmosphere of Barbari’s print; it is redolent of the
study, while the latter has the charm of an open Italian landscape.
There is a distinct femininity about Barbari; perhaps this very feature
and the languorous grace of his treatment of line and the sinuous folds
of drapery give his prints their special allure.
I would close this article with some reference to two other engravers
of great individuality of style--Giulio and Domenico Campagnola, of
Padua.
Domenico’s activity as a painter continued until after 1563, but
the probable period of his line-engravings (about 1517-18), and his
close connection with Giulio Campagnola (though the exact nature of
the relationship is unexplained), justify his treatment among the
precursors rather than in the wake of Marcantonio.
Giulio Campagnola, like Giorgione, whose style he so well interpreted,
was a short-lived genius. He was a young prodigy, famous at the tender
age of thirteen as a scholar of Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, besides being
accomplished as a musician and in the arts of sculpture, miniature, and
engraving. Little wonder that he did not long survive his thirtieth
year. Probably his practice as an illuminator as well as his particular
aim of rendering the atmosphere of Giorgione’s paintings led him to
the method of using dots, or rather short flicks, in his engraving,
which is in a sense an anticipation of the stipple process of the
eighteenth century, though of course without the use of etching. Most
of his prints are known in the two states--in pure line, and after the
dotted work had been added.
[Illustration: GIULIO CAMPAGNOLA. ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST
“One of the most splendid of his plates is the _St. John the Baptist_,
with a dignity of design whose origin may probably be traced back to
some drawing by Mantegna, though the landscape is of course thoroughly
Paduan or Venetian in its character.” Arthur M. Hind.
Reproduced from the impression in the Print Department, Museum of Fine
Arts, Boston
Size of the original engraving. 13⅝ × 9⁵⁄₁₆ inches]
[Illustration: GIULIO AND DOMENICO CAMPAGNOLA. SHEPHERDS IN A LANDSCAPE
“It is Giorgione again whom we see reflected in the _Shepherds in a
Landscape_, a plate which seems to have been left unfinished by Giulio
and completed by Domenico Campagnola. There is a drawing in the Louvre
for the right half of the print, and there is every reason to think
that this drawing as well as the engraving of that portion of the
landscape is by Giulio. But the group of figures and trees on the left
is entirely characteristic of the looser technical manner of Domenico.”
Arthur M. Hind.
Size of the original engraving, 5⅜ × 10⅛ inches]
One of the most splendid of his plates is the _St. John the Baptist_,
with a dignity of design whose origin may probably be traced back to
some drawing by Mantegna, though the landscape is of course thoroughly
Paduan or Venetian in its character. More completely characteristic,
and the most purely Giorgionesque of all his prints, is the _Christ and
the Woman of Samaria_, one of the most wonderfully beautiful of all the
engravings of this period.
It is Giorgione again whom we see reflected in the _Shepherds in a
Landscape_, a plate which seems to have been left unfinished by Giulio
and completed by Domenico Campagnola. There is a drawing in the Louvre
for the right half of the print, and there is every reason to think
that this drawing as well as the engraving of that portion of the
landscape is by Giulio. But the group of figures and trees on the left
is entirely characteristic of the looser technical manner of Domenico.
The existence of a copy of the right-hand portion of the plate alone
points to the existence of an unfinished state of the original, though
no such impressions have been found. In any case it distinctly supports
the theory that the other part of the original print was a later
addition.
We may have to admit in conclusion that there is nothing in Italian
engraving before Marcantonio quite on a level with the achievement of
Albrecht Dürer, but the indefinable allure that characterizes so much
of the work of the minor Italian artists of the earlier Renaissance is
more than enough compensation for any lack of technical efficiency.
With Marcantonio we find this efficiency in its full development,
joined to a remarkable individuality in the interpretation of sketches
by Raphael and other painters. Yet we could ill afford to lose the
charm of the early Florentine _Triumph of Bacchus and Ariadne_ for all
the finished beauty of Marcantonio’s _Lucretia_, and it is still the
youth of artistic development, with its naïve joy and freshness of
outlook, which holds us with the stronger spell.
A PRINCE OF PRINT-COLLECTORS: MICHEL DE MAROLLES, ABBÉ DE VILLELOIN
(1600-1681)
BY LOUIS R. METCALFE
The French make a fine distinction between three varieties of that very
special individual to whom we refer in a general way as “a collector.”
They have always been authorities on that subject and one of them has
said: “On est amateur par goût, connaisseur par éducation, curieux
par vanité.” While another adds: “Ou par spéculation.” By “collector”
we simply mean a person who has formed the habit of acquiring the
things in which he is particularly interested, and these in as many
varieties as possible. It implies neither an artistic pursuit nor a
deep knowledge of the subject. By _curieux_, however, is meant, as a
rule, an _amateur_, a man of taste who collects things which pertain
to art exclusively; he is in most cases a _connaisseur_, and always an
enthusiast.
Paris, the home of taste, has never been that of the _curieux_ more
so than at the present day, when, it seems, every one who can afford
a rent of over four thousand francs has a hobby of some sort and is
a mad collector. A general history of the weakness for things either
beautiful or odd or rare, or merely fashionable, would be both
voluminous and chaotic, if a distinction were not made between that
which pertained to art and that which did not. A complete description
of the latter, a hopelessly heterogeneous mass, would make an amusing
volume, for there is no end to the variety of things in which vanity
and folly have caused human beings to become interested to the point of
collecting in large numbers.
George IV collected saddles; the Princess Charlotte and many others,
shells. Tulips were so madly sought after in Holland that one root
was exchanged for 460 florins, together with a new carriage, a pair
of horses, and a set of harness. Shop-bills and posters have been
the specialty of many, while thousands of persons have collected
postage-stamps and coins. A Mr. Morris had so many snuff-boxes that it
was said he never took two pinches of snuff out of the same box. A Mr.
Urquhart collected the halters with which criminals had been hanged;
and another enthusiast, the masks of their faces. Suett, a comedian,
collected wigs, and another specialist owned as many as fifteen hundred
skulls, Anglo-Saxon and Roman. If there have been men who have shown a
propensity to collect wives, Evelyn tells us in his diary:
“In 1641 there was a lady in Haarlem who had been married to her
twenty-fifth husband, and, having been left a widow, was prohibited
from marrying in future; yet it could not be proved that she had ever
made any of her husbands away, though the suspicion had brought her
divers times to trouble.”
Although we much regret that such an intensely interesting work as a
Comprehensive History of Collecting has never been written, we realize
that a mere description of rare and beautiful objects would be
unsatisfactory as long as we did not know their history and the way in
which they had been gathered together. It is the soul of the collector
which we should like to see laid bare. Was his work a labor of vanity
or one of love? Were his possessions mere playthings, speculation, to
him, or did they represent treasures of happiness greater than all the
gold in Golconda?
Without a doubt, it is one thing to collect what is highly prized on
all sides, with large means at one’s disposal, and the constant advice
of experts, and quite another to search patiently oneself for things
which the general public has not yet discovered, and then to acquire
them with difficulty.
Who shall know with what admirable zeal some collectors have made
themselves authorities on the things which they loved? with what
untiring energy they have sifted for years masses of trash in the
hope of finding the hidden pearl? Who can tell the inner history of
the auction-room, the heart-beats of those who were after the jewel
which no one else seemed to have noticed, the sacrifices which many
with a slender purse have made in order to secure the precious “find,”
and lastly the enjoyment which they ever afterward derived from its
possession? Many of the great French collections of the last century
were made in this spirit: they were begun with a modest outlay and
devoted to things which, at that time, no one else wanted. I know of
one of the first collectors of Eastern Art in the nineteenth century,
who at one time had greatly to reduce his household in order to satisfy
his passion for Japanese vases; and of another wealthy enthusiast who
would travel third-class to London to secure an old Roman bronze. The
history of such collections becomes that of human beings for whom life
is nothing without beauty, and it is too personal to be recorded. The
collector will seldom believe that his enthusiasm can be understood by
others besides himself: maybe, also, he would be unwilling to reveal
the more or less innocent subterfuges to which he had recourse in order
to acquire more than one of his treasures.
The American chapter of such a history is the most recent one, and the
world is now watching its development with bated breath. The art of
the Old World is being imported by the ship-load; fortunes are paid
for single paintings, while the paneled wainscots of French châteaux,
the ceilings of Italian palaces, the colonnades of their gardens,
and the tapestries of the Low Countries, not to mention a hundred
varieties of _objets d’art_, are constantly wending their way to the
treasure-houses--still in course of construction--of the New World. All
this is taking place to the indignation of Europeans and the æsthetes
who consider such a radical change of background a desecration, and do
not stop to think that this transplantation is hardly more unnatural
than the sight of the Elgin marbles in foggy London, or the winged
bulls of Ecbatana in the halls of the Louvre.
So long as we as a nation will learn a much-needed lesson and thereby
greatly improve our taste, let all honor and glory be given to those
who have been responsible for such valuable acquisitions. Our American
collections already contain many “gems of purest ray serene,” and who
will dare say that they are not destined to become in time worthy
successors of the famous ones which have preceded them?
From the writings of Pliny and other classic historians, and from
several catalogues and rare documents which have come down to us from
the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, we have abundant proof that
there never was a time when works of art were not treasured. Cicero,
Atticus, and Varro collected writings, and the libraries of Aristotle,
Theophrastus, and that of Epaphroditus of Chæronea, which contained
thirty-two thousand manuscripts, were famous. Hannibal was a lover of
bronzes: it was he who owned the little Hercules of Lysippus which the
master himself had presented to Alexander the Great and which afterward
became the property of Sulla.
Both Pompey and Julius Cæsar possessed splendid masterpieces of that
Greek art which was so highly prized in Italy. The Venus of the
Hermitage comes from Cæsar’s gallery, and the Jupiter of the Louvre
from that of Antony; while the Faun with the Child, and the Borghese
vase, now treasured in the Louvre, were once among the possessions of
Sallust in his palace on the Quirinal. Not only sculpture was collected
in those times, for we also hear of the tapestries of Saurus, valued
at twenty millions in the currency of the day; the jewelry of Verres,
reputed the finest in existence; the priceless crystals of Pollio; and
the two thousand vases of precious stone owned by Mithridates, King of
Pontus.
Throughout the Middle Ages the _trésor_ of the kings and the most
powerful nobles was in reality their collection. That of Dagobert was
the result of four Italian conquests. The inventory of the jewels of
the Duc d’Anjou, son of John the Good, contains 796 numbers, while
his brother, the Duc de Berry, had a passion for reliquaries, old
church ornaments, and rare manuscripts which he caused to be mounted
like jewels. The library of Charles V and his _trésor_ were valued
at twenty millions of francs, and the collection of curiosities of
Ysabeau de Bavière had not its equal. It contained, among other things,
an ivory box in which was kept the cane with which Saint Louis used
to flagellate himself. The Dukes of Burgundy for centuries were the
greatest collectors of richly inlaid armor. And what of the treasures
of Jacques Cœur, the great banker of Charles VII? With his fleet of
trading-vessels and his many banking-houses he secured the pick of the
market. We know that his silverware was piled up to the ceiling in the
vaults of his palace at Bourges.
In the _Gazette des Beaux-Arts_ for the year 1869 we read a description
of the home of Jacques Duchié, a famous art collector who flourished
during the first half of the fifteenth century. In the courtyard
were peacocks and a variety of rare birds. In the first room was a
collection of paintings and decorated signs; in the second, all kinds
of musical instruments--harps, organs, viols, guitars, and psalterions.
In the third was a great number of games, cards and chessmen; and
in the adjoining chapel, rare missals on elaborately carved stands.
In the fourth room the walls were covered with precious stones and
sweet-smelling spices, while on those of the next was hung a great
variety of furs. From these rooms one proceeded to halls filled with
rich furniture, carved tables, and decorated armor.
[Illustration: PORTRAIT OF MICHAEL DE MAROLLES, ABBÉ DE VILLELOIN
Engraved by Claude Mellan, from his own design from life, in 1648]
[Illustration: _Illustrissimi Viri L. H. Haberti Monmory libellorum
Supplicum Magistri, EPIGRAMMA in Effigiem_
_MICHAELIS DE MAROLLES Abbatis de Villeloin._
_Nobilitas, Virtus, Pietas, Doctrina MAROLLI Debuerant Sacrà cingere
fronde comam._
_Nantüeil ad viuum faciebat 1657_]
The Renaissance was the Golden Age of Collectors. What could have
withstood the influence of that tremendous movement? The art of Italy
and the magnificence of the nobility and the princes of the Church
shed, like the Augustan Age, a golden glamour over civilization.
The Médicis set the example, and they were closely followed by the
Sforzas, the Farneses, and the Gonzagas. The patronage of the Fine Arts
was on such a scale, and the rivalry among the collectors so keen, that
in 1515 there were in Rome thirty-nine cardinals who had veritable
museums for palaces. It was for Agostino Chigi that Raphael decorated
that Farnesina Villa in which such treasures were stored, and for whom,
later, he designed those plates on which parrots’ tongues were served
to Leo X.
What a rage for beauty there was when Baldassarre Castiglione advised
all the sons of noble families to study painting, in order that they
might become better judges of architecture, sculpture, vases, medals,
intaglios, and cameos. What a madness for antiques, when Cardinal San
Giorgio sent back to Michelangelo his “Amorino” because he considered
it too modern. Would that we could follow the vicissitudes through
which went the great collections of the day--the drawings of Vasari,
the books of Aldus and Pico della Mirandola, the armor of Cellini, the
portraits of Paolo Giovio and the medals of Giulio Romano!
Certain is it that many of their treasures eventually crossed the Alps.
It was after Charles VIII had shown to the élite of his nation “the
remnants of antiquity gilded by the sun of Naples and of Rome” that the
French Renaissance, already well on its way, received new inspiration,
and that the French collectors renewed their activity. Judging by the
fabulous accounts given by the country-folk, the contents of many
a turreted castle on the Loire must have been wonderful, indeed.
Following the lead of Francis I, who had his library, his _pavillon
d’armes_, and his _cabinet de curiosités_, and the example of Catherine
de Médicis, who had brought from Italy many of her family’s treasures,
the leading nobles, like Georges d’Amboise in his Château de Gaillon,
collected beautiful things with admirable catholicity. It was not only
books in sumptuous bindings which were sought after by Louis XII and
the Valois, Diane de Poitiers, Queen Margot, Amyot, and de Thou, but
art in every form. In the case of Grolier himself, are we not told
by Jacques Strada, in his “Epithome du Thrésor des Curiositez,” that
“great was the number of objects of gold, silver, and copper in perfect
condition, and remarkable the variety of statues in bronze and marble,
which his agents were collecting for him all over the world”?
Most significant is the inventory of the collection of Florimond
Robertet, the able treasurer of the royal finances under Charles
VIII, Louis XII, and Francis I, which was made in 1532 by Michelle
de Longjumeau, his widow. Never was a catalogue such a labor of love
as this one. It is a detailed description of the entire contents of
a museum on which a great financier spent his entire fortune; it is
full of significant touches concerning the customs of the time and
the origin and use of the objects described; and it bears witness to
the great enjoyment which both husband and wife derived from their
treasures throughout their lifetime. There were many jewels and some
pear-shaped pearls of great size, silver andirons, thirty sets of silks
and tapestries, bronzes and ivories. Among the paintings and sculpture
were a canvas and a statue by Michelangelo. The porcelain was the first
brought to France from China, and there was much pottery from Turkish
lands and Flanders, French faïence, Italian majolica, church ornaments,
precious books, and four hundred pieces of Venetian glass, “gentillisez
des plus jolies gayetez que les verriers sauraient inventer.”
It was the religious wars of the end of the century which brought
French collecting to a stop. Constant strife and persecution
discouraged the last artists of the Renaissance, ruined many a noble
family, and scattered the contents of their palaces. Not until years
afterward, during the seventeenth century, was it taken up again; then
it was to reach great brilliancy during the reign of Louis XIV. The
leading families of France began to rebuild their collections when
Henry IV and his favorite, Gabrielle d’Estrées, indulged their fondness
for medals, cameos, and intaglios, and Marie de Médicis had brought
from Tuscany those paintings which she considered such an indispensable
luxury. In after years Louis XIII collected armor; Anne of Austria,
delicate bindings; and Richelieu, finely chased silverware. And when
Louis XIV began to reign, Paris was the proud center of the collecting
world. From this time on we have full records of the treasures amassed
by many people of taste and culture and we are able to follow them into
the following century, no matter how often they change hands--this,
thanks to specialists like Felibien and Germain Brice and the
thousand references to art in the memoirs of the time. In 1673 there
were in Paris eighty-five important art collectors who owned among
them seventy-three libraries, and twenty years later this number had
increased to one hundred and thirty-four, a remarkable development for
such a short space of time.
The greatest example was set by Cardinal Mazarin and Fabri du Peiresc.
The wily Italian who had succeeded Richelieu gave as much time to his
collections as to the ship of state, and his fellow-grafter, Nicolas
Fouquet, treasurer of the kingdom, was allowed to make himself the
most powerful man in France just as long as he was able to supply his
Eminence with the millions he was so constantly in need of for the army
and his gold-threaded tapestries and busts of Roman emperors. Just
before his death. Mazarin had himself carried through a gallery lined
with 400 marbles, nearly 500 canvases (among them seven Raphaels), and
50,000 volumes, while he kept weeping and exclaiming: “Faudra-t-il
quitter tout cela?” In the south of France, Fabri du Peiresc, great
savant and collector, had agents in constant quest of rarities. It is
related that “no ship entered a port in France without bringing for
his collections some rare example of the fauna and flora of a distant
country, some antique marble, a Coptic, Arab, Chinese, Greek, or Hebrew
manuscript, or some fragment excavated from Asia or Greece.”
[Illustration: NANTEUIL. JULES, CARDINAL MAZARIN
Engraved in 1655 when Mazarin was fifty-three years of age Size of the
original engraving, 12⅝ × 9½ inches]
[Illustration: NANTEUIL. LOUIS XIV
Engraved in 1664, from Nanteuil’s own drawing from life Louis was
twenty-six years of age when this portrait was engraved
Size of the original engraving, 15⅜ × 12 inches]
By this time there was a new fine art to be collected seriously--that
of Engraving. To the masterpieces of Dürer, Lucas van Leyden, and
Marcantonio, now over a century old, had succeeded the spirited
etchings of Callot. It was he who first popularized the art in
France and paved the way for the enthusiastic appreciation of Morin,
Mellan, and Nanteuil. The school of engravers established by Colbert
at the Gobelins made their art rank in importance with Painting and
Sculpture, and their work won such popular favor that many engravers
became publishers, and did a great business selling their prints and
those of their pupils to the leading collectors. The first man of taste
to make a serious collection of engravings was Claude Maugis, Abbé
de Saint Ambroise, almoner to the Queen, Marie de Médicis. He spent
forty years making a collection which at his death was sold to Charles
Delorme, that physician-in-ordinary to Henry IV and Louis XIII of whom
Callot has made such an interesting little portrait. It was when the
first part of the Delorme Collection and that of a Sieur de Kervel had
been added to his own possessions by the Abbé de Marolles that there
was begun the greatest collection of prints and drawings ever assembled.
Michel de Marolles, Abbé de Villeloin, was one of the most picturesque
figures of the seventeenth century. He was born in Touraine in 1600,
and died in 1681, the son of the gallant Claude de Marolles, _maréchal
de camp_ in the army of Louis XIII, who had won a famous duel fought
in the presence of two armies in the War of the Ligue. His life was
indeed a peaceful one. At the age of twenty-six, after having pursued
a complete course of studies, he was presented by Richelieu with the
abbey of Villeloin in Touraine, and for the remainder of his days he
drew its income, cultivated the most interesting people in France,
translated the classics, wrote his memoirs, and collected prints as no
one ever did before him, or after. Truly, an ideal existence!
Although he tells us that at the age of nine he decorated the walls of
his bedroom with prints given him by a Carthusian monk, we know that
for the first half of his life the Abbé de Villeloin did little more
than collect friends. This must have given him little trouble, for his
rank gained him admission to the entire nobility, and his appreciation
of literature and the fine arts enabled him to carry on a friendly
intercourse with the best-known artists and _connoisseurs_. During
this intercourse there was a constant exchange of gifts; in fact, to
receive presents seemed to have been the Abbé’s object in life. In his
“Memoirs” there are one hundred and fifty pages devoted to a complete
enumeration of all the persons who have presented him with a gift, or
“honored him extraordinarily by their civility,” and the list includes
the best-known personages of the day.
What did de Marolles give them in return, besides the pleasure of his
company and the charm of his appreciation? A mass of bad translations
of the classics: that was the great weakness of the Abbé de Villeloin.
Chapelain, the poet, complained of it in a curious letter to Heinsius,
saying:
“That fellow has vowed to translate all the classic authors, and has
almost reached the end of his labors, having spared neither Plautus
nor Lucretius nor Horace nor Virgil nor Juvenal nor Martial, nor many
others. Your Ovid and Seneca have as yet fought him off, but I do
not consider them saved, and all the mercy they can expect is that
of the Cyclops to Ulysses--to be devoured last.” That Chapelain was
not the only one who did not appreciate the literary talent of the
Abbé, and that he often found difficulty in finding publishers for his
translations, is admitted by de Marolles himself when, in his poem on
“The City of Paris,” he says:
“J’ai perdu des amis par un rare caprice
Quand je leur ai donné des livres que j’ai faits
Comme gens offensés, sans pardonner jamais
Bien qu’on n’ait point blessé leur méchant artifice.”
But it is not as a man of letters that de Marolles interests us: it is
as a great lover of the art of Engraving and the greatest collector of
prints in history. Not until he had reached the age of forty-four did
he begin to collect them systematically. Then he purchased the first
part of the Delorme Collection for one thousand _louis d’or_, the
prints owned by Kervel, and those of several other small collectors.
His activity was so great that nine years later, in his memoirs, he was
able to refer to this collection as follows:
“God has given me grace to devote myself to pictures without
superstition, and I have been able to acquire a collection numbering
more than 70,000 engravings of all subjects. I began it in 1644, and
have continued it with so much zeal, and with such an expense for one
not wealthy, that I can claim to possess some of the work of all the
known masters, painters as well as engravers, who number more than 400.”
He further adds:
“I have found that collecting such things was more suited to my purse
than collecting paintings, and more serviceable to the building up of a
library. Had we in France a dozen such collectors among the nobility,
there would not be enough prints to satisfy them all, and the works
of Dürer, Lucas, and Marcantonio, for which we now pay four and five
hundred _écus_ when in perfect condition, would be worth three times
that amount.... It seems to me that princes and noblemen who are
collecting libraries should not neglect works of this kind, as long
as they contain so much information on beautiful subjects; but I know
of no one who has undertaken to do this except for medals, flowers,
architecture, machines, and mathematics.”
The collection of the Abbé de Marolles had become so famous by 1666,
that Colbert, after having had it examined and appraised by Felibien
and Pierre Mignard, advised Louis XIV to purchase it for the royal
library. The deed was signed in 1667, and in the following year
the Abbé de Villeloin received from the royal treasury the sum of
twenty-six thousand livres ($25,000) for what was described in a
seal-colored document as “un grand nombre d’estampes des plus grands
maîtres de l’antiquité.” Let us see what this meant.
De Marolles tells us himself, in his catalogue of 1666, that his
collection consisted of 123,400 original drawings and prints, the
work of over 6000 artists, and that it was contained in 400 large
and 141 small volumes. As to the variety of subjects represented, it
had no end: it included, for instance, landscapes, views of cities,
architecture, fountains, vases, statues, flowers, gardens, jewelry,
lacework, machines, grotesques, animals, costumes, decoration, anatomy,
dances, comedies, jousts, heraldry, games, heroic fables, religious
subjects, massacres, tortures, and over 10,000 portraits.
In describing his collection to Colbert, the Abbé made especial note of
his greatest treasures as follows:
“_Leonardo da Vinci._ His work is in 5 pieces.
“_Anthony van Dyck._ There are 210 plates after his work, of which 14
are etched by his own hand.
“_Marcantonio_ from Bologna, that excellent engraver who has done such
beautiful work after Dürer, Mantegna, Raphael, and Michelangelo, is the
greatest of all engravers, and the one whose works are the most sought
after. I own 570 of them, in two volumes.
“_Andrea and Benedetto Mantegna._ The work of the former is in 104
pieces, that of the latter in 74, all rare, making 178 pieces in all,
some of which are engraved by Marcantonio.
“_Lucas van Leyden_, excellent painter and engraver, of whom I have
collected in one volume all the works engraved both on copper and on
wood, besides 25 drawings in pen and pencil from his own hand, all
very singular. I have 180 of these engravings, many in duplicate, all
of great beauty, among them the portrait of Eulenspiegel, unique in
France, the other having been sold more than twelve years ago for 16
_louis d’or_. Among the woodcuts, the Kings of Israel are here done in
chiaroscuro, and unique in this state.
“_Albert Dürer._ One folio volume, bound in vellum, contains 12
portraits of the artist by various masters; 15 drawings by his own
hand, which are singular and priceless; his three plates on brass
[_sic_], his six etched plates, and all his copper engravings in
duplicate, with three impressions of Maximilian’s sword-hilt, all
having been collected by the Abbé de Saint Ambroise, almoner of Queen
Marie de Médicis....
“_Rhinbrand_ [_sic_]. The work of this Dutch painter and etcher
consists of many prints, of which I have collected 224, among which are
portraits and fancy subjects most curious.”
He further adds that he possesses 192 original crayon portraits by
Lagneau, a successor of the Clouets, and 50 by Dumonstier, and that the
prints of the old masters of Italy, Germany, and Flanders are contained
in 19 folio volumes.
After this enormous collection had passed into the hands of the King,
the Abbé de Marolles was engaged to catalogue and classify it, and also
to superintend the binding of its 541 volumes. For this he received on
two occasions a payment of 1200 livres. The binding was done in full
levant morocco, decorated with the royal arms, Louis’s monogram, and
richly tooled borders; for this purpose 500 green and 1200 crimson
skins had been specially imported from the East.
Our indefatigable collector had hardly parted with the result of the
labor of twenty-two years when he began the formation of a second
collection. To the second part of the Delorme Collection which he then
purchased were added the prints of MM. Odespunck and la Reynie, the
collection of M. Petau, who had made a specialty of portraits, and that
of the Sieur de la Noue, which contained a great number of original
drawings. We know very little about this second collection of the
Abbé de Marolles, except that when it was catalogued in 1672 it was
contained in 237 folios. What became of it has never been ascertained;
in all probability it found its way into the print-cabinets of the many
_amateurs_ of the end of the century. It is evident that he wished to
dispose of it, probably for the purpose of starting a third collection,
for we have a letter on the subject addressed to M. Brisacier,
_secrétaire des commandements de la Reine_, of whom Masson made that
famous engraved plate known as “The Gray-haired Man.” In it de Marolles
describes his second collection as being hardly less important than
the one he had previously sold to the King, and as containing a great
number of masterpieces which were unique.
Not satisfied with such extensive researches in the realm of art,
the Abbé de Villeloin decided to record all his information on the
subject, and in the spring of 1666 announced the title of a colossal
work on which he was engaged as: “Une histoire très ample des peintres,
sculpteurs, graveurs, architectes, ingenieurs, maîtres-écrivains,
orfèvres, menuisiers, brodeurs, jardiniers et autres artisans
industrieux, où il est fait mention de plus de dix mille personnes,
aussi bien que d’un très grand nombre d’ouvrages considérables, avec
une description exacte et naīve des plus belles estampes ou de celles
qui peuvent servir à donner beaucoup de connaissances qui seraient
ignorées sans cela.” This work was, unfortunately, never published, and
its manuscript has never been found; it would have been a wonderful
compendium of French art during the seventeenth century, and would have
given us much precious information concerning a number of prominent
engravers of whom so little is known to-day.
All that remains of it is the summary, written in bad verse and
published under the title of “Le livre des peintres et des graveurs.”
It is a curious little book, containing little more than the names of
thousands of artists who were obscure in their day and who are now
completely forgotten. To many of them, however, and particularly to
the most prominent, are affixed such descriptive little touches, that
what would otherwise have been a monotonous pattern becomes an original
piece of historical ornament.
As to the “Memoirs” of the Abbé de Marolles, they possess the same
defect as many other autobiographies of the time: they were published
too soon, and they prove how anxious the author was to witness the
sensation he thought he would make. In this case they were published
in 1653, fourteen years before the Abbé had sold his first collection,
and they tell us little more than that he possessed a very extended
circle of acquaintances who thought the world of him on account of
his patronage of the fine arts and his literary talent. It is evident
that he included himself among his most sincere admirers, and that he
regarded the friendship of such a charming woman as Louise-Marie de
Gonzague, who later became Queen of Poland, and the incense which all
the engravers in France ostentatiously scattered before him, as both
natural and deserved. Claude Mellan, Poilly, and Robert Nanteuil were
on particularly friendly terms with him, each in turn engraving his
portrait from life, the last with such delicacy and finish that that
plate ranks among his most successful portraits. Mellan, furthermore,
engraved the portraits of his parents, Claude de Marolles and Agatha
Castiglione.
[Illustration: AGATHA CASTIGLIONE
Wife of Claude de Marolles and mother of Michel de Marolles, Abbé de
Villeloin
Engraved by Claude Mellan from his own design
Size of the original engraving, 6¼ × 5 inches]
[Illustration: CLAUDE DE MAROLLES
Father of Michel de Marolles, Abbé de Villeloin Engraved by Claude
Mellan from his own design
Size of the original engraving, 9¼ × 7⅜ inches]
The tastes and the mania for collecting of the Abbé de Villeloin were
so well known that it is not impossible that it was he of whom La
Bruyère was thinking when, in his famous “Caractères,” he gives the
following description of a collector:
“‘You wish to see my prints,’ says Democenes, and he forthwith brings
them out and sets them before you. You see one which is neither dark
nor clear nor completely drawn, and better fit to decorate on a holiday
the walls of the Petit Pont or the Rue Neuve than to be treasured in a
famous collection. He admits that it is engraved badly and drawn worse,
but hastens to inform you that it is the work of an Italian artist who
produced very little, and that the plate had hardly any printing; that,
moreover, it is the only one of its kind in France; that he paid much
for it, and would not exchange it for something far better. ‘I am,’
he adds, ‘in such a serious trouble that it will prevent any further
collecting. I have all of Callot but one print, which is not only not
one of his best plates, but actually one of his worst; nevertheless, it
would complete my Callot. I have been looking for it for twenty years,
and, despairing of success, I find life very hard, indeed.’”
This is admirably descriptive of a born collector; and what would have
been a ridiculous mania in a philistine became a natural attitude
on the part of such a _connaisseur_ as the Abbé de Marolles. In our
eyes his weaknesses were insignificant, and we forgive him his bad
translations, his unpublished history of Art, and the rather monotonous
self-sufficiency of his Memoirs, for the encouragement which his
honest enthusiasm and indomitable collecting gave to the artists
who made the Golden Age of Engraving--for having been the Prince of
Print-collectors.
JEAN MORIN
1600-1666
BY LOUIS R. METCALFE
The Exhibitions of French Engraved Portraits of the Seventeenth Century
recently made at the New York Public Library and at the Boston Museum
of Fine Arts, give one an excellent idea of the vogue of the portrait
and the excellence attained by that remarkable school of engravers
which flourished under the auspices of Louis XIV. A score of masters
are represented, from Michael Lasne to the superb Nanteuil, and their
models, the most representative personages of that grand century of
French history, whether plotters against Henry IV, friends and foes of
Richelieu or flatterers of Louis XIV, stand proudly on parade for the
twentieth-century American, in all their glory of immense wigs, armor
and lace collars, or in the quieter garb of prelates and counselors to
the king. It is a remarkable illustration to the history of a great
period. The nobility represented the survival of the fittest, for in
the early part of the century four thousand of them had died in those
street duels which Richelieu had abolished only with the help of the
executioner. As to the clergy, no wonder that so many of those portly
prelates could afford to have their portraits painted and engraved:
the wealth of the church had never been greater. Their example was
followed by every one of any importance in the public eye; he had his
portrait made with no more hesitation than one has nowadays to sit to a
photographer of recognized excellence.
It was the Golden Age of Portrait-painting, for they were the days of
Rubens, Van Dyck, Rembrandt and that host of splendid Dutch artists
for whom physiognomy had no secrets. They in turn inspired Philippe de
Champaigne and, later, Lebrun and Mignard, Rigaud and Largillière. Many
of their glorious canvases have long been public property and remain
to-day enshrined in national museums, but many more have for years
remained jealously guarded heirlooms in private collections, and have
been known only to a few. Many of those which have not been destroyed
have become so altered by time and damaged by faulty restoration that
they hardly do justice to their creators.
Thanks to the engraver, these portraits are just as alive to-day as
when they were painted, for in an engraving there is no paint to
fade or darken, no values to become altered. A brilliant impression
of an early state remains to-day what it was when it emerged from
the master’s hand two and a half centuries ago. Such collections as
are now exhibited represent more than brilliant examples of an art
which is lost; they are historical and artistic documents of great
importance, and the French Engravers of the Seventeenth Century deserve
infinite praise for having showed all the possibilities of an art
which, as Longhi claims in his book _La Calcografia_, “publishes and
immortalizes the portraits of eminent men for the example of present
and future generations, better than any other serving as the vehicle
for the most extended and remote propagation of deserved celebrity.”
Among the many artists who were responsible for the Golden Age of
Engraving, Jean Morin occupies a unique position. He was born in
1600 and died in 1666. Morin has the distinction of having not only
immediately preceded and influenced the master of them all, Nanteuil,
but also of having produced fifty portraits which, in contradistinction
to all other reproductive engravers, he etched instead of engraved
with the burin. It is difficult, however, to realize what a strikingly
original and personal artist he was, without first considering in what
stage of development his first efforts had found the art.
When had engraved portraiture begun in France? We must look for its
first steps in the illustrations of the books which were published
during the second half of the sixteenth century; they teem with
carefully executed small-sized portraits which, as a rule, were framed
in decorative cartouches and bore lengthy inscriptions. Very few of
them have been drawn from life; the first engravers, not trusting
their own powers, were content to copy those exquisitely sensitive
and delicate drawings, the crayon portraits which the Clouets made of
royalty and the court at the time of Francis I, Henry II, and Catherine
de Medicis. They are a wonderful pendant to Holbein’s drawings of the
courtiers of Henry VIII. The finest are now hanging in the famous
Gallery of Psyche at Chantilly. Nothing can describe the subtlety with
which the artist has combined refinement and realism and drawn with
delicate color the features of the famous personages of those tragic
times.
[Illustration: MORIN. LOUIS XIII, KING OF FRANCE
After the painting by Philippe de Champaigne
Size of the original engraving, 11⅜ × 9⅛ inches]
[Illustration: MORIN. ANNE OF AUSTRIA, REGENT OF FRANCE
Widow of Louis XIII and Mother of Louis XIV
After the painting by Philippe de Champaigne
Size of the original engraving, 11½ × 9¼ inches]
Here is Henry IV as a careless youth next to the terrible Catherine
when she was an innocent-looking young bride; further on are the
baby daughter of Francis I and the indomitable head of the house of
Guise. The sad Charles IX is represented here as a mere boy; there,
a week before his death, shaking with fever and tortured by remorse
for the fearful massacre which he had instigated. The ill-fated Mary
Stuart wears becomingly her widow’s mourning, and is surrounded by the
chivalry and the beauty of the court. The success of these drawings was
so great that every one desired complete sets of them, and the result
was that they were copied over and over again, first by other artists,
and finally by amateurs who were not very faithful to their models.
The work of the Clouets was intelligently continued by several members
of the family of Dumonstier, and the vogue of this exquisite form of
portraiture lasted until the middle of the following century.
It was these finished miniatures which the first engravers attempted
to reproduce on wood and copper; their drawing was in most cases weak,
and consequently the resemblance was seldom faithful; their knowledge
of line-work was very meager, and therefore the modeling was most
primitive; but in spite of this, their work is interesting for its
exquisite finish and its consistent effort to express the character
of the individual. Such very personal little portraits as those of
Philibert Delorme in his treatise on architecture, Orlando di Lasso in
a book of motets, and the great Ambroise Paré in his treatise on the
fractures of the skull, shared the fame of those of Henry IV by Thomas
de Leu, and greatly increased the popularity of engraving.
By the beginning of the seventeenth century it had become extremely
fashionable to dabble in engraving, and painters, architects,
goldsmiths, noblemen and even ladies were busy gouging wood and cutting
copper with an enthusiasm which has bequeathed us a mass of small
illustrations, tail-pieces, grotesques, mottos, emblems and other
embellishments. Then there appeared during the reign of Louis XIII a
peculiar genius in Claude Mellan. He adopted such an original technique
that he had practically no followers. Considering cross-hatching rank
heresy, Mellan spent a great part of his life making facsimiles on
copper of more than four score charming pencil-drawings which he had
made from life, using distinct lines which he made broader in the
shadows. Although he thereby succeeded in producing a set of very
remarkable plates, he was prevented by the exaggerated simplicity of
his system from securing all the detail, the refinement of expression
necessary to a real psychological study, and he was unable to express
any color, texture or chiaroscuro whatever.
The most original artistic genius at that time was Callot, who had
introduced etching in France; he delighted everybody with the facility
and _esprit_ with which he handled the needle, and he produced a great
number of plates full of crisply drawn little figures which possessed
so much animation that nothing like them had previously been seen. His
two attempts at portraiture, however, are far from being significant;
it may be said that he was not serious enough for such work.
By that time portrait-engraving had become extinct in Germany, and
it was achieving little of importance in Italy and Spain; in the Low
Countries, however, it was producing masterpieces. Even if Rembrandt
and Van Dyck had given the world nothing more than their etched
portraits, their fame would live forever. In the former, the world
found an artist who painted as effectively with the needle as with
the brush, and an etcher who reveled in such powerful and correct
chiaroscuro that his portraits were a perfect revelation. The glowing
light with which he illumined his faces and the boldness and freedom
of his line-work amazed the engravers of his time, for in comparison
they had worked only in outline, and those who attempted to imitate him
achieved very little success. In the plates of Rembrandt the engraved
portrait reaches the last degree of warmth of expression and life.
As to Anthony Van Dyck, he had followed the example of Rubens and
encouraged the leading engravers of Antwerp to reproduce his portraits
on copper. The result was that noble work called his “Iconography,”
which contained over a hundred portraits of the leading painters and
art patrons of the time, most brilliantly engraved by Soutman, the
Bolswerts, Vorstermann and Paul Pontius under the master’s jealous
supervision. In directing this work Van Dyck developed such enthusiasm
that he himself etched eighteen portraits from life, in which the faces
are modeled with small dots; they are charming drawings which exhibit
such a wonderful knowledge of physiognomy, and possess so much life
and color in spite of the simplicity of their treatment, that they
remain masterpieces for all times.
Through the genius of Rubens and Van Dyck the art of engraving had
become transformed; at last life and color had come into it. No such
brilliancy in the treatment of flesh and varied texture had been
attained by pure line-work before the appearance of Pontius’s portrait
of Rubens, and with the exception of the etchings of Rembrandt, nothing
so human had previously been seen as Van Dyck’s etching of Pontius
himself.
But in spite of the best achievements of the Flemish engravers, there
was still an important advance to be made before the copperplate could
give such a faithful translation of a painting that besides the drawing
and the color, it could reproduce all the refinement of detail, all the
texture and chiaroscuro, all the painter-like effect of the canvas.
That interval could be bridged only by a born draughtsman who had the
soul of a portrait-painter and by an artist who would devote himself
exclusively to the solution of that one problem. For that final step of
its development, reproductive engraving had to go to France and to the
unique Jean Morin.
[Illustration: MORIN. CARDINAL RICHELIEU
After the painting by Philippe de Champaigne
Size of the original engraving, 11½ × 9¼ inches]
[Illustration: MORIN. PIERRE MAUGIS DES GRANGES
Maître-d’Hôtel of Louis XIII
After the painting by Philippe de Champaigne
Size of the original engraving, 11½ × 9⅛ inches]
It is incredible that so little should be known about an artist of
his prominence, particularly as at that time the best artists were
constantly “_en evidence_” and undertaking distant travels for the
sake of their education and in order to gain patrons. We must assume
that Morin lived a very quiet life and cared little for recognition.
Who were his first masters remains a mystery; the references which
are made to him in the records of the time point only to the fact
that he was always held in high esteem for the excellence of his work,
and that everywhere his serious character commanded respect. Two
things are nevertheless certain concerning him. One is that he had
begun by becoming a well-schooled painter, for his etched work is of
singularly uniform excellence; the other is that he had been influenced
exclusively by the Flemish School. It was the etching of Van Dyck which
tempted him to give up the brush for the graver, and it was his own
peculiarly calm and conscientious temperament which impelled him to
carry the original technique of that prince of portraiture to the last
degree of finish.
On the other hand, it was from another Flemish artist, Philippe de
Champaigne, who had made France his home, that he received inspiration
and guidance throughout his life-work. In return for this he devoted
himself to the faithful reproduction of as many of that master’s
canvases as he could engrave before his death.
Morin’s work consists of a few figure-subjects and landscapes and fifty
portraits. These are among the finest that were engraved during the
seventeenth century, and they have the distinction of illustrating
the reign of Louis XIII and his minister Richelieu. As an historical
gallery they possess as much importance as the portraits made later by
the school of Nanteuil: four of them are after Van Dyck, fourteen are
from the works of various painters, including Titian, and all the rest,
thirty-two in number, reproduce the dignified canvases of Philippe de
Champaigne. It was natural for Morin to turn to the Flemish painter,
not only because the latter had soon after his arrival become the
painter of the court and the head of the French School, but because his
calm, precise art was admirably suited to the engraver’s work.
The canvases of Philippe de Champaigne have little of the power of
Rubens, or the coloring and supreme elegance of Van Dyck, nor do they
possess the depth and originality of the portraits of Rembrandt, but
they are characterized by an uncommon strength of draughtsmanship and
composition, and they unfailingly exhibit such profound seriousness,
restraint and dignity as few masters can boast of. As in the case
of most of Morin’s portraits, it is hard to gaze upon them without
experiencing that peculiar sensation of familiarity with the human
being represented, without being convinced that here is the bare truth
just as an intelligent and thoroughly sincere nature beheld it, without
feeling that some of the model’s soul has passed into the canvas. It
could not be otherwise with the work of an artist who had toiled so
earnestly to follow an ideal, and who himself had been visited by
so much affliction. De Champaigne became at the end of his life a
Jansenist and a devoted Port Royalist--that is, a member of a community
of austere human beings whose lives were so simple and whose thoughts
were so high that they were a perpetual reproach to the selfish
clergy of the day and the empty butterflies who crowded the salons of
Versailles.
He has never come into his own, principally because he stood in such
close proximity to more brilliant lights, and also because so many of
his scattered paintings have become darkened with age. His work as the
painter of Richelieu established such a popularity for the portrait
as it had not known before and as it has not known since. To-day, when
his name is mentioned, one shrugs his shoulders and says: “Oh, well,
but what was he compared to Rubens, Van Dyck and Rembrandt?”, and then
suddenly remembers that it was he who painted Richelieu and that the
full length portrait which hangs in the Salon Carré of the Louvre and
the triple study of the head which is in the National Gallery, London,
will always rank with the masterpieces of portrait-painting.
Such was the artist to whom Jean Morin went for advice and for whom he
developed such intense admiration and devotion. The Flemish painter
must have readily seen how much the engraver’s temperament had in
common with his own, and immediately understood that his faultless
drawing and conscientious nature would make of him an admirable
interpreter of his canvases. Certain it is that he lost no time in
encouraging him to develop his technique, and that he cheerfully gave
him his portraits to copy. The friendship which ensued continued until
death, and Morin devoted his life to popularizing the portraits of
Philippe de Champaigne, later becoming himself affiliated with the
noble sect of Port Royalists.
* * * * *
The peculiar significance of Morin’s work, aside from the fact that it
has been the principal means of perpetuating the work of a remarkable
artist, is that it represents the first effort in the history of
Engraved Portraiture to reproduce a painted portrait with all its
refinement of drawing and variety of tones. No such trouble had
previously been taken fully to represent all the color and chiaroscuro
of a picture. In order to accomplish this the engraver had to develop
a painter’s technique, and that was something very different from the
precise and methodical line-work of the engravers who had preceded him.
The etched work of Callot was mere line-work; Van Dyck supplemented
this with some delicate modeling made with small dots; and Morin,
developing this system to the last degree of refinement, bent all his
energy to the absolutely faithful reproduction of the canvas in every
detail of line and gradation of light. His technique is chiefly etching
combined with burin work. As a rule, his faces are modeled entirely
with etched dots, and he does this with such delicacy and refinement
that in many cases they have the quality of a fine mezzotint. Only
in a few of his plates does he use line-work to deepen his shadows,
and this is done over the stippling. By means of this system he was
able to express the greatest variety of tones, from the very light
complexion of a blond Englishwoman to the dark skin and blue-black hair
of a southern Frenchman. The hair he always etched with great care,
with a line admirable alike for its precision and freedom; the frame
alone seems to have been done with the burin. It is, however, in the
treatment of the costume that Morin shows his independence of technical
finish; he makes little pretense at securing realism in his expression
of texture. Compared to the work of Nanteuil the surface of his armor
and his moiré silk cassocks and rich lace collars often lack realism,
while his backgrounds possess little of that soft gradation which
enhances the beauty of so many later engravings.
[Illustration: MORIN. HENRI DE LORRAINE, COMTE D’HARCOURT
The Marshal-in-Chief of the Armies of Louis XIII
After the painting by Philippe de Champaigne
Size of the original engraving, 11¹¹⁄₁₆ × 9⅜ inches]
[Illustration: MORIN. GUIDO, CARDINAL BENTIVOGLIO
The Papal Nuncio to the Court of Louis XIII
After the painting by Anthony Van Dyck
Size of the original engraving, 11½ × 9⅛ inches]
But it is this very freedom which makes his plates so original and
gives them such especial charm. Besides, why should etching partake
of the character of slow and precise burin work? Morin’s chief
preoccupation is the rendering of the face and the preservation of all
the character of the original; it is evident that he spares no pains
to make his reproduction an absolutely faithful one. As to the rest of
the picture, he does not consider it necessary to do more than recall
the picturesque effect of the original’s ensemble, but if he treats it
with freedom he is careful to make every line serve a definite purpose;
he is never careless. It is to his great sympathy and conscientiousness
that Morin owed his success as a reproductive engraver, and the fact
that his plates had a great influence on his contemporaries. Before
him no such delicate tones and deep velvety blacks had been seen,
no engraver had been so consistently correct and expressive in his
drawing; so much justice had never been done to a painter.
The art of Morin was so personal that the efforts of his pupils
Alix, Plattemontagne and Boulanger to follow his technique remained
unsuccessful; he was as inimitable in his brilliant effects of
chiaroscuro as Mellan with his fiendishly clever but exaggerated
simplicity of line.
Nevertheless, the lesson of thorough faithfulness he had given was
not lost; the seed fell on fertile ground when Robert Nanteuil, at
the outset of his career, studied Morin’s work closely enough to
imitate his technique in such portraits as those of Pierre Dupuis, the
royal librarian, and the poet Gilles Menage. The engraver from Rheims
had doubtless profited by the example of his own master Regnesson,
whose work had already shown Morin’s influence. Those clever little
portraits as well as a few others done in that style show a marked
advance on the previous ones, in which he had followed that of Mellan,
and the delicate little dots with which their faces are modeled
paved the way for that system of close, short strokes with which he
eventually succeeded in imitating to perfection the peculiar texture of
skin. Nanteuil was to inherit the best in all who had preceded him and
to combine all previous systems into one which would carry the art of
Engraved Portraiture to its greatest development; but it was Morin who
gave him the most eloquent example and who pointed out to him the last
remaining step to technical perfection.
HIS WORK
On looking through a complete collection of Morin’s portraits one
is immediately impressed by the small number of plates which denote
crude beginnings. As none of them is dated, it is next to impossible
to arrange his works chronologically, all the more so as the engraver
perfected his technique and found his manner very early in his career.
We find only one portrait which is really unsatisfactory, that of
_Louis XI_, copied possibly from an old miniature, and only two which
show any hardness of tone, the portraits of _Augustin_ and _Christophe
de Thou_; they are undoubtedly early works, the head of the dreaded
hermit of Plessis-les-Tours being probably Morin’s first effort. Then
we have that most Gallic of Frenchmen, _Henry IV_, a quaint head drawn
with much character; _Marie de Médicis_, after Pourbus; and _Henry
II_, after Clouet. These last two are most excellent plates, the
first showing us that intriguing Italian princess shortly after her
arrival from Florence, in all the glory of her wonderful complexion and
golden hair; the second recalling the exquisite art of Clouet in the
simplicity and delicacy of the treatment of the face and the superb
detail of the costume.[1] We are then brought face to face with the
great _Philip II_ of Spain, in one of Morin’s most serenely elegant
plates after Titian, and the portraits of the two great saints of the
time, _Saint François de Sales_ and _San Carlo Borromeo_. To the four
portraits after Van Dyck we must give special attention, for they
contain Morin’s masterpieces, the portrait of _N. Chrystin_, son of the
Spanish plenipotentiary at the Peace of Vervins, and that of _Cardinal
Bentivoglio_, the papal nuncio to the court of Louis XIII. Here we have
Morin in his grand manner, transferring all the color of the original
canvas to his copperplate and interpreting his models with a boldness,
a softness, a clearness of purpose and a strength of sympathy wholly
admirable. In awarding the palm, we hesitate between the deep tones,
the velvety finish in the head of the somber Spaniard and the subtle
modeling of the beautifully illumined, sensitive Italian face. Either
of these portraits alone would have established Morin’s fame.
[1] Why such an authority as Robert-Dumesnil should have classed the
portrait of Henry IV’s queen among the doubtful plates of Morin is a
mystery. It is clearly the work of that master, and although an early
plate, it is one of his brilliant ones.
The other two plates after Van Dyck represent women, _Margaret Lemon_,
beloved of the painter, and the _Countess of Caernarvon_, a remarkable
study in high lights, and one of Morin’s most delicate plates.
The remainder of the gallery consists of his interpretation of
Philippe de Champaigne’s portraits, and the array of celebrities there
represented is a notable one. What would we know of the features of
that eccentric monarch, the melancholic _Louis XIII_, if we did not
possess this striking etching of Morin? The father of “_le roi soleil_”
is here posing, ill at ease, and probably wondering what Richelieu is
going to make him do next. An unsatisfactory human being was he whose
“principal merit was to have done what few mediocre characters ever do,
bow down to the superiority of genius.” His queen, _Anne of Austria_,
is here shown both in the quiet garb of a widow (a delightfully simple
portrait) and in the more ceremonious court mourning, while his prime
minister, _Richelieu_, is represented in a plate than which there is
none more interesting among Morin’s works. A comparison between this
impression of the great cardinal’s character and that recorded in the
superb engraving by Nanteuil is a most interesting one. In the latter
we see the steersman of the ship of state in all his grandeur of noble
purpose and responsibility, and we feel the immense will-power with
which, in constant danger of his life, he bore long with his enemies,
and then, driven to action, “went far, very far and covered everything
with his scarlet robe.” But in Morin’s interpretation of the canvas
of de Champaigne we see quite another side of the great statesman. It
is the Richelieu whom we perceive through some memoirs of the time
(and not the least trustworthy ones), and in the literary history of
the early seventeenth century. It is a man wholly lacking in a sense
of humor, possessing plenty of vanity and constantly yearning for
recognition as a literary light and a squire of dames.
[Illustration: MORIN. NICOLAS CHRYSTIN
Son of the Plenipotentiary of King Philip IV of Spain to the Peace of
Vervins
After the painting by Anthony Van Dyck
Size of the original engraving, 11½ x 9¼ inches]
[Illustration: MORIN. ANTOINE VITRÉ
Printer to the King and the Clergy
After the painting by Philippe de Champaigne
Size of the original engraving, 12¼ x 8⅜ inches]
Quite a different portrait is that of his nephew, _Vignerod_, shown
here in three-quarter figure as the Abbé de Richelieu, a most
attractive plate, and one of the only two portraits of Morin’s in which
the model is shown otherwise than in the usual bust form. The other
one is that of _Vitré_, a famous printer of the time; it is one of the
lowest-toned engraved portraits extant, and in its velvety blackness it
is a most striking production. A fine impression of it will turn one’s
thoughts to Rembrandt and show the full extent of Morin’s originality.
The list contains many famous personages: _Mazarin_; _Michel Le
Tellier_; _Charles de Valois, duc d’Angoulême_, son of Charles IX and
the beautiful Marie Touchet; the _Maréchal d’Harcourt_, the “_Cadet à
la perle_” of the more famous portrait by Masson and the valorous head
of the armies of Louis XIII; the charming _Comtesse de Bossu_ and her
secretly married second husband the _Duc de Guise_; the _Maréchal de
Villeroy_, preceptor of Louis XIV; _Potier de Gesvres_, also a warrior;
and the _Chancellor Marillac_, whose brother was executed by Richelieu
and who himself became the cardinal’s victim, though in a less tragic
way. All these plates are an admirable interpretation of their
models, and show an absolute lack of mannerism. With their brilliant
contrasts of light and shade and the uncommon amount of texture
due to the freedom of the line-work and the rich color of the ink
employed, they have a richness of tone and a decorative effect shared
by few of the portraits made later in the century. Some of them are
engraved in a rather high key and show a simply modeled head against
a light background, as in the case of _Brachet de la Milletière_,
the savant who was first an intolerant Calvinist and then became a
militant Roman Catholic. In other portraits like that of _Maugis_, the
_maître-d’hôtel_ of the king, the artist seems to have reveled in the
deepest tones of his inky palette, and he renders the olive skin and
the raven hair of this strong-featured individual with a most striking
intensity.
Splendid likenesses of prominent ecclesiastical dignitaries are to be
found among the portraits which complete this interesting gallery,
but one there is which we must pause to contemplate, and it is the
faithfully reproduced portrait of that extraordinary human being, J.
Paul de Gondi, better known as the _Cardinal de Retz_. In a masterpiece
of draughtsmanship, Morin duplicates the art of de Champaigne in
expressing all the cleverness and daring, the ambition and the sense
of humor, of this born gambler, whose genius for intrigue was at the
bottom of the war of the Fronde. One can see him, with his yellow,
oily face, unkempt and unshaven, limping through the narrow streets of
Paris, distributing largesses among a populace which, the following
hour, he would betray to the nobles, and then again champion.
As a pendant we have the brilliantly executed head of _Omer Talon,
avocat-général du Parlement_, the greatest pillar of French
jurisprudence and a great man in his day; it is a plate which Rembrandt
would have deigned to look at more than once.
[Illustration: MORIN. JEAN-FRANÇOIS-PAUL DE GONDI
This personage is better known by his later title of Cardinal de Retz
After the painting by Philippe de Champaigne
Size of the original engraving, 11½ × 9⅛ inches]
[Illustration: MORIN. OMER TALON
Advocate-General of the Parliament of Paris
After the painting by Philippe de Champaigne
Size of the original engraving, 12¼ × 9⅛ inches]
Finally the famous Port Royal is here represented in the persons of
_Jansenius, Bishop of Ypres_, who raised such a storm in church circles
of that time; _Arnauld d’Andilly_, the head of the great family
of that name and the protector of Port Royal; and _Jean Du Verger de
Houranne, abbé de Saint-Cyran_, its confessor, a man worthy of the
first centuries of Christianity. They were famous men in their day,
and their names were on everybody’s lips; their story spells the most
serious chapter of the history of their age, and still they are all but
forgotten in comparison with the great personages of the court, and
even their painted portraits are relegated to obscurity.
In these masterly prints of Morin, however, they appear to us just as
they looked in their day, with much of their strength and weakness,
their aspirations and their secret ambitions. So much animation is
there in their faces that it is no hard matter to feel like the old
monk in the Spanish monastery who, left alone of all his brothers,
said, as he looked on the new pictures by Velasquez, “I sometimes think
_we_ are the shadows.”
ROBERT NANTEUIL
1630-1678
BY LOUIS R. METCALFE
It is a curious fact that in these days of exhaustive research
in everything which concerns the fine arts, Robert Nanteuil, the
portrait-engraver of Louis XIV, has remained until so recently both
illustrious and unknown. To be sure, his name has been mentioned in all
the histories of art, and in the text-books of engraving he is dwelt
upon at some length and given a prominent place among the engravers
of his time; but he was never found worthy of any especial study, of
the least little _brochure_. His name has been familiar only to the
connoisseurs and the print-collectors; to them it has always been
synonymous with the greatest excellence attained by the lost art of
line-engraving.
This silence was broken finally in the artist’s own birthplace. In 1884
Mr. Charles Loriquet, curator of the library of the city of Rheims,
who had just completed a collection of Nanteuil’s portraits for the
city museum, addressed the Academy at one of its public sittings and
eloquently pleaded with the authorities to erect a monument to him whom
he considered second only to the great Colbert as the most illustrious
son of Rheims. His description of the artist and his work created such
enthusiasm that he was later induced to publish it, together with some
interesting documents concerning Nanteuil. The unique little book found
its way into many libraries, private as well as public, and has ever
since been unfindable.
Many new books on engraving have appeared since that day which have
devoted as much as two or three pages to this brilliant artist without,
however, giving his work more than a superficial criticism. It was
not until Mr. T. H. Thomas published his recent work “French Portrait
Engravers of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries” that the artist
received proper recognition. Nanteuil is here frankly recognized as one
of the most admirable figures in the history of art, and proclaimed not
only prince of portrait-engravers but also a great artist among the
portrait-makers of all times. The thirty pages which are devoted to him
constitute the most brilliant and thorough criticism that has ever been
made of a line-engraver,--they are a splendid analysis of the artist’s
technique, his development, his influence on his contemporaries, and
the exalted position which he occupied among them. Without doubt many
readers of that interesting work will wonder why they never had before
heard of such an important artist.
It was only four years ago that I for one made his acquaintance. While
I was looking through a large collection of old engraved portraits, one
head in particular arrested my attention; it was drawn with such rare
precision, modeled with such _maestria_, it had such expressive eyes
and mouth, that it made all the other portraits seem flat and lifeless.
My admiration turned into wonderment when I saw by the signature
that the artist had drawn it from life as well as engraved it. I had
known the work of only those showy engravers who, in the time of Louis
XV, were content to copy the work of the leading painters of the day
and improve on it if they could. There was no _traduttore traditore_
about this expressive portrait; here was something of a very different
order. The artist was a real portrait-maker, a student of character, a
worthy comrade of Holbein, a draughtsman whose ambition it was first
to represent the subject as he really looked, then to make as fine an
engraved plate as possible.
The text-books on engraving which fell into my hands informed me of the
rank he had occupied in that famous school of engraving established
by Louis XIV and of the great number of prominent people he had drawn
from life. That was enough to whet my curiosity to the limit, for
my interest in physiognomy had become a passion, and whenever I had
found in the galleries of Europe a convincing portrait of a well-known
historical personage, my delight had been keen. Holbeins, Van Dycks,
Mierevelts and Quentin de Latours had been for years the objects of my
enthusiasm; they were living documents, revelations of personalities
such as few memoirs provided. When the catalogue of Robert-Dumesnil,
the only complete list of Nanteuil’s portraits, had informed me that
Nanteuil’s models had been in great part the men who had given so much
greatness to the reign of the most splendid of modern potentates, I
felt that the collection must constitute an historical document of
no mean interest, if the likenesses of those celebrities were as
convincing as that of the obscure _Louis Hesselin, Président de la
Chambre des Deniers_, which I now owned.
But it was not until I had pored over the contents of six huge volumes
containing his complete works, at the Cabinet des Estampes of the
Bibliothèque Nationale, that I realized what a unique achievement
had been that of the engraver from Rheims. He had made, it seems, a
multitude of drawings from life of his contemporaries, in pencil,
silverpoint, crayons, and pastels, from the King himself down to the
humblest curé of his parish, and had then engraved many of them on
copper, securing thereby so many impressions that although almost
all of his original drawings have disappeared, his work has been
perpetuated for all times. (Whoever has said that a multitude of
sheets of paper scattered among the museums of the world constituted a
monument more enduring than the pyramids, must have been a collector,
for he realized with how much jealousy a treasure can be guarded.)
Throughout all this work Nanteuil exhibited such power as a draughtsman
that his portraits won international fame for their resemblance,
and moreover he engraved with such perfection that his work and the
influence he exerted over the great school formed by Louis XIV mark the
Golden Age of Line-engraving.
It is therefore in a dual capacity that Nanteuil must be admired, and
this point has not been sufficiently emphasized by his critics. He is
an inspiring example of a man who has set out to do only one thing
(for he never attempted anything but heads)--but has learned to do it
so well that he rises far above his rivals and has made his name a
synonym for supreme excellence. To carry the engraved portrait to its
greatest possible perfection had been his ambition, and he succeeded
in this, for it is not possible to imagine the burin producing more
decided color, greater fullness of tone, and finer finish than can
be found in a great many portraits by Nanteuil. It can be said that
he used the sharp metal point with the same freedom as a great
painter uses a brush; his technique was so elastic and susceptible of
modification that he was enabled to test to the fullest extent the
possibilities of his medium and to determine its limitations.
When one is lucky enough to have the wonderful collections of the
Cabinet des Estampes at his disposal, the next thing to do after having
seen the works of Nanteuil is to examine those of his contemporaries.
It becomes perfectly clear which artists have influenced him, and to
what extent; it will also be evident at a glance that he influenced all
the rest. This study, however superficial, will take several days, for
the number of _peintre-graveurs_ encouraged by Louis XIV through the
indefatigable Colbert was great, and their work was enormous. Edelinck,
who until recently has been better known than Nanteuil, was extremely
prolific, and Pitau, the Poillys, Masson, Lombart, and Van Schuppen,
to say nothing of Mellan and Morin among many others, produced a great
many portraits. What a collection! What a complete iconography of _le
grand siècle_! Here is everybody who was at all prominent in the most
civilized country of the time. Is it possible not to develop a love of
portraiture, a strong interest in engraving and a desire to collect
engraved portraits, of all pictures the most convenient, the most
possible to acquire and keep in large numbers?
I am reminded of John Evelyn and Samuel Pepys as well as of the abbé
Michel de Marolles, who were the first great or systematic collectors
of engraved portraits, the Frenchman owning twenty thousand prints and
all the portraits extant. Evelyn wrote to Pepys advising him to collect
them, for, as he said, “some are so well done to the life that they
may stand in competition with the best paintings.” He then adds: “This
were a cheaper and so much a more useful curiosity as they seldom are
without their names, ages and eulogies of the persons whose portraits
they represent. I say you will be exceedingly pleased to contemplate
the effigies of those who have made such a noise and bustle in the
world, either by their madness and folly, or a more conspicuous figure
by their wit and learning. They will greatly refresh you in your study
and by your fireside when you are many years returned.” We later see
him write in his “Diary” that he had “sat to the great Nanteuil who
had been knighted by the king for his art” and had considered himself
“unworthy of being included in that gallery of models whom Nanteuil’s
art has made famous.” We know by his own “Diary” that Pepys became
an enthusiastic collector and that he went over to Paris to buy many
prints by the great engraver, at a later date commissioning his wife to
secure for him many more which he strongly desired.
Portrait-painting had at that time become a mania, and there was no
one of any prominence who did not wish to leave to posterity a record
of his physical appearance. Richelieu in a single order had called
for an entire gallery full of portraits of celebrities. The French
_peintre-graveurs_ proved how effectively color could be translated
into black and white, and by revealing the true relation of engraving
to painting shared the fame of their contemporaries in the other arts.
It is not possible for the lover of prints to glance at this
interminable gallery and not be amazed at the number of portraits which
show much originality in their treatment and infinite skill in their
execution, but I defy the admirer of truth in art not to be impressed
by the small number of those by other engravers which are distinguished
by both simplicity and conviction. The heads of Mellan, which were
drawn with as few lines as possible, remain absurdly unique, and the
etched portraits of Morin, who was a faithful translator of Philippe
de Champaigne, are too personal for comparison. But the mass of the
_peintre-graveurs_ give constant proofs of having been influenced by
Nanteuil’s method, and in the case of Van Schuppen there is a very
close following indeed in the master’s footsteps. He is supposed to
have been his favorite pupil.
Nevertheless, Edelinck, brilliant colorist as he was and a wonderfully
clever artist with his burin, refused to do any original work and too
frequently attempted to add vigor and brilliancy to the portraits he
copied. In modeling his faces he, in the opinion of Nanteuil himself,
broke his lines unnecessarily. The work of Masson lacks quiet and
balance, when his faces are not out of drawing, while that of the
rest of the school displays that great vitality and style which made
it a model for all the artists of the following century, without,
however, combining these qualities with the solidity, consummate
science, and restraint which characterize almost all Nanteuil’s
portraits.
[Illustration: NANTEUIL. LOUIS XIV
Engraved in 1666 from Nanteuil’s own drawing from life
Louis XIV was twenty-eight years of age when this portrait was engraved
“In appearance Louis, though admirably proportioned, was slightly below
the middle height. His eyes were blue, his nose long and well formed.
His hair, which was remarkable for its abundance, was allowed to fall
over his shoulders. With his handsome features and his serious--perhaps
phlegmatic--expression he seemed admirably fitted to play the part of a
monarch.” Arthur Hassall. _Louis XIV._
Size of the original engraving, 19¾ × 16¾ inches]
[Illustration: NANTEUIL. ANNE OF AUSTRIA, QUEEN OF FRANCE
Engraved in 1666 from Nanteuil’s own design from life
Anne of Austria was the daughter of Philip III of Spain, wife of Louis
XIII of France and mother of Louis XIV. She was Regent from 1643 to
1661.
Size of the original engraving, 19¾ × 16¾ inches]
Nothing more admirable has been done in the realm of engraving than
these quiet prints in which there is no affectation, no parade of
technical brilliance, and it is a question whether anything more
sincere has been accomplished in the history of portraiture. The
portraits of Nanteuil take their place with perfect dignity alongside
of the subtle crayon portraits of the courtiers of Henry VIII at
Windsor Castle, and the exquisite drawings of the courtiers of
Francis I and Henry II, which alone would make Chantilly worthy of a
pilgrimage. Nanteuil’s drawing is perfect and his massing of tones
masterly; his expression of texture has both realism and breadth, and
his indication of skin by means of a system of very close and delicate
short strokes is an admirable solution of a problem which had been the
despair of the entire school.
The most superficial study of his modeling of that side of the face
which is in full light, for instance, will reveal the supreme delicacy,
the never-failing tact, with which he carries out this most difficult
part of the work. His burin is as light as a feather, there is not a
line too many, and he knows the exact value of each and every tone. It
is interesting to note that, according to one of his pupils, he had
made a careful study of the chiaroscuro of Leonardo, a master for whom
he had an especial admiration.
The great simplicity of his composition allowed him to concentrate all
the resources of his art on the expression of character in the head.
With an understanding of character which was the most sympathetic of
his day, he strove to represent his model with all the outward calm
of nature which was possible in an age when form reigned supreme and
every one was _en parade_. To secure this touch of life Nanteuil, at
the last sitting, would do everything in his power to bring out in his
sitter’s face that look of amused attention which is so characteristic
of his portraits, with the result that, as a brilliant critic has
recently remarked, “instead of one vivid impression his portrait is the
sum of many impressions, a balanced conclusion rather than a single
piece of evidence.” It is this which makes his work so interesting
as a historical document. Here we see in the truest light the divine
monarch, the arrogant noble, the worldly prelate, the serious
man-of-letters, and the humble commoner who fill all the French memoirs
of the seventeenth century.
It is indeed high time that the artist who has been called “the Louis
XIV of engraving” came into his own again, or that he at least be
accorded some of the immense popularity which he enjoyed during the
palmy days of the _grand siècle_. For two centuries he has lain in an
obscurity which it is not easy to understand, in spite of the fact that
his style of portraiture went out of fashion long before the great
monarch died. It remained extremely unpopular throughout the eighteenth
century, for what could those austere bust portraits against a plain
dark background, in the simplest of settings, have in common with
the decorative compositions of the days of Louis XV, in which velvet
and embroideries, ermine and rich lace, inlaid armor, canopies and
complicated furniture, played such an important part? In comparison
with these decorative panels they seem cold and uninteresting, but on
the other hand they alone represent real portraiture; they reflect the
earnestness of Port-Royal.
[Illustration: NANTEUIL. JULES, CARDINAL MAZARIN
Engraved in 1656 from Nanteuil’s own drawing from life
This is one of the most interesting of the many portraits of the great
minister engraved by Nanteuil.
Size of the original engraving, 13½ × 10½ inches]
[Illustration: NANTEUIL. BERNARD DE FOIX DE LA VALETTE, DUC D’EPERNON
Engraved in 1650 from Nanteuil’s own drawing from life
“This man was the son of the Duc d’Epernon, who was seated in the
carriage with Henry IV at the time when the king was assassinated.
The Duc was suspected of complicity in the plot, but this never was
proved. Both the elder and the younger Espernon were extremely haughty
and arrogant men. Their possessions in Guienne were of an almost royal
character and they governed them practically independent of the royal
authority. Both were associated with the reactionary party.”
J. B. Perkins, _France under Richelieu and Mazarin_.
Size of the original engraving, 12⅝ × 10 inches]
There cannot have been a time when they were not admired by those who
possessed true artistic perception, but there is no indication that any
special value was attached to them or that they were collected. Suffice
it to say that at the Mariette sale, in 1775, the complete works of
Nanteuil, two hundred and eighty proofs of two hundred and sixteen
plates in choice impressions, realized only a trifle over one hundred
dollars. More than five times that sum has recently been paid for one
single print. In 1825, at a famous auction, record prices of twelve
dollars and nine dollars were paid respectively for the portraits of
_Pompone de Bellièvre_ and _Richelieu_. Half a century later their
value was not much greater, and general interest in them remained
dormant until four years ago when the collecting world suddenly
realized their artistic worth, and made a raid on the leading markets
of Europe.
It is said that Nanteuil kept a journal; if so, we must greatly
deplore the fact that it has not been preserved to us, for we would
have been treated to a delightful account of the habits of painters
in that time and to many anecdotes connected with their sittings. Who
shall ever know the number of Nanteuil’s sitters? His studio was found
full of pastel portraits many of which had never been engraved, and
his pencil and pen sketches seem to have been innumerable. In spite
of his reputation of _bon vivant_ and his popularity with both the
_bourgeoisie_ and the nobility, allusions to Nanteuil in the memoirs
of the day are fragmentary and we know little about the man. We are
told, however, that he was born in Rheims about 1630 and that he drew
so persistently during his school years that his studies were sadly
neglected. It was only through the excellence of the frontispiece which
he engraved for his thesis that he succeeded in securing his degree.
The conscientious engraver Regnesson taught him all he knew, gave him
his sister in marriage, and sent him to Paris, not to complete his
apprenticeship, for Nanteuil was already more famous than his master,
but in order to place him under the influence of the court painters.
In the great city his wit and conviviality won him many friends and
his talent for securing an excellent likeness secured him instant
fame. It is said that he received his first order by following some
divinity students to a wine-shop where they were wont to take their
meals. There, having chosen one of the portraits he had brought from
Rheims, he pretended to look for a sitter whose name and address he
had forgotten. It is superfluous to add that the picture was not
recognized, but it was passed from hand to hand, the price was asked,
the artist was modest in his demands, and before the end of the repast
his career had begun. He made so many portraits in a week that he
was advised by a famous connoisseur to limit his production to four.
At night he copied them in pen-and-ink for the sake of familiarizing
himself with that burin work which later was to astonish Europe.
During many months he catered to the growing demand for the portrait,
with drawings in the style of those of the Clouets and the
Dumonstiers. One has but to realize in what favor all portrait-makers
were in those days in order to understand how this peculiarly gifted
artist sprang into such sudden popularity. The dignity of French
portrait-painting was being upheld by the noble Philippe de Champaigne,
under whose influence the painters of the time produced a great number
of portraits which, if not technically brilliant, were presented with
that serious dignity which was characteristic of the early seventeenth
century and were drawn with admirable sincerity and correctness. To him
Nanteuil went for advice and encouragement, and soon after presented
the engraved copy of the painter’s latest portrait; it met with so much
success that it can be said to have started the tremendous vogue of the
engraved portrait and the formation of the great school which Colbert
installed at the Gobelins.
Meanwhile the artist, already a perfect draughtsman and very proficient
with pastels, had carefully studied the technique of all the leading
engravers, and as soon as he had evolved a system of his own bent all
his efforts on revolutionizing the art. Nanteuil made a picturesque
début during that incredible opera-bouffe, the War of the Fronde. He
was draughted into military service, but although frequently active
with a blunderbuss and wearing a false beard in imitation of the
dreaded Swiss mercenaries, he succeeded in making a portrait of all the
heroes of the day. For him sat _Condé_ and the _Duc d’Epernon_, the
last representative of feudalism in France; the _Ducs de Bouillon_,
_de Mercœur_, _de Nemours_, and _de Beaufort_, who met in taverns to
appoint the generals of an army which did not exist; the Archbishop
of Paris, _de Retz_, who appeared in Parliament armed like a pirate;
that fat poet and peasant _Loret_, who sold on street corners his
“Muse Historique,” a daily satire on the intriguing nobles “who were
not afraid of bullets but who were in deadly fear of winter mud,”
and lastly the indomitable prime minister, _Cardinal Mazarin_, whom
the populace twice drove from Paris and then so madly welcomed back
that many were trampled to death in the riot. Of that wily Italian he
engraved as many as fourteen portraits.
During the few years which followed the civil war he made his most
interesting portraits.
It was then that he assiduously frequented the literary salons of the
capital where, a poetaster of some renown, he was ever welcome and made
that beautiful pastel portrait of _Madame de Sévigné_ which has been
preserved to us, and another of _Mlle. de Scudéry_, who thanked him as
follows:
Nanteuil en faisant mon image
A de son art divin signalé le pouvoir,
Je hais mes traits dans mon miroir,
Je les aime dans son ouvrage.
At this time he engraved the set of small-size portraits which
represents the high-water mark of his talent. Can one possibly imagine
anything more exquisitely choice than his heads of _Maridat_ the
philosopher and _Hugues de Lionne_ the secretary for foreign affairs?
With equal excellence he made the portraits of _Chapelain_, one of the
founders of the French Academy, who reported himself to the King as
a greater poet than Corneille, _Scudéry_, who signed the popular
novels written by his sister, the witty _Marquis de St. Brisson_,
the poets _Loret_ and _Sarrazin_, the genial _Abbé de Marolles_,
savant and print-collector, the learned octogenarian _Le Vayer_, and
the ex-preceptor of the King, the archbishop of Paris, _Péréfixe de
Beaumont_.
[Illustration: NANTEUIL. JEAN LORET
Engraved in 1668 from Nanteuil’s own drawing from life
Loret is chiefly remembered for his _Gazette_, written in _vers
libres_, which he began to issue in 1650, and continued until his death
in 1666.
Size of the original engraving, 10⅛ × 7⅛ inches]
[Illustration: NANTEUIL. FRANÇOIS DE LA MOTHE LE VAYER
Engraved in 1661 from Nanteuil’s own drawing from life
Few were Le Vayer’s equal either in wit or learning. His writings were
exceedingly numerous. Regarded as the Plutarch of his century for his
boundless erudition and his mode of reasoning. He died at the age of
eighty-six, in 1672, having enjoyed good health to the last days of his
life.
Size of the original engraving, 10¾ × 7½ inches]
These portraits owe their size to the fact that they had been used
as frontispieces for the works of those various personages, but the
special care, the _con amore_ finish with which they are executed,
is due to the fact that the subjects were warm personal friends
of the artist. The portrait of _John Evelyn_ was made in the same
way, although before the artist’s technique had reached its fullest
development.
Before the year 1660 Nanteuil made, besides many portraits including
those mentioned above and several of Mazarin, four very remarkable
ones of a larger size. They are those of _Cardinal de Coislin_, the
young _Duc de Bouillon_, _Marie de Bragelogne_, and the abbé _Basile
Fouquet_. The prelate was a Jesuit who became chaplain of Versailles;
the youth, as lord chamberlain of France, had the honor of handing
the King his nightshirt, an honor which he forfeited forever when on
two successive nights he forgot his gloves. The woman was an old love
of Richelieu; the delicate modeling of her careworn face is worthy
of Holbein’s best manner and is executed with a tact that baffles
description. This plate reminds us of the fact that out of two hundred
and sixteen portraits Nanteuil made only eight of women; of these
only two were made from life,--that of _Anne of Austria_ and the one
mentioned above, but they are gems of purest ray serene which make
us sigh when we think of what he could have done with Henrietta of
England and Mesdames de Lavallière, de Montespan, and de Maintenon!
As to the fourth portrait, it is that of the brother of the great
_Surintendant des Finances_, Nicolas Fouquet; he was at that time the
head spy of Mazarin as well as the chancellor of the orders of the King
and the most accomplished rascal who ever fished in troubled waters.
These four engraved portraits are masterpieces of characterization, and
exhibit in the most eloquent way the master’s powerful draughtsmanship,
his utter lack of mannerisms, and the sympathetic way in which he
varied his entire technical treatment to suit different subjects.
Here is abundant proof that he was primarily a portrait-maker, that,
in spite of the fact that he handled the burin with as much ease and
sureness as his pencil and chalks, he never strove after effect and
never allowed his skill to carry him away and mar the unity of his
perfectly balanced composition. He is a psychologist who consistently
strove to brand his model’s soul on his countenance. Of no other
_peintre-graveur_ can we say as much.
With the year 1660 came the royal marriage, and a twelvemonth later
the death of the despotic Mazarin and the emancipation of the young
King. Nanteuil’s fame by this time was thoroughly established, he was
everywhere recognized as a past-master of his art and was in a position
to refuse as many orders as he pleased. The leading men in the church,
the parliament, and the _bourgeoisie_, which always followed the lead
of the nobility, did not rest until they had the artist from Rheims
engrave their portraits and strike off many hundred impressions, which
were quickly enough distributed among their families and friends.
Among them were the Maître d’Hôtel and the physician of the King,
_Guenault_, the quack who looked after the health of the Queen,
and _Dreux d’Aubray_, who became the first victim of his daughter,
the famous murderess, the Marquise de Brinvilliers. The two great
protectors of Nanteuil at this time were _Michel Le Tellier_ and
_Nicolas Fouquet_. Of the former, who was then war minister and who as
chancellor of France died the day after signing the fatal Revocation
of the Edict of Nantes, we have ten convincing portraits, as well
as five of his son _Charles Maurice_ who became the worldliest of
archbishops, and one of his eldest son who became the dreaded war
minister _Louvois_. These sixteen portraits of the Le Tellier family
represent some of Nanteuil’s best work. The portrait of _Fouquet_ is a
great historical document, a piece of most subtle characterization done
in the artist’s best manner, and it is interesting to note that it was
made only a very short time before the sensational fall of that then
most powerful man in the kingdom. Could we but know what thoughts ran
through the head of the Lord of Vaux as he sat for his portrait with a
quizzical smile! Nanteuil, by the way, has left us the record of the
appearance of practically all the principal figures of that sensational
trial which lasted three years and the outcome of which alone assured
the complete independence of the King.
Nanteuil had now patrons influential enough to insure him a gracious
welcome at court. His greatest ambition had been to paint the young
King and he felt able to improve greatly on the efforts of both
Mignard and Lebrun. With this end in view he addressed to the King a
petition for a sitting in such eloquent verse that the request was
readily granted. The first pastel portrait of the King seems to have
made a small sensation at court; “Come and look at your husband in this
portrait, madame,” said Anne of Austria to the young Queen; “he fairly
speaks.” Still greater, however, was the King’s delight when he saw the
engraved copy of the portrait which Nanteuil later presented to him.
He rewarded with a gift of 4000 livres the artist whom he had already
named court painter and engraver with a lodging at the Gobelins, and at
whose bidding he had raised the status of engraving to a fine art.
There are in all eleven of these portraits of Louis XIV and they
give us an excellent idea of the haughty appearance, the conceited
expression of the demigod during the happiest period of his life. What
care we for the old monarch who later was caricatured by the pomp
of Rigaud’s painting and the satire of Thackeray? This is the young
Alexander who has just seized the reins of government and set up the
most brilliant court in history. In the earliest one he is twenty-six
years old, madly in love with Mlle. de La Vallière, and building
Versailles with feverish haste; at the last sitting he is thirty-eight
and hopelessly under the sway of Madame de Montespan. Here he bears our
gaze with a contemptuous air, the man who, “if he was not the greatest
of kings, was the greatest actor of majesty who ever filled a throne.”
These portraits were considered extraordinary in point of resemblance.
The great Bernini himself, who had come from Italy to make a bust of
the King, warmly congratulated the engraver on “the best portrait
ever made of his Majesty,” and this before the leading personages of
the court.
[Illustration: NANTEUIL. NICOLAS FOUQUET
Engraved in 1661 from Nanteuil’s own design from life
“Of the three ministers to whom Louis had openly given his confidence,
Lionne, Le Tellier, and Fouquet, the last named was the only one who
possessed the qualities necessary for a prime minister.
“‘It was generally believed,’ says Madame de La Fayette, ‘that the
Superintendent would be called upon to take the Government into his
hands.’ There is no doubt whatever that Fouquet himself expected
eventually to succeed Mazarin.” Arthur Hassall, _Louis XIV_.
Size of the original engraving, 13 × 10 inches]
[Illustration: NANTEUIL. BASILE FOUQUET
Engraved in 1658 from Nanteuil’s own drawing from life
Basile Fouquet, Abbé de Barbeaux and Rigny, Chancelier des Ordres du
Roi, was the brother of Nicolas Fouquet, the famous Superintendent of
Finance.
Size of the original engraving, 12¾ × 9¾ inches]
An unusual feature of these royal portraits is that seven of them are
life-size, a feat which had not been previously attempted.
It had become the fashion to hang these portraits in rich frames at the
top of the high wainscots used in those days, and the very large size
adopted by Nanteuil made of them decorative panels which held their
own even in a roomful of paintings. Many of the nobles must have owned
complete sets. They met with such favor that during the last four years
of his life the artist engraved entirely in that size, about twenty-two
inches by thirty, and had started a gallery of all the great men of
France; he had actually produced as many as thirty-six before he died
in 1678. The list includes the portraits of the Queen Mother _Anne of
Austria_, decked out in all her finery a few weeks before she died,
that of the young _Dauphin_, the effeminate brother of the King the
_Duc d’Orléans_, _Colbert_, _Turenne_, _Louvois_, _Bossuet_, the _Duc
de Chaulnes_, and several other celebrities. They are admirable plates
in which he secured broad masses and simple effects by means of the
same system he used in his small portraits. In spite of the very large
surface and what seems like a million lines there is no confusion, not
a flaw in the unity of his composition. They had formed the special
admiration of the last Medici Duke of Tuscany when, on a visit to
France, he had insisted on meeting Nanteuil. From him he purchased for
the Uffizi Gallery in Florence the portrait of the painter himself
and those of the King and Turenne. He moreover obliged him to accept
a pupil _dans l’intimité_, a thing which Nanteuil had never done
for he always locked himself up when he engraved his plates. It was
that Domenico Tempesti who has left us such an interesting record of
the habits of the engraver and the ideas he held on the subject of
portraiture. It is from him that we know that the master made all those
delightful pastel portraits in three sittings of exactly two hours
each. Would that we knew how long it took him to engrave them! we can
only form a vague idea of this from the fact that in his most prolific
year he made fifteen engraved portraits. Robert-Dumesnil limits to
ten the portraits engraved entirely by Nanteuil; the selection he
makes is judicious, but the number was certainly far greater. Of
course the purely mechanical draughting of the frame and the filling
of the background was the work of assistants, and it is more than
probable that in many of the less important plates and in the life-size
portraits, on account of the great surface to be covered, the costume
was engraved by such pupils as Pitau and Van Schuppen, for instance,
as their cleverness for such work almost equaled their master’s. But
in all the small portraits and those of _Turenne_ and the _Ducs de
Bouillon_, for instance, we recognize everywhere the vigorous yet
tactful touch of Nanteuil himself.
[Illustration: NANTEUIL. JEAN CHAPELAIN
Engraved in 1655 from Nanteuil’s own drawing from life
Jean Chapelain, born at Paris, December 4, 1595, died February 22,
1674. His mediocre poem “La Pucelle” brought him much more renown than
the “Iliad” brought to Homer. It was Chapelain who corrected the first
poems of Racine.
Size of the original engraving, 10⅝ × 7½ inches]
[Illustration: NANTEUIL. POMPONE DE BELLIÈVRE
Engraved in 1657 (when Nanteuil was twenty-seven years of age) after
the painting by Charles Lebrun. By many authorities it has been
described as the most beautiful of all engraved portraits.
Size of the original engraving, 12¾ × 9¾ inches]
Reproductive work was for Nanteuil an exception. The plates which he
engraved from the paintings of other artists number thirty-eight;
to each of them he affixed the name of the painter with a fairness
which Edelinck, for one, seldom exhibited. It is natural that these
plates should show little of that inspiration and originality which
were distinctive of a born character student like the artist
from Rheims, but the majority are supremely interesting and the
finest are masterpieces. It is evident that in the earliest ones,
notably in the head of _Chavigny_, reputed a son of Richelieu, he was
experimenting with technique and that several others which were used
as frontispieces were merely potboilers. Even the portrait of Queen
_Christina of Sweden_ and the much overrated one of the Dutch lawyer
_van Steenberghen_ are nothing more than interesting studies of simple
linework and softness of tone. In those of the two little sons of the
Duchesse de Longueville, the _Comte de Dunois_ and the _Comte de Saint
Paul_, we see how easy it was for Nanteuil’s technique to express the
soft outline and the tender complexion of youth with a charming effect.
After Lebrun he engraved with an admirable chiaroscuro the head of
the Chancellor _Seguier_, and that well-known portrait of _Pompone de
Bellièvre_, statesman and philanthropist, which, if lacking in vigor,
represents the highest point reached by the intelligent refinement of
linework. But it is only with the sober and precise work of his master
Philippe de Champaigne that Nanteuil had a positive affinity. The two
artists held identical views about portraiture and the Flemish painter
found in the engraver from Rheims an interpreter who fairly breathed in
unison with him. It is not possible to imagine anything more admirable
than the engraved portraits of _de Neufville_, bishop of Chartres,
_Richelieu_, and Marshal _Turenne_. They undoubtedly represent the last
word on the subject of line-engraving. The face of the Cardinal is
treated with all the subtlety of Velasquez and the head of the greatest
captain of his time is modeled with a strength of coloring which
Rembrandt himself would have admired. This plate shows in the clearest
way Nanteuil’s ability to represent different textures: the hair, skin,
lace, silk, and steel armor are treated with precision which is wholly
satisfying and a breadth which commands the highest admiration.
From the inventory made in his house the day after his death we learn
that Nanteuil had for years been dissipating in extravagant living
the large sums he had earned with his work. His household goods, his
drawings, and the tools of his profession were sold under the hammer,
and it is amusing at the present day to realize that a lot consisting
of 2966 of his prints, together with many reams of paper and his
printing-press, were valued at only seven hundred dollars.
It is also explained why most of his portraits went through so many
different states; it was chiefly on account of the “theses.” A curious
fashion it was by which wealthy students in law, philosophy, and the
arts formally dedicated their graduating theses to one or another
distinguished personage whose engraved portrait they ordered from a
_peintre-graveur_. This, with a lengthy dedication, was then attached
to the printed thesis as a frontispiece and sent to the patron and
to many of his friends. It is thus that the Chancellor d’Aligre
commissioned Nanteuil, who had the monopoly of such work, to engrave
and strike off twenty-five hundred proofs of a new and extra-large
portrait of the King measuring thirty inches by forty-two for his son’s
thesis; for this and the printing of the thesis itself the engraver
received the sum of 10,400 livres, or about $9000 of our money. The
price of an ordinary engraved portrait was $2000. Other less
wealthy postulants had to be content with ordering a reimpression of
a plate which had already been used and which needed only a change of
dedication. In this way the portrait of the Dauphin for instance went
through fifteen states and one of the King went through eleven; the
plates were naturally often retouched by the artist in order to enable
them to withstand so much use. Not to these theses alone, however, must
the great number of royal portraits which were printed be attributed,
for they had become immensely popular throughout the kingdom and
whoever could afford it had one hanging in his house. In 1667 Cardinal
de Bouillon ordered the portrait of the King for his thesis, and some
years later another student selected for his patron the Cardinal
himself. In 1675 it was the son of d’Artagnan, dear to all lovers of
romance, who was presented by his father with the finest of the King’s
portraits for his thesis.
[Illustration: NANTEUIL. HENRI DE LA TOUR D’AUVERGNE, VICOMTE DE
TURENNE, MARÉCHAL DE FRANCE
Engraved from the painting by Philippe de Champaigne
“It is not possible to imagine anything more admirable than the
engraved portraits of _de Neufville_, bishop of Chartres, _Richelieu_,
and Marshal _Turenne_. They undoubtedly represent the last word on the
subject of line-engraving.... The head of the greatest captain of his
time is modeled with a strength of coloring which Rembrandt himself
would have admired.” Louis R. Metcalfe.
Size of the original engraving, 15⅛ × 11⅜ inches]
[Illustration: NANTEUIL. JEAN-BAPTISTE COLBERT
Engraved in 1668 from Nanteuil’s own drawing from life
To Colbert Louis XIV was indebted for much, if not all, of the success
of his enterprises during the twenty-five years succeeding the death of
Cardinal Mazarin.
Size of the original engraving, 19¾ × 16¾ inches]
Of course this custom does not account for all the changes of state.
When an archbishop became a cardinal for instance, the engraver made
the necessary modification in the costume on the copper and provided
his patron with a new set of impressions; similarly for a change in
a title. In the case of Fouquet, the second of five states of his
portrait was made necessary by a mistake in spelling in the dedication,
the others being undoubtedly due to the touching-up of the plate on
account of the great number of impressions ordered by a powerful man
the circle of whose friends constituted the real court of that time. In
the case of Cardinal Mazarin, politics undoubtedly played a great part
in the use which was made of his portraits.
It is not generally known that Nanteuil was himself the author of most
of the titles and dedications both in prose and in verse, in Latin as
well as in French, which form such an attractive feature of his prints.
This was to be expected of the clever versifier who had written such
amusing sonnets to the royal family and the leaders of the court in
connection with their sittings, and of the cheerful companion who had
known so intimately the _beaux-esprits_ whom the hospitality of Fouquet
had so often convened at his château of Vaux. To the Queen, who had a
complexion of marvelous whiteness, he wrote a poem thanking her for
the order for her portrait, which ended with this line: “_Mais prenons
courage, on a peint le soleil même avec un charbon!_”
Nanteuil’s original drawings in pencil, crayons, and pastels are fewer
by far than those of the Clouets or the pastellists of the eighteenth
century which have been preserved to us; probably not more than twenty
are now to be found in public collections. To my knowledge the Louvre
has two, the Museum of Rheims four, the Chartres Museum one, Florence
three, Chantilly four, and Stafford House, London, six. They are
supremely interesting for that simplicity and sincerity, that living
truth, which make one feel as if he recognized old acquaintances. As
for his engravings, there are splendid collections of them in Paris,
Dresden, and Chantilly, and there doesn’t exist a private collection of
any importance in the world which does not contain some of the noble
work of the past-master of engraved portraiture, the painter of the
most brilliant period in modern history, the genial artist who had
said to his pupil: “_Le temps et la peine ne font pas tant les beaux
ouvrages que la bonne humeur et l’intelligence._”
REMBRANDT’S LANDSCAPE ETCHINGS
BY LAURENCE BINYON
Assistant-Keeper of Prints and Drawings in the British Museum Author of
“Dutch Etchers,” “Painting in the Far East,” etc.
The pioneers of landscape art, those who have opened up new
possibilities of design in landscape themes, were, at least until the
nineteenth century, certain great masters of figure-painting. Titian,
Rubens, Velasquez, Rembrandt, each of these gave a fresh impulse to the
painting of landscape, an impulse which even to-day has not lost its
inspiration; while the conventions established by Claude, Ruysdael and
Salvator Rosa seem by comparison tame and more or less artificial or
demoded.
Of these masters Rembrandt is the nearest to modern feeling. The
famous _Mill_, in which a landscape motive is treated with a richness
and depth of humanity that hitherto had found expression only in
figure-subjects, stands in this respect as a monument in European art.
Yet landscapes form a very small proportion of Rembrandt’s paintings.
Rembrandt as a painter rarely seems to treat landscape for its own
sake. He composes for the most part arbitrarily, using broad spaces of
level and hill-masses with ruined towers as the material elements of
a scene for which some visionary play of gleam and cloud seems the
real motive in his mind, the counterpart of the emotions he sought to
communicate and evoke.
We are now concerned with Rembrandt as an etcher. Here again the
proportion of landscape to figure-subjects is small. There are seven
and twenty out of a total of some three hundred etchings.
We note at once that the etched landscapes present a different aspect
from the painted landscapes.
In his paintings Rembrandt shows none of the characteristics of the
national landscape school of Holland, of those artists who relied
on the features of their native land,--its wide pastures, its
canals, its seaports, its sand-dunes, its farms, its great skies
and immense horizons,--and made of the plain portraiture of these
familiar scenes their pride and glory. Rather he took hints from his
traveled countrymen and the painters who had sought the classic South.
Landscape, whether treated simply or as an adjunct to some scene from
Scriptural story, was to him a source of romantic appeal. And just
as Italian masters, like Botticelli, have sometimes introduced as
background foreign scenes from the Rhineland suggested by the work
of Northern painters, so Rembrandt, to whom mountains had all the
fascination of strangeness and romance, took from actual drawings of
Titian’s school which he may have possessed or seen, or from pictures
by traveled Dutchmen like Hercules Seghers, the features he desired,
fusing them into a world of his own imagination.
The etchings, on the contrary, are for the most part pure Holland. Yet
their inspiration is very different from that of the typical Dutch
painter or etcher. They are not mere portraits of places. Even when
apparently simple transcripts from the scene before the artist’s eyes,
the composing spirit is at work in them, rearranging and suppressing.
And perhaps just because of this absence of the literal topographical
spirit, they seem to contain the essential genius and atmosphere of
Dutch landscape.
Practically all Rembrandt’s landscape work belongs to the middle period
of his life. Some writers have sought to account for this by supposing
that he turned to such subjects in some rural retreat to soothe his
overwhelming grief at the loss of his wife. The actual dates hardly
support this supposition. Saskia died in the summer of 1642. But the
landscapes begin a few years before that date. The first ten years of
the master’s life at Amsterdam--the years of his prosperity--were, we
know, crowded with portrait commissions; and landscape work would only
have been a relaxation. It was hardly more than this at any time, but
for some reason it interested him more during the ten or twelve years
after 1640 than in his youth or old age.
The earliest date on a landscape etching is 1641; the latest, 1652. The
undated plates can be placed with tolerable certainty within a year or
so.
In 1634 Rembrandt had etched the large _Annunciation to the Shepherds_,
in which the landscape is of the same visionary kind as appears in the
paintings. The general effect is of white on black, the supernatural
effulgence in the sky, which so startles the shepherds and their
flocks, calling out of the gloom mysterious waving heights of foliage
and obscure gleams of distance.
[Illustration: REMBRANDT. THE WINDMILL
“In the _Windmill_ Rembrandt found a perfect subject. There is no
adventitious impressiveness lent by strong effect of light and shadow
in this beautiful plate: all is plain and simply rendered.... We feel
the stains of weather, the touch of time, on the structure; we feel the
air about it and the quiet light that rests on the far horizon as the
eye travels over dike and meadow....” Laurence Binyon.
Size of the original etching, 5¹¹⁄₁₆ × 8³⁄₁₆ inches]
[Illustration: REMBRANDT. VIEW OF AMSTERDAM
“In the little _Amsterdam_, as in nearly all these etchings, the sky
is left absolutely clear and empty. And how far more truly it suggests
to us the brightness of a cloudless day than the most successful of
plein-air painting in vivid color, which stops the imagination instead
of leaving it free and active! This little plate is filled with air and
sun.” Laurence Binyon.
Size of the original etching, 4⅜ × 6 inches]
In none of the etchings of pure landscape does Rembrandt adopt this
method and conception. None of them has that effect of illuminated
gloom which is so peculiarly associated with the master’s name. Their
effect is of black on white, and the line is given its full value. One
of the earliest, probably, is a small plate (B. 207), sometimes called
_A Large Tree and a House_. I believe some critics have cast a doubt on
it, but it is unmistakably Rembrandt’s in conception and “handwriting.”
The little piece might well be called _Twilight_. We seem to be near
the shores of a lake; light is fading out of the sky and scarcely
permits us to discern any details; the presence of a few figures and a
human dwelling is felt rather than seen. All is gray and quiet; nothing
stands out saliently. It is the silvery evenness of tone which is the
charm of this tiny plate, in no way striking, yet indefinably revealing
a master’s hand. Usually Rembrandt would make such quiet etched work,
all of one biting, the basis of a rich effect produced by dry-point. He
may have intended to have used the dry-point here, but perhaps thought
the scale was too small.
With the _Windmill_ and the _Cottage and Hay-barn_, both dated 1641, we
come to a group of plates which are typical of Rembrandt’s landscape
manner in etching. Close to these in date, presumably, are the little
_Amsterdam_ and the _Cottage and Large Tree_. Mr. Hind, in the latest
catalogue of the etchings, follows von Seidlitz in assigning the
_Amsterdam_ to 1640, though Dr. Six maintains that the absence of a
tower not finished till 1638 proves it to be earlier than that year.
Rembrandt, however, was quite capable of abolishing towers to suit his
composition. The simplest materials presented by the country-side are
used in these etchings. Though Rembrandt never seems to have cared to
make pictures of such subjects, he made a great number of drawings of
them. A wonderful series of these sketches, once in the possession of
his pupil, Govert Flinck, is at Chatsworth; and numbers of course in
the great public collections. These summary small drawings, made with
a reed-pen and sepia, and sometimes with a wash of sepia added, do not
appeal to every one, certainly not to those whose pleasure is in the
external aspect of things, the softness of verdure, the glitter of
trees; to say nothing of the want of grandeur and impressiveness in the
scenes themselves, the absence of anything scenic, such as makes the
most obvious appeal, whether in nature or art.
But the more one studies drawings, and the more one becomes familiar
with the qualities which differentiate the first-rate from the second,
the higher one inclines to rank these sketches. For one thing, they
are almost miraculous in the certainty with which the reality of
things is evoked, and the planes of recession indicated. Slight as
is the means employed, rough and summary as is the stroke of the
blunt pen, sometimes even with what seems a superficial clumsiness or
carelessness, the things seen are there,--trees, buildings, bridges
and canals, men and women,--and not only visible but, as it were,
tangible. We can walk in imagination into these little landscapes, and
not only do we breathe an infinite air but we are sure of every step.
And this is the great test of mastery in such drawings. Take, for
instance, the landscape drawings of Domenico Campagnola, which are also
in reed-pen and sepia. These, with their broken foregrounds, upland
farms among trees of delicate foliage, and distant mountain-ranges,
are much more attractive to the eye at first sight than the great
Dutchman’s sketches. But when in imagination we move into these
pleasant landscapes, we are disconcerted by unrealities; our steps are
uncertain, for they are not on solid ground. And in fact a pleasant
pattern of pen-strokes remains a pattern and nothing else. But
Rembrandt’s rough strokes have somehow molded all the ground with its
saliences and depressions and filled the whole with light and air.
It is the same with the etchings. But there is a difference: the
difference of the medium. True artist as he is, Rembrandt conceives all
he does in the terms of the material used. His etchings are born as
etchings and nothing else; they are not drawings transferred to copper.
There is a specific beauty of the etched line which is quite different
from the beauty of a line made by the pen or chalk, or the line
ploughed by a burin on copper. If it is unsuited to the sweeping
rhythms of large movement in design, such as we associate with Rubens,
for instance, its want of modulation and even character help a quiet
dignity of draughtsmanship; and the etcher has means of enhancing
homeliness of detail unrivaled in any other medium. Old buildings,
wharves, boats and shipping at a river-side or quay,--such things as
these naturally attract the etcher, for they are congenial to his
medium. And in the _Windmill_ (B. 233, dated 1641), Rembrandt found a
perfect subject.
There is no adventitious impressiveness lent by strong effect of light
and shadow in this beautiful plate: all is plain and simply rendered.
But we have only to compare this etching with the etchings of some of
Rembrandt’s immediate predecessors, like Jan and Esaias Van de Velde,
to see the difference not only between a great and an average artist,
but between a great and a commonplace etcher. The picturesque tracery
of a windmill’s sails and timber-work are seen and enjoyed in the
Van de Veldes’ plates, but how much more than this is in Rembrandt’s
_Mill_! We feel the stains of weather, the touch of time, on the
structure; we feel the air about it and the quiet light that rests
on the far horizon as the eye travels over dike and meadow; we are
admitted to the subtlety and sensitiveness of a sight transcending our
own; and even by some intangible means beyond analysis we partake of
something of Rembrandt’s actual mind and feeling, his sense of what the
old mill meant, not merely as a picturesque object to be drawn, but
as a human element in the landscape, implying the daily work of human
hands and the association of man and earth. Here is a classic in its
kind which many generations of etchers have found an inspiring model.
An accident in the biting apparently is the cause of an aquatint-like
broken tone of gray in the sky above the mill; but it comes with
congruous effect, and is rather a beauty than a blemish.
In the little _Amsterdam_, as in nearly all these etchings, the sky is
left absolutely clear and empty. And how far more truly it suggests
to us the brightness of a cloudless day than the most successful of
plein-air painting in vivid color, which stops the imagination instead
of leaving it free and active! This little plate is filled with air and
sun.
A first state of this etching belongs to my friend Mr. Gustav Mayer in
London, but is absolutely unknown to all catalogues previous to that
of Mr. Hind. In it there is a hare running over the fields, but it is
a thought too big in scale, and Rembrandt doubtless suppressed it as a
distracting incident.
The _Cottage and Hay-barn_ (B. 225) and the _Cottage and Large Tree_
(B. 226) seem companion plates; and though the latter is not dated,
it is natural to assume for it the same date as that inscribed on the
former--1641. If the _Cottage and Large Tree_ is the finer of these
two oblong plates in design, the _Cottage and Hay-barn_ is the more
brilliant as an etching. The cottage and shed which give the plate
its name are in the center of the design, and the dark mass, full of
tender shadows and reflections, emphasizes by contrast the play of open
light on the fields stretching on either side, the river, the house
nestling in a wood, beyond, and the distant towers of Amsterdam. Though
all is treated in Rembrandt’s broad way, it is surprising how full,
how suggestive of intimate detail the landscape is. As we look at it
there comes over us the sense of sleepy, bright air and sunshine, the
quiet of the fields, in which, though nothing outwardly is happening,
we are conscious of the stir of natural life, of growing things, of
flowers and grass and insects, and peaceful human occupations going
on unobtrusively; of “all the live murmur of a summer’s day.” It is
interesting, in view of Rembrandt’s treatment of topography, to note
that Dr. Jan Six has shown that the master has here combined two
different views in a single composition.
In the _Cottage with White Palings_ (B. 232, dated 1642), effective
use is made of the broad white planks of the fence to enforce the
pattern of black and white in the design. Here again the subject is
placed in the center with views on either side, though the horizon is
higher than usual.
With the _Three Trees_ (B. 212) of 1643, we come to the most famous
of Rembrandt’s etched landscapes. This plate stands in the same sort
of relation to the rest as the _Mill_ to the rest of his landscape
paintings. It is the grandest and most typical, most expressive of
the master’s temperament. Here the composition is less accidental,
and more (so to speak) architectural. The group of three trees stands
up darkly on a bank of high ground at the right. At the left one
looks over the level fields to the horizon and a glimmer of distant
sea. A thunderstorm is passing away, with contorted clouds piled in
the upper sky and trailing over the plain, and rods of violent rain
slant across the corner of the scene. For once Rembrandt builds up a
landscape design out of sky and earth; and the something elemental
which inspires it gives the etching a pregnancy and significance which
are absent from the other landscapes, in themselves, at their best,
more intimately charming. There are those who object to the straight,
hard lines of the rain; but I do not find them untrue, and they are of
great value in the design. Then, what beauties lurk in this etching,
wherever one looks into it! The return of the light after rain, than
which there is nothing more beautiful in nature, gives a wet sparkle
to the fields; and again we notice how the trees in their dark relief
give glory to the space of luminous clearness beyond. The wagon on
the top of the high bank is moving toward the light, and a painter
sits by the roadside, sketching the passing of the storm. An angler
fishes in a pool; lovers, hardly discerned, sit together, away from the
world in a thicket’s obscurity. All the plain, so solitary at first
sight, is filled with moving life. Of what particular species the three
trees are, it might be difficult, as often with Rembrandt, to say with
confidence; from their shape and the sturdy growth of their boughs, I
suppose them to be oaks. There is no doubt, however, about the willow
in the _Omval_ (B. 209). The gnarled, seamed trunk of an old tree,
with its rugged wrinkles and smooth bosses, irresistibly invites the
etcher’s needle; and Rembrandt, like other etchers since, has evidently
found a great enjoyment in this willow-stem, as in that other old
willow to which he added, not very felicitously, a St. Jerome reading,
spectacles on nose, and a perfunctory lion (B. 232, dated 1648). The
_Omval_ shows a different kind of composition; the willow at the edge
of a thicket, in whose shadow two lovers are embowered, divides the
plate; the right and larger part is all light and open--a river-bank on
which a man moves down to the ferry, and the broad sunny stream, and
houses, masts, and windmills across the water--a picturesque river-side
such as Whistler and Haden loved to etch.
[Illustration: REMBRANDT. THE THREE TREES
“With the _Three Trees_ of 1643, we come to the most famous of
Rembrandt’s etched landscapes. This plate stands in the same sort
of relation to the rest as the _Mill_ to the rest of his landscape
paintings. It is the grandest and most typical, most expressive of the
master’s temperament.” Laurence Binyon.
Size of the original etching, 8⁵⁄₁₆ × 11 inches]
[Illustration: REMBRANDT. SIX’S BRIDGE
“To the same year--1645--belongs the well-known _Six’s Bridge_, a plate
in which the pure bitten line, with no close hatching or shadow-effect,
is given full play. Of its kind, this is a perfect etching.” Laurence
Binyon.
Size of the original etching, 5¹⁄₁₆ × 8¹³⁄₁₆ inches]
To the same year--1645--belongs the well-known _Six’s Bridge_ (B.
208), a plate in which the pure bitten line, with no close hatching
or shadow-effect, is given full play. Of its kind, this is a perfect
etching. Every one knows the story of its being done while Six’s
servant went to fetch the mustard. But there is nothing hasty or
incomplete about it: the masterly economy of lines is perfectly
satisfying in its absolute directness and simplicity. There is great
pleasure in contemplating a work like this, so clean, so free from any
superfluous element.
But from this time onward Rembrandt seems to grow dissatisfied with
pure etching. He grows more and more fond of dry-point, using it very
frequently to enrich an etched plate, and in his later years preferring
often to dispense with the acid altogether.
Dry-point is employed in the delightful little plate, the _Boat-house_
(B. 231), to deepen the shadows of the arch over the water; but in
ordinary impressions this has worn off and only the groundwork of
bitten lines remains. This is the kind of subject which most artists
would have drawn in delicate detail; but Rembrandt is always rather
remarkably indifferent to the particular beauty and character of
vegetation (probably this was one of the reasons why he made so little
appeal to Ruskin); and it is surprising that with all the indifference
and roughness in the drawing of the plant-forms on the river-bank, the
little plate should still have so intimate a character and suggest so
much of the beauty of dark, quiet water in which reflections of flower
and herbage are asleep.
In one or two of the plates of 1650 and thereabouts, as if tired of
level horizons, Rembrandt closes the view with a mountain or range of
hills. Such are the _Canal and Angler_ and the _Boat in the Canal_ (B.
235 and 236), which, joined together, form one composition; and one
might add the _Sportsman with Dogs_ (B. 211), though Mr. Hind assigns
the completion, at any rate, of this etching to a date of a few years
later.
[Illustration: REMBRANDT. LANDSCAPE WITH A BOAT IN THE CANAL
“In one or two of the plates of 1650 and thereabouts, as if tired of
level horizons, Rembrandt closes the view with a mountain or range of
hills. Such are the _Canal and Angler_ and the _Boat in the Canal_.”
Laurence Binyon.
Size of the original etching, 3¼ × 4¼ inches]
[Illustration: REMBRANDT. FARM WITH TREES AND A TOWER [LANDSCAPE WITH A
RUINED TOWER AND CLEAR FOREGROUND]
“... a long, oblong plate, of great beauty for its pattern of light and
shade. Part of the sky is shadowed, and the last light, before a shower
pours over the trees, illuminates the foliage on one side.” Laurence
Binyon.
Size of the original etching, 4⅞ × 12⅝ inches]
The _Hay-barn with Flock of Sheep_ (B. 224) is an instance of
a favorite feature in Rembrandt’s landscape--a road seen in
perspective at one side of the design. The _Landscape with a Cow
Drinking_ (B. 237) is a beautiful etching in a rather slight manner,
with a suggestion of wind in the branches of trees, and light coming
with the wind. Even in the _Three Trees_, though there is storm, there
is little impression of movement in the air; and it is characteristic
of the landscape etchings as a whole that they are serene and still,
and more often suggest a sunny day than gray skies.
Dry-point becomes more emphatic in the _Obelisk_ (B. 227); indeed, in
the earliest impressions of this plate the black of the bur is too
pronounced, and only after it had been printed from till this effect
had merged and blended with the etched lines was the right effect
attained. Here the obelisk gives character to the design; and in the
_Landscape with a Square Tower_ (B. 218) a building dominates,--an old
tower of rather blunted outlines, such as Rembrandt loved to crown dark
hills with in the visionary landscapes of his painting.
Another old tower occurs, less prominently, in the _Farm with Trees
and a Tower_ (B. 223), a long, oblong plate, of great beauty for its
pattern of light and shade. Part of the sky is shadowed, and the last
light, before a shower pours over the trees, illuminates the foliage
on one side. In the first two states there is a small cupola on the
tower; but Rembrandt, no doubt rightly, judged that the design would
be improved by lopping it off. The change certainly subdues the local
character of the scene.
Another long oblong of perhaps greater beauty is the _Gold-weigher’s
Field_ of 1651 (B. 234). This is all air and sun and space, the
etched lines light and open, with dry-point adding a kind of gleam and
vibration to the fertile fields. It is a revelation of what a great
artist can do, unaided by tone or color, with a scene that to the
average eye would be tame enough. There is a sense, too, of the riches
of the earth, the farmer’s pride in broad acres and growing crops,
which gives a human touch, never absent from Rembrandt’s work.
In contrast with this is another plate of the previous year--the _Three
Gabled Cottages_ (B. 217)--where the dry-point is freely used to give
color and softness to the thatched roofs, checkered with the shadow of
an old tree. But it is the gratefulness of shadow in the noonday, not
its gloom, which is the motive of the etching.
The last group of landscapes are in pure dry-point. It is interesting
to compare one of the earlier bitten plates with the _Road by the
Canal_ (B. 221), delicious in its freshness and spontaneous effect, or
the _Clump of Trees with a Vista_ (B. 222). Of this last there is a
first state with a mere indication of part of the design; the trees,
with the peep through the thicket, seem to have been an afterthought.
_The Wood over Palings_ (B. 364), the principal one of several
unfinished studies on one plate, has velvety dry-point in the foliage.
It is a plate that seems to have served for inspiration to Andrew
Geddes, the Scotch artist who was one of the first to inaugurate the
revival of etching in the nineteenth century and to realize once
again--what had been so unaccountably forgotten since Rembrandt’s
time--the possibilities and beauty of the dry-point method.
[Illustration: REMBRANDT. THE GOLD-WEIGHER’S FIELD
“This is all air and sun and space, the etched lines light and open,
with dry-point adding a kind of gleam and vibration to the fertile
fields. It is a revelation of what a great artist can do, unaided by
tone or color, with a scene that to the average eye would be tame
enough. There is a sense, too, of the riches of the earth, the farmer’s
pride in broad acres and growing crops, which gives a human touch,
never absent from Rembrandt’s work.” Laurence Binyon.
Size of the original etching, 4¾ × 12⅝ inches]
[Illustration: REMBRANDT. LANDSCAPE WITH A MILKMAN
This etching, like _The Wood over Palings_, has velvety dry-point
in the foliage, and may have suggested to Andrew Geddes, the Scotch
artist who was one of the first to inaugurate the revival of etching
in the nineteenth century and to realize once again--what had been so
unaccountably forgotten since Rembrandt’s time--the possibilities and
beauty of the dry-point method.
Size of the original etching, 2⁹⁄₁₆ × 6⅞ inches]
And so the series comes to an end, and landscape disappears from
the master’s work, save as a background to figure-compositions. One of
these backgrounds may be noticed for its special interest. About 1653
Rembrandt took up a copperplate already etched by Hercules Seghers--a
_Tobias and the Angel_ (after a composition of Elsheimer’s)--and
transformed it into a _Flight into Egypt_. Suppressing the two figures,
which were of very large size in proportion to the design, he masked
the traces of them by a mass of trees, put in his own figures on a much
smaller scale, and by the most vigorous use of the dry-point wrought
the whole into harmony. The treatment of shadowy masses of foliage
reminds us how little there is of this element of landscape in the
etchings we have been considering. There is nothing of that feeling for
the majesty and mystery of leafy forest-trees which Claude expressed
so beautifully in the _Bouvier_ etching, and still more in his sepia
drawings. Critics have also remarked on other limitations of landscape
interest in Rembrandt--the absence of seas and water in movement, the
comparative absence of wind and weather, in his etchings.
For all that, when we think of the other Dutch etchers of landscape,
we realize how far he towers over those who professed no other
subject,--over Molyn. Ruysdael, Everdingen, Waterloo, and Italianizers
like Both.
Hercules Seghers is the one who showed most variety and temperament;
and his work evidently had a great interest for Rembrandt. He was
a curious experimenter, and though he rarely seems quite master of
his intentions, he was the antithesis of those landscape artists,
so frequent, who “take out a patent,” as has been said, for some
particular corner or aspect of nature, and never do anything else but
repeat their favorite theme with variations.
With Rembrandt landscape was a kind of interlude and holiday from more
serious design. We feel it in the sunny temper which pervades the
majority of the etchings. But how far superior he is to all the rest
in his sensitiveness to beauty! As we have seen, he is not greatly
interested in the details of landscape form. We find scribbles and
shapelessness in his foliage and plants; but his grasp of essential
truths overrides all criticism of this kind, and always and everywhere
we feel his intense joy in expressing light. The etchings of his
contemporaries seem cold and hueless, without air or sun, beside his.
I find it hard to express a preference among the series. The _Three
Trees_ stands by itself, but there are others which touch one with a
more vivid charm. Turning from one to another, I find each arresting
the eye with some particular beauty, though the set of oblong plates,
from the _Cottage and Hay-barn_ to the _Gold-weigher’s Field_, contain,
I think, the most delight; they are those in which all Holland seems to
lie before us, with its pastures and its many peaceful waters.
The landscape of Holland, with its level distances and low horizon, has
inexhaustible attractions for the painter of skies and atmosphere. To
the born designer it is less stimulating. One of the things that most
impress in any representative exhibition of Rembrandt’s etchings is the
extraordinary variety and freshness of his designing. The proportions
of the plate, upright, square, or oblong; the relation of the figures
to the frame; the proportion of light to dark; the use of tone and
line;--all these show a constant variety. Those who, when they think of
Rembrandt, call up the image of a dark panel with light concentrated
on a head or group in the middle of it, find a series of the etchings
quite subversive of their preconception.
Now to an inventive designer like Rembrandt the resources of the Dutch
landscape offered but little. Where he blends landscape with figure,
as in the infinitely pathetic _Burial of Christ_, or the _Woman of
Samaria_, or the _Christ Returning with His Parents from the Temple_,
though the human types, as always, are taken from the world around the
artist, the landscape is drawn from his imagination, or borrowed from
others. In the _St. Jerome_ (B. 104) the background is no doubt taken
from a Venetian drawing. Such methods were, indeed, inevitable, since
one cannot go on weaving designs of human forms and landscape material
where the typical form of this last is little more than a straight
line, or a series of straight lines, across the field of sight.
One may wonder, perhaps with regret, why Rembrandt did not for once
etch a landscape of his inner vision, like those paintings at Cassel
and at Brunswick. It may be that he felt that for such tone-effects
etching was not the appropriate medium. Had he lived in a later day,
he might have used mezzotint, as Turner did in his _Liber Studiorum_;
and certainly that process should in his hands have yielded marvelous
results.
But we may well be content with these landscape etchings which he has
left us. They express the genius of the Dutch country, the “virtue”
of it, as Pater would have said, as no other of his countrymen has
expressed it. The series of plates in which Legros has expressed the
genius of the country of Northern France, with its poplar-bordered
streams and sunny pastures, has something of the same native quality.
Each of these masters seems to have seized an essence which no one
not born of the soil, however enamoured of a land’s beauty, can quite
possess and make his own.
What is it that gives these landscapes their enduring charm, and why
do we rank them so high? Many a later etcher has had equal skill with
needle and acid; some have had even greater. Whistler is more delicate,
perhaps, more exquisite, more unexpected in his gift of spacing. Yet
neither Whistler nor any other master of etching has the secret power
of Rembrandt. I say “secret,” because we cannot argue about it or
explain it. It lay in what Rembrandt was: in the depth and greatness
of his humanity. When we have wondered at the sensitive instrument of
his eyesight, when we have exalted his magical draughtsmanship, when we
have admired his instinctive fidelity to the capacity and limitations
of the medium used, when we have recognized the profound integrity of
his art, there is still something left over, beyond analysis, and that
the rarest thing of all.
How it is we cannot say, but there has passed into these little works
an intangible presence, of which we cannot choose but be conscious,
though it was not consciously expressed,--the spirit of one of the
fullest, deepest natures that ever breathed. Whatever Rembrandt does,
however slight, something of that spirit escapes him, some tinge of
his experience,--of those thoughts, “too deep for tears,” which things
meaner than the meanest flowers could stir in him.
GIOVANNI BATTISTA PIRANESI
(1720-1778)
PART I
BY BENJAMIN BURGES MOORE
The life of Piranesi was eminently that of a man of genius,
characterized by all the peculiarities ascribable to genius, perhaps as
failures of human nature, but also distinguished by that which imparts
to its possessor an imperishable renown. Those peculiarities are worthy
of notice, as they bear so much on the character of his work; but his
works, wonderful as they are in point of execution, are less to be
admired for this than for the interest of the subjects he chose, _and
that which he imparted to them_. In an age of frivolities, he boldly
and single-handed dared to strike out for himself a new road to fame;
and in dedicating his talents to the recording and illustrating from
ancient writers the mouldering records of former times, he met with a
success as great as it was deserved, _combining, as he did, all that
was beautiful in art with all that was interesting in the remains of
antiquity_.”
These words were prefixed to an account of Piranesi’s career published
in London during the year 1831 in “The Library of the Fine Arts,” and
based upon a sketch of his life written by his son, Francesco, but
never published, although the manuscript at that period had passed
into the hands of the publishers, Priestly and Weale, only to be
subsequently lost or destroyed.
[Illustration: PORTRAIT OF GIOVANNI BATTISTA PIRANESI
From the engraving by F. Polanzani, dated 1750
It is impossible to study this little known portrait without being
convinced of its accurate likeness. It certainly conveys an impression
of the man’s dæmonic force, which is not given by the more frequently
reproduced statue executed by Angelini.
Size of the original etching, 15¼ × 11¼ inches]
[Illustration: PIRANESI. ARCH OF SEPTIMIUS SEVERUS
A rendering almost as faithful as an architect’s drawing, which
Piranesi’s unfailing genius has transformed into an enchanting work of
art. This arch stands in the Roman Forum. It was dedicated 203 A.D. in
commemoration of victories over the Parthians.
Size of the original etching, 18⅜ × 27¾ inches]
Eighty years, therefore, have passed since this evaluation of the great
Italian etcher was written, yet to-day he is no more appreciated at
his full worth than he was then. At all times it has been not uncommon
for an artist to attain a kind of wide and enduring renown, although
estimated at his true value and for his real excellences by only a few;
but of such a fate it would be difficult to select a more striking
or illustrious example than Giovanni Battista Piranesi. Living and
dying in the Eternal City, Rome, to whose august monuments his fame
is inseparably linked, he was the author of the prodigious number of
over thirteen hundred large plates, combining the arts of etching and
engraving, which, aside from their intrinsic merit as works of art, are
of incalculable value on account of the inexhaustible supply of classic
motives which they offer to all designers, and to which they, more than
any other influence, have given currency.
These prints, in early and beautiful proofs, are still to be bought at
relatively low figures, while each year sees the sale, by thousands,
of impressions from the steeled plates still existing at Rome in the
Royal Calcography;--impressions which, although in themselves still
sufficiently remarkable to be worth possessing, are yet so debased as
to constitute a libel upon the real powers of Piranesi.
The wide diffusion of these ignoble prints, and the fact that
Piranesi’s output was so great as to place his work within the reach
of the slenderest purse, are largely responsible for the failure of
the general public to apprehend his real greatness; for rarity calls
attention to merit, to which in fact it often gives a value entirely
fictitious, while there is always difficulty in realizing that things
seen frequently and in quantities may have qualities far outweighing
those of work which has aroused interest by its scarcity. This is why
the fame of Piranesi is widely spread, although his best and most
characteristic work is almost unknown, and his real genius generally
unrecognized.
Born in Venice, October 4th, 1720, and named after Saint John
the Baptist, Piranesi was the son of a mason, blind in one eye,
and of Laura Lucchesi. His maternal uncle was an architect and
engineer,--for in those days the same person frequently combined the
two professions,--who had executed various water-works and at least
one church. From his uncle the young Giovanni Battista received his
earliest instruction in things artistic, for which he appears to have
displayed a conspicuously precocious aptitude. Before he was seventeen
he had attracted sufficient attention to assure him success in his
father’s profession, but Rome had already fired his imagination, and
aroused that impetuous determination which marked his entire career.
His yearning after Rome report says to have been first aroused by a
young Roman girl whom he loved, but, however that may be, he overcame
the determined opposition of his parents, and, in 1738, at the age of
eighteen, set out for the papal city to study architecture, engraving,
and in general the fine arts; for even in those degenerate days there
were left some traces of that multiform talent which distinguished
the artists of the Renaissance. When he reached the goal of his
longing, the impression produced by the immortal city on so fervid an
imagination must have been so deep, so overwhelming, as to annihilate
all material considerations, although they could not have been other
than harassing, since the allowance received from his father was
only six Spanish piastres a month, or some six or seven lire of the
Italian money of to-day. By what expedients he managed to live we
cannot even conjecture, but it may be supposed that he was boarded,
apprentice-wise, by the masters under whom he studied. These teachers
were Scalfarotto and Valeriani, a noted master of perspective and a
pupil of one Ricci of Belluno, who had acquired from the great French
painter and lover of Rome, Claude Lorrain, the habit of painting
highly imaginative pictures composed of elements drawn from the ruins
of the Roman Campagna. This style was transmitted to Piranesi by
Valeriani, without doubt stimulating that passionate appreciation of
the melancholy grandeur of ruined Rome already growing in his mind, and
afterward to fill his entire life and work.
[Illustration: PIRANESI. ARCH OF VESPASIAN
In this, as in many of Piranesi’s compositions, the figures are frankly
posing, but their presence adds such charm to the scene that none could
wish them absent.
Size of the original etching, 19 × 27⅜ inches]
[Illustration: PIRANESI. ARCH OF TRAJAN AT BENEVENTO, IN THE KINGDOM OF
NAPLES
A fine rendering of that air of glory which the most dilapidated
fragments of a Roman Arch of Triumph never lose. The Arch of Trajan,
one of the finest of ancient arches, was dedicated A.D. 114. It
is of white marble, 48 feet high and 30½ wide, with a single arch
measuring 27 by 16½ feet. The arch is profusely sculptured with reliefs
illustrating Trajan’s life and his Dacian triumphs.
Size of the original etching, 18⅜ × 27½ inches]
At the same time, he acquired a thorough knowledge of etching and
engraving under the Sicilian, Giuseppe Vasi, whose etchings first
aroused the great Goethe’s longing for Italy. At the age of twenty,
thinking, probably not without foundation, that this master was
concealing from him the secret of the correct use of acid in etching,
Piranesi is reported, in his anger, to have made an attempt to murder
Vasi. Such an act would not be out of keeping with the character
of the fiery Venetian, for, before leaving Venice, he had already
been described by a fellow-pupil as “_stravagante_,” extravagant, or
fantastic, a term not restricted by Italians to a man’s handling of
money, but applied rather to character as a whole, in which connection
it usually denotes the less fortunate side of that complete and
magnificent surrender to an overwhelming passion which aroused so
lively an admiration of the Italian nature in the great French writer,
Stendhal. When we, tame moderns, judge the “extravagance” of such
characters, it is only fair to recollect that, with all their faults
and crimes, these same unbridled Italians were capable of heroic
virtues, unknown to our pale and timid age. Men like Cellini and
Piranesi, who had much in common, are simply incarnate emotional force,
a fact which is, at the same time, the cause of their follies and the
indispensable condition of their genius.
After this quarrel Piranesi returned to Venice, where he attempted to
gain a livelihood by the practice of architecture. There is reason
to believe that at this period he studied under Tiepolo; at any rate
there exist in his published works a few curious, rather rococo plates
entirely different from his usual manner, and very markedly influenced
by the style of Tiepolo’s etching. He also studied painting with the
Polanzani who is responsible for that portrait of him which forms
the frontispiece to the first edition of “Le Antichità Romane,” and
gives so vivid an impression of the dæmonic nature of the man. Meeting
with little success in Venice, he went to Naples, after returning to
Rome, attracted principally by archæological interests. He stayed at
Herculaneum, Pompeii, and Pæstum, where at this time, undoubtedly, he
made the drawings of the temples afterward etched and published by his
son. The drawings for these etchings of Pæstum, among the best known
of the Piranesi plates, are now in the Soane Museum in London.
[Illustration: PIRANESI. THE BASILICA, PÆSTUM
Size of the original etching, 17¾ × 26⅝ inches]
[Illustration: PIRANESI. THE TEMPLE OF NEPTUNE AT PÆSTUM
Size of the original etching, 19½ × 26⅜ inches]
Having decided that he had no vocation for painting, which he
definitely abandoned at this time, Piranesi returned to Rome, and
settled there permanently. His father now wished him to return to
Venice, but he was altogether unwilling to do so, and replied,
characteristically, that Rome being the seat of all his affections
it would be impossible for him to live separated from her monuments.
He intimated that in preference to leaving, he would give up his
allowance, a suggestion upon which his father acted promptly by
stopping all remittances, so that, estranged from his relatives,
Piranesi was now entirely dependent upon his own resources for a
livelihood.
His poverty and suffering at this period were undoubtedly great, but
his indomitable nature could be crippled by no material hardships.
He devoted himself entirely to etching and engraving, and, when
twenty-one, published his first composition. At this time he was living
in the Corso opposite the Doria-Pamphili Palace, but even if the
neighborhood was illustrious, it is not pleasant to think what wretched
garret must have hidden the misery of his struggling genius. His
first important and dated work, the “Antichità Romane de’ Tempi della
Republica, etc.,” was published in 1748, with a dedication to the noted
antiquary, Monsignore Bottari, chaplain to Pope Benedict XIV. This
work was received with great favor, as the first successful attempt to
engrave architecture with taste, and from the day of its appearance
Piranesi may be said to have been famous. However, he still experienced
the utmost difficulty in finding the money necessary to subsist and to
procure the materials requisite to his work. Yet, despite his terrible
poverty, his labor was unceasing and tireless to a degree that we can
now scarcely conceive. It must be borne in mind that, in addition
to etching and engraving, he was engaged in the extensive study of
archæology, which led him to undertake many remarkable researches. He
became a noted archæologist of great erudition, as is shown by numerous
controversies with famous antiquarians of the day. Some idea of the
copiousness of his knowledge can be gained from the fact that his
argument covers a hundred folio pages in that controversy in which he
upheld the originality of Roman art against those who claimed it to be
a mere offshoot of Grecian genius. In the preface to one of his books,
he refers to it as the result of “what I have been able to gather from
the course of many years of indefatigable and most exact observations,
excavations, and researches, things which have never been undertaken in
the past.” This statement is quite true, and when we realize that the
preparation of a single plate, such as the plan of the Campus Martius,
would, in itself, have taken most men many years of work, we can only
feel uncomprehending amazement at the capacity for work possessed by
this man of genius.
[Illustration: PIRANESI. THE TEMPLE OF CONCORD
From this plate it is possible to gain an idea of the greater beauty
possessed by ruined Rome when still shrouded in vegetation. The Arch of
Septimius Severus is seen in the middle distance
Size of the original etching, 18⅛ × 27⅛ inches]
[Illustration: PIRANESI. SITE OF THE ANCIENT ROMAN FORUM
A very interesting historical document which makes it possible to
realize an aspect of the Forum at present difficult to conceive
Size of the original, 14⅞ × 23¼ inches]
The very spirit of imperial Rome would seem to have filled Piranesi,
making him its own, so that the vanished splendor was to him ever
present and added to the strange melancholy of the vine-grown ruins
which alone remained from the “grandeur that was Rome.” In every age
and in every province most Italians have been animated by a lively
sense of their direct descent from classic Rome,--a feeling that its
fame was peculiarly their inheritance in a way true of no other people,
so that this glorious descent was their greatest pride and claim to
leadership. In the darkest days of oppression and servitude, when Italy
sat neglected and disconsolate among her chains, there were never
lacking nobler souls who kept alive a sense of what was fitting in the
descendants of classic Rome, and took therein a melancholy pride. But
no Italian was ever more completely an ancient Roman than Piranesi,
who certainly, in despite of his Venetian birth, considered himself a
“Roman citizen.” This sentiment played an important part in, perhaps,
the most characteristic act of his whole life, namely, his fantastic
marriage, of which he himself left an account not unworthy of Cellini.
He was drawing in the Forum one Sunday, when his attention was
attracted by a boy and girl, who proved to be the children of the
gardener to Prince Corsini. The girl’s type of features instantly
convinced Piranesi that she was a direct descendant of the ancient
Romans, and so aroused his emotions that on the spot he asked if it
were possible for her to marry him. Her exact reply is not recorded,
although it must have conveyed the fact that she was free, but it can
surprise no one to hear that the girl was thoroughly frightened by
such sudden and overpowering determination. His hasty resolution was
confirmed when Piranesi afterward learned that she had a dower of one
hundred and fifty piastres, or some three hundred lire of to-day, a
fact certain to arouse a keen realization both of his poverty and of
the value of money in those days. Without any delay, he proceeded to
ask the girl’s hand in marriage of her parents, who, like the girl,
appear to have been so terrified and overwhelmed by the cyclonic nature
of the man as to be incapable of the slightest resistance. Whatever may
have been the motives of all the parties concerned, the fact is that
Piranesi was married to the descendant of the ancient Romans exactly
five days after he first laid eyes on her classic features! Immediately
after the wedding, having placed side by side his wife’s dowry and
his own finished plates, together with his unfinished designs, he
informed his presumably astonished bride that their entire fortune was
now before them, but that in three years’ time her portion should be
doubled; which proved to be no boast but a promise that he actually
fulfilled.
According to report, he told his friends that he was marrying in
order to obtain the money required for the completion of his great
book on Roman Antiquities. However, even if he did marry for money,
he maintained all his life, to the poor woman’s great discomfort, as
jealous a watch over his wife as could be expected of the most amorous
of husbands; so his affections as well as his vanity may, perhaps,
have been called into play by his marriage. At any rate, his ideas as
to family life were worthy of the most severe Roman _paterfamilias_.
His son, Francesco, born in 1756, relates that, when absorbed in
his studies, he would quite forget the hours for meals, while his
five children, neither daring to interrupt him nor eat without him,
experienced all the miseries of hunger. His domestic coercion and
discipline were doubtless extreme, but the family would seem to have
lived not too unhappily.
[Illustration: PIRANESI. VIEW OF THE “CAMPO VACCINO”
The Site of the Ancient Roman Forum showing the Arch of Septimius
Severus, Columns of the Temple of Jupiter Tonans and of the Temple of
Concord and, in the distance, the Arch of Titus, the Colosseum, etc.,
etc.
Size of the original etching, 16⅛ × 21½ inches]
[Illustration: PIRANESI. THE ARCH OF TITUS
In this plate can be seen a favorite device of Piranesi’s, which is
to enhance the size and stability of massive architecture by placing
on some part of the ruin a human figure in active motion. The Arch of
Titus was built in commemoration of the taking of Jerusalem. The vault
is richly coffered and sculptured, and the interior faces of the piers
display reliefs of Titus in triumph, with the plunder of the temple at
Jerusalem.
Size of the original etching, 18⅝ × 27¾ inches]
Every two years, if not oftener, a monumental book would make its
appearance, to say nothing of separate plates, and Piranesi was now a
famous man. With the exception of Winckelmann, he did more than any
one to spread a knowledge and love of classic art, while his learning
and his researches aroused a widespread appreciation of the nobility
of Roman ruins, thereby largely contributing to their excavation
and protection. His exhaustive acquaintance with antiquity and his
impassioned admiration for its beauty, combined with his singular and
interesting character, caused him to mingle with all that was most
remarkable in the world of arts and letters in Rome, at the same time
bringing him into relation with whatever foreigners of distinction
might visit the city. He was, however, then and always a poor man, for
his first important work, “Le Antichità Romane,” sold in the complete
set for the ridiculous pittance of sixteen paoli, or about seventeen
lire, while later the Pope was wont to pay him only a thousand lire for
eighteen gigantic volumes of etchings. The very fact that his fertility
was so enormous, lowered the price it was possible to ask for his
plates during his lifetime, just as since his death it has militated
against a correct valuation of his talent. Forty years after he came to
Rome, he wrote to a correspondent that he had made, on an average, some
seven thousand lire of modern money a year, out of which he had had to
support his family, pay for the materials required in his business, and
gather together that collection of antiquities which was a part of his
stock in trade.
The rapidity with which Piranesi worked, and the number of plates, all
of unusually large dimensions, which he executed, are so extraordinary
as to leave one bewildered by the thought of such incomprehensible
industry. Competent authorities vary in their statements as to the
number of plates produced by Piranesi, but accepting as correct the
lowest figure, which is thirteen hundred, it will be found that for
thirty-nine years he produced, on a rough average, one plate every two
weeks. Ordinarily, great productiveness will be found to have damaged
the quality of the work accomplished, but this is not true in the case
of Piranesi. Although his work is of varying merit, like that of all
true artists, and even comprises examples lacking his usual excellence,
there is no plate which betrays any signs of hurry or careless
workmanship, while in many the meticulous finish is remarkable. Such
an output is in itself phenomenal, yet in preparation for these works
he found the time to pursue archæological researches and studies, in
themselves sufficiently exhaustive to have occupied the life of an
ordinary man. Moreover, in his capacity of architect, he executed
various important restorations, including those of the Priorato di
Malta, where he is buried, and of Santa Maria del Popolo. Most of
his restorations were undertaken by command of the Venetian, Pope
Clement XIII, who bestowed on him the title of Knight, or Cavaliere,
a distinction of which he was proud, as he was of his membership in
the “Royal Society of Antiquaries” in London, of which he was made an
honorary fellow in 1757.
[Illustration: PIRANESI. THE ARCH OF TITUS
Showing the relief of the Triumph of Titus and the carrying away of the
Seven-branched Candle-stick from Jerusalem. A particularly beautiful
and not very well-known plate, which clearly shows Piranesi’s fine
sense of composition, and his keen appreciation of that singularly
picturesque contrast between the ancient ruins and the more modern
buildings in which they were then embedded.
Size of the original etching, 15⅞ × 24¼ inches]
[Illustration: PIRANESI. FAÇADE OF ST. JOHN LATERAN
Piranesi, almost without exception, placed a written description of the
scene on every one of his plates, using it as a decorative feature.
In this case it proves an integral part of a group which makes an
interesting etching out of what otherwise would have been a simple
architectural drawing.
Size of the original etching, 18⅞ × 27½ inches]
The question of how much assistance Piranesi received in the execution
of his plates is an interesting one. In a few prints, the figures
were etched by one Jean Barbault, whose name sometimes appears on
the margins with that of Piranesi. The latter’s son, Francesco,
was taught design and architecture by his father, whose manner he
reproduced exactly, although none of the numerous etchings which he
left behind him show any signs of those qualities which constitute the
greatness of his parent’s work. The daughter, Laura, also etched in the
manner of her father and has left some views of Roman monuments. These
two children, together with one of his pupils, Piroli, undoubtedly
aided him, but their moderate skill is a proof that their assistance
could not have been carried very far. That his pupils never formed a
sort of factory for the production of work passing under their master’s
name, as happened with some famous painters, is made certain by the
fact that he established no school which caught his manner and produced
work reminiscent or imitative of his. His unparalleled output must,
therefore, be almost entirely a result of his own unaided labor.
Piranesi died at Rome, surrounded by his family, on the ninth of
November, 1778, of a slight disorder rendered serious by neglect. His
body was first buried in the church of St. Andrea della Fratte, but was
soon afterward removed to that Priory of Santa Maria Aventina which
he had himself restored. Here his family erected a statue of him,
carved by one Angelini after the design of Piranesi’s pupil, Piroli.
Baron Stolberg writes in his “Travels”: “Here is a fine statue of the
architect Piranesi, as large as life, placed there by his son. It is
the work of a living sculptor, Angelini, and though it certainly cannot
be compared with the best antiquities, it still possesses real merit.”
The singular figure of Giovanni Battista Piranesi, with his power, his
fire, and his passionate love of Roman grandeur, not unworthy of some
great period of rebirth, appears all the more phenomenal when viewed
in relation to his times and his surroundings. The corruption of the
pontifical city had been flagrant since the days when it filled with
scorn and loathing the wonderful “Regrets” penned by the exiled French
poet, Joachim du Bellay, whose homesick heart took less pleasure in the
hard marble and audacious fronts of Roman palaces than in the delicate
slate of the distant dwelling built by his Angevin ancestors,--but
its depravity had at least been replete with virility and splendor.
After the Council of Trent, however, the Counter-Reformation spread
over the Roman prelacy a wave of external reform, which left the inner
rottenness untouched, but veiled it decently with all the stifling and
petty vices of hypocrisy, until Roman life gradually grew to be that
curious androgynous existence which we see reflected so clearly in
Casanova’s memoirs. During the eighteenth century, when Piranesi lived,
the whole of Italy had sunk to depths of degradation such as few great
races have ever known, not because the people were hopelessly decayed,
for their great spirit never died, but lived to flame forth in 1848
and create that marvelous present-day regeneration of Italy, which is
perhaps the most astonishing example of the rebirth of a once great
but apparently dead nation that the world has yet seen. The debased
condition of Italy at that time was caused, rather, by centuries of
priestly and foreign oppression, which had stifled the entire country
until it had fallen into a state of torpor little different to
death. Any sign of intellectual or political activity, however slight
or innocent, had long been ruthlessly repressed by Austria and the
petty tyrants who ruled the states of Italy. Since men must find
some occupation to fill their lives, or else go mad, in a land where
every noble and even normal employment was forbidden, the Italian of
the day was forced to confine himself within the limits of an idle
inanity, concerned only with petty questions and petty interests. It is
difficult for people of to-day to conceive the abject futility to which
such oppression and enforced inactivity can reduce an entire nation.
In France the comparative freedom enjoyed under the old régime gave to
the eighteenth century, in its most frivolous and futile moments, a
charming grace utterly denied to enslaved and priest-ridden Italy. To
realize the situation, it is only necessary to consider for a moment
the institution of the cicisbeo, and to read Parini’s “Il Giorno.”
In this world of little loveless lovers, of sonneteers and collector
academicians, the figure of Piranesi looms gigantic, like a creature
of another world. He had a purity of taste in artistic matters quite
unknown to his contemporaries, while his originality, his passion, and
his vigor seem indeed those of some antique Roman suddenly come to life
to serve as pattern for a people fallen on dire days.
[Illustration: PIRANESI. VIEW OF THE RUINS OF THE GOLDEN HOUSE OF NERO
COMMONLY CALLED THE TEMPLE OF PEACE
A striking image of the romantic desolation in Roman ruins long since
removed by modern research
Size of the original etching, 19¼ × 28 inches]
[Illustration: PIRANESI. INTERIOR OF THE PANTHEON, ROME
A good illustration of Piranesi’s originality in choosing a point of
view so curious as to give a novel air to the best known subjects
The Pantheon, completed by Agrippa B.C. 27, consecrated to the divine
ancestors of the Julian family, and now dedicated as the Church of
Santa Maria Rotonda, is 142½ feet in diameter and its height, to
the apex of the great hemispherical coffered dome, is the same.
The lighting of the interior is solely from an opening, 28 feet in
diameter, at the summit of the dome. The dome is practically solid
concrete.
Size of the original etching, 18⅞ × 22¼ inches]
Francesco Piranesi, after the death of his father, sold the collection
formed by him to Gustavus III of Sweden in return for an annuity. He
continued the publication of etchings, many, although unacknowledged,
from drawings by his father, and was assisted in his archæological
research by Pope Pius VI. After various rather dishonorable
transactions, as spy to the court of Sweden, he started for Paris by
sea in 1798, having with him the plates of his father’s etchings,
and accompanied in all probability by his sister Laura. The ship on
which he traveled was captured and all it contained taken as a prize
by a British man-of-war, England and France being then engaged in
hostilities. By some curious chance, the English admiral knew the
worth of Piranesi’s work, and persuaded the officers who had made the
capture to restore the plates to his son, and in addition obtained, by
some still more curious chance, both the admission of the plates into
French territory free of duty, and government protection of Francesco’s
ownership. At Paris, Francesco Piranesi and his brother, Pietro, tried
to found both an academy and a manufactory of terra-cotta. He also
republished his father’s etchings and his own, thus creating the first
French edition, already inferior in quality to the original Roman
impressions. He died in Paris, in 1810, in straitened circumstances.
The plates of both the father’s and the son’s work passed into the
hands of the publishers Firmin-Didot, who republished them once more.
The original plates, which at one time were rented for almost nothing
to any one who wished them for a day’s printing, finally found a
refuge, as before said, in the Royal Calcography at Rome, where they
have been coated with steel and rebitten, so that it is now possible to
print as many copies every year as tourists and architects may desire.
It can, therefore, be seen that, most unfortunately, the world is
flooded with countless impressions which, even if they have value for
an architect as documents, or still retain enough character to give
them some merit as pictures, are yet so utterly changed and debased as
to do the gravest and most irreparable injustice to the reputation of
the genius who created them.
[Illustration: PIRANESI. PIAZZA NAVONA, ROME
This plate shows how Piranesi could render a complicated view without
confusion and, at the same time, give an air of novelty to a well-known
place
Size of the original etching, 18⅜ × 27⅝ inches]
[Illustration: PIRANESI. INTERIOR OF THE VILLA OF MÆCENAS, AT TIVOLI
An example of Piranesi’s skill in making a rather ordinary scene appear
dramatic, and arousing a sense of vastness greater than that imparted
by the actual building
Size of the original etching, 16⅝ × 23⅝ inches]
PART II
“LE CARCERI D’INVENZIONE” (THE PRISONS)
Any one who bestows even a passing inspection on the etchings of
Piranesi will be struck by the intensity of imagination which they
display, a quality whose precise nature it will perhaps be useful to
analyze, since, despite the fact that we use the word constantly, the
thousand differing values which we attach to it render our ideas of
its true meaning in general of the vaguest. Reduced to its ultimate
essence, imagination would appear to be the faculty of picture-making;
that is to say, the power of bringing images before the mental eye
with absolute exactitude, and of clothing ideas with a definite form,
so that they have a reality quite as great as that which characterizes
the objects of the external world. So long as ideas remain in the mind
in the form of abstract conceptions, they are food for reason, but
have no power to move us. It is only when, by means of the imaginative
faculty, the concept has presented itself as a definite image, that
it arouses our emotions and becomes a motive of conduct. When, for
example, the idea of an injury to some one we love comes into our
sphere of consciousness, a concrete picture of that injury presents
itself in some form or other to our inner vision, and is the cause of
the emotion which we experience. Our sympathy and understanding will be
proportionate to the varying distinctness with which our imaginative
power offers such images for our contemplation. Imagination therefore
connotes the ability to conceive the emotions and experiences of
others, and is thus indissolubly connected with sympathy and all the
nobler qualities of human nature.
[Illustration: PIRANESI. THE TEMPLE OF APOLLO, NEAR TIVOLI
Size of the original etching, 18¾ × 24⅝ inches]
[Illustration: PIRANESI. THE FALLS AT TIVOLI
This etching illustrates a little known side of Piranesi’s talent,
namely, his ability to etch pure landscape
The Falls of the Teverone (the ancient Anio) at Tivoli are fifteen
miles east-northeast of Rome. Tivoli was the favorite place of
residence of many Romans--Mæcenas, Augustus, Hadrian--and the ruins of
both Hadrian’s Villa and the Villa of Mæcenas are still to be seen.
Size of the original etching, 18⅞ × 28⅛ inches]
The fact that our conduct is determined not by concepts, but by mental
images which motive emotion, although at first it appear paradoxical,
will certainly be recognized by any one who is willing to study,
if only for a short time, his own mental experiences. This truth
was realized with such force as to be made the base of their entire
spiritual discipline by that notable Spaniard, Ignatius Loyola, and
his followers, the Jesuit fathers, who have understood the complex and
subtle mechanism of the human soul more profoundly and exhaustively
than any other body of men which has ever existed. In classic times
Horace was cognizant of this peculiarity of man’s mind when he wrote
that the emotions are aroused more slowly by objects which are
presented to consciousness by hearing than by those made known by
sight. Burke, it is true, disputes this dictum of the Latin poet, on
the ground that, among the arts, poetry certainly arouses emotions more
intense than those derived from painting. Although this is probably
true, for reasons which he details and which it would be wearisome to
reiterate here, it is certain that poetry moves us exactly in ratio to
the power it possesses of creating vivid images for our contemplation,
while it is certainly doubtful whether any emotion excited through
hearing surpasses in vivacity that experienced on suddenly seeing
certain objects or situations.
All artists at all worthy of the name are, therefore, possessed to a
certain degree of imagination. It is the gift which makes visible to
them whatever they embody in words, pictures, sounds, or sculpture.
If totally deprived of it, they could create nothing, for no man can
express what does not appear to him as having a real existence for at
least the moment of creation. In the domain of art, imagination, in
its lower forms, is merely the power of recollecting and reproducing
things endowed with material existence; but in its highest development,
when handling the conceptions and emotions of an original mind, it
acquires the power of actual creation, and is inseparably attached to
the loftiest acts of which man is capable.
[Illustration: PIRANESI. THE FALLS AT TIVOLI
Among later works there are few better expressions of that feeling for
nature in its wildest aspects, which, practically unknown until the
time of Rousseau, is now considered the speciality of modern artists.
That Piranesi appreciated this side of nature, and was able to express
its poetry and power, could be proved by this plate alone.
Size of the original etching, 18¾ × 28⅛ inches]
[Illustration: PIRANESI. ST. PETER’S AND THE VATICAN
This is perhaps the best example of Piranesi’s exaggerated perspective.
It is quite justified, in this case at least, by the success with
which it creates an impression of vastness and of grandeur which was
certainly aimed at by the architects of St. Peter’s, but which the
exterior of the actual building, quite as certainly, fails to arouse.
Size of the original etching, 18 × 27¾ inches]
Every plate etched by Piranesi betrays to even a careless glance the
presence of imagination in some form, while in one series this noble
faculty is revealed with an amplitude almost unparalleled. If it
be only the presentment of fragments of Roman epitaphs, he finds a
way by some play of light or shade, or by some trick of picturesque
arrangement, to throw a certain interest about them, relieving the
dryness of barren facts; if it be the etching of some sepulchral
vault, in itself devoid of any but antiquarian interest, he introduces
some human figure or some suggestive implement to give a flash of
imagination to the scene. In those very plates where he depicts the
actually existing monuments of classic Rome, and in which it was his
expressed intention to save these august ruins from further injury
and preserve them forever in his engravings, he created what he saw
anew, and voiced his own distinctive sentiment of the melancholy
grandeur of ruined Rome. To-day the word _impressionism_ has come to
have a rather restricted meaning in connection with a recent school of
art, but Piranesi’s work, like that of all really great artists,
is in the true sense of the word _impressionistic_. In passing, it
may be remarked that he was one of the rare artists in earlier times
who worked directly from nature, a habit distinctive of our modern
impressionism. Piranesi is concerned with the expression of his own
peculiar impression of what he sees; for the benefit of others and
for his own delight he gives form to his own particular vision of
whatever he treats. He certainly was desirous of, and successful in,
recording the existing forms of the buildings he loved so well; it is
also true that his etchings and engravings are in many ways faithful
renderings which have immense historical and antiquarian value, since
they preserve an aspect of Rome none shall ever see again, but together
with the actual facts, and transcending them, he offers the imaginative
presentment of his own creative emotion. What he draws is based on
nature, and is full of verisimilitude, but it is not realistic in the
base way that a photograph would be. It contains while it surpasses
reality, and is faithful to the _idea_ of what he sees, using that word
in its Platonic sense.
Taine, in what is probably the most lucid and exhaustive definition
of the nature of a work of art ever given, starts from the statement
that all great art is based on an exact imitation of nature; then
proceeds to demonstrate how this imitation of nature must not extend
to every detail, but should, instead, confine itself to the relations
and mutual dependencies of the parts; and finally states, as the
condition essential to creating a work of art, that the artist shall
succeed, by intentional and systematic variation of these relations,
in setting free, in expressing more clearly and completely than in the
real object, some essential characteristic or predominating idea. This
is wherein art transcends nature, and a work of art is, therefore,
constituted by the fact that it expresses the essential idea of some
series of subjects, freed from the accidents of individuality, in
a form more harmoniously entire than that attained by any object
in nature. Now this is precisely what Piranesi did. He is often
taken to task for his departure from a literal statement of fact
in his renderings of architectural subjects, but, in so departing,
he is varying the interrelation of parts so as to disengage the
characteristic essence of what he depicts, and thus create a work of
art, not a historical document. If he lengthens Bernini’s colonnade
in front of St. Peter’s, he is only composing with the same liberty
accorded to Turner, when, in one picture of St. Germain, he introduces
elements gathered from three separate parts of the river Seine; and by
so doing he expresses the idea of limitless grandeur, latent in St.
Peter’s, with a fullness it does not possess in the actual building. In
his “Antiquities of Rome,” he disengages a sense of devastation and of
desolate majesty which is the fundamental characteristic of Roman ruin,
and one that could have presented itself with such directness and force
only to the mind of an artist of genius. His own vision of the inner
truth of what he saw, stripped of everything accidental, is what he
gives to posterity, and what lifts his work out of the field of simple
archæology into the proud realm of true art.
[Illustration: PIRANESI. THE VILLA D’ESTE AT TIVOLI
It is interesting to note that at the time Piranesi etched this fine
plate the avenue of Cypress trees, which now adds so much to the
picturesqueness of the Villa d’Este, was not even planted.
Size of the original etching, 18½ × 27⅝ inches]
[Illustration: PIRANESI. TITLE-PAGE OF “THE PRISONS”
From “Opere Varie di Architettura Prospettive Grotteschi Antichita
sul Gusto Degli Antichi Romani Inventate, ed Incise da Gio. Batista
Piranesi. Architetto Veneziano.” (Rome, 1750.)
Size of the original etching, 21¼ × 16¼ inches]
Even in those plates where he etches actual scenes with loving
care, Piranesi passes nature, as it were, through the alembic
of his own personality, doing this moreover in a way peculiar to
him and to him alone. His originality consists in this,--that his
mind, when considering an object, seized instinctively on certain
distinguishing features peculiar to that object, qualities which his
mind, and only his, was capable of extracting from the rough ore of
ordinary perception; and that for the powerful impression which he
thus experienced, he was able to find an adequate and distinctive
expression. It was his good fortune to behold Rome in a moment of
pathetic and singular beauty, irrevocably vanished, as one of the
penalties to be paid for the knowledge gained by modern excavation.
In those days the Roman ruins did not have that trim air, as of
skeletons ranged in a museum, which they have taken on under our
tireless cleansing and research. For centuries the barbarians of Rome
had observed the precept: “Go ye upon her walls and destroy; but
make not a full end,” so that only the uppermost fragments of temple
columns protruded through the earth where the cattle browsed straggling
shrubbery above the buried Forum, while goats and swine herded among
cabins in the filth and century-high dirt which covered the streets
that had been trod by the pride of emperors. But that which, more than
anything else, helped to create an atmosphere of romantic beauty none
shall see again, was the indescribable tangle of vine, shrub, and
flower, which in those days draped and hid under a mass of verdure the
mighty ruins of baths and halls that still stupefy by their vastness
when we see them now, devoid of their ancient marble dressing, stripped
clean like polished bones. Shelley tells how even in his day the
Baths of Caracalla were covered with “flowery glades, and thickets
of odoriferous blossoming trees, which are extended in ever-winding
labyrinths.”
The sentiment of august grandeur inspired by the indestructible mass
of Roman ruins was, therefore, in those days curiously complicated by
the contrast between them and the fantastic growth of ever-passing,
ever-renewed vegetation which wrapped them as in a mantle. The
poignancy of this beauty Piranesi seized with a felicity and expressed
with a plenitude given to no one but to him. He was, both by nature
and by volition, profoundly classical, yet he enveloped all that he
handled, however classic it might be in subject, with a sense of
mysterious strangeness so strong as to arouse the sensation called in
later times _romantic_. This contrast is one of the distinctive phases
of his originality.
It would be pleasant to think that Edmund Burke was familiar with the
creations of Giambattista Piranesi when he wrote so searchingly of
“The Sublime and Beautiful”; but, if this be perhaps an idle fancy, it
is certainly true that it would not be easy to find concrete examples
demonstrating more clearly than the etchings of Piranesi the truth
of large parts of his enquiry, and in particular of the following
definition of the sublime: “Whatever is fitted in any sort to excite
the ideas of pain and danger, that is to say, whatever is in any sort
terrible, or is conversant about terrible objects, or operates in a
manner analogous to terror, is a source of the _sublime_; that is,
it is productive of the strongest emotion which the mind is capable
of feeling. When danger or pain press too nearly, they are incapable
of giving any delight, and are simply terrible, but at certain
distances, and with certain modifications, they may be, and they are,
delightful, as we every day experience.”
[Illustration: PIRANESI. THE PRISONS. PLATE III
Size of the original etching, 21¼ × 16¼ inches]
[Illustration: PIRANESI. THE PRISONS. PLATE IV
Size of the original etching, 21½ × 16¼ inches]
The application of these words to the work of Piranesi will probably
surprise those persons acquainted only with his etchings of classic
ruins. However, even these plates exemplify this definition in many
ways which it would be tedious to enumerate, while to feel its full
appositeness it is only necessary to study Piranesi’s least-known and
greatest achievement, commonly called “The Prisons,” and known in
Italian as “Le Carceri d’Invenzione.” These sixteen fantasies, executed
at the age of twenty-two and published at thirty, form a set of prints
in which it is no exaggeration to say that imagination is displayed
with a power and amplitude that have elsewhere never been surpassed in
etching or engraving, and only rarely in other forms of pictorial art.
Although scarcely known to the public at large, they have always formed
the delight of those who feel the appeal of imaginative fantasy, and
notably of Coleridge and of De Quincey, who has recorded his impression
in golden words. They are reputed to represent scenes which burned
themselves into the artist’s consciousness while delirious with fever,
and it is certain that they do possess that terrible, vivid reality, so
enormously amplified as to lose the proportions of ordinary existence,
which characterizes all oppressive dreams and particularly those
induced by narcotics. They represent interiors of vast and fantastic
architecture, complete yet unfinished, composed of an inexplicable
complexity of enormous arches springing from massive piers built,
like the arches they carry, of gigantic blocks left rough-hewn. By a
contrast that could only have been conceived by genius these monstrous
spaces are traversed in every direction by frail scaffoldings, together
with ladders, bridges, and all manner of works in wood; and are filled,
at the same time, with an inexhaustible succession of ropes, pulleys,
and engines, finely described by De Quincey as “expressive of enormous
power put forth or of resistance overcome.” They are distinguished by
one of Piranesi’s greatest qualities, the power to express immensity
as, perhaps, no one else has ever done, and are flooded with light
which seems intense in its opposition to the brilliant shadows, so
that altogether it would be difficult to understand their title of
“Prisons,” were it not for the presence of engines of torment, and
of mighty chains that twine over and depend from huge beams, or
sometimes bind fast the little bodies of human beings. The unusual
and inexplicable nature of these “Prisons” gives to the beholder’s
imagination a mighty stimulus productive of strange excitement.
[Illustration: PIRANESI. THE PRISONS. PLATE V
Size of the original etching, 21¼ × 16¼ inches]
[Illustration: PIRANESI. THE PRISONS. PLATE VI
Size of the original etching, 21¼ × 15¾ inches]
The “English Opium-Eater” in likening his visions to these
pictures,--and what higher praise of their imaginative force
could there be?--speaks of their “power of endless growth and
self-reproduction.” One of their distinguishing peculiarities is
this repetition of parts, as of things which grow out of themselves
unceasingly, reproducing their parts until the brain reels at the idea
of their endlessness. This characteristic, together with that curious
opposition between their air of open immensity and their suggestion
of prison-horror, gives them that particular appearance of absolute
reality in the midst of impossibility, which is a distinctive
feature of dreams. In this way they arouse a sense of infinitude in the
mind of the beholder; now, although size is in itself of no importance,
it is nevertheless true that, when combined with other qualities of
value, “greatness of dimension is a powerful cause of the sublime.”
This greatness, both in conception and in material execution, they
possess, together with that opposition of light to obscurity which
“seems in general to be necessary to make anything very terrible.”
Indeed, that these etchings reveal a more imaginative vigor arouse
a kind of awe in any one who gives them more than a passing glance,
while the horror which they suggest is never physical so as to nauseate
or “press too nearly” and cause pain, but imparts, on the contrary,
a sense of danger and of terror that causes a delightful excitement,
certainly fulfilling the definition of the sublime as given by Burke.
Although it does not follow that Piranesi is a greater etcher than
Rembrandt, it may still be true that these etchings reveal a more
imaginative vigor than is shown in those of the great Dutchman. They
do not possess that subtle imagination which envelops everything that
Rembrandt ever touched in an air of exquisite mystery, and gives to
his least sketch an inexhaustible fund of suggestion, nor can they
be compared to his etchings as consummate works of art; yet they do
have a titanic, irresistible force of sheer imagination, which neither
Rembrandt nor any other etcher, however superior in other ways,
possessed to the same extent. Their preëminence in this one point is
certainly admissible, and as it has been shown, presumably, that they
are imaginative, original, and sublime, is it too much to say that,
at least in the expression of certain intellectual qualities, Piranesi
in these plates carried the art of etching to the highest point yet
attained, so that no one who does not know these plates can know quite
all that etching is capable of expressing?
“The Prisons” are also the most notable example of that principle of
opposition, or contrast, of which Piranesi made so masterful a use in
whatever he did. The application of this law in the handling, and at
times in the abuse, of blacks and whites, is, of course, apparent to
even the most casual observer in all that came from his hand. In the
present series, however, this law may be seen carried to its utmost
limit. From every stupendous vault there hangs a long, thin rope, while
up gigantic pillars of rough masonry climb frail ladders of wood,
and great voids between immense piers are spanned by light bridges,
also of wood, bearing the slightest and most open of iron railings.
In his plates of Roman ruins, Piranesi introduces the human figure
dressed in the lovely costume of the eighteenth century, in order to
contrast grace with force, and to oppose the living and the fugitive
to the inanimate and the enduring; but here his use of the human
figure rises to the truly dramatic. In the midst of these vast and
awful halls with their air of stillness and of power, of “resistance
overcome,” he places men who seem the smallest and the frailest among
creatures. Grouped by twos or threes, whether depicted in violent
motion or standing with significant gesture, they are always enigmatic
in their attitudes, so that their presence and obvious emotion amid
this immense and silent grandeur arouse a sense of tragic action,
a feeling of mysterious wonder and curiosity that gives to all lovers
of intellectual excitement a pleasure as keen as unusual. Particularly
in one vision of a monstrous wheel of wood revolving in space, no one
knows how, above a fragment of rocky architecture, while three human
beings engaged in animated converse are obviously unconscious of the
gigantic revolutions, the limits of fantasy are reached, and the mind
turns instinctively to those images of the spheres rolling eternally in
infinite space which are found in Milton and all mystic poets.
[Illustration: PIRANESI. THE PRISONS. PLATE IX
Size of the original etching, 21½ × 16 inches]
[Illustration: PIRANESI. THE PRISONS. PLATE VII
Size of the original etching, 21⅝ × 16⅛ inches]
These plates are also interesting as a striking and curious proof of
Piranesi’s conscious mastery of his art. They are filled with such a
fury of imagination, and are etched with such dash and boldness of
execution that it seems as though they must be, if not, as was once
said, the sane work of a madman, at least burned directly on the plate
by the force of a fever-stricken mind. But not so; they are, however
fevered their original inspiration may have been, the result of careful
elaboration, and are but one more proof of the saying of that other
and still greater etcher, Whistler, that a work of art is complete,
and only complete, when all traces have disappeared of the means by
which it was created. There exists in the British Museum a unique, and
until recently unknown, series of first states of “The Prisons.” Now,
although these first states have the main outline and, as it were, the
germ of the published states, these latter are so elaborated and, on
the whole, improved, as to make it at first incredible that they could
ever have grown out of, or had any relation to, the earlier states. The
idea of vast masses of masonry is there, thrown on the paper with a
simplicity of decorative effect and a directness of touch which have
been lessened in the later work; but, on the other hand, all those
scaffolds, engines of torment, and groups of men above described,
are lacking, so that the power of contrast and the sense of terror,
productive of the sublime, are entirely wanting, and are, therefore,
shown to be the result of conscious art used by Piranesi in elaboration
of an original inspiration.
Piranesi possessed a style so intensely individual that every print
he produced is recognizable as his by any person who has ever looked
at two or three of his plates with moderate attention, yet this style
never degenerated into _manner_; that is to say, into an imitation
not of nature, but of the peculiarities of other men or of one’s own
earlier work. It became a manner or process in the hands of his son,
Francesco, but with Giovanni Battista it always remained _style_, which
is the expression of an original intellect observing nature before
consciously varying the relations of elements drawn by it from nature,
to the end of producing a work of art. This style, whose faults lie
in excessive contrasts of black and white, in inadequate handling of
skies, and, at times, in a certain general hardness of aspect, is
marked by great boldness, breadth, and power, both in conception and
in actual execution, but it is never marred by crudity or roughness.
It is a remarkable fact that the immense force, which first of all
impresses one in Piranesi’s work, does not exclude, but is, on the
contrary, often combined or contrasted with extreme elegance and
fineness of touch. To cite but one instance: in that wonderful print
which forms the title-page of “The Prisons,”--the figure of the chained
man, who imparts such a sense of terror to the whole scene, is handled
with a grace and delicacy worthy of Moreau or any of those French
contemporaries who filled the land with their exquisite creations for
the endless delight of later generations. It is this contrast, together
with his dramatic introduction and grouping of the human figure, which
gives to Piranesi’s style a character that has been aptly qualified as
_scenic_. An etching by Piranesi produces very much the same curious
effect that a person experiences on entering a theater after the
curtain has risen, so that he receives from the stage a sudden, sharp
impression, not of a passing moment of the play, but of one distinct,
dramatic picture. His etchings are never theatrical in the sense of
something factitious and exaggerated beyond likeness to nature, but are
always truly dramatic.
[Illustration: PIRANESI. THE PRISONS. PLATE VIII
Size of the original etching, 21½ × 15¾ inches]
[Illustration: PIRANESI. THE PRISONS. PLATE XI
Size of the original etching, 16 × 21½ inches]
It will have been noticed that plates by Piranesi have been referred to
both as etchings and engravings; this is because he used both etching
and engraving in the same plate, a proceeding which, if decried by
theoretical writers, has none the less been habitually employed by
many of the greatest masters of both means of expression. Despite his
faults and his Latin exuberance, Piranesi is technically one of the
great etchers, in whose hands, particularly in certain plates in “The
Prisons,” the etching-needle attained a breadth of vigorous execution
that no one has surpassed. In judging an artist, the obvious precept,
to consider what he was aiming to do, is unfortunately too often
neglected. To expect of Piranesi either the incomparable delicacy of
Whistler, or the unsurpassed crispness of Meryon would be futile, but
he does possess certain forceful qualities which are not theirs. When
he used the burin, he could handle it with the greatest precision and
skill. In such a plate as the one known as _The French Academy_, the
building is engraved with a skill not at all unworthy of the engravers
who were at that time doing such wonderful work in France, while the
plate, as a whole, gains a delightful quality,--that neither pure
etching nor pure engraving could have given,--from the contrast which
the sharp and delicately engraved lines make with the figures that are
etched with a consummate freedom and dash worthy of Callot, who, one
cannot but think, must have influenced Piranesi.
In his valuable monograph on Piranesi, Mr. Arthur Samuel makes the
statement that “architectural etching has culminated with him”; and it
is certain that in this field his work surpasses, both in architectural
correctness and in artistic merit, any that has been done either before
or since his day.
[Illustration: PIRANESI. THE PRISONS. PLATE XIII
Size of the original etching, 16 × 21¾ inches]
[Illustration: PIRANESI. THE PRISONS. PLATE XIV
Size of the original etching, 16⅜ × 21½ inches]
PART III
THE INFLUENCE OF PIRANESI ON DECORATION IN THE XVIII CENTURY
There is still another side of Piranesi’s originality, public
ignorance of which may be said to be complete--namely, his relation to
architecture, and the very great debt owed him by that art. That he
was an architect who signed himself as such on many plates during his
entire life is a fact ignored even by many of those architects who are
most indebted to him; but this fact is negligible, together with the
work which he actually executed as an architect. The benefits which he
conferred were rendered in other ways.
His first, and perhaps greatest, service consisted in the collection
of materials. The classic motives which he gathered and etched form an
inexhaustible store of ornament on which generation after generation
of architects has drawn, and will continue to draw. The enormous
quantity and variety of classic fragments of the best quality that
Piranesi brought together is in itself astounding, but a fact of still
greater importance is that it was he who, more than any one else, gave
these motives currency. In his day no one, except Winckelmann--now
known chiefly by his influence on Goethe, and by his tragic death--did
as much as Piranesi to foster appreciation and spread knowledge of
classic antiquity; while his plates, both by their greater currency
and higher artistic merit, did wider and more enduring good than could
ever be accomplished by the work of a critic and connoisseur, even
of Winckelmann’s talent and prestige. His boundless enthusiasm and
his real learning aroused more people than we shall ever know, at
the same time that his labors, so indefatigable as to be incredible,
spread abroad in prodigal profusion the reproductions of the remains
of classic buildings, statues, and ornament. The greater part of these
relics would have continued, but for him, to be known to only a few
collectors and frequenters of museums; and it is certain that more
classic motives have come into use, directly or indirectly, from the
works of Piranesi than from any other one source, with the possible
exception of modern photography.
In this connection it is impossible to insist too much on his exquisite
taste, which, although it had its lapses, as in his designs for
chimney-pieces, was on the whole of the highest. This fact seems
quite incredible if the time and place of his life be considered.
The intellectual degradation of all Italy at this period has already
been alluded to, and, art being always a reflection and expression
of contemporary life, it follows that the artistic degradation of
Piranesi’s Italian contemporaries was complete. It is difficult to
conceive the rococo horrors of eighteenth-century Italy. In France
the most contorted productions of the Louis XV style, or the most
far-fetched symbolic lucubrations under Louis XVI, never reached such
depths of bad taste; for the French, in their most unfortunate moments,
can never divest themselves entirely of an innate taste and a sense of
measure which give some redeeming grace to their worst follies. The
lack of tact, of a sense of limitations, which often characterizes
Spanish and Italian art, and at times makes possible splendid flights
never attempted by the French, also permits them, when misguided, to
sink to abysmal depths. It would be hard to find much good in the heavy
contortions of the rococo work of eighteenth-century Italy, which,
starting from Bernini, exaggerated all his faults and kept none of even
his perverted genius. Amid this riot of bad taste, Piranesi, with his
love of classic simplicity, his sense of the noble, and his feeling for
balance and distance, stands out an inexplicable phenomenon.
In certain plates, Piranesi, while using elements taken from antiquity,
created a style of ornamental composition which inspired or was copied
in work praised for its originality, and passing under the name of
other styles. No one dreams of speaking of a Piranesi style, yet there
is many a piece of decoration that calls itself Louis XVI, or Adam, or
anything else, which comes directly from the work of this much-pilfered
Italian. He stands in relation to a great deal of architectural
decoration much as do, in science, those profound and creative minds
who discover a great principle, but neglect its detailed application,
only to have it taken up by lesser inventors of a practical trend, who
put it to actual uses, the tangible value of which excites so great an
admiration that no thought is taken of the man who discovered the very
principle at the base of it all. In such plates as those dedicated to
Robert Adam and Pope Clement XIII there can be found, fully developed,
the style we call currently Louis XVI, although the greater part of
it was produced under Louis XV contemporaneously with the work which
goes by that name. The style in question is there, with its exquisite
detail copied from the antique; we can see its inspiration taken from
the classic which it wished to reproduce, together with its fortunate
inability to do so, and its consequently successful creation of
something entirely original but yet filled with classic spirit. That
interruption of ornament, that alternation of the decorated and the
plain, that sense of balance and of contrast, distinctive of the Louis
XVI style--all are here. To think that these qualities came to Piranesi
through French influence would be ridiculous, for the style under
discussion obviously took for its model classic art, to which it was an
attempted return; and as Piranesi was all his life in direct contact
with the source of this inspiration, he could scarcely have been formed
by a derivation of that which he knew directly.
If this be true, it may be asked why Piranesi’s work did not create in
Italy at least sporadic attempts at a style analogous to that of Louis
XVI. The reason for this lies in the already mentioned condition of
the Italy of that day, for a work of art is absolutely conditioned by,
and a result of, the environment in which it occurs. Here and there a
work of art may, by some phenomenon, occur in opposition, or without
apparent relation, to its surroundings; but in such circumstances
it will have no successors, just as an unusually hardy orange-tree
may thrive far to the north, but will not bear fruit and propagate
itself. A great critic has said: “There is a reigning direction, which
is that of the century; those talents who try to grow in an opposite
direction find the issue closed; the pressure of public spirit and of
surrounding manners compresses or turns them aside by imposing on them
a fixed flowering.” The torpor and bad taste engendered in Italy by
political and intellectual oppression precluded the work of Piranesi
from bearing any fruit in his own country.
[Illustration: Statue of Piranesi, by Angelini, assisted by Piranesi’s
son, and erected in the Church of Santa Maria in Aventino (Rome). It
faces the great candelabra which Piranesi had designed to illuminate
his statue. This plate was engraved by Piranesi’s son, Francesco, in
1790.
Size of the original engraving, 19⅞ × 12¾ inches]
[Illustration: PIRANESI. ANTIQUE MARBLE VASE
From “Vasi. Candelabri. Cippi. Sarcofagi. Tripodi. Lucerne ed Ornamenti
Antichi Disegn. ed inc. dal Cav. Gio. Batta. Piranesi.” (1778) Vol.
II, plate No. 73. Piranesi’s dedication of this plate reads: “Al Suo
Carissimo Amico Il. Sig. Riccardo Hayward Scuttore Inglese.”
Size of the original etching, 24 × 16⅜ inches]
To think, on the other hand, that Piranesi exerted an influence on
French art of his day is not so fanciful as might at first be supposed.
If it be true, as just stated, that it is impossible for the work of
an artist to produce any result when his environment is hostile, it
is equally true that an artist, or a body of artists, can exert an
enormous influence when their surroundings favor and the ground is
ready to receive the seed they sow. France was ripe for such seed as
Piranesi cast abroad vainly in Italy, and in the former country an
incalculable influence in the creation of the Louis XVI style was
exerted by those men who accompanied Mme. de Pompadour’s brother, Abel
Poisson, Marquis de Marigny, on his travels in Italy. Three years
previously this great patron of art had caused her brother to be
appointed to the succession of the “Surintendance des Beaux-Arts,” and
after three years of apprenticeship, in order to make himself worthy
of this important and exalted position, she sent him, in the company
of a numerous suite, to Italy in December, 1749, to complete his
education by remaining there until September, 1751. In his following
were Soufflot, the architect, and Charles Nicholas Cochin _fils_, the
celebrated engraver. On his return from Italy, M. de Marigny directed
all the works of art undertaken by the government throughout France,
while Soufflot built the church of Ste. Geneviève, now known as the
Panthéon, and was one of the most conspicuous and influential men in
the world of art in his day. Cochin, aside from being a great engraver,
was intellectually one of the most interesting artists of the day,
and, as M. de Marigny’s right-hand man, wielded an influence almost
incomprehensible to us of to-day. The latter part of his life, he
really ruled in M. de Marigny’s stead, and his absolute dictatorship in
all matters of art in France can only be compared to that of Le Brun
under Louis XIV.
That his Italian travels were the decisive influence of Cochin’s
career is clearly shown in his own work, and is expressly stated
by Diderot, who says of him that, “judge everywhere else, he was a
scholar at Rome.” Soufflot was only seven years older than Piranesi,
and Cochin but five. Now, when these distinguished Frenchmen were in
Rome, Piranesi was already famous and frequented the most interesting
artistic circles. His talents and his remarkably impetuous personality
made him one of the curiosities of Rome, so that it is scarcely
credible that these visiting foreigners should not have seen much of
him. As their express object was the study of antiquity, and as no one
in Rome knew more of the ruins or had so lively an enthusiasm for them
as Piranesi, it is certainly probable that he influenced them deeply.
[Illustration: SECTION OF ONE OF THE SIDES OF THE GREAT ROOM, OR
LIBRARY, OF EARL MANSFIELD’S VILLA AT KENWOOD
Robert Adam, Architect, 1767. Engraved by J. Zucchi in 1774
From “The Works in Architecture of Robert and James Adam.” (London,
1778)]
[Illustration: IONIC ORDER OF THE ANTEROOM, WITH THE REST OF THE DETAIL
OF THAT ROOM AT SION HOUSE, THE SEAT OF THE DUKE OF NORTHUMBERLAND IN
THE COUNTY OF MIDDLESEX
Robert Adam, Architect, 1761. Engraved by Piranesi
From “The Works in Architecture of Robert and James Adam.” (London,
1778)]
Aside from these men, the list is long of famous Frenchmen who studied
in Rome during the height of Piranesi’s artistic production, and must
certainly have felt his influence. It includes Augustin Pajou, the
sculptor, who went to the Villa Médicis as Prix de Rome in 1748, at
eighteen, and who afterward decorated the opera built at Versailles by
Ange Gabriel, architect of the faultless buildings which ennoble the
Place de la Concorde; Jean Jacques Caffieri, the sculptor, who was in
Rome from 1749 to 1753; Chalgrin, Prix de Rome in 1758, successor
to Soufflot as architect of the city of Paris, and architect of St.
Philippe du Roule and of the Arc de Triomphe; Jean Antoine Houdon,
the sculptor, Prix de Rome in 1761, at twenty, who came to America
with Franklin to execute the statue of Washington now in Richmond;
and finally Claude François Michel, known as Clodion, who gained the
Prix de Rome for sculpture in 1763 and filled whatever he touched
with unrivaled grace, raising the art of terra-cotta figurines to a
degree of loveliness no one else ever attained. It must be remembered
that these architects and sculptors did not confine themselves to
architecture pure and simple, as do our prouder and less talented
contemporaries. With the spirit which animates all periods of great
art, they considered no object too insignificant to be made lovely by
their talent. They decorated theaters and houses, designing furniture,
clocks, vases, and every article of daily life; filling them all with
the consummate, delicate art that remains the despair of all who
have followed. If, therefore, as is to be supposed, they underwent
Piranesi’s influence while in Rome, it would have made itself felt,
through them, in all the decorative arts of France.
If Piranesi’s influence in France be a subject for hypothesis, in
England it can be decisively proved in the case of the so-called
Adam style, a vulgar caricature of which is at present so prevalent
in New York. Robert Adam, a Scotchman who studied in Rome, was so
delightfully original and adventurous as to fit out an expedition
to explore the then totally unknown Palace of Diocletian at Spalato
in Dalmatia. He was also a friend of Piranesi, who dedicated his
views of the Campus Martius to “Robert Adam, a British cultivator
of architecture, as a proof of his affection.” Now Adam, a man of
unusually alert mind and delicate taste, was a poor architect, with a
most defective sense of proportion in the composition of a building
as a whole, who nevertheless possessed unusual and distinctive talent
as a decorator. His fine taste led him to cover his work with detail
executed and often conceived by remarkable persons, so that much of
the credit for originality and delicacy given to him is due, as with
so many an architect, to the artists whom he had the cleverness and
good fortune to employ and the ability to direct. In the preparation
of his monumental book he was assisted by “Eques J. B. Piranesi,” as
he there signs himself, who actually engraved three plates with his
own hand, while the rendering of every design in the book shows his
influence. Knowing this, it is impossible to doubt that Adam’s taste
and style were profoundly influenced by, and indebted to, so original
and masterly a mind as that of Piranesi.
A comparison of Adam’s book with certain plates by Piranesi will
clearly show the debt, while a careful study of only three of his
compositions--namely, the title-page before mentioned as dedicated
to Adam and the two plates inscribed with the name of Pope Clement
XIII--will in itself make clear that much decorative work called either
Louis XVI or Adam takes its forms as well as its inspiration directly
from the creations of Giambattista Piranesi. Piranesi’s influence can
also be proved in the case of George Dance, architect of old Newgate
Prison; of Robert Mylne, architect of old Blackfriars Bridge; of Sir
John Soane, architect of the Bank of England; and of many more. The
subject of Piranesi’s influence in England has been so exhaustively
treated by Mr. Arthur Samuels in his monograph as to make useless any
attempt to rehandle the subject here.
[Illustration: PIRANESI. TITLE-PAGE TO “IL CAMPO MARZIO DELL’ ANTICA
ROMA”
(Rome, 1762)
The dedication to Robert Adam is upon the column to the left
Size of the original etching, 19⅞ × 13¼ inches]
[Illustration: PIRANESI. UPPER LEFT-HAND PORTION, BEARING A DEDICATION
TO ROBERT ADAM, OF PIRANESI’S ETCHED PLAN OF THE CAMPUS MARTIUS
Size of the original etching (of which the above is a part only), 53 ×
45½ inches]
Still another example of Piranesi’s influence is to be found in the
sketches of the present-day German, Otto Rieth, the originality
of whose drawings is so vaunted. Very talented and individual
they certainly are, but to any one thoroughly familiar with the
architectural fantasies of Piranesi, the source of inspiration is so
obvious as to make it impossible that Rieth should not have known the
work of his great Italian predecessor.
The influence which Piranesi exerts on the École des Beaux-Arts, and
consequently on the leading contemporary architects of both France and
the United States, is enormous, if hard to define. The use of detail
which he furnishes is never-ceasing, but more important than this is
the constant inspiration sought in a study of those architectural
fantasies which he has filled with the qualities of grandeur and
immensity so much valued by the French to-day. The buildings of New
York are covered with motives either inspired by Piranesi or taken
directly from his work--ornament much of which would never have
come into vogue but for him; while a recent number of a leading
architectural periodical, without acknowledgment, printed a design of
his for its cover.
It is ardently to be hoped that a wider and more just appreciation of
Piranesi’s unique work may gradually gain currency. Mere productiveness
is, of course, of no intrinsic value; but that any human being should
be capable of so vast a labor as Piranesi must in itself excite in
us a lively sense of wonder and admiration. When, moreover, it is
found that his work, in addition to putting the art of architecture
under an enormous debt, is distinguished by imagination, originality,
sublimity, and immense skill of execution,--a certain portion of it at
least possessing these qualities to a degree unsurpassed by any artist
using the particular medium employed,--it is surely not unreasonable to
attribute to their creator the rare quality of original genius.
NOTE: I desire to acknowledge my indebtedness to Mr. Arthur Samuel
of London, both for material contained in his book and for personal
courtesy.
FRANCISCO GOYA Y LUCIENTES
BY CHARLES H. CAFFIN
Author of “The Story of Spanish Painting,” “Old Spanish Masters,
Engraved by Timothy Cole,” etc., etc.
The phenomenon of Goya is among the curiosities of the history of
art. For in the latter half of the eighteenth century, when, under
the feeble Bourbon dynasty, Spain had reached the lowest ebb of her
national and artistic life, an artist arose who represented more than
any other her racial characteristics and was destined to exert a
world-wide influence on the art of the succeeding century.
While the rest of Europe was seething with the spirit of revolution,
Goya, the man, was already in revolt, and at the same time had
discovered for himself a revolutionary form of art, which anticipated
by half a century the consciousness elsewhere of the need of a new
method to fit the new point of view. In a word, he drove an entering
wedge into the contemporary classicalism that was based upon a dry
imitation of Roman marbles and Raphaelesque compositions, restored
nature to art, and adapted his vision of nature to the spirit of
inquiry, observation, and research that was in process of fermentation.
Finally, he adjusted to his vision of life a method of composition,
freer and more flexible than the older ones: that was preoccupied less
with the representation of form than with the expression of movement
and character; its aim, in fact, being primarily expressional. Thus
he anticipated the motive of modern impressionism and determined in
advance the methods of rendering it.
No less remarkable is the degree in which he was an avatar of the
mingled traits of his race. For ethnologically the Spaniard is a
Celt, who first was disciplined by Roman civilization, then merged in
the flood of a Germanic wave, and later infused with the blood and
culture of the Arab and the Moor. A truly wonderful amalgam--the ironic
humor of the Celt; the mysticism, vigor, and grotesque imagination
of the forest-bred Goth; the subtle inventiveness, sensuousness, and
abstraction of the Orient, and the uncouth strain of the Black Man,
whom to-day we are discovering to be the flotsam of a far-off submerged
civilization in Darkest Africa. All these traits are recognizable in
the work of Goya that he did to please himself: namely, in his painted
figure-subjects, other than portraits, and in his drawings and etchings.
* * * * *
[Illustration: GOYA. PORTRAIT OF GOYA, DRAWN AND ETCHED BY HIMSELF
Size of the original etching, 5⁵⁄₁₆ × 4⅞ inches]
[Illustration: GOYA. THE DEAD BRANCH
From “_The Proverbs_” (Lefort No. 126)
A reference to the Spanish court, which rests on a dead branch over an
abyss
Size of the original etching, 8⅜ × 12⁹⁄₁₆ inches]
In the modern craze for making over biographies of past worthies,
so as to bring their lives into conformity with the standards of
respectability in the present, there is a tendency to suggest that
many of the records of Goya’s career may be apocryphal. This would rob
the story of art of a very picturesque personality; one, moreover,
which seems to be quite convincingly represented in his art. He was
born in 1746, in the little town of Fuendetodos near Zaragoza in the
province of Aragón, his father being a small farmer. Reared among
the hills, he breathed independence, throve mightily in bodily vigor,
and proved precociously disposed to art. Accordingly, at the age of
fourteen he was put under a teacher, Luzan, in Zaragoza. But it was
never Goya’s way to take instruction from a spoon, and at this period
he distinguished himself less as a student than as a roistering young
fellow, apt for gallantry and brawls and ready with his rapier. Having
drawn on himself the attention of the authorities of the Inquisition,
he found it convenient to proceed to Madrid. Here again his escapades
aroused notoriety, so that he abandoned the capital and set forth for
Rome, working his way to the sea-board by practising as a bull-fighter.
In Rome he mainly nourished his artistic development by observation
of the old masterpieces, meanwhile indulging in gallantries, which
culminated in a plot to rescue a young lady from a convent. This time
he found himself actually in the grip of the Inquisition and was
only released from it by the Spanish ambassador, who undertook to
ship him back to Spain. Arrived the second time in Madrid he found
a friend in the painter Francisco Bayeu, who gave him his daughter,
Josefa, in marriage and introduced him to Mengs, the arbiter of art
at Court. Josefa bore him twenty children, none of whom survived him,
and patiently put up with his infidelities. Mengs had been urged by
the king, Charles III, to revive the Tapestry Works of Santa Barbara,
and intrusted Goya with a series of designs, which to-day may be seen
in the basement galleries of the Prado, while some of them, executed
in the weave, adorn the walls of a room in the Escoriál. The vogue
at the time was for Boucher’s pretty pastoral ineptitudes, but Goya
took a hint from Teniers and represented the actual pastimes of the
Spanish people. He, however, far outstripped the Flemish artist in the
variety, naturalness, and vivacity of his subjects, while in the matter
of composition he showed himself already a student of the harmonies of
nature rather than a perpetuator of studio traditions.
These designs secured his general popularity and paved the way for
his _entrée_ into royal favor at the accession of Charles IV in 1788.
Goya, turned forty, was already the darling of the populace and now
became the cynosure of the Court. He would pit his prowess against
the professional strong man in the streets of Madrid and plunged with
equal aplomb and assurance into the gallantries of the royal circle,
which was a hotbed of intrigue under the lax régime of Queen Maria
Luisa, whose amours were notorious. Foremost among her lovers was
Manuel Godoy, whom she raised from the rank of a guardsman eventually
to be prime minister. He embroiled his country in a war with England,
and finally ratted to Napoleon, conniving at the invasion of the
French troops and the placing of Joseph Bonaparte on the throne of
Spain. Meanwhile, in the interval before this _débâcle_, Goya, while
dipping into intrigue, notably with the beautiful Countess of Alba,
and establishing his position as an artist to whom every one who would
be anybody must sit for a portrait, maintained an attitude of haughty
mental exclusiveness. He was the rebel, the insurgent, the nihilist;
lashing with the impartial whip of his satire the rottenness of the
Court and the shams and hypocrisies of the Middle Class, the Church,
Law, Medicine, and even Painting. Also, like many devotees of
sensual pleasures, he was hot in his denunciation of lust, a terrible
exponent of its consequences in satiety and sapped vitality.
[Illustration: GOYA. BACK TO HIS ANCESTORS!
“Poor animal! The genealogists and the kings of heraldry have muddled
his brain, and he is not the only one.”
Manuel Godoy, satirized in this print, had a long and fictitious
genealogy made for himself, according to which he was a direct
descendant of the ancient Gothic kings of Spain.
From “_The Caprices_” (Lefort No. 39).]
[Illustration: GOYA. “BIRDS OF A FEATHER FLOCK TOGETHER”
“The question is often raised whether men or women are superior. The
vices of either proceed from bad upbringing; where the men are depraved
the women likewise are depraved.”
From “_The Caprices_” (Lefort No. 5).]
This last is the theme of one of his most horribly arresting subjects
in oils, an allegory of the Fates, wherein lust and its accompanying
exhaustion represent the futility of man’s existence. It is painted
in colors of extreme neutrality that almost amount to monochrome.
Thus it illustrates a dictum of Goya’s that color no more than line
exists in nature; there are only differences of light and shade. It
accordingly prepares one for an appreciation of his etchings, in which
aquatint plays so intrinsically important a rôle. As a painter he had
begun with positive hues--to abandon them, as soon as he reached his
maturity, for a sparing use of color and a liberal differentiation of
color values. In this he was following Velasquez, whom he admitted to
be one of his teachers, the others being Rembrandt and nature. It was
Rembrandt, unquestionably, who helped him to a vision of nature that
reduced itself to the principle of light and dark; but from nature
herself he gained corroboration of the essential truth of such a
vision. How true it is the artist of the present day has learned from
Goya. Like the latter, he sees color in nature not as positive hues,
but as a complex weave of varying intensities of light and shade that
play over and transform the hues. It is by the correlation of these
varying values that he builds up the structure and secures the planes
of his composition, and realizes a unity and harmony of _ensemble_.
And it is in Goya’s etchings that he finds these principles of color
in relation to composition represented with most adequate reliance on
simplification, organization, and expression--the three watchwords of
contemporary artists who are working in the latest modern spirit.
Expression is the keynote of Goya’s etchings, as it is of his
paintings. It is the quality of feeling rather than of seeing that is
interpreted. Thus, in the oil painting of the _Maja_, _Nude_, it was
Goya’s intent not so much to represent the young form as to interpret
the expression of its youth through the play of light and shadow on
the supple torso and limbs; an expression so exquisitely subtle and
tender that it defies the copyist’s attempted imitation and eludes the
resources of photographic reproduction. Similarly, in the splendid
impressionism of the group-portrait of Charles IV and his family it is
not the appearance of the jewels, clustered on the breasts of the royal
pair, but the effect of their luster that he designed to render. And
so throughout his drawings and etchings the prime purpose is not to
represent the thing seen but to suggest its effect upon the feelings.
* * * * *
Goya’s etched work, as catalogued in 1907 by Julius Hofmann, comprises
268 pieces. These include 22 Various Subjects; 16 Studies after
Velasquez; 83 Caprices; 21 Proverbs; 82 Disasters of War and 44
Tauromachies, or Scenes from the Bull-Fight. To this list of engraved
work are to be added 20 lithographs.
The best known of these groups is _Los Caprichos_, etched in 1794-1798
but not published until 1803. These _Caprices_ represent the most
spontaneous expression of Goya’s temperament and of his attitude toward
the life and the society of his day. At the same time, the designs,
as in the case of all his etchings and lithographs, were executed
with due deliberation, worked out previously in drawings in which
every effect was carefully calculated and assured. With corresponding
fidelity the drawings were copied on the plate.
[Illustration: GOYA. THEY HAVE KIDNAPPED HER
“The woman who does not know how to guard herself is the first to
be attacked. And it is only when there is no longer time to protect
herself that she is astonished that she was carried off.”
From “_The Caprices_” (Lefort No. 8).]
[Illustration: GOYA. “BON VOYAGE!”
“Where go they across the shadows, this infernal cohort which makes the
air ring with their cries? If only there were daylight-- ... Then it
would be another thing: because with a gun we could bring them down....
But it is night and nobody can see them.” From “_The Caprices_” (Lefort
No. 64).]
It is in this set that the creative quality of Goya’s imagination is
most demonstrated. He could not only summon visions from the void, but
clothe them in convincing shape. Whether he stretched some human type
to the limit of caricature or invested it with attributes of bird,
beast, or reptile, or used some familiar form of animal, or created
a hybrid monster, he had the faculty of giving it an actuality that
makes it seem reasonable. As to the meaning of the subjects, the
titles which he himself gave them furnish, except in a few instances,
an intelligible clue. Prints of this set were brought to England by
officers engaged in the Peninsular War and later found their way to
Paris and exercised a very conscious influence upon Delacroix. For they
not only echoed the turbulence of his own spirit, but helped him to
give expression to his own visions of the horrible and fantastic. The
best proofs are those of the first edition, many of which were pulled
by the artist himself.
_The Proverbs_, although engraved between 1800 and 1810, were not
published until 1850. While their subjects are often difficult to
comprehend, they show generally a marked technical advance over the
previous work. This is apparent not only in the character of the
drawing, but also in the increased simplification and more highly
organized arrangement of the composition. Some of the latter, as for
example in the case of _The Infuriated Stallion_ and _The Bird-Men_,
present designs of extraordinary distinction.
The last prints of _La Tauromachie_ are dated 1815. This series falls
short of the others in esthetic interest, being more conspicuously
illustrative. It was, indeed, designed to represent the various phases
through which the baiting of bulls in Spain had passed. Beginning with
the early hunting of the bull in the open country, both on horseback
and on foot, it proceeds to the methods introduced by the Moors, who
are represented in the attire of Turks. Thence it gradually traces
the development of a precise science and technique in the management
of the sport and incidentally commemorates the prowess of individual
bull-fighters, beginning with the Emperor Charles V, and passing to
well-known professional toreadors. Contemporary proofs of Goya are very
rare; and it was not until 1855 that a complete set was published in
Madrid. A later issue, including seven extra prints, was published by
Loizelet in Paris.
[Illustration: GOYA. THE INFURIATED STALLION
From “_The Proverbs_” (Lefort No. 133)
Size of the original etching, 8⅜ × 12½ inches]
[Illustration: GOYA. THE BIRD-MEN
From “_The Proverbs_” (Lefort No. 136)
Size of the original etching, 8⅝ × 12⅞ inches]
Of the _Disasters of War_ no prints exist prior to those of the set
published by the Academy of San Fernando in 1863. Etched during 1810
and the succeeding years of the Peninsular War, the _Disasters_ are
regarded as the finest products of Goya’s needle. Yet he was sixty-four
years old when he commenced them. Though he had subscribed to the
Bonaparte régime and still held the position of Court painter, he
lived apart from active affairs in the seclusion of his country home.
The prints are inspired by his country’s sufferings, but he did not
publish them. To do so would have been to raise a protest against the
crime of the French invasion and to stir his countrymen to increased
patriotism. Under the circumstances of his equivocal position Goya may
have thought such a course impolitic. Perhaps he felt the national
condition to be hopeless. At any rate, he closed himself around in an
atmosphere of profound pessimism. “Was it for this they were born?”
is the legend beneath one of the prints which shows a heap of mangled
corpses. It is the note of the whole series--the criminal horror of
war, and its futility. Nowhere else is the element of the _macabre_
in his genius more fully revealed. The designs are in no sense
illustrative; they are visions of his own brooding, projected against
darkness and emptiness. Yet, just as in the _Caprices_ he gave bone and
flesh to the eery fabrics of his imagination, so by the magic of his
needle his abstract imaginings of the enormity of war became visualized
into concrete actuality.
Of Goya’s lithographs it must suffice here to mention the set of four
prints, _The Bulls of Bordeaux_. They were executed in that city in
1825. For after the expulsion of the French by Wellington and the
restoration of the Bourbon dynasty in the person of Ferdinand VII, Goya
again turned his coat. “For your treason you deserve to be hanged,”
remarked the new king, “but you are a great artist and I overlook the
past.” He was reappointed Court painter; but, broken in health and
spirits, so deaf that he could no longer indulge his musical taste in
playing, he obtained the king’s permission to retire to Bordeaux, where
he was cared for by a Madame Weiss and her daughter. It was during
this time that he visited Paris and was enthusiastically welcomed by
Delacroix and the other Romanticists. When he drew _The Bulls_ _of
Bordeaux_ he was in his seventy-ninth year and able to work only with
the aid of a powerful magnifying-glass. Yet the prints in their intense
and vigorous movement show no slackening of artistic power. He died
three years later, in 1828, and was buried in the cemetery of Bordeaux.
After lying there for seventy-one years, his body was claimed by his
country and interred with honors in Madrid. For by this time the modern
world of art had recognized Goya’s greatness and its own indebtedness
to his genius.
* * * * *
Goya’s etchings reveal him a great master of design. The versatility
of his invention suggests the exuberance of nature, yet calculated art
determines each composition. It is architectonic, organic, functional;
possessing the quality of a built-up structure, with perfect
correlation of its parts and absolute adjustment of means to end.
Moreover, it carries the final mark of distinction in that it appears
to have grown: it has the vitality, movement, and character of a living
organism. It is discovered to be the product of a new mating of nature
and geometry, inspired by a wider and more penetrating observation
of the former and a more extended and imaginative use of the latter.
Hence, at times it strangely anticipates what we are now familiar with
in Oriental composition.
Most remarkable also is the plastic quality, which is realized not
only in the _ensemble_ but also in the component parts. Goya’s
compositions are no mere patterning of surfaces, but an example of
actual space-filling, in the true sense that they occupy the third
dimension. The substance of his forms and their position in space
are so concretely realized that they most actively excite the tactile
sense. And yet, for all their concreteness, they are permeated with a
quality of abstraction. Thus they fascinate alike by their actuality
and their suggestion of a vision. They are frequently hideous, but
in their capacity of sense-enhancement and in their stimulus to the
esthetic intellectuality they are beautiful.
[Illustration: GOYA. GOOD ADVICE
“And this advice is worthy of her who gives it. Worse yet is the damsel
who follows it to the letter, and misfortune to the first one who
accosts her!” From “_The Caprices_” (Lefort No. 15).]
[Illustration: GOYA. GOD FORGIVE HER--IT’S HER OWN MOTHER!
“The damsel while young left her native land, served her apprenticeship
in Cadiz, and is now returned to Madrid. She has drawn a prize in the
lottery, goes one day to the Prado, and is accosted by an old and
decrepit beggar--she repulses her; the beggar woman insists. The beauty
turns and recognizes her--this poor old woman is her mother.”
From “_The Caprices_” (Lefort No. 16).]
And the beauty of these compositions is materially increased by the
sense of color which they suggest. In consequence of Goya’s influence
aquatint is coming largely into vogue with modern etchers; but he with
this process, and his contemporary, Turner, with mezzotint, were the
first to explore fully the resources of tint in combination with line.
The English artist, however, used it mainly as a convenient method
of representation. In Goya’s hand it became a medium of intellectual
and emotional expression, comparable to tone in music. Goya, in fact,
by his study of nature, advanced the circle of his art, so that, on
the one hand, it embraced more of the universal geometry and, on the
other, intersected more freely the circles of the other arts. Thus he
anticipated the latest modern thought, in its consciousness of the
essential unity of the arts and of the essential unity of art with
life.
A NOTE ON GOYA
BY WILLIAM M. IVINS, JR.
No other artist in black and white has ever exhibited such tremendous
vitality as Goya. Look back along the line, and there is no maker of
prints who has put into them the same exuberant, full-blooded delight
in life. For sheer physical strength Mantegna only may be compared
with him. And, strangely, with this often almost delirious overflow
of animal spirits there is the most remarkable sensitiveness to the
significance of gesture. Who, except Hokusai, has ever expressed, in
black and white, _weight_--the heaviness of tired bodies, the leaden
fall of an unconscious woman’s arm, or the buoyancy of excitement--as
this Spaniard? Who has ever made motion so moving--made young limbs so
supple, elastic, and graceful? His every line is kinetic--he does not
relate motion, he exhibits it--and in art as elsewhere deeds are worth
more than words.
For sensitiveness to the beauty of the human body, for curious
research in the esthetic inversion, the beauty of the hideous, Goya
stands alone. No one, not even Leonardo, has plumbed so deep in the
hidden shadowy parts. No one has so pictured _fear_--theatricalities a
plenty--but only here real terror.
[Illustration: GOYA. LOVE AND DEATH
“Here is a lover who, like those in Calderon, because he could not
refrain from mocking his rival, is dying in the arms of his beloved,
and by his temerity has lost all. It is not well to draw the sword too
often.” From “_The Caprices_” (Lefort No. 10).]
[Illustration: GOYA. HUNTING FOR TEETH
“The teeth of those who have been hanged are very efficacious in
bringing luck. Without this ingredient nothing worth while can be done.
Is it not pitiful that the common folk believe such foolishness?” From
“_The Caprices_” (Lefort No. 12).]
On the purely technical side--the broad massing of sharply contrasted
light and shade, the ability to tell a tale with the simplest means,
the instinctive choice of the pictorially dramatic detail--Rembrandt
and Goya stand alone.
On another side that is purely technical, it should be borne in
mind that Goya is the only one who has availed himself of all the
possibilities of aquatint--the only one who has used the medium with
audacity and resolution and success; the only one who has dared use it
to express powerful and fundamental things.
Goya, both in himself and for his influence, is one of the greatest
artists that the world has seen these last hundred and fifty years--and
his greatest work is his black and white.
THE ETCHINGS OF FORTUNY
BY ROYAL CORTISSOZ
Literary and Art Editor of the New York _Tribune_
The etchings of Fortuny make an inviting theme, inviting in itself
and doubly sympathetic because it provokes talk about Fortuny. I have
always had a weakness for that endearing personality and I cannot, for
the life of me, go with foot-rule and a spirit of cold analysis through
the twenty-five or thirty plates--twenty-nine, to be exact--recorded
in the useful compendium of Beraldi. You cannot be pedantic about an
artist whose work has meant to you an early enthusiasm and a lifelong
sense of gaiety and brilliance. The first work of art I ever yearned
to possess was a drawing by Fortuny. I did not get it into my hands.
The spell faded, but it was revived, and long afterward it involved me
in an enchanting task. In Paris, one summer, the late Philip Gilbert
Hamerton asked me to write a memoir of Fortuny and for two years I
spent a good deal of my leisure going hither and yon, collecting
material. The book never got itself written, for reasons which I found
both pathetic and comic. Too much of the “material” aforesaid proved
too heart-breakingly expensive. Mr. Hamerton and I and his London
publisher, the late Mr. Seeley, ruefully concluded as we counted up
the figures, that, humorously speaking, ruin stared us in the face. We
turned to other things.
[Illustration: FORTUNY. ARAB WATCHING BESIDE THE DEAD BODY OF HIS FRIEND
(Beraldi No. 1)
Size of the original etching, 7½ × 15¼ inches]
[Illustration: FORTUNY. IDYLL
(Beraldi No. 4)
Size of the original etching, 7⅝ × 5½ inches]
That, as I have said, was years ago, but every now and then I go
back to Fortuny, for old sake’s sake if for no other reason, though
he was, of course, a remarkable artist to whom one would be bound,
anyway, frequently to return. As a matter of fact, his genius has
needed, of late, to be restored to the public consciousness. When the
Impressionists came in, Fortuny, or perhaps I should more specifically
say, the hypothesis for which he stood, went out. One of the results
of my understanding with Mr. Hamerton was a series of visits to the
_palazzo_ in Venice which is still the home of Fortuny’s family, and
there you found a contrast that was full of meaning. On the _piano
nobile_ Fortuny’s art held its own in numerous unfinished pictures,
sketches, and the like. But, up-stairs, in his son’s studio, all was
changed. When young Marianito sought inspiration as a painter, he
did not follow in his father’s footsteps, but went to Munich, and on
his walls I saw huge canvases illustrating Wagnerian motives in a
huge and splashy manner, strongly suggestive of Franz Stuck and his
followers. I confess that at this distance of time I do not recall very
accurately just what they were all about; but I can remember as though
it were yesterday how extremely different they were from the paintings
down-stairs. Of course no one could blame Marianito. An artist must
seek salvation in his own way. But it is impossible not to feel a
certain indignation over the ignorance of those who have tried to wave
Fortuny aside as a painter of bric-a-brac.
We saw too much of that sort of thing when the works of Sorolla
and Zuloaga were shown at the Hispanic Museum and people went into
hysterics over them, talking especially about how the first of these
painters was rejuvenating Spanish art. I used to hear such talk in
Madrid, some fifteen years ago, amongst the younger men who were even
then hailing Sorolla as a pioneer. They were right, and it is right,
as I have argued elsewhere, to recognize in this painter’s work an
influence of the highest value to the modern Spanish school. But there
were great men before Agamemnon, and it is stupid to ignore what was
done for Spanish painting by Fortuny long before any one ever heard
of Sorolla. I have great respect and plenty of admiration for that
accomplished technician, and yet I think that he himself, if pressed
in the matter, would cheerfully admit that nothing he ever painted
could quite touch the portrait in the Metropolitan Museum, _A Spanish
Lady_, which Fortuny painted in 1865. Outside of France that was not a
particularly good year amongst painters, but Fortuny, then twenty-seven
years old, was proving himself not unworthy of Velasquez. He was
drawing with mastery and he was painting blacks with amazing skill
and taste, with amazing sensitiveness to the beauties lying entangled
in one of the most difficult of a colorist’s problems. Indeed, I may
note in passing that this picture alone would show Fortuny to have
enforced lessons in tone which no Spaniard since his time, not even the
prodigiously clever Sorolla, has begun to commence to prepare to equal.
[Illustration: FORTUNY. THE SERENADE
(Beraldi No. 10)
Size of the original etching, 15½ × 12¼ inches]
[Illustration: FORTUNY. A MOROCCAN SEATED
(Beraldi No. 19)
Size of the original etching, 5½ × 4 inches]
There are many other paintings of his over which it would be pleasant
to linger, but, having the etchings in view, I forbear. At the same
time I have driven at nothing irrelevant in speaking of Fortuny’s
command over the brush, for that is very closely related to his
command over the needle. It is important to remember, in the first
place, that he was a born draughtsman. The fact was brought home to
me when I made a pilgrimage to Barcelona, to see the big Moroccan
battle-piece which he painted for the municipality not long after he
had won the Prix de Rome. I saw in the spirited picture the Fortuny we
all know, but I saw also, in some earlier pieces, the kind of academic
work that he did under the influence of old Soberano, his master at
Reus, where he was born in 1838. Yes, it was academic work, but it
was the work of a youngster of genius who had a _flair_ for form and
drew it with astonishing adroitness. There, to be sure, you have the
essence of Fortuny, more even than in the glitter of light and color
conventionally associated with his name. The artists and critics who
think that the history of painting began with Manet are wont to damn
Fortuny with faint praise, talking about his dexterity as though that
were a very ordinary and perhaps specious gift. Well, there is a
dexterity, there is a sleight of hand, as honest as anything that you
will find in Manet, and Fortuny had it. There are moments, no doubt, in
which it takes your breath away as though by some deceptive stroke of
conjuror’s work. But at bottom there is a sterling sincerity about it,
and this, I think, is sharply perceptible in the etchings.
Paradoxically, these do not proclaim Fortuny what the master of etching
is wont to be--a lover of line for its own sake, a user of it as a
language possessing its own special character and charm. Rembrandt’s
strength and Whistler’s exquisiteness were alike unknown to him. The
truth is that Fortuny employed the needle somewhat as he employed the
pen, simply for purposes of swift and free expression. There are some
bewitching drawings of his, reproduced by the Amand-Durand process in
the memoir by Baron Davillier, and there are others in the catalogue of
the great sale of his studio effects in 1875, which, for the impression
they leave, might almost be regarded as etchings. The impression in
either category is very much one of “black-and-white.” Has not Fortuny
been the master of a generation of illustrators? Nevertheless his
drawings and his etchings are not absolutely interchangeable. In the
latter there is too much of the painter for that; his figures are too
closely modeled and his backgrounds are too transparent. Some of his
plates, such as _The Serenade_, _The Anchorite_, the _Kabyle Mort_, and
_The Farrier_, are wonderfully rich in color such as no pen draughtsman
could secure. He knew how to fill his backgrounds with deep warm tone,
and he could use the same vivifying touch in his treatment of the
figure. It is worth while to go carefully through the little collection
of etchings that he left, looking more particularly for those
rather thin staccato effects which his imitators affect--one is so
delightfully disappointed. I have spoken of his sincerity, his honesty.
Amongst all the plates there is only one, _La Victoire_, which hints
a contradiction. There is something factitious about the composition,
recalling the Sicilian nudities hawked about by the photographers in
Southern Italy. But even this etching has undeniable brilliance as
a piece of technique, and, for the rest, Fortuny is the quite artless
connoisseur of picturesqueness, etching his Moorish types and his
portraits in the mood of the serious observer of nature aiming at the
truth. On two or three occasions he appears to have let his fancy rove.
His _Amateur de Jardin_ and his _Méditation_ both belong amongst those
graceful studies of costume and pseudo-romantic sentiment with which
his paintings have made us so familiar. And once he turned poet in a
small way, etching that charming _Idylle_ which may reflect no emotion
whatever, but has, at all events, a certain dainty elegance; but do not
think that Fortuny was really a poet. It was not in his temperament. He
was sensuous, mundane, in the soul of him; the very man to enjoy just
the career that fell to his lot.
[Illustration: FORTUNY. A HORSE OF MOROCCO
(Beraldi No. 20)
Size of the original etching, 4¼ × 6¼ inches]
[Illustration: FORTUNY. INTERIOR OF THE CHURCH OF SAINT JOSEPH, MADRID
(Beraldi No. 21)
Size of the original etching, 5⅜ × 9¼ inches]
New Yorkers will recall the sale here of the collection formed by the
late W. H. Stewart in Paris, the “Cher Monsieur Guillermo” of more
than one of the artist’s letters printed by Davillier. It was full of
Fortunys, which made a dazzling array when they were put up at auction.
But it was better to see them scattered about in Mr. Stewart’s home by
the Seine, and there they breathed the atmosphere of a clearly defined
character. You did not think of Fortuny in Spain, quietly painting
at Granada; you did not think of him on the more adventurous soil of
Morocco, nor did you dwell on thoughts of his days in Rome and on the
beach at Portici. You thought, instead, of the Fortuny who took the
collectors of Paris by storm, who moved Théophile Gautier to jeweled
eloquence, who was young, successful, and happy, who had a great gift
and used it truly with a _gaillard_ grace. He was not the specious
entertainer, bemusing his audience with incredible tricks. All his
wizardry, all his diabolical cleverness, was quite natural to him,
springing from his heart and in no wise diminishing his weight and
seriousness as a student of nature. Beraldi applauds his etchings for
their originality. Let us honor them too for their fidelity to life,
for their simple strength, as well as for their light, vivacious charm.
PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS OF SIR SEYMOUR HADEN, P.R.E.
PART I
BY FREDERICK KEPPEL
Many treatises have been published on Seymour Haden the artist, but not
one, as yet, on Seymour Haden the man. This is as it should be; because
no one can write freely and frankly on the personality of a famous man
while that man is still living, and Sir Seymour lived until the year
1910, when he died at the great age of ninety-three.
I met him often every year for about thirty years, and I first made
his acquaintance when he lived in his very handsome house in the
aristocratic region known as Mayfair, in the west end of London. His
house adjoined the residence of the Lord Chief Justice of England.
The doctrine held by the ancients that the Goddess of Fortune was
stone-blind has much to warrant it. Let us take the case of three
contemporary nineteenth-century etchers, all three being men of genius.
I mean the two French masters, Charles Meryon and Jean-François Millet,
and the Englishman Seymour Haden. The two French etchers lived in dire
poverty and often had to go hungry because they had not the means to
pay for a meal; while, to their English contemporary, “the lines were
fallen in pleasant places” and he never knew the wants that pinch the
poor.
Born in 1818, in his father’s fine house in Sloane Street, London
West, Francis Seymour Haden had the advantage of coming of a good and
well-known family, in easy circumstances, and the further advantage of
having received an excellent university education, so that he found
himself, from the first, the social equal of many of the best in the
land, and he never had to invade and overcome that formidable social
barrier which in England so sternly divides the “somebodies” from
the “nobodies”; and during his long and active life he certainly did
nothing to diminish or discredit the high social standing to which he
was born and bred.
This being so, he remained to the end of his life an ideal Tory
aristocrat, a condition which might be compared to that of the Bourbon
kings, who “never forgot anything and never learned anything.” In
maintaining any opinion which he had formed, or inherited, he was as
immovable as the rock of Gibraltar, and it made no difference to him if
later evidence showed that his earlier opinions were wrong.
[Illustration: PORTRAIT OF SEYMOUR HADEN AT THE AGE OF SIXTY-TWO
From the engraving by C. W. Sherborn
Size of the original engraving, 6 × 3½ inches]
[Illustration: PORTRAIT OF SEYMOUR HADEN AT THE AGE OF FORTY-FOUR
From his etching from life, done in 1862
Size of the original print, 7¾ × 10⅝ inches]
I well remember hearing that man of genius, Henry Ward Beecher, say in
a sermon: “Talk of the sin of Pride--we haven’t half enough of it!” Be
that as it may, Seymour Haden was always a proud man, and this innate
pride sometimes rendered him intolerant of the opinions of other good
men whose ideas were also entitled to due respect. Indeed, I have never
known a man who set a higher value on himself. Nothing was too good
for him--whether it might be his collection of the best prints by
older masters, his house and its appointments great and small, or the
instruments which he used when he practised surgery,--everything must
be of the very best. This determination of his was, within limits, a
noble one, although it sometimes made him intolerant of other men who
were unable to rise to his high ideals.
In this ingrained pride and self-esteem of Seymour Haden’s he was far
too proud to be vain. I do not think he had any vanity at all. In
this respect he differed, “as far as the east is from the west,” from
his illustrious brother-in-law, Whistler. The latter’s lifelong habit
was to pose and to perform like an actor on the stage--whether his
audience consisted of many auditors or of only one; while Haden, though
an eminently well-bred gentleman, cared nothing whatever about the
impression he might be making on his auditors--so long as his actions
were approved by himself. On such occasions all went charmingly until
some other person uttered a heterodox opinion on art, or politics, or
any other subject; but when that happened Sir Seymour’s indignation
would burst forth like a raging volcano.
On one such occasion, while I was a guest in his country house, I
infuriated him--though with no evil intention. It was at the time when
the patriot Charles Stewart Parnell was making such a brave struggle in
the House of Commons on behalf of Home Rule for Ireland, I expressed
my admiration for Parnell, when Sir Seymour got very angry and so
made all the company uncomfortable. Thus far I did not blame myself;
but a year later I certainly was ashamed of my own indiscretion. I
had quite forgotten about the outbreak of the former year and I again
expressed my warm sympathy with the cause of Irish Home Rule. It was
just at the beginning of dinner at Sir Seymour’s hospitable table, but
no sooner had I mentioned the subject than he flung down knife and
fork, marched out of the dining-room, banged the door behind him, and
tramped up-stairs to his bedroom. That sweet woman, Lady Haden, said to
me very quietly, “We shall see no more of Sir Seymour to-night,” and
next morning, before my host appeared at breakfast, his very tactful
wife, laying her hand gently on my arm, said to me, “Mr. Keppel, in
conversing with my husband, pray avoid the subject of Home Rule in
Ireland.” Most readers would think that the little incident ended
here; but it didn’t. Presently Sir Seymour came down to breakfast and
carried in his hand a large and handsome book which he presented to
me. On the fly-leaf I read a long and most kindly dedication written
by himself; and so _that_ was the end of the incident. I remember that
when I received this _amende honorable_ my first impulse was to recall
a characteristic Irish adage which says: “First cut my head, an’ then
give me a plasther!”
[Illustration: SIR SEYMOUR HADEN
From the drawing by Alphonse Legros, done in 1895]
[Illustration: WOODCOTE MANOR (the Home of Sir Seymour Haden)
From the etching by Percy Thomas
Size of the original etching, 6⅝ × 10½ inches]
Lady Haden was, in a very quiet and refined way, a remarkable woman.
She was daughter of an American army officer, Major Whistler, and she
bore the Puritan Christian names of Deborah Delano. In more than one
of Sir Seymour’s etchings her first name is quieted down to “Dasha.”
She was half-sister to the great Whistler, who was the issue of her
father’s second marriage, and she clung to her “brother Jimmie” to the
end of her life. All the art which was inherent in the Whistler
family manifested itself in Lady Haden’s music. She was a marvelous
reader of piano music, and when Sir Seymour got possession of the fine
old Elizabethan mansion of Woodcote Manor in Hampshire, Lady Haden,
perceiving that there was no musical skill among the young men of the
neighboring village of Bramdean, organized a band or orchestra for
these rustics. To one she taught the violin, to another the flute, to
another the trombone, etc. After about two years of drilling I had
the opportunity of hearing her band performing in the school-house at
Bramdean, and they played respectably well, while the sweet old lady
conducted the music with her baton. Toward the end of her life she
became totally blind, and after that I never was more affected in my
life than when, at Woodcote Manor, I saw her grope her way to her piano
and heard her play, superbly, some great compositions by Beethoven and
Chopin.
At Woodcote Manor Sir Seymour enjoyed his life thoroughly (except
when something went wrong and made him angry). The mansion stood in
its own park and there was a beautiful old garden inclosed with high
stone walls. One summer when his long hedge of sweet pea was in full
bloom he took me to see it and told me that he had thought out a new
and interesting botanical fact, on which he had written a paper for
the learned Royal Society, and that he intended to send it to them in
London and to invite some eminent botanists of the Society to come to
Woodcote and see the phenomenon for themselves. His theory was that
garden flowers always had a tendency to return to the original color of
the same blossoms in the wild plant, especially when the garden plant
grew tall, and then he showed me that, in his hedge of sweet pea, the
purple blossoms at the top were much more numerous than the flowers of
pink or blue or white which were lower down, thus proving that when a
garden sweet pea grew tall the blossoms returned to the original purple
color of the wild pea.
I had always been somewhat of a horticulturist myself and so I said to
him: “It is evident that the plants here bearing purple flowers grow
taller than the others; but you must remember that any single plant
of sweet pea can give you nothing but one and the same color in its
blossoms.” Sir Seymour sent for his pig-headed old Hampshire gardener,
put the question to him, and although the old man was greatly in awe
of his master he gave his decision on my side and against Sir Seymour.
“You are a pair of fools,” was the old gentleman’s angry answer, and he
started to leave us. But I overtook him and said: “Now, Sir Seymour, it
is not fair to me to leave this little scientific question undecided.
Pray come back for a few minutes and let me cut two or three of your
plants at the roots, disentangle them from the hedge, and show you that
although they mingle when growing close together yet you never get
more than one colored bloom from one plant.” To this he consented, and
of course my demonstration showed that his theory was wrong; but his
anger against me lasted till bedtime, and it was only next morning that
he said to me: “Keppel, you made me angry yesterday about those sweet
peas,--but, all the same, I am glad you saved me from making a damned
fool of myself before the Royal Society.”
[Illustration: REPRODUCTION, IN REDUCED SIZE, OF A PAGE OF MANUSCRIPT
IN THE HANDWRITING OF SIR SEYMOUR HADEN]
[Illustration: FACSIMILE, IN REDUCED SIZE, OF THE CERTIFICATE OF
SEYMOUR HADEN’S CANDIDACY FOR MEMBERSHIP IN THE ATHENÆUM CLUB]
Sir Seymour’s anger on this occasion was mild compared with the rage
he flew into with his gardener when, after the master had been absent
for a day in London, he returned and found that his man had spent a
laborious day in scraping off the beautiful green moss which adorned
the trunks and larger branches of the old apple-trees in the garden. I
was with Sir Seymour when he made the distressing discovery and I heard
the furious sound of the vials of wrath which he poured on the stupid
old man’s head. After Sir Seymour had gone the poor gardener said
to me: “And that’s my thanks for having worked hard to make his old
apple-trees look neat and tidy!”
Besides being a fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons, Sir Seymour
Haden was a member of the most exclusive club in London--if not in the
world--the Athenæum. It generally took from fifteen to twenty years for
any candidate to be elected. Sir Seymour had to wait eighteen years.
The usage of this club is to hang on the wall a large sheet of paper
setting forth the name and the qualities of the candidate, and any
member who approved of this candidate would sign this paper. Whether
many of these eminent persons had much idea of the quality of a fine
etching is quite another matter, but Sir Seymour’s nomination sheet
at the club was crammed with signatures of eminent men advocating
his election. Among these signatures are those of Robert Browning,
Anthony Trollope, Matthew Arnold, Dr. Tait, Archbishop of Canterbury;
Huxley, the great scientist; Lord Chief Justice Coleridge, and Sir E.
J. Poynter, now President of the Royal Academy of Arts. Besides the
signatures of these famous men who had “achieved greatness” other
signers of this Athenæum document had been “born great,” including
several hereditary peers; and--to finish Shakespeare’s sentence--the
gentleman chiefly concerned never waited to have “greatness thrust upon
him,” for he was always quite willing to meet greatness half-way.
The Athenæum Club is so desperately exclusive that no member can
bring in an outsider except to a little sentry-box inside the main
portal, which room is only large enough to accommodate two persons.
On one occasion when I was visiting Sir Seymour I did one of the few
deliberately wicked things that ever I did in my life. As I stood in
the little sentry-box I perceived His Grace the Archbishop of York
entering with a friend at the front door of the club. The two walked
straight to the glass door of the little sentry-box where I was, and
the eminent prelate said to his friend, in a loud authoritative voice:
“We can sign the documents here in a moment.” Then it was that “Satan
entered into me.” I knew that this was my only chance ever to make a
British archbishop wait till I was “good and ready,” and so, although I
had finished my business with Sir Seymour, I began talking and talking
about his friends in Paris and what they were doing, until I kept the
very impatient archbishop striding up and down before the little door
for more than ten minutes, and twice when I caught his eye he looked at
his watch, glared at me, and exclaimed, “Dear me, how tiresome!” (It
will be remembered that in genteel English parlance the word “tiresome”
means “annoying” or “provoking.”) At last, when I could talk no more,
Sir Seymour rose from his chair, opened the door, and met the raging
Dr. Maclagan outside. “Oh, Archbishop,” said he, “I do hope we have not
kept you waiting,” and His Grace made answer in a very fretful voice,
“Well, in point of fact, Sir Seymour, _you have!_” I cannot claim that
this prank of mine did me any credit, but in my boyhood days in England
my family and I had suffered from the pomposity of English prelates.
[Illustration: HADEN. WHISTLER’S HOUSE, OLD CHELSEA
Etched in 1863. On the left is Lindsay Row, in which Whistler’s house
is indicated by a small stellated mark above the chimney. To the right
is old Chelsea Church and Battersea Bridge
Size of the original etching, 6⅞ × 13 inches]
[Illustration: HADEN. BATTERSEA REACH
A view of the Thames at Battersea, etched in 1863, looking out of
Whistler’s window
Size of the original etching, 5⅞ × 8⅞ inches]
The feud between Seymour Haden and Whistler was known throughout
Europe. Whistler loathed Haden and Haden detested Whistler. But Sir
Seymour drew a distinction between the man whom he abominated and the
artist whom he greatly admired. This admiration led him to make a
notable collection of Whistler’s prints. On one occasion Sir Seymour
said to me that if he were forced to part with his Rembrandt etchings
or with his Whistlers he would find it hard to determine which master’s
works he must let go. Later on I repeated this saying to Whistler and
that modest gentleman calmly remarked: “Why, Haden should first part
with his Rembrandts, of course.”
Among the historic questions which can never be definitely determined
is the one--whether Seymour Haden was the man who kicked Whistler
down-stairs or whether it was Whistler who administered this violent
treatment to Haden. I have heard the story from both, and each of these
eminent men stoutly maintained that _he_ had been the kicker and his
adversary the kicked one.
As president of the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers Sir Seymour did
a great work in maintaining sound doctrine in etching. Nothing was
admitted which was “commercial” in character, and etchings which were
done after paintings by other hands were rigorously ruled out.
The membership comprised foreign as well as British artists, and
membership was eagerly sought for,--so much so that many famous etchers
never were elected, although they tried hard to be.
The members often had to complain of the masterful ways of their
president; he ruled them with a rod of iron, but still the malcontents
were forced to endure it,--well knowing that no other man could give to
the Society the prestige and authority that Seymour Haden gave to it.
In all other art exhibitions a good thing, done by an outsider, is
accepted and welcomed, but the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers
exhibits nothing except the work of its own members.
We have seen that Sir Seymour Haden, in spite of his good
qualities--and his great qualities--was a man of a domineering and
disputatious nature. I know of no figure in dramatic literature whom
he resembled so closely as Sheridan’s _Sir Anthony Absolute_. Both of
these _Sirs_ were of a violent and masterful temper, and yet both of
them were good men.
[Illustration: HADEN. OUT OF STUDY WINDOW
Etched from an upper window in Mr. Haden’s house in Sloane Street. In
the mid-distance is the suburb of Brompton
Size of the original etching, 4¼ × 10¼ inches]
[Illustration: HADEN. THOMAS HADEN OF DERBY
“Thomas Haden of Derby, my grandfather, was, under a polished exterior,
one of the most determined men I have ever known, and one of the
bravest. He would have made a hero of romance if he had had the chance.
At the age of eighty-five he defended his home against the whole mob of
Derby, keeping them at bay all night.”
Seymour Haden.
Size of the original etching, 13⅞ × 9⅜ inches]
Besides Seymour Haden’s signal achievements as etcher and as surgeon,
and his zeal as an angler, he, like some other good men, had a special
hobby which he rode for years, and which he often ventilated in the
London _Times_. His theory was that no corpse should be buried in a
solid wooden coffin, but that it should be inclosed in a loose wicker
case, where the earth could come in direct contact with the dead body.
He contended that such contact would very quickly turn “earth to
earth.” One of his demonstrations was practised on the dead body of
a large old sow that died in his farm-yard. (The animal’s name, I
remember, was Mary Jane.) Sir Seymour had Mary Jane buried in the
garden, in a shallow grave, and he had a covering of not more than
three inches of earth laid over her. Then every visitor to Woodcote
Manor had to visit the grave and to use his olfactory organs over it. I
myself had to do this on two occasions and I must say that I detected
no foul odor whatever.
For more than twenty years I enjoyed a peculiar privilege in connection
with Woodcote Manor. The old couple, used to the stir and bustle of
London, where they had “troops of friends,” sometimes found themselves
somewhat lonely in the solitude of Hampshire, and so it happened that
for more than twenty years I was given _carte blanche_ to invite to
Woodcote any person I pleased. I was very particular as to the persons
whom I thus invited; but the people so invited were charmed with their
visit, whether it lasted for three days or for two weeks, and the
English know very well how to make a guest comfortable.
In the park at Woodcote Manor there is an etched tablet, nailed to the
trunk of an ancient hawthorn-tree. It reads:
A loyal friend through weal and woe,
At last, stern death o’ertakes him:
Here sleeps my loving, wise old crow,
Till Gabriel’s trumpet wakes him.
I wrote this epitaph at Lady Seymour Haden’s request. She gave to my
dear old pet crow a resting-place when he died. That crow was more like
a friend than a pet. On Atlantic steamers he would fly about among the
sea-gulls, and in London I used to open the windows and he flew where
he pleased, but I was always sure that he would come back to me.
* * * * *
The present article is already so long that I must not prolong it
further; but in a later number of THE PRINT-COLLECTOR’S QUARTERLY I
intend to give an account of Sir Seymour Haden’s visit to the United
States.
PART II
SEYMOUR HADEN IN AMERICA
The former chapter of my article on Sir Seymour Haden referred entirely
to my experiences with him in Europe; this second and concluding
portion will contain nothing except an account of his sayings and
doings during his visit to the United States in the year 1882. The
purpose of his American visit was to expound and vindicate the
importance of original etching as a fine art. This he did by delivering
a series of lectures on the subject, and these lectures, in the main,
were very well received.
[Illustration: PORTRAIT OF SEYMOUR HADEN
From a photograph from life: taken in New York in 1882]
[Illustration: CHAMPNEY. PORTRAIT OF SIR SEYMOUR HADEN
Sketched (unknown to him) in the Print Room of the British Museum by J.
Wells Champney of New York. Sir Seymour afterward wrote on this sketch.
“Excellent! S. H. 1899.”
Size of the original drawing, 9 × 8 inches]
Being a born and case-hardened controversialist he soon found out that
in America no man’s unproved _ipse dixit_, however eminent he might
be, was dutifully accepted as it would have been in one of the older
civilizations of Europe, and so it came about that several unprofitable
controversies were hotly waged on both sides. Seymour Haden was
by nature pugnacious and “toplofty,” and such an attitude went down
badly in America. But, all the same, the man himself was treated with
distinguished consideration here, and his lectures did genuine good to
the cause of true art. He lectured in all our principal cities from New
York to Chicago, and although when he landed here I think he had very
few personal acquaintances (except myself), yet when he sailed back to
England he took with him the cordial friendship and good will of many
Americans of the right sort.
His first lecture was delivered before a distinguished audience in
Chickering Hall, Fifth Avenue, New York. He had plenty of voice to
make his auditors hear him; but his lecture dragged considerably--for
a peculiarly British reason: it is known to some of us that in an
Englishman’s public oration he is not genteel or distinguished if
he speaks freely and fluently. No, no; he must befog and entangle
his words with all sorts of hesitations and amendments. It is the
same in the British House of Commons. I do not mean such master
orators as Gladstone was, but the public speech of the average
British member,--let us call him Sir Huddleston Fuddleston--sounds
like this: “The honorable, hum--the honorable and gallant member
from--ha--hum--from Hull, has been good enough to--a--um--to
_say_--etc.”
Well, Seymour Haden modeled his oratory on this preposterous but
genteel British usage; and yet, in private conversation, I have never
known a man who used more elegant and appropriate language than he. On
the day following that of the lecture, I received a visit from my kind
and valued friend the Right Reverend Monsignor Doane, who was a genuine
lover of fine prints, and he said to me: “Well, I heard your English
friend last evening humming and hawing through his lecture.” Soon
afterward I had the opportunity of bringing these two distinguished
men together, and after that, during his yearly visit to England, the
monsignor used to be a welcome and honored guest of Sir Seymour and
Lady Haden. The artist’s lectures in Boston were listened to with
earnest attention and he was the guest of honor at a reception given
at the St. Botolph Club; but even there storms and tempests arose. He
quarreled with the one eminent American whom, the rest of us would
think, nobody could quarrel with,--namely, Oliver Wendell Holmes.
It was all about a “fool” difference of opinion on some question of
medical ethics and usages in America as compared with England.
[Illustration: HADEN. MYTTON HALL
“Mytton Hall is an old Henry the Seventh house which Mr. Haden was in
the habit of staying at for the purpose of his salmon fishing in the
river Ribble (the Lancashire River) which runs past it.”
Seymour Haden.
Size of the original dry-point, 4¾ × 10⅜ inches]
[Illustration: HADEN. ON THE TEST
“This plate and _A Water Meadow_ were done on the same day, one at
noon, the other very late in the evening. The Test (in Hampshire) is a
famous trout stream.”
Seymour Haden.
Size of the original dry-point, 6 × 8⅞ inches]
Before the evening of his reception at the St. Botolph Club, Seymour
Haden procured a list of the principal personages whom he was to meet
there. He brought it to me, and said: “Now, what should I _know_ about
these people?” I wrote down for him as many notes as I could, and when
he met the Bostonians, I was astonished to see how well he had coached
himself about them. On his return to New York, he received a great
number of letters. He was staying at the old Hotel Brunswick, Fifth
Avenue, and every morning I had to go there and tell him “who was who”
among the writers of the letters. One day he was called down to the
parlor by a message that a lady wished to see him. He went down and
when he came back to his room carrying a card in his hand, he said to
me, “Well, I certainly am in an extraordinary country. That visitor,
whom I never knew, is evidently a lady, and she has invited me to come
and spend a week with her husband and herself at Yonkers.” Glancing at
the card, I read the name of Mrs. James B. Colgate, and said to Seymour
Haden, “I should certainly advise you to accept,” and I went on to say
that it was easy enough for a stranger from England to see our public
show places, big hotels, etc., but not so easy to get an entrée to
the home of a really nice American family. Seymour Haden accepted the
invitation and spent a week with Mr. and Mrs. Colgate. In those years,
I myself lived in Yonkers, and I called on him at the Colgate house
the day after his arrival there. The eminent banker showed us into his
library, and leaving us alone he closed the door. The English visitor,
first looking around to see that there was no other person present,
said to me in a sort of whisper: “I am very comfortable here, with
but one serious drawback. I have been in the habit, all my life, of
taking wine with my dinner; but last evening, what do you suppose they
gave me in the place of wine?--_milk!_” This was about nine o’clock at
night, and when I got home I stated the case to my dear old mother. She
laughed a little wickedly, and said, “I think I can help your friend
in this case.” We happened to have some very good sherry. The old lady
got a large flat bottle, filled it with the wine, corked it and put it
into an innocent-looking pasteboard box, telling me to take it to him.
Before leaving my home, I wrote a brief note to Seymour Haden saying
that the package which I had to deliver to him must be opened only in
the privacy of his own chamber. The Colgates were total abstainers of
so pronounced a kind that when Mr. Colgate rented any house of his in
Yonkers, he made a condition in the lease that no intoxicants of any
kind were ever to be received in that house. Further than that, one
of his principles was, not only never to drink wine or spirits, but
never to touch or carry them. When I got back to Mr. Colgate’s house,
it was ten o’clock at night, and all the lights in the big house were
extinguished and the doors locked. I rang and rang at the bell, and at
last Mr. Colgate himself, wearing trousers and slippers, opened the
door. I had to manufacture a small fiction, which recalls Sir Walter
Scott’s couplet:
Oh, what a tangled web we weave,
When first we practise to deceive.
Mr. Colgate said to me rather fretfully that all the household had
retired, and that Mr. Seymour Haden must wait until the morning. I
said to him in reply, that he would do me a great favor, if when he
was passing his guest’s chamber door, he would knock at it and deliver
the package, and this Mr. Colgate consented to do. Some days later a
reception was given to Seymour Haden at the Lotos Club, Fifth Avenue,
and I accompanied him from Yonkers to New York on that occasion. When
Mr. Haden found himself safe in the train, he said to me: “I couldn’t
have slept a wink except for that excellent sherry that your mother
sent me, but I took deucéd good care to carry away the empty bottle
in my bag.” I remember that from the train we saw the gorgeous sight
of the sun setting behind the Palisades, and mirrored in the Hudson
River, and Mr. Haden said to me, with something like reproach in his
voice: “Now, why have I never been told of the beauty of all this?”
Later on, he said to me, looking about in the crowded train: “Now,
isn’t it melancholy to think that nobody among all these people, except
myself (and perhaps you), has the slightest sense of the beauty of this
magnificent sunset!” I was tempted to say to him that he had no right
to assume such callous insensibility on the part of the Americans, but
though I thought it, I did not say it. Seymour Haden’s reception at the
Lotos Club was a notable function. I remember that the President, the
Hon. Whitelaw Reid, made a very graceful speech in honor of his guest,
and I recall vividly the marvelous cleverness of a very young man who
had been invited to entertain the company. One of this young man’s
monologues represented an intimate talk between three Italian opera
singers, the soprano, the tenor, and the basso; the three continually
interrupting one another. The speaking of the young man was in “fake”
Italian, and the three speaking voices were admirably differentiated.
I inquired who this young man was, and was told that he was the son of
the famous oratorio singer, Madame Rudersdorf of Boston, that his name
was Richard Mansfield, and that he was studying for the stage. I then
uttered a prophecy that that young man would be a great actor later on;
and so he was.
[Illustration: HADEN. A BY-ROAD IN TIPPERARY
This magnificent plate was etched in 1860, in the park of Viscount
Hawarden. All things considered, it is the artist’s finest rendering of
tree-forms
Size of the original etching, 7½ × 11¼ inches]
[Illustration: HADEN. A SUNSET IN IRELAND
“This plate, and also _A By-road in Tipperary_, were done in the park
of Viscount Hawarden, in the most beautiful part of Tipperary.” Seymour
Haden.
Size of the original dry-point, 5½ × 8½ inches]
After his return from Boston, the artist spent several weeks in New
York, and while he was there, I arranged for him the first public
exhibition of his etchings which was ever made in America. The New
York press took up the subject with enthusiasm, and every important
newspaper printed a long review of the artist and his work. I
collected all of these very laudatory articles, and took them to Mr.
Haden at the Hotel Brunswick. Next day he said to me, “Do you know
that these reviews of the New York press are distinctly abler and more
intelligent than if they had been written in London?” He added, “I wish
you would pay my particular compliments to the gentleman who wrote the
review in the New York _World_; that article in particular I found to
be admirable.” He was surprised when he saw me begin to laugh, but I
explained to him that the “gentleman” in question was a lady, and the
article which he so greatly admired was from the pen of Mrs. Schuyler
van Rensselaer.
One very seldom finds that the imaginative and creative artist is
also endowed with a logical and judicial cast of mind. It was so with
Seymour Haden. He had brought from England a large collection of
excellent lantern-slides to illustrate these lectures by means of a
stereopticon, and in the lecturer’s zeal to glorify original etching
at the expense of prints done by any other method, he had procured one
lantern slide of the beautiful little portrait which Rembrandt had
etched of himself, the complete print of which is hardly bigger than
a postage stamp. It was the _Rembrandt à trois moustaches_. Alongside
of this, Mr. Haden had printed a morsel of the same size, taken from a
crude and unimportant part of the foreground of William Sharp’s famous
line-engraving of the _Holy Family_, after the painting by Sir Joshua
Reynolds. Thus this special pleader, Haden, displayed an etching in
its entirety, and less than one-hundredth part of a line-engraving of
very large size. Wherever, during his lectures, this illustration
was exhibited by a stereopticon, there was a universal outcry against
the unfairness of it. People all, with one accord, declared that if the
artist wanted to confront and contrast etching with line-engraving,
fairness would require the lecturer to have chosen two prints of the
same size; but there was no “budging” Seymour Haden, when he had formed
an opinion.
[Illustration: HADEN. A LANCASHIRE RIVER.
A well-known salmon pool on the Ribble. In Sir Seymour’s opinion this
is one of his very finest plates. It was awarded the Medal of Honor at
the Paris Exposition of 1889.
Size of the original etching, 11 × 16 inches]
[Illustration: HADEN. SAWLEY ABBEY
Sawley Abbey stands by a salmon river, the Ribble, which here is
enlarged into a wide pool. Seymour Haden often came here for his salmon
fishing.
Size of the original etching, 10 × 14⅞ inches]
While in New York, he visited the exhibition of paintings at the
National Academy of Design, and was escorted through the galleries
by the late James D. Smillie, N.A. When his eye fell upon a certain
painting, he suddenly stopped as if he were paralyzed. “Who did
that picture?” “It is the work of one of our New York artists, Miss
So-and-So.” “Why do you allow such dreadful things on your walls?”
“Well,” said Mr. Smillie, “we like to exemplify various phases in art.”
“Hum,” rejoined Seymour Haden, while glaring at the picture; “she ought
to be _disemboweled_!”
Of at least one of our well-known American artists, Seymour Haden
expressed the strongest admiration. This was the late John Lafarge,
N.A., and he also spoke with enthusiasm of the original American
etchings of thirty years ago, the work of such men as Stephen Parrish,
Charles A. Platt, Peter Moran, and Joseph Pennell. On seeing a very
large, intricate plate by Mr. Parrish, Mr. Haden made the remark to
me, “That young man does not know what the sense of fatigue in making
a picture is.” Even at this period, Seymour Haden was known throughout
Europe as being the judge _par excellence_ of a fine print, and he was
also recognized as an admirable judge of paintings.
While on this subject of Haden’s learned judgment of pictures, I will
record what he remarked to me after he had visited Niagara for the
first time. What he said was: “No artist, except Turner, should have
ever dared to attempt making a picture of the Falls of Niagara.”
One of Seymour Haden’s exceptionally good days was the Sunday which he
spent in visiting that famous art collector and admirable man, James
L. Claghorn, of Philadelphia. On that occasion, I myself was included
as a sort of “make-weight.” The Englishman, with genuine zeal, went
through Mr. Claghorn’s collection of prints, and he wrote with pencil
on several of them that they were exceptionally fine.
On another side Mr. Haden excelled as a judge, and that was in the
matter of first-class food and first-class cooking. At lunch, our
host treated us to a delicious dish of terrapin. Seymour Haden found
it wonderfully good and declared that not only had he never tasted
terrapin before, but he had never heard of the dish. “Oh, yes,” said
I to him; “you certainly have heard of terrapin; don’t you remember
at church on Sundays, when they sing the ‘Te Deum,’ they sing,
‘Terrapin and Seraphim.’” “Oh, tut, tut,” said he, “I want to hear no
irreverence.”
Seymour Haden had ranked as a very able physician. An incident occurred
while we were at Mr. Claghorn’s house which shows how wise he was in
this respect: Mr. Claghorn was a huge and corpulent man of about sixty,
but he was full of force and energy. While we were in his library he
got up and bustled out on some errand, and Seymour Haden said to me:
“Your friend will not live long, and when he dies he will go off
very suddenly.” I was shocked on hearing such an unexpected prophecy,
and I asked Mr. Haden how long Mr. Claghorn was likely to live. In
answer he said, “Just about two years.” Two years later, within ten
days of the time Haden had designated, Mr. Claghorn suddenly fell dead.
[Illustration: HADEN. THE BREAKING-UP OF THE AGAMEMNON
Perhaps, all things considered, the artist’s masterpiece. Collectors
differ as to the relative merits of the various etchings by Seymour
Haden, but all are agreed in ranking this as a masterpiece, Moreover,
it was the first etching to be treated in this particular manner, and
it has become the model for many imitators. This fine plate was etched
on the Thames, at Greenwich, in 1870. Sir Seymour devoted the money
obtained from the sale of the proofs to the aid of the London Hospital
for Incurables.
Size of the original etching, 7¾ × 16¼ inches]
[Illustration: HADEN. CALAIS PIER
Etched by Seymour Haden after the painting by J. M. W. Turner in the
National Gallery, London. This superb etching stands alone in the
history of the art. The scene could not be more strongly felt nor more
vividly presented had the etcher been working from nature instead of
from a painting by another hand. When this etching appeared, Seymour
Haden received an enthusiastic letter from John Ruskin, in which the
latter exhorted him to devote the remainder of his life to etching the
paintings of Turner.
Size of the original print, 23½ × 33 inches]
Still continuing the subject of Mr. Haden’s critical judgment in
dining. I may mention that wherever he went, he would never partake, at
a hotel, of a _table d’hôte_ meal. He insisted on selecting particular
dishes which he wished for, and he had them specially cooked for him.
On his return from Cincinnati, he told me that while there he met my
own dear friend, the late Herman Goepper, and he had given him, at a
club, the very best, and best-served, dinner that he had ever partaken
of.
Seymour Haden’s course of lectures at Chicago was a great success, and
a very notable reception was tendered to him. During the course of
that reception, a very influential Chicago lady marched up and said
in a loud voice: “Why don’t you _educate_ your women in England?”
“I know what you mean,” said the Englishman, “but we don’t like to
have our English women crammed with a lot of abstruse _isms_ and
_ologies_.” Another lady, who thought the English guest had been rather
unfairly attacked, said to him, “Now, Mr. Haden, can’t you attack her
in return?” “Well, yes,” said he: “in America, you don’t know how to
make tea, and your table knives will not cut anything.” Another little
dispute arose in Detroit. Haden had arrived late at night, very much
fatigued, at the Russell House. At about eight o’clock in the morning
he was awakened from a much-needed sleep by a sound of hammering and
grinding in the wall outside his window. He got up, raised the window,
and saw two men boring a hole into the front wall of the hotel, for the
purpose of inserting an iron bar from which a sign was to be swung. Mr.
Haden remonstrated at being disturbed. The two mechanics answered that
they were “on that job” and that they were going to do it. Then, as
the _Detroit Free Press_ related the incident, the elderly gentleman,
dressed in night-clothes and a nightcap, had pushed out both his arms,
seized the offending and disturbing crowbar, hauled it into his room
and shut down the window. Very soon after, the proprietor of the hotel
came, knocked at his guest’s door, and said that the crowbar which had
been seized was not his property and that he would get into trouble if
it were not given up at once, but Seymour Haden before giving it up
stipulated that he was not to be disturbed with any more noise until
such time as he was ready to leave his bed.
It will be noticed that, while in my former article I called him Sir
Seymour Haden, in the present one I call him plain Mister. This was
because it was after his return from America to England that Queen
Victoria gave him his title, and although in London he had a large
medical practice he never was even Doctor Haden. In England a surgeon,
however eminent, is never addressed as Doctor.
[Illustration: HADEN. AN EARLY RISER
Engraved in pure mezzotint in 1897. To this plate and Sir Seymour’s
mezzotint _Grayling Fishing_ was awarded the Medal of Honor at the
Paris Exposition of 1900.
Size of the original mezzotint, 8⅞ × 11⅞ inches]
[Illustration: HADEN. HARLECH
In _Harlech_ the artist has first mezzotinted his composition and has
then strengthened and defined the outlines with etched lines. This is
the reverse of the method employed by Turner in the “Liber Studiorum.”
Turner first etched the main lines of his composition and then finished
the plate in mezzotint.
Size of the original engraving, 8⅞ × 12½ inches]
This change to a title of nobility reminds me of a couplet in
Thackeray’s fine Irish ballad, “Mr. Molony’s Account of the Ball”:
There was Lord Crowhurst, I knew him first
When only Misther Pips he was.
During his stay in America he learned to like our people greatly,
and it was his intention to make us a second visit and to bring his
charming American wife along with him; but this purpose of his was
never carried out.
Shortly before leaving our shores, he said to me: “One thing alone
would render it impossible for me ever to reside permanently in the
United States, and that is the intolerable and brutal insolence of the
lower classes.” To this I made answer: “But, Mr. Haden, in America we
have no ‘lower classes.’ What you suffered from these people was really
your own fault. It is all very well in England for a fine gentleman to
bully and denounce the cabman, the railway-porter, and the servants at
hotels, but it will not do here, and no American, however eminent, ever
does it.”
When Seymour Haden returned to England he took with him the genuine
good will of many Americans, and the lasting friendship of not a few.
THE WATER-COLORS AND DRAWINGS OF SIR SEYMOUR HADEN, P.R.E.
BY H. NAZEBY HARRINGTON
Author of “The Engraved Work of Sir Francis Seymour Haden, P.R.E.”
As an etcher the work of Sir Seymour Haden is known to all lovers of
art the wide world over, and not least in the United States, but his
general capacity as an artist in other forms of expression is less well
known, partly from lack of opportunity and partly from the very limited
amount of material.
It must never be forgotten that art was not the main business of his
life; it was but an occasional and fitful relaxation in a life devoted
to another profession and full of other and varied interests. The
wonder is, not that his artistic work was so limited, but that it was
so great and so successful.
When a medical student in Paris, instead of spending his evenings in
the usual frivolities of the Quartier Latin, he attended the classes
of the Government School of Art, which were held in the same building
as the School of Medicine. This was done, not from any positive love
for art, but rather with the fixed idea that such study would train
his powers of observation and make the hands more alert to obey the
impulses of the will, and in this way help him in his surgical work.
What he dissected he drew, what he drew he modeled, and in this way
obtained a remarkable knowledge of anatomy and some facility in the
technique of graphic art.
In this way he got into the habit of using drawing as a sort of
shorthand, and so, when in 1844 he traveled in Italy, his diaries were
filled with sketches rather than verbal descriptions--sketches that
unfortunately have been too generously scattered.
While in Italy he met, and spent some time in the company of, Duval le
Camus, a capable French artist who painted a good deal in water-color,
and from him no doubt he picked up some knowledge of that medium.
In Naples and its neighborhood they spent many happy days sketching
together.
During the next fourteen or fifteen years Seymour Haden had not much
time for the practice of art. His professional work took up all his
time and vigor, but he always took a great interest in art and artists
and counted many artists among his friends. He was appointed Surgeon
to the Department of Science and Art at South Kensington, and became
a collector of etchings by the old masters, not merely for the sake
of acquisition but rather for the purpose of study and comparison. He
also became the possessor of many pictures and water-color drawings,
amongst others of several by Turner; and so, when in 1858 his young
brother-in-law J. M. Whistler returned from France with his recently
etched plates and his inciting tales of work in the Paris studios,
Haden became readily infected and took up etching again, with the
result we all know. Thenceforward, whenever a rare afternoon’s
holiday could be stolen, or a few moments spared between the casts of
the line during the annual vacation devoted to fishing, or on the
rarer occasions of a continental holiday, the copper plate or the
sketching block was brought into use. And so we find sketches done
on the Thames and the Ribble, the Teivy, the Test and the Spey; in
Holland and in Germany, in Spain and Madeira; at Chatsworth, in the
old towns of Rye and Winchelsea, and above all in the fascinating Isle
of Purbeck--sketches done for his own pleasure or for his friends,
with never a thought of placing them before either the critic or the
purchaser.
The earliest sketch that I have seen is one dated 1841. It is in
pen and sepia and represents an early morning execution outside the
Old Bailey. At a first glance it might be mistaken for an etching
by Cruikshank. It measures only three and one half by two and one
fourth inches, but is masterly in its drawing, and marvelous in its
suggestiveness of a large crowd.
The drawings done in 1844 in France and Italy vary from mere thumb-nail
sketches to comparatively finished drawings. Some of them in their
carefulness and decision resemble the early drawings of Turner. Two
or three figure sketches, notably portraits of Duval le Camus and the
Marquis de Belluno (two of his companions), are very expressive and
full of character.
While in Rome, through the introduction of the Marquis de Belluno,
Haden had many interviews with Pope Gregory XVI, and during two or
three of them he took the opportunity of sketching, on one of his shirt
cuffs, a somewhat elaborate portrait of His Holiness. The Pope very
kindly professed not to notice what the artist was doing until the
portrait was finished. He then quietly remarked that he “now understood
why M. Haden had attended at three audiences without a change of
linen.” One would give much to see this portrait (which Sir Seymour
always said was an excellent one), but it has disappeared, having been
lent to a friend and never returned.
[Illustration: HADEN. SALMON POOL ON THE SPEY
Size of the original charcoal drawing, 14 × 20 inches]
[Illustration: HADEN. OLD OAKS, CHATSWORTH
Size of the original charcoal drawing, 14 × 20 inches]
The drawings done after 1858 were much broader in style than the early
sketches, and vary in method, being in lead pencil, pen and ink, chalk,
charcoal, and water-color. Thrown off in a moment of inspiration, as a
poet would throw off a lyric, he chose the material which chanced to be
at hand. Some are on sheets of writing paper, and many valuable ones
are on perishable blotting paper. Here and there among these “slight”
sketches are specimens that in their economy of line, their stamp of
decision, and their interpretative insight, suggest the work of his
great master Rembrandt. What strikes one above all is their vigor and
“bigness.” There is no dainty indecision about them; they go straight
for the heart of the subject, giving the vigorous impression of a
vigorous mind. They do not give all that could be said on the subject,
but they give all that he feels is best worth saying. They make an
intellectual appeal to the mind and do not tire with unnecessary
platitudes.
The water-color drawings show a good but scarcely a great colorist.
They are in the “grand” manner and the best of them have a fine
atmospheric quality, as in the _Dinkley Ferry_ here, which reminds one
of a good De Wint. The _Course of the Ribble_ is probably one of the
most finished drawings he ever did, and shows to the highest degree of
what he was capable in this medium when time allowed and when loving
care was exercised. It is wonderfully mellow, good in color, and true
in drawing, but has less of the white heat of inspiration:--I envy the
fortunate possessor! The _Lancashire River_, a drawing of the same
subject as the etching with the same title, is perhaps his finest piece
of color.
But it is in his large charcoal drawings of the end of the seventies
that he rises to his greatest heights,--in the sketches done around
Swanage in the south of Dorsetshire, and at Chatsworth, and two or
three drawn from the stores of his memory. What a revelation it was
to me when--I scarcely like to count how many years ago--I first
passed into that peaceful little “garden room” that looked out upon
the old-time bowling green at Woodcote Manor and saw around its walls
some four and twenty of these large charcoal drawings! It was as
though some new planet swam into my ken! I had never seen so much
suggested with such simple means. Two or three hours’ work with a sheet
of rough paper, a piece of charcoal, and a mezzotint scraper! Heath
and woodland, sea cliff and river glen, radiant light and quivering
mist, houses sleeping in the sun and mysterious shadows lurking in the
corners of the quaint old kitchen or the romantic ruin, or lying full
length before the giant boles of centuries-old oaks; all suggested with
equal ease and magic mastery! Many and many an hour did I afterward
spend in that little treasure-house, ever finding fresh beauties
revealed to me, and learning through them to see in Nature much that
had previously been hidden from me. Haden’s etchings had proved him
to be a great master in line, these drawings proved him to be almost
equally great in tone. What particularly strikes one is the variety
and transparency of his shadows. They are not black patches, but
receding planes of varying densities. And what atmospheric quality they
have! Driving mist and slanting rain, and sun rays penetrating the
moisture-laden air, as though by a magician, are fixed for us on paper.
[Illustration: HADEN. COURSE OF THE RIBBLE BELOW PRESTON
Size of the original water-color, 12½ × 19 inches]
[Illustration: HADEN. DINKLEY FERRY
Size of the original water-color, 10¼ × 16½ inches]
The origin of many of these drawings has been described by Sir Seymour
himself in an article written some years ago in _Harper’s Magazine_,
“On the Revival of Mezzotint as a Painter’s Art.” With the idea that he
could use mezzotint as he had done etching, face to face with Nature,
he had taken a previously grounded plate to the bank of the River Test
and attempted to scrape upon it what he saw before him. The result
was the plate numbered 234 in my catalogue (_The Test at Longparish
No. 3_), interesting, but not wholly satisfactory and incomplete in
intention. This proved that, unlike etching, mezzotint was too slow
a process with which to work from nature at a single sitting, and a
return on a later day only proved that the natural effect had changed,
or that the artist was in a different phase of mind or not in the
humor to complete the original impression. So instead of taking a
grounded plate out with him he took a sheet of rough paper which had
been rubbed all over with charcoal, this black surface corresponding
to the mezzotint ground upon the copper plate, and on this prepared
surface he scraped away the lights. As will be readily understood,
this softer material could be much more rapidly manipulated than the
harder copper, and so he found that in two or three hours the desired
effect could be obtained. His intention was to reproduce in the studio
and at his leisure the effects of these studies upon the copper plate.
And so, with modifications, in several instances he did--I say _with
modifications_, for it was almost impossible for him to closely copy
even his own work. The _Salmon Pool on the Spey_ provided the _motif_
for the mezzotint plate with the same title (H. 250), and more closely
of the little _Salmon River_, which served as a frontispiece to Dr.
Hamilton’s book on “Fly Fishing.” The _Encombe Woods_ supplied the
subject for the two plates H. 218 and 219, which were intended to
be a combination of etching and mezzotint, but the latter part of
the project was never carried out. This too was the case with _Early
Morning_ (H. 244) and _By the Waters of Babylon_ (H. 245), _Ars Longa,
Vita Brevis_ (H. 210) and _A Study of Rocks_ (H. 211), all of which
were etched or dry-pointed from charcoal drawings. The only important
plates inspired by these drawings that were fully completed, were
_Evening Fishing, Longparish_ (H. 239), _An Early Riser_ (H. 240),
_Grayling Fishing_ (H. 241), and _The Pillar of Salt_ (H. 246); but
they are sufficient to prove what a series of masterpieces we have
lost through the dimming of the eye and the numbing of the hand by
relentless Age.
[Illustration: HADEN. ENCOMBE WOODS
Size of the original charcoal drawing, 14 × 20 inches]
[Illustration: HADEN. AN ELDERLY COUPLE, CHATSWORTH PARK
Size of the original charcoal drawing, 13½ × 19½ inches]
However, we must be thankful for what we have, and the regret one
has that these drawings should be scattered in different directions,
is tempered by the hope that by one of the marvelous photographic
processes of to-day this wonderful series of visions may be reproduced,
and so again brought together for all of us who love beautiful things,
and who reverence the master who produced them.
MERYON AND BAUDELAIRE
BY WILLIAM ASPENWALL BRADLEY
All French poets of the middle part of the nineteenth century were
interested, theoretically at least, in painting and the graphic
arts, which afforded them an ideal and an example of objectivity for
their own verbal representations of reality. From Théophile Gautier,
godfather of Parnassianism, who reserved for his prose the full
resources of his superb Turneresque palate, to Verlaine, creator
of decadence, with his limpid and lovely _aquarelles_, pictorial
preoccupations were, on the whole, paramount. Charles Baudelaire
almost alone appears, in part, an exception to this rule; but if, in
his work, the purely visual element is less pronounced than in that
of most of his contemporaries--if the images of sight yield there
in number and in clear evocative power to those of sound and of
scent, thereby preluding the way for a new poetic dispensation--he
nevertheless fits into the late romantic tradition, if only by reason
of his keen æsthetic appreciation of the arts of design, and of his
association, as a disinterested friend or sympathetic critic, with
many of the most illustrious artists of the age. Himself a rebel and
an outlaw in the domain of orthodox taste, though with a distinct
tinge of the traditional, he was especially drawn to the insurgent
leader, like Delacroix, his championship of whom is as famous as his
espousal of the cause of Wagner’s music in Paris, or to the solitary
_attardé_ of romanticism who, like Constantin Guys, worked out his
own salvation in his own way. It is not that he did not welcome new
movements in all their collectivity of talents and temperaments; but
these, to find favor with him, must be vouched for by unmistakable
evidences of creative vigor and originality in the individual artists,
not merely by plausible theories or pretentious dogmas professed
scholastically. Intellectual distinctions counted but little with him
in matters of art, and a new way of rendering what was actually seen
or felt seemed to him of infinitely more importance than any merely
academic discussion as to what an artist should or should not look for,
deliberately, in order to put it into or leave it out of his pictures.
Thus it was that while he shrugged his shoulders at the realists who
were not really observers, he turned an attentive eye to the work of
the group of young painter-etchers who, about 1859, were beginning to
attract attention in the salons. Baudelaire thought highly of etching
because it afforded an opportunity for “the most clean-cut possible
translation of the character of the artist,” and he was attracted
to those who were engaged in reviving this almost obsolete medium,
because they gave clear proof in their work of that personal force and
distinction which he valued above all else, and which he was always on
the alert to discover in the productions of the new and the unknown.
In his article, _Peintres et Aqua-fortistes_, included in the volume
of his collected works entitled _L’Art Romantique_, Baudelaire
mentions the following etchers as among those through whose efforts
the medium was to recover its ancient vitality: Seymour Haden, Manet,
Legros, Bracquemond, Jongkind, Meryon, Millet, Daubigny, Saint-Marcel,
Jacquemart, and Whistler. With at least two of these, on the evidence
of his published correspondence,[2] he had personal relations:
Bracquemond and Meryon. The name of the former occurs frequently in the
letters with reference to a device which Baudelaire wished to adopt as
a frontispiece to the second edition of _Fleurs du Mal_. The idea of
this device came to him, as he writes to Félix Nadar (May 16, 1859),
while turning the leaves of the _Histoire des Danses Macabres_, by
Hyacinthe Langlois. It was to be “an arborescent skeleton, the legs
and the ribs forming the trunk, the arms extended in the form of a
cross breaking into leaf and shoot, and protecting several rows of
poisonous plants arranged in rising tiers of pots, as in a greenhouse.”
In casting about for an artist to execute this design, Baudelaire
mentions and dismisses Doré, Penguilly--whom he afterward wished he
had taken--and Célestin Nanteuil. Finally, perhaps at the instance of
his publisher, Poulet-Malassis, he chose Bracquemond,--a most unhappy
selection as it turned out, for that artist was either unable or
unwilling to grasp the poet’s conception, and the plate which he etched
for this purpose was not used. A few proofs were pulled, however, and
impressions in both the first and second states of the plate are now
in the Samuel P. Avery collection in the New York Public Library.
[2] Charles Baudelaire: Lettres, 1841-1866. Paris, 1907.
[Illustration: BRACQUEMOND. FRONTISPIECE FOR “LES FLEURS DU MAL” OF
BAUDELAIRE
The seven plants symbolize the Seven Deadly Sins, and the outstretched
arms of the skeleton will support, later, the Fruits of Evil. This
romantic and remarkable frontispiece was never used. Baudelaire
criticized the drawing of the skeleton severely, as well as the spirit
and arrangement of the whole design.
Size of the original etching, 6¾ × 4⁵⁄₁₆ inches]
[Illustration: PORTRAIT OF CHARLES BAUDELAIRE
From the etching by Félix Bracquemond. Of the same size as the original
etching. Evidently an excellent likeness, since it exactly renders that
ecclesiastical aspect of the poet which made one of his friends compare
him to a cardinal.]
Baudelaire’s negotiations with the “terrible Bracquemond,” as he came
to call him, were carried on for the most part through Poulet-Malassis,
which perhaps affords a partial explanation of the misunderstanding
concerning the _macabre_ frontispiece. And, although he speaks in one
letter of having met the artist and repeated verbally the instructions
which he had already given, with characteristically minute attention to
detail, in writing, no such special interest attaches to this meeting,
by no means unique, as to that between Baudelaire and Meryon which
occurred about the same time, and to which we owe one of the most vivid
and fantastic presentments we possess of that mad genius. In his _Salon
of 1859_, Baudelaire had written of Meryon with an enthusiasm which
awoke a responsive reverberation in the breast of Victor Hugo.
“Since you know M. Meryon,” the latter wrote to Baudelaire (April 29,
1860), “tell him that his splendid etchings have dazzled me. Without
color, with nothing save shadow and light, chiaroscuro pure and simple
and left to itself: that is the problem of etching. M. Meryon solves it
magisterially. What he does is superb. His plates live, radiate, and
think. He is worthy of the profound and luminous page with which he has
inspired you.”
This page, which Baudelaire afterward incorporated in his _Peintres et
Aqua-fortistes_, where he speaks further of Meryon as “the true type of
the accomplished _aqua-fortiste_,” and praises the famous perspective
of San Francisco as his masterpiece, does, indeed, betray the subtle
penetration of the poet into the very spirit of his fellow-artist:
“By the severity, the delicacy, and the certitude of his design, M.
Meryon recalls what is best in the old _aqua-fortistes_. I have rarely
seen represented with more poetry the natural solemnity of a great
capital. The majesties of accumulated stone, _the spires pointing a
finger to the skies_, the obelisks of industry vomiting their thick
clouds of smoke heavenward, the prodigious scaffoldings of monuments
under repair, relieved against the solid mass of architecture, their
tracery of a filmy and paradoxical beauty, the misty sky, charged with
wrath and with rancor, the depths of the perspectives augmented by the
thought of the dramas contained therein,--none of the complex elements
of which the dolorous and glorious setting of civilization is composed
is here forgotten.”
Grateful for such recognition on the part of a distinguished man of
letters who was also accepted as one of the leading art critics of the
day in Paris, Meryon evidently wrote to Baudelaire, thanking him, and
asking permission to call; for in his letter of January 8, 1860, to
Poulet-Malassis, the poet writes as follows:
“What I write to-night,” he begins, “is worth the trouble of writing:
M. Meryon has sent me his card, and we have met. He said to me: _You
live in a hotel whose name must have attracted you, because of the
relation it bears, I presume, to your tastes._--Then I looked at the
envelope of his letter. On it was ‘Hôtel de _Thèbes_,’ and yet his
letter reached me.”
[Illustration: PORTRAIT OF CHARLES MERYON
From the etching by Félix Bracquemond, done in 1853
Size of the original etching, 8⁷/₁₆ × 6⅛ inches]
[Illustration: MERYON. LE PONT AU CHANGE
“In one of his great plates, he has substituted for a little balloon
a flight of birds of prey, and, when I remarked to him that it was
lacking in verisimilitude to put so many eagles into a Parisian sky,
he replied that what he had done was not devoid of foundation in fact,
since _ces gens-là_ [the imperial government] had often released eagles
so as to study the presages, according to the rite,--and that this had
been printed in the newspapers, even in _Le Moniteur_.”
Charles Baudelaire in a letter to Poulet-Malassis (January 8, 1860).]
It is necessary to interrupt the letter at this point to explain
what is obscure in the foregoing allusion for one not familiar with
Baudelaire’s haunts and homes in Paris. He was living at this time,
not in the Hôtel Pimodan where he dwelt so long, and where he held
those famous meetings described by Gautier in his introductory essay
to _Fleurs du Mal_, but in modest quarters in the Hotel de Dieppe, 22,
rue d’Amsterdam, whose principal advantage was its proximity to the
Gare de l’Ouest whence he took the train for Honfleur on his frequent
visits to his mother. Thus, through a bizarre confusion between the two
words, _Dieppe_ and _Thèbes_, is explained Meryon’s curious mistake in
addressing his letter to Baudelaire.
The poet proceeds with the following report of their conversation: “In
one of his great plates,[3] he [Meryon] has substituted for a little
balloon a flight of birds of prey, and, when I remarked to him that it
was lacking in verisimilitude to put so many eagles into a Parisian
sky, he replied that what he had done was not devoid of foundation in
fact, since _ces gens-là_ [the imperial government] had often released
eagles so as to study the presages, according to the rite,--and that
this had been printed in the newspapers, even in _Le Moniteur_.
[3] The _Pont-au-Change_.
“I must tell you that he makes no attempt to conceal his respect for
all superstitions, but he explains them badly, and he sees cabal
everywhere.
“He drew my attention to the fact, in another of his plates, that the
shadows cast by one of the masonry constructions of the _Pont-Neuf_[4]
on the lateral wall of the quay represented exactly the profile of a
sphinx; that this had been, on his part, quite involuntary, and that he
had only remarked this singularity later, on recalling that this design
had been made a short time before the _coup d’état_. But the Prince
is the real person who, by his acts and his visage, bears the closest
resemblance to a _sphinx_.
[4] An error of Baudelaire’s. The plate is the _Petit-Pont_.
“He asked me if I had read the tales of a certain Edgar Poe. I answered
that I knew them better than any one else, and for a good reason. He
then asked me in a very emphatic manner, if I believed in the reality
of this Edgar Poe. I naturally asked him to whom he attributed all
his tales. He replied: ‘_To a society of men of letters who are very
clever, very powerful, and who are in touch with everything._’ And
here is one of his reasons: ‘The _Rue_ Morgue. _I have made a design
of the_ Morgue.--_An_ Orang-ou-tang. _I have often been compared
to_ a monkey.--_This monkey murders_ two women, a mother and her
daughter. _I also have morally assassinated_ two women, a mother and
her daughter.--_I have always taken the story as an allusion to my
misfortunes. You would be doing me a great favor if you could find out
for me the date when Edgar Poe, supposing that he was not helped by any
one, composed this story, so that I could see if the date coincided
with my adventures._’
“He spoke to me, with admiration, of Michelet’s book on _Jeanne d’Arc_,
but he is convinced that this book is not by Michelet.
“One of his great preoccupations is cabalistical science, but he
interprets it in a strange fashion that would make a cabalist laugh.
[Illustration: MERYON. LE PETIT PONT
“He drew my attention to the fact, in another of his plates, that the
shadows cast by one of the masonry constructions of the Pont-Neuf on
the lateral wall of the quay represented exactly the profile of a
sphinx; that this had been, on his part, quite involuntary, and that he
had only remarked this singularity later, on recalling that this design
had been made a short time before the _coup d’état_.”
Charles Baudelaire in a letter to Poulet-Malassis (January 8, 1860).
Size of the original etching, 9⅝ × 7¼ inches]
[Illustration: PORTRAIT OF CHARLES MERYON
From the drawing by Léopold Flameng, made in May, 1858, in Meryon’s
room in the rue des Fossés-Saint-Jacques, the night before Meryon
became dangerously mad and was taken by his friends, in a cab, to
Charenton for the first time. Later he was discharged, and took up
his lodging in the rue Duperré, and in October, 1866, returned to
Charenton, where he died in February, 1868.]
“Do not laugh at all this with _méchants bougres_. For nothing in the
world would I wish to injure a man of talent....
“After he left me, I asked myself how it happened that I, who have
always had, in my mind and in my nerves, all that was needed to make
me mad, had not become so. Seriously, I addressed to heaven the
thanksgivings of the Pharisee.”
* * * * *
It is not surprising that Baudelaire should have been somewhat
disconcerted by this interview which confirmed so strikingly the
reports of the mental malady of his visitor to which he had alluded in
his _Salon of 1859_, and that he should soon have sought, after some
brief intercourse, to avoid personal and private encounters which might
have proved embarrassing. He gave notice in ways the artist could not
long mistake, that he did not wish to continue the acquaintance on a
footing of intimacy, though, as Crépet, in his _Charles Baudelaire_[5]
points out, he by no means ceased to interest himself in the artist,
several sets of whose _Eaux-Fortes sur Paris_ he was instrumental,
with one or two other admirers of Meryon, in having purchased by the
Ministry. Poor Meryon! With an incomplete realization of his own
condition which rendered him incapable of divining the real truth, he
felt he had offended Baudelaire in some way, and finally addressed
him the following appeal, tragic in its note of noble and unconscious
pathos:
[5] Charles Baudelaire: Étude biographique d’Eugène Crépet revue et
mise au jour par Jacques Crépet. Paris, 1907.
“_Dear Sir_: I called on you yesterday evening at the Hôtel de Dieppe.
I was informed that you had changed your domicile. I wished, above
all, to see you, in order to learn from your own lips that you were
not angry with me, for I do not think I have ever done anything to you
which could serve as a motive for your change of manner toward me.
Only, as the last letter which I wrote you has remained unanswered,
and as three times I have left my name at your dwelling without my
having had the slightest word from you, I am entitled to believe that
you have some reason for breaking with me. I did not remind you of
your promise to write a newspaper article about my work, because,
quite frankly, I was sure that you could make much better employment
of your time and of your literary skill. My etchings are known to
nearly all whom they could interest and rather too much good has been
said of them. As to the interruption of our relations, which have
been but of brief duration and of slight importance, I agree to this
without a word if such is your desire, and I shall conserve, none the
less, the recollection of the eminent services you have rendered me in
coming to see me, and in occupying yourself with me at a time when I
was utterly destitute.
“I have forwarded to M. Lavielle, whom I had the advantage of meeting
once with you, the set of my views, reworked and a trifle modified; he
has, perhaps, shown them to you. I have had difficulty in procuring
the ten sets of them (the printer being very busy at that time) that I
have disposed of with sufficient rapidity. I have no longer any left
and I have destroyed the _Petit-Pont_, which I propose to engrave
anew, after I have made in it some rather important corrections.
“Adieu, dear sir, with all possible good wishes.
“I am your sincere and devoted friend,
“C. MERYON.
“20, rue Duperré.”
The letter to which Meryon refers in the opening paragraph of the
foregoing as having remained unanswered by Baudelaire is doubtless that
bearing the date of February 23, 1860, which is the only other one
given by Crépet in the appendix to his volume. This is it:
“_Dear Sir_: I send you a set of my ‘Views of Paris.’[6] As you can
see, they are well printed, on Chinese tissue mounted on laid paper,
and consequently _de bonne tenue_. It is on my part a feeble means of
recognizing the devotion you have shown on my behalf. However, I dare
hope that they will serve sometimes to fix your imagination, curious
of the things of the past. I myself, who made them at an epoch, it is
true, when my naïve heart was still seized with sudden aspirations
toward a happiness which I believed I could attain, look over some of
these pieces with a veritable pleasure. They may, then, be able to
produce nearly the same effect upon you who also love to dream.
“I have not yet terminated the notes that I promised to make in order
to aid you in your work; at all events, I shall go to see you soon to
discuss the matter with you further. As the publisher recoils before
the steps which would still have to be taken, he says, for the placing
of these prints, there is nothing pressing about the affair. Thus, do
not let this disturb you.
“Adieu, monsieur; I hope that before your departure, I shall be able
to profit by the kindly reception that I have received from you.
“I am your very humble and very devoted servant.
“I am going to try to place sets with those persons who have been so
good, on your recommendation, as to interest themselves in this work.
“MERYON.
“20, rue Duperré.”
[6] Baudelaire had already tried to obtain a set of these prints. In
writing to Charles Asselineau (February 20, 1859) he commissions his
friend to get from Édouard Houssaye “all the engravings of Meryon
(views of Paris), good proofs on Chinese paper. _Pour parer notre
chambre_, as Dorine says.” He was not successful, however, at that
time. In quoting Molière, Baudelaire refers to Toinette’s speech in _Le
Malade Imaginaire_ (Act II slc· v).
This letter renders sufficiently clear the kind of service Baudelaire
had rendered Meryon over and above the public praise contained in his
writings. What, at the first glance, is less certain is the work on
which the poet was engaged at this time and for which Meryon, on his
own testimony, had promised to assist him with notes. In a foot-note
to this letter, M. Jacques Crépet states that it was “doubtless
_L’eau-forte est à la mode_, an anonymous article published by the
_Revue anecdotique_ in the latter half of April, 1862.” Personally,
I doubt the correctness of this conjecture. One has but to turn to
Baudelaire’s letters of the period to see that there was then under
discussion another piece of work for which Meryon would have been much
more likely to give assistance in the form of notes, since it directly
concerned himself. Indeed, the matter almost amounted to a project of
collaboration between Meryon and Baudelaire. The publisher Delâtre had
promised to bring out an album of the “Vues de Paris,” and had asked
the poet to prepare some text for the plates. The first reference to
this tentative undertaking occurs in Baudelaire’s letter of February
16, 1860 (just a week before Meryon’s), to Poulet-Malassis:
“And then Meryon!”--he broaches the matter abruptly, after having
expressed his impatience at the attitude of two other artists,
Champfleury and Duranty, friends of his, toward Constantin Guys, and
at a certain note of pedantry and dogmatism that was stealing into art
under the influence and sanction of “realism”--“And then Meryon! Oh, as
for him, it is intolerable. Delâtre asks me to write some text for the
album. Good! there is an occasion to write some reveries--ten lines,
twenty or thirty lines--on beautiful engravings, the philosophical
reveries of a Parisian _flaneur_. But Meryon, whose idea is different,
objects. I am to say: on the right you see this; on the left you see
that. I must say: here originally there were twelve windows, reduced to
six by the artist, and finally I must go to the Hôtel de Ville to find
out the exact epoch of the demolitions. M. Meryon talks, his eyes fixed
on the ceiling, and without listening to any observation.”
Thus it was historical and antiquarian notes that, in all probability,
Meryon had promised to jot down to facilitate the composition of
a running commentary on the etchings. Meryon’s reference to the
reluctance of the publisher in the very same paragraph in which
he speaks of these notes, serves to remove the least doubt as to
what is meant. When he tells Baudelaire not to be disturbed, it is
clearly as to the time at his disposal for the preparation of his
text. Baudelaire, however, seems to have been less concerned about
his own share in the work than about the fate of the project as a
whole. Evidently he was not satisfied at the prospects of the work
with Delâtre, for, on March 9, 1860, he wrote in a postscript to
Poulet-Malassis:
“I turn my letter, to ask you, very seriously, if it would not be
advisable for you to be the publisher of Meryon’s album (which will
be augmented) and for which I am to write the text. You know that,
unfortunately, this text will not be in accordance with my wishes.
“I warn you that I have made overtures to the house of Gide....
“This Meryon does not know how to go about things; he knows nothing
of life. He does not know how to sell; he does not know how to find a
publisher. His work is readily salable.”
And again, on March 13, he writes, in response to some proposition from
his friend:
“Relative to Meryon, do you mean by _buying the plates_ to buy the
metal plates, or rather the right of selling an indefinite number
of proofs from them? I can conceive that you fear the conversations
with Meryon. You should carry on the negotiations by letter (20, rue
Duperré). I warn you that Meryon’s great fear is lest the publisher
should change the format and the paper.... What you say to me of
Meryon does not affect what I write to you concerning him.”
The excellent business sense, the note of prudence and painstaking,
that comes out in all this correspondence on the part of Baudelaire,
and which is scarcely less notable than his unwearied devotion to the
interests of his friends, ought to go far toward discountenancing the
theory that a poet cannot be a good man of affairs. Still again he
writes on the same subject, with recapitulations of what he had said
before, to the same correspondent:
“I am very much embarrassed, _mon cher_, to reply to you relatively to
the Meryon affair. I have no rights in the matter whatsoever; M. Meryon
has repulsed, with a species of horror, the idea of a text composed
of a dozen little poems or sonnets; he has refused the idea of poetic
meditations in prose. So as not to wound him, I have promised to write
for him, in return for three copies with the good proofs, a text in the
style of a guide or manual, unsigned. It is, therefore, with him alone
that you will have to treat.... The thing has presented itself to my
mind very simply. On one side, an unfortunate madman, who does not know
how to conduct his affairs, and who has executed a beautiful work; on
the other, you, on whose list I want to see the best books possible. As
the journalists say, I have considered for you the double pleasure of a
good bit of business and of a good act.” And he compares Meryon’s case
with that of Daumier, then without a publisher, to wind whom up, “like
a clock,” would also, he tells Poulet-Malassis, be “a great and good
bit of business.”
This is the last reference in any of the letters to Meryon, or to the
album, for which Baudelaire never wrote his text, since no publisher
was willing to publish the work. Had Poulet-Malassis not failed in
1861, it might have appeared, and then, in spite of the restrictions
imposed upon the restive spirit of the poet, we might have had in
Baudelaire’s text some literary equivalent of Meryon’s etchings. How
sympathetic this would have been, is shown by the descriptive and
interpretative passage from the _Salon de 1859_ already quoted, which,
in a few sentences, completely defines the form of Meryon’s imaginative
genius, and reveals the inmost source of its power to stir the emotions.
There was, indeed, much that was common to the genius of Meryon and
of Baudelaire. The work of both was profoundly personal, and in both
a powerful and somber imagination was tinged with a subtle fantasy
supplied by a morbid exaggeration in the senses, which did not,
however, preclude an intense and ardent preoccupation with formal
perfection.
On the contrary, these two modern _détraqués_ present in their work a
solidity of construction and an absolute rectitude in the rendering
of their moods and dreams, that is scarcely to be found in the work
of even their best-balanced and sanest contemporaries. The art of
Baudelaire has been compared to that of Racine, and, in the same way,
Meryon’s design has the complete economy and control of Robert Nanteuil
or of Callot. Men like these make us doubt and reconsider our stock
distinctions of “romantic” and “classic.” The work of Meryon and of
Baudelaire answers equally to both descriptions, and assures them a
place apart in their generation. Thus, while their paths crossed but
for a moment, and while they never shared with each other their secret
thoughts and aspirations, there is, nevertheless, no small interest for
the student in these slight and fragmentary records of what, had it
not been for a cruel freak of fate, might have proved an enduring and
fruitful friendship.
FÉLIX BRACQUEMOND: AN ETCHER OF BIRDS
BY FRANK WEITENKAMPF
Chief of the Department of Prints, New York Public Library
Even the artist of various interests actively expressed,--the
versatile artist, if that adjective be used without the suspicion of
superficiality which is often its aftertaste--is very apt to become
associated in the public mind with some one specialty.
Félix Bracquemond is known particularly well as an etcher of birds. Yet
he has done many things, more than one well enough to have established
a reputation. At twenty he painted, and exhibited at the Salon of 1853,
a portrait of himself, in a manner that carries you back to Holbein,
that even faintly suggests the spirit of Van Eyck in its precise and
detailed utterance. The portrait clearly indicates his future activity,
for he holds in his hand a bottle of acid, while etching tools lie on
a table near him. His etched portraits are numerous, and include such
comparatively free productions as the ones of Legros and of Meryon, and
the large, minutely finished one of Edmond de Goncourt. The last named
is a characteristic and typical example of Bracquemond’s art, which,
even when most painstaking, somehow or other never seems labored.
Bracquemond appears as a peculiar and interesting mingling of
Teutonic thoroughness and Gallic _esprit_.
[Illustration: BRACQUEMOND. DUCKS AT PLAY
Size of the original etching, 12¾ × 9⅜ inches]
[Illustration: BRACQUEMOND. A FLOCK OF TEAL ALIGHTING
Size of the original etching, 12 × 9⅝ inches]
The characteristic elements in his portraits--“robustness, versatility
and a resourceful mastery of technique”--are peculiar to all his
work. The same artist who carefully and with honest and sympathetic
adaptation translated such different products of painter’s personality
as Millet’s _Man with the Hoe_ and Meissonier’s _La Rixe_, as well as
canvases and drawings by Holbein (the magisterial portrait of Erasmus),
Corot, Gustave Moreau, Gavarni and Delacroix, also, under Japanese
influence, etched numerous designs for ceramic ware (he was for a time
a sort of artist director at the Haviland factory at Limoges), fishes
and birds in swirling, decorative outline. In contrast to these last
named are his numerous well-finished pictures of birds and mammals. His
hares, moles and mice done with loving emphasis on the texture of their
furry pelts. (The vision of happy days, seen by poor bunny suspended
by one leg, was reproduced as far afield as Poland, in _Tygódnik
Illustrowány_.) The birds, with the delightful and strong modeling of
their bodies felt under the sleek surface of their feathery coverings.
A master craftsman, he has found delight, like Buhot, Guérard and
Mielatz, in technical experiments, and his interest and skill in
reproductive methods are illustrated in etchings, dry-points,
aquatints, lithographs, photogravures retouched with etching,
engravings in color, and plates showing combinations of processes.
Burty once wrote: “He contrives by repeated use of the acid on certain
parts of the plate to get a black which for depth and intensity has
never been equaled.” And Meryon avowed of him: “I cannot etch. That
one, there, he is the true etcher.”
His active interests, and his all-embracing outlook on the life about
him, found expression in such occasional productions as the etchings
of figures modeled in snow by French sculptors in Paris during the
Commune; the symbolical lithograph of France defending himself against
the Prussian eagle, while strangling his own imperial bird; the ceramic
compliment to Uncle Sam: _The Old World and Young America_, or the
very large plate done as a memorial tablet for Meryon’s coffin. His
hand recorded the placid, rural beauties of Bas Meudon and the quick
impression of a steamboat, amusingly described by Beraldi (see No.
185). And a bit of woodland, possibly in the Bois de Boulogne, in
winter snows, in combination with a gaunt wolf probably studied at the
Jardin d’Acclimatation (the Paris “Zoo”), gave him opportunity for his
effective _Wolf in the Snow_, also known as _Winter_ (Beraldi No. 180),
which in its spirit of desolation might be many hundred miles from
Paris.
And with all this, his etchings only have been spoken of here,--and
they are about 800 in number. But the catalogue (issued in an edition
of 220 copies) of his work exhibited at the Société Nationale des
Beaux-Arts (Salon) in 1907, includes not only etchings, but paintings,
water-colors, pastels and designs executed in embroidered silk,
ceramics, iron, cloisonné enamel, jade, wood and bookbindings.
[Illustration: BRACQUEMOND. PHEASANTS AT DAWN: MORNING MISTS
Size of the original etching, 9 × 13⅜ inches]
[Illustration: BRACQUEMOND. THE BATHER (CANARDS SURPRIS)
Size of the original etching, 14 × 10½ inches]
Yet the late Walter S. Carter of Brooklyn, a most catholic
print-collector, ventured fearlessly on the inviting but not
always safe sliding pond of analogy, and proclaimed Bracquemond the
“Michelangelo of ducks.” Without regard to the manner of the statement,
we may accept the classification. For had Bracquemond never etched
anything but his bird plates, he would have won his place in the annals
of the fascinating art of needle and acid. Perhaps he realized that
when he furnished a title-page design for the third volume, devoted
to himself, of Beraldi’s “Graveurs du XIXᵉ Siècle,” consisting solely
of a duck and a portfolio of prints. Much slighter in execution, but
more significantly allegorical, was his frontispiece (Beraldi No.
480) for the catalogue of the second portion of the Burty collection.
It represented a stand holding an open portfolio from which prints
flying upward are gradually evolved into cranes. Ducks, however, have
apparently been his special delight. He has pictured them in action,
as in the delightful oblong picture of two ducks swimming (Beraldi
No. 185) and in the equally, and amusingly, lifelike one of five
ducks swimming hurriedly to a central point of common interest. Or
in allegorical attitude, as in the _Canard_ (Beraldi No. 116), the
herald of “fake” news. He has observed the teal along the riverside
and the _Gambols_ of ducks (Beraldi No. 221), done with a simple and
sympathetic delight in the doings of these water-fowl. Hardly ever,
perhaps, has he better characterized the useful bird whose call,
onomatopoetically imitated, has long served to characterize medical
charlatanry, than in the plate known as _The Bather_ or _Canards
surpris_. The three birds, who have come down to their accustomed
swimming hole only to find it already occupied by a comely young
woman, are alive and moving. The beholder can fairly see and hear
their wonder at the unwarranted intrusion on their rights, and regards
their wagging tails with much of the fascination that Septimus and
Wiggleswick (in W. J. Locke’s “Septimus”) felt in the same diversion.
While the duck apparently appealed most to him, Bracquemond was
attracted also by other members of the family of _Aves_. The goose,
cousin to the _Anas_, he showed collectively in _Geese in a Storm_
(_The Storm Cloud._ Beraldi No. 219), which may be studied in the Avery
collection at the New York Public Library, in a series of touched
proofs in which the fortuitous effect of gradually added work in the
sky gives somewhat the impression of a storm rising as you look at the
consecutive proofs. _Ducks in a Marsh_ also move under a lowering sky,
and in _It’s Raining Pitchforks_ (Beraldi No. 212) the flood-gates
of heaven are fully opened, so that the water-fowl appear to find
themselves doubly in their element.
[Illustration: BRACQUEMOND. GEESE IN A STORM
Size of the original etching, 9½ × 13⅜ inches]
[Illustration: BRACQUEMOND. SEA-GULLS
Size of the original etching, 10¾ × 18 inches]
Bracquemond sometimes labored through a number of states on a plate.
The large portrait of Edmond de Goncourt was patiently carried through
a number of progressive proofs. And in the process of thus searching
for ultimate satisfactoriness he may give us such pleasant surprises
as the fourth state of _Morning Mists_ (Beraldi No. 779), a pheasant
piece, with its delightful background addition of trees--an airy,
light impression of early morning. He has done several landscapes
of a lightness which approaches a Legros-like delicacy, so that it
is perplexing to compare them with such a faithfully studied but
somewhat hard plate as that of the duck perplexed at sight of a
turtle (_L’Inconnu_, Beraldi No. 174), and to realize that the same
hand did both. Venturing still farther into the field of ornithology,
he depicted golden pheasants, partridges, swallows, with sympathy for
his subject and an open eye for its artistic possibilities. The human
element enters into these pictures very rarely, and then only when
absolutely in place. So in _At the Jardin d’Acclimatation_ (Beraldi No.
214), in which two stylishly dressed young ladies are looking at golden
pheasants in an inclosure. Once, at least, in _Sea-gulls_ (Beraldi No.
782), he felt and rendered the beautiful effect of a circling, gliding
flight of gulls over rolling waves, in a graceful swirl of lines
combining into a harmonious pattern.
The peculiar effect of this last named plate, with its mingling of
Japanese and other influences, is in striking contrast to his early and
most remarkable _Haut d’un battant de Porte_ (Beraldi No. 110, done at
the age of nineteen), in which the dead bodies of three birds of prey
and a bat are shown nailed to a barn door, held up as a warning example
in a not too smoothly flowing quatrain. To his plates of moralizing or
emblematic intention, such as the one just referred to, or the _Canard_
(Beraldi No. 116), he delighted in adding such inscriptions, generally
in rhyme. His verses in such cases partake a little of the halting
metre of those which poor Meryon attached to certain of his plates.
Such etched letterpress additions appear also in _Margot la Critique_
(Beraldi No. 113) and in _Le Corbeau_. The last named delineation of
an old bow-legged crow presents a creature so weird, so uncanny, that
without adventitious effects it appears as a symbol of some sinister
power, felt though not realized. But a still more famous plate,
because most strongly characteristic, is _The Old Cock_ (the original
drawing for which is owned by Samuel P. Avery), a masterly portrait of
chanticleer, in all the dignity and pomp of his mature vigor and serene
self-sufficiency. Here is the poem for this:
Hé, vieux coq,
Vieux Don Juan,
Vieille voix, tu t’érailles,
Toi-même tu seras
La pierre du festin fait à tes funerailles
Et les convives, las
De livrer à ta chair de trop rudes batailles
Se reposeront des dents et des bras
Racontant à l’envie, tes amours, tes combats.
He japonized this magnificent fowl in a purely decorative spirit,
without the psychological element. And on the occasion of the visit
of the Russian fleet to Toulon in 1893, he repeated and emphasized
the theme to the verge almost of the grotesque, in a representation
of the Gallic cock, a Hercules of his kind, with the aggressiveness
of conscious strength, trumpeting forth his _Vive le Tsar!_ with
triumphant enthusiasm. This emblematic use of ornithological specimens
has been already referred to in the case of the _Canard_. It appears
notably also in _Margot la Critique_. The critic may note that _Margot_
happens to be particularly unctuous in the state before the verses, but
will not be otherwise adversely influenced by this etched philippic
against his brethren.
[Illustration: BRACQUEMOND. THE OLD COCK
“But a still more famous plate, because most strongly characteristic,
is _The Old Cock_, a masterly portrait of chanticleer, in all the
dignity and pomp of his mature vigor and serene self-sufficiency.”
Frank Weitenkampf, _Félix Bracquemond: An Etcher of Birds_.
Size of the original etching, 11¼ × 9⅞ inches]
[Illustration: BRACQUEMOND. SWALLOWS IN FLIGHT
Size of the original etching, 12½ × 10½ inches]
But besides these many realistic studies of bird life there are just
about as many of purely decorative interest, showing strong Japanese
influence, and mostly executed for ceramic decoration. There are also
decorative combinations of _Reeds and Teal_, _Swallows_ flying in
graceful curves and swirls, _Lapwing and Teal_ swimming and flying.
Here again we have an entirely different point of view. The loving
study of nature, sometimes expressed in an uncompromising hardness in
the reproduction of form or detail, or elsewhere in an almost playful
lightness of touch in obedience to a passing mood, appears here with
quite different results. Seemingly endless changes on the same theme
of swirling, undulating curves of flying, running, strutting, swimming
bodies of birds and fishes delight the eye with the rhythmic flow of
ever recurrent accent on the pure beauty of line.
And at the end, when you have gone through the many portfolios of
Bracquemond’s work, there occurs to you his own statement quoted by
Clement Janin. It is to the effect that a work of graphic art must bear
on its face, undisguised, the characteristics of the technique by which
it was produced. A lithograph must be a lithograph; a wood-engraving a
wood-engraving and not the imitation of an engraving on copper or of a
photograph. A review of the arts of reproduction proves that this is
not the truism it may seem. It is a basic principle in all art, and
will bear earnest and repeated emphasis. And the notable recognition of
this fact by Bracquemond is a prime factor in his success in the art
that has meant so much to him.
AUGUSTE LEPÈRE
BY ELISABETH LUTHER CARY
Art Editor of the New York Times
IT is the fashion of the moment to specialize in art as in other
professions, and we no longer expect to find the multiple tendencies
and ambitions of a Leonardo or a Dürer, or even of the self-contained
Rembrandt, in the modern artist. He is a painter or a sculptor or a
wood-engraver or an etcher. He is even more closely classified as
a portrait- or a landscape-painter, an animalier or a decorator, a
dry-point engraver or a disciple of pure etching. If, as sometimes
happens, he escapes from the threads of the Lilliputians and swings his
arms in a wider sweep, it is in the mood of deprecation or excuse, as a
writer may choose to whittle wood or hammer metal in order to clear his
word-fogged brain.
There is, however, a wholesome and growing impression among thoughtful
observers that extreme limitation and restriction produce weakness
rather than strength, and when we find an artist who has something
of the ancient flexibility of mind and hand it is worth our while to
acclaim him.
[Illustration: LEPÈRE. RHEIMS CATHEDRAL
Size of the original etching, 14⅛ × 10¾ inches]
[Illustration: LEPÈRE. BELLE MATINÉE. AUTOMNE
Size of the original etching, 7½ × 11¼ inches]
Auguste Lepère has pursued a free course of development, rounding his
capacities, and forming himself with balanced and reasonable attention
to diversified interests. He was born in Paris in 1849. His father
was the talented sculptor François Lepère, and he got, no doubt, from
his father something of the latter’s taste for suggesting passion, even
frenzy, in small but monumental figures. While quite young he studied
with the English engraver Smeeon, and spent his first professional
years in the service of illustration for _Le Monde Illustré_,
_L’Illustration_, _Le Magasin Pittoresque_, and _La Revue Illustrée_ in
Paris, the _Graphic_ and _Black and White_ in London, and _Scribner’s_
and _Harper’s_ in America.
Tiring of this field, he tried all things. He became in turn a
metal-chaser, a decorator of leathers, a ceramist, an etcher, a
wood-engraver and a painter. If we consider him chiefly as an etcher,
it must be with the full appreciation that any craft mastered by him is
made subsidiary to the larger principles upon which all works of art
are based, whatever the medium or process. He has consistently declined
to fritter away his admirable technique upon technicalities undertaken
for their own sake, and his work in etching as in painting is the work
of an intellect concerned with the problems of rhythm and harmony,
color, tone and form, which assail artists in every field.
As an etcher he received his initiation from Bracquemond, the most
robust of temperaments and at the same time the most fastidious of
technicians. Lepère has been worthy of his teaching. From the first he
has sought to render his impression, recorded by a vision singularly
prompt and synthetic, with precise care, patiently assembling all the
complex virtues of his method to the task. To his slightest plate he
has brought conscience and sincerity, and also a quality without
which all the moral gifts with which human nature may be endowed would
have availed him nothing as an artist: the rare capacity, that is, for
retaining the freshness of his vision throughout a slow process of
translation.
Before examining a few of his plates to discern their significant
qualities, it will be interesting to consider his own words on the aim
of the engraver: notes written with reference to the change in methods
of reproduction from interpretation by means of the engraver’s art to
the use of photography and the resultant processes. Even his notes on
engraving for the purpose of reproduction, though less closely allied
to the work of his riper years than the notes on engraving from nature
as an original art, are excellent reading, since they throw a clear
light upon his ideals and definite convictions:
“Formerly,” he says, “when an engraver had a work to reproduce, it
was _absolutely necessary for him to see it_. He could then study
it, comprehend it, and consequently extract its essential principle,
simplify it, adapt it to his mode of expression, engrave it.
“If he had not the gift of composition, that of design was necessary
in order to make his transposition; that of interpretation, in order
to gather the idea of the creator of his model. His work was almost
the equal of the work of an original engraver who usually interprets a
composition or a model given by nature.
“His art was that of transposition. He took color or mass and made
a song in a different key, keeping only the relative values of the
shadows and lights and the contours of the objects.
[Illustration: LEPÈRE. VUE DU PORT DE LA MEULE
Size of the original etching, 8⅝ × 12½ inches]
[Illustration: LEPÈRE. PEUPLIERS TÉTARDS
Size of the original etching, 7⅞ × 9¾ inches]
“Photography has come to change all that. It has facilitated the task
of the engraver, who, for the most part, has not even seen the works he
reproduces. The science of design is almost reduced to knowing how to
trace; as for simplifying a photograph, it can only make matters worse.
Such as it is, a photograph forms a perfect gamut in which nothing can
be changed without losing everything; to extract a line from it is
impossible, so indiscernible is the passage from one object to another,
a figure in the background, etc., etc.
“Photography is a reproduction; it becomes a betrayal. What is the copy
interpreted by this betrayal? How can one extract the character of
anything if the true model is not there?
“Here, then, is our engraver obliged to copy with his precise art
from something quite vague. Photography sees the globs of color, the
accidents of a picture, with as much interest as the most beautiful
design. What will he put in the place of these accidents? He traces, he
copies; and as the photograph is stupid, he copies a stupidity.
“He does this so thoroughly that he can be dispensed with, the means
of printing a photograph having been discovered. What imitates a
photograph most completely if not a photogravure? This attains to a
degree of impersonality so great that the poor engraver can no longer
battle against it.
“For the engraver who possesses no faculty of composition to do
artistic work it is necessary that he be an interpreter, a simplifier,
with a very well-defined idea of the necessities of his craft, and
that he know how to draw directly! He must renounce all attempts
to overstep the boundaries of his craft; he must not try to express
colors. One may, in an engraving, express cold and heat; that is,
indeed, the main thing. But it is impossible to engrave red, yellow,
or green. These are researches that encroach upon the domain of the
painter and spoil everything.”
Of the original engraver more is exacted. As a true artist he
must respect both his craft and the quality of his vision. He
must synthetize, simplify, express, avoid photographic vision and
trivialities of style; he must employ only the means forbidden to
photography: those well-affirmed indications of the movements of the
point which are the very foundation of the beautiful technique of
engraving.
And in one phrase is summed up the essential aim of the engraver
who treats his art with respect, whether he uses it for purposes of
reproduction or for original work: “Not to imitate. To express.”
Lepère has followed his own doctrine to its logical conclusion. Never
servile, even in his most faithful portraiture of a nature that
enchants him, he works with a plenitude of science, but also with
unwearied freshness of inspiration and a sympathetic feeling for the
character of his subject, whether it is a curve of the river near Nôtre
Dame where horses come down to drink, or a poor man’s hut with climbing
vines in bloom, or the wide marshes of the Vendée. With the passage
of time his vision has grown larger and calmer, his interpretations
magisterial; but in his most classic moments he does not forget
to infuse into his composition a strong feeling for this intimate
characterization. He is a true creator, living not only above but in
his conception. He is at once serene and moved, in command of his
intellectual instrument and impelled by his personal interest.
The _Journée d’Inventaire_ is a plate that shows clearly this double
action of the artist’s mind. The composition is stately in both line
and mass. In the background rises the lofty architecture of the Amiens
Cathedral; in the foreground, in deep shadow, is a group of figures
diversely occupied. The upraised arms of these figures lead naturally
to the pointed arches and ascending spires. In a similar fashion, the
strong darks of the foreground mount in diminishing quantity through
the heavy shadows in the recesses of the doorways to the luminous
blacks that mark the slender openings in the towers. It is a beautiful
upward movement that repeats the song of the Gothic spirit.
These wonderful darks have also another function. Echoed as they are,
in the small, sharp shadows of the multitudinous detail, they send the
light quivering all through the picture. It pours down from a sky empty
of clouds, and causes the web of decorative imagery with which the
structure is draped to shimmer like a fabric set with precious stones.
Only a true master of the subtleties possible to interwoven dark and
light could thus command his atmospheric effect, and evoke from his
slight and restricted materials the grandeur of the immense pile of
stone raised by the hands of man, and the contrasting evanescence of
the passing sunshine caressing every boss and hollow in the richly
manipulated surfaces. It is perhaps not too much to say that nothing
more remarkable in its kind has been done in the present century.
The element of drama is added by the turmoil of little figures in
shadow at the base of the cathedral, seen in minute detail through
the translucent darkness and agitated by their human accidents and
emotions. The whole spirit of France, its imperishable monuments, its
sparkle of sunshine, its reasonable architecture, its vivid life, may
be inferred from this remarkable plate.
Very different in sentiment and less close to perfection in the
relation of the parts of the design to the whole, is _La Chûte de
Ballon_; yet this also is a beautiful plate. As in the _Journée
d’Inventaire_, the eye is led upward by the gestures of the crowd in
the foreground to the point of interest, the balloon hung poised above
the trees and houses. There is the same contrast of movement, too, in
the agitated figures of the foreground with the calm lines and clear
light of the distance. In this plate, however, is greater piquancy of
light and shade. The abrupt lines and minor episodes are carried so far
into the composition as to dominate the general impression, leaving
the open distance to play a secondary instead of primary part. Figures
are hurrying in excitement toward the scene of the aërial drama; tree
branches are tossing, there are little restless clouds passing rapidly
across the sky; the air is brisk, it is a bright day, there is much to
see and do, and interest is keen--that is the story one carries away
from the handsome, stirring print, and also a subtle poetic suggestion
that beyond the town, as one follows the slow length of a white cliff,
to where it meets the horizon, is a very great world that turns from
night to day, from day to night, interminably, unchecked and unspeeded
by the passing storms of human glee and human woe.
[Illustration: LEPÈRE. LE MOULIN DES CHAPELLES
Size of the original etching, 4¾ × 5¾ inches]
[Illustration: LEPÈRE. A GENTILLY
Size of the original etching, 7⅝ × 9¾ inches]
[Illustration: LEPÈRE. LA CHAUMIÈRE DU VIEUX PECHEUR
Size of the original etching, 8½ × 15¼ inches]
[Illustration: LEPÈRE. LE NID
Size of the original etching, 6¼ × 6⅜ inches]
_La Seine à l’Embouchure du Canal Saint-Martin_ is more commonplace
in subject, the river and its barges having entered into the artistic
life of nearly all French etchers; but how few could pass with such
sureness of plan, such precision of execution, from the dark bulk
of the vessel in the lower left corner to the snapping black of the
tree-top in the upper right corner, along a perfect diagonal, without
a suspicion of stiffness or formalism in the fluent arrangement of
innumerable details of pattern! This strong sense of appropriate and
austere design, supported by such an easy grace of handling, is unusual
in any age, and especially in our own, when grace and austerity find it
almost impossible to live together in one man’s work.
Turning away from these subjects, in which nature presents a wide range
to the artist and inspires him to breadth and dignity of treatment, to
the quaint and touching subjects drawn from peasant life in the Vendean
homes, we find beneath the admirable form of Lepère’s expression
thoughts tender and merry and filled with sympathy for common
experience. His work becomes picturesque and living, the mood of the
observer changes in response, and the pleasure given is that inspired
by simple things, although the treatment of the given scene is often
far from simple.
While all these plates are admirably expressive, one in particular,
_Le Nid_, seems to me filled with melody, color and charm as well as
with the efficient intelligence always to be found in Lepère’s work.
A little solid house with thick walls stands in greenery. Children,
natural, happy, unconcerned, are playing in the foreground. Beyond is
a curve of low hill and a glimpse of flat plain; and still beyond,
a little town with its spire. It is all very naïve and fresh; the
outdoor setting has much beauty; the types of the children are
unhackneyed; the gestures and positions unconventional and spontaneous.
A mere glance reveals the felicity of the subject-matter, but longer
acquaintance is necessary before all the resources of the design are
appreciated. Even in this playful note of pleasant summer pastime we
get something of the gravity and serious purpose indispensable to great
etchers as to great painters. It was this characteristic that led
Lepère to pull down all the detail of the middle distance below the
noble swinging line of the hillock, in order to keep the severity of
that magnificent curve. It was this which led him to follow a repeating
curve in the arrangement and environment of the children, apparently
so carelessly disposed among their shrubs and flowers. “Let all things
play and bloom and make holiday,” he seems to exclaim in this rare
plate, “so long as the power of my design is not weakened by them.” The
artist whose work says that to us is sure of long life in our memories.
There are several of these subjects in which children at play near
their homes are the principal feature, and it would be easy to find in
each some special note of gaiety and charm and quick Gallic wit. In
_Les deux Bourrines_, for example, the groups of little ugly creatures,
who form again a curved line of beauty, are characterized with a frank
acceptance of their unclassic physiognomies that would have delighted
the heart of Daumier. _Le Nid de Pauvres_ is not less romantic in its
Gothic avoidance of the ideal type.
[Illustration: LEPÈRE. PROVINS
Size of the original etching, 6 × 11¾ inches]
[Illustration: LEPÈRE. L’EGLISE DE JOUY LE MOUTIER
Size of the original etching, 6⅜ × 6⅜ inches]
[Illustration: LEPÈRE. L’ENFANT PRODIGUE
Size of the original etching, 9½ × 12⅝ inches]
Classic Lepère can be, however, with a curiously vital appreciation
of what the living classic must have been. He has an etching of a
swineherd entering the yard in which the beasts are penned. They move,
grunting, toward him. Outside is a cluster of great trees with bushy
foliage. The light is clear and warm. The folds of the swineherd’s
mantle and his gesture are Greek. His figure might have passed across
the Athenian stage, one fancies, at the time of Sophoclean drama. And
the landscape has the deep repose immortalized in classic verse--such
songs as in his extreme old age Sophocles made to do honor to his
native village:
Our home, Colonus, gleaming fair and white:
The nightingale still haunteth all our woods,
Green with the flush of spring;
And sweet, melodious floods
Of softest song through grove and thicket ring.
Lepère is not often found in this mood, however, and the swineherd
plate cannot be considered wholly characteristic of his temper of
mind. It seems to have been one of those rare happenings when the mind
is lifted above its habitual plane, occasion serves, and the trained
hand obediently records a moment of peculiar exaltation. He is perhaps
most of all his daily self in the little plate called _Le Moulin des
Chapelles_. Here he shows us the machinery of the mill and the round
white column of the structure as others have done, but he also shows us
what others seldom do--the use of the mill. A patient horse is standing
near, a man is shifting the bags of flour to his back. It is not a mere
accident of landscape; it has a social and utilitarian function; it is
connected with human life.
This is the most characteristic attitude of mind for an artist so
alert to the significance of visible things; and it is immensely to
his credit as an artist that he almost never permits this keen and
throbbing interest in the world about him to trespass upon his logical
use of his great instrument.
If organization of line and space, ability to establish in each of his
compositions a decorative scheme adequate to support easily all the
delightful episodes and figures which he chooses to introduce, is the
most important element in Lepère’s artistic equipment, the next in
significance is the clarity and precision of his utterance. There is
no vapor in his imagination; he is a poet as well as an artist, with a
poet’s sensitiveness to definition of form. All that he lacks is the
intensity of emotion that sweeps away interest in everything but the
personal feeling. We suspect that the world for him will always be
“full of a number of things,” and that he will not be able to forget
any of them in the exaltation of profound self-absorption. But he has
a genius for infusing a rich suggestiveness into all that he observes,
and for giving his narrative an epic character.
HERMAN A. WEBSTER
BY MARTIN HARDIE
“Did you ever see a barber sharpen his razor? That’s what it
wants--the decision and the smacks.” That is one of the many quaint
remarks that old John Varley used to hurl at the pupils who came to him
for lessons in the complete art of painting in water-color. It is a
remark very appropriate to the vast quantity of etchings, mechanically
correct, but unimpassioned and uninteresting, which are produced
to-day. There are wonderfully few etchers whose work strikes a note of
imagination and individuality, and appeals by its force and directness,
its decisions and its smacks. One of that small company is Mr. Herman
A. Webster.
An artist’s life is written in his work, and the cold facts of his
biography are of little real importance. To some extent, however, they
act as a commentary upon his productions, and at the worst they serve
to satisfy the not unpardonable curiosity which impels all of us to
inquire into the age and life-history of any man whose pictures or
prints awaken our instant sympathy. So I put here a few outlines of
Mr. Webster’s career, merely the mile-stones that mark the route along
which he has proceeded. It has been a career of strenuous activity,
for the artist who now prints his finely-wrought plates in his studio
in the Rue de Furstenberg at Paris (the street of which Whistler made
a lithograph in 1894) has graduated at a famous university, traveled
round the world, spent two years in commercial life, toiled as general
reporter to a big daily paper, worked in a coal-mine, and acted as
assistant cashier in a bank. And the tale of his years is only just
over thirty, for he was born in 1878. Need I add--for an English reader
it would be quite superfluous--that Mr. Webster is an American, with
New York as his native city?
Mr. Webster came into the world with an innate love of art. In his
school-days, before he had received any instruction in drawing, he
made posters, that were perhaps crude but not ineffective, for the
school games; and at Yale he was one of the editors and a valued
illustrator of the _Yale Record_. This love of art was fostered by a
visit to the 1900 Exposition at Paris, where the _genius loci_ has a
stronger spell for the young artist than anywhere else upon earth.
Studios and restaurants of the Quartier Latin are fragrant with great
memories, still haunted by the mighty spirits of the past: Louvre and
Luxembourg are filled with the living realities that abide. Amid the
enchantment of this artistic atmosphere, with all its traditions and
associations, Mr. Webster lingered for some months, and then set out
on a trans-Siberian tour to the Orient, staying long enough in Japan
and China for his natural instinct to be quickened by the marvelous
art which has exerted so strong an influence on the Western world.
On returning home his desire to adopt art as his life-calling was
checked by family opposition. Here in England--for I write as one of
Mr. Webster’s English admirers--many a boy artist has been thwarted
by a foolish antipathy in the home circle to art in the abstract, but
for a parent in the New World the conviction must be even more sincere
that business is the only lucrative profession, while art is at least
something precarious, if not a downward road to poverty and starvation.
And so, at his father’s wish, Mr. Webster, in the office of the
_Chicago Record-Herald_ and elsewhere, served two years of bondage to
commerce. Determination, however, won its way at last, and in February,
1904, he set out to Paris with the family consent to “try it for a
year.” That year is still continuing.
[Illustration: WEBSTER. ST. OUEN, ROUEN
“His chief delight is in the nooks and corners of old-world
thoroughfares and culs-de-sac, where deep shadows lurk in the angles of
time-worn buildings, and sunlight ripples over crumbling walls, seamy
gables, and irregular tiled roofs.” Martin Hardie.
Size of the original etching, 5½ × 3⅞ inches]
[Illustration: WEBSTER. LA RUE GRENIER SUR L’EAU, PARIS
“A fourth plate, perhaps even finer than any of these in its force,
directness, and concentrated simplicity, is the _Rue Grenier sur
l’Eau_. There is much of Meryon in its clear, crisp line-work.” Martin
Hardie.
Size of the original etching, 8¾ × 4⅞ inches]
Seven months during 1904 were spent at the Académie Julien under Jean
Paul Laurens, in study from the nude; and that is the only academic
instruction which Mr. Webster has received. A few months after his
arrival in Paris, chance led him to the Bibliothèque Nationale, where
he saw some of Meryon’s etchings, and fell instantly under the spell of
the great artist whose sinister needle first revealed the mysterious
and somber poetry of Paris and the Seine. From Meryon and from books
he forthwith taught himself to etch, receiving no outside instruction,
but evolving his own methods till he attained mastery of the “teasing,
temper-trying, yet fascinating art”--a mastery the more valuable and
complete in that it was based on his own experience. A first attempt
was made from his studio window in the Rue de Furstenberg, and some
copperplates went with him on his autumn holiday at Grez, that “pretty
and very melancholy village” in the Forest of Fontainebleau, where
Robert Louis Stevenson met the romance of his life. As the first-fruits
of this holiday three little etchings won their way into the next
summer’s Salon--the _Rue de l’Abbaye_, _The Loing at Grez_, and _The
Court, Bourron_, the last being the forerunner of several subjects of
similar type. At the Salon also was hung a large oil-painting of still
life, a study of fabrics and porcelain; but though color will no doubt
claim allegiance again, Mr. Webster has been too closely held in thrall
by etching to essay further experiments in the painter’s craft.
A pilgrimage to Spain in the spring of 1905 was the source of several
spontaneous and effective plates, among them _St. Martin’s Bridge,
Toledo_, and _Mirada de las Reinas, Alhambra_. Up to this point Mr.
Webster’s work may be considered, in a large measure, tentative and
experimental, but from 1906 onward he has found in Normandy--at Pont de
l’Arche and Rouen--at Bruges, and above all in Paris, the inspiration
for a series of plates noteworthy for their fine craftsmanship and
their expression of individuality. They have won him the recognition
of connoisseurs and public without his passing through any period
of undeserved obscurity. At the Paris Salon, at the Royal Academy,
and in his native land, his etchings have constantly been exhibited
and admired. Nor must I forget to add that in 1908 he was elected an
Associate of the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers, which, under the
presidency of its veteran founder, Sir Francis Seymour Haden, has done
so much to foster the revived art of etching.
[Illustration: WEBSTER. QUAI MONTEBELLO
“Few etchers have ever preached the gospel of light with more truth
and earnestness than Webster himself in the _Quai Montebello_ and many
other plates.” Martin Hardie.
Size of the original etching, 7⅞ × 5⅛ inches]
[Illustration: WEBSTER. LE PONT NEUF, PARIS
“A fitting companion to this vision of Notre Dame is _Le Pont Neuf_,
another of the etcher’s largest and most distinguished plates. The
stern solidity of the bridge, with its massive masonry, its corbeled
turrets, and its deeply shadowed arches, makes pleasing contrast with
the irregular sky-line of the sunlit houses that rise beyond.” Martin
Hardie.
Size of the original etching, 8⅛ × 11¾ inches]
It is of some of the chief works produced and exhibited during the
last three years that I have now to speak, and in doing so may perhaps
indicate a few leading characteristics of the etcher’s work. His chief
delight is in the nooks and corners of old-world thoroughfares
and culs-de-sac, where deep shadows lurk in the angles of time-worn
buildings, and sunlight ripples over crumbling walls, seamy gables,
and irregular tiled roofs. Of such is a series of subjects found in
old Rouen--the _St. Ouen_; the _Rue du Hallage_, where the cathedral
spire towers high above old timbered houses; and that charming plate
with the title _Old Houses, Rouen_, a quaint corner of tenements
whose high-pitched roofs stand propped against one another for all
the world like a castle of cards. The etcher of this and of the _St.
Ouen_ was welcomed with warm sympathy by the _Gazette des Beaux-Arts_,
which said that “never before has there been so fervent and skilled
an interpreter of the bowed timber and crumbling plaster of the old
houses of Rouen, which line the street ending in the cathedral with its
pointed spire against the open sky.” And so we pass to two courtyard
scenes--belonging, like the Rouen subjects, to the year 1906--the
_Cour, Normandie_, and _Les Blanchisseuses_. In both we find the artist
becoming more adept in using broad and balanced disposition of light
and shade to give not merely chiaroscuro but the suggestion of actual
color, and more skilled in adding exquisiteness of detail to refined
truth of visual impression. _Les Blanchisseuses_, in particular, with
its rich mystery of shadow, with its sunshine falling on white walls
and lighting the seamed interstices of plaster and timber, has an
indefinable charm that, for myself at any rate, makes it a high-water
mark in Mr. Webster’s art. Of similar type is the _Old Butter Market,
Bruges_, where a cobbled street curves beneath a shadowed archway; and
then for variety you step from _Bruges la Morte_, from the silent
cobbles that centuries ago were a busy thoroughfare for ringing feet,
to the Bruges of to-day. It is Bruges in a very different aspect, this
free and spirited study made on July 27, 1907, on the day of the Fête
de l’Arbre d’Or, giving a quick impression of gay holiday crowds, of
banners fluttering against the open sky, and of the “belfry old and
brown” whose carillon inspired America’s poet, as its tall form and
fretted outline have inspired the American etcher of whom I write. This
_Bruges en Fête_, and _Paysanne_, a clever and direct figure-study of
an old peasant at Marlotte, come as an episode of pleasing variety
in Mr. Webster’s work, and tend to show that, though he has his
preferences, he is not really fettered by any limitation of subject or
treatment.
[Illustration: WEBSTER. LA RUE CARDINALE
“_La Rue Cardinale_ has affinity of general treatment with _Rue de la
Parcheminerie_, and is not the less interesting for an amazing _tour de
force_ in the rendering of color and texture in the striped blind over
a shop-front.” Martin Hardie.
Size of the original etching, 10⅞ × 7⅝ inches]
[Illustration: WEBSTER. LA RUE DE LA PARCHEMINERIE, PARIS
“Closely akin to _Rue Brise Miche_ in restful balance of composition
and in fine shadow effect is the _Rue de la Parcheminerie_--of special
value now, for the old street has disappeared largely since the making
of the plate.” Martin Hardie.
Size of the original etching, 11⅛ × 7 inches]
It is but natural that an artist of Mr. Webster’s temperament, a
devoted admirer of Meryon, should become absorbed in Paris herself and
endeavor to put upon copperplate the “poésie profonde et compliqué
d’une vaste capitale.” The Bruges and Rouen plates showed Mr. Webster
to be keenly susceptible to the magnetism and charm of medieval
tradition, but Paris, steeped in sentiment even more than Rouen or
Bruges, was to rouse a still greater warmth and feeling. He began by
searching out those picturesque streets in the old quarters that have
survived the wholesale demolishment of Baron Haussmann, a name hated by
artists as that of Granger by lovers of books. The _Rue Brise Miche_
found its way to the Royal Academy, and was also honored by publication
in the _Gazette des Beaux-Arts_ (July, 1907). Closely akin to it in
restful balance of composition and in fine shadow effect is the _Rue
de la Parcheminerie_--of special value now, for the old street has
disappeared largely since the making of the plate. _La Rue Cardinale_
has affinity of general treatment, and is not the less interesting
for an amazing _tour de force_ in the rendering of color and texture
in the striped blind over a shop-front. A fourth plate, perhaps even
finer than any of these in its force, directness, and concentrated
simplicity, is the _Rue Grenier sur l’Eau_. There is much of Meryon
in its clear, crisp line-work. Some day perhaps these loving studies
of the old Paris of Balzac may be gathered in a series illustrating
the “Quartier Marais,” and published in an _édition de luxe_ with
descriptive text by the etcher. Let us hope that this may come to pass,
for the buildings that Mr. Webster depicts are far more than a prosaic
record of architectural features. There is a spiritual and human
suggestiveness behind the mortar and bricks of his pictures: as a poet
of his own nation has it, they are “latent with unseen existences.” He
has appreciated the fact that etching--an art hedged in by limitations
and depending upon power of suggestion--is the one art that can give at
once those delicate lines, those broad shadows, those crumbling bits of
texture. The lover of etching can regard his subject with indifference,
and take full joy in the soft play of sunlight, the fine choice of
line, the effective massing of light and shade.
Another plate of this “Quartier Marais” series is a noble
representation of Notre Dame seen from an unusual aspect. It is a
drawing from near the Hôtel de Ville and shows the splendid mass of
the cathedral rising above the irregular houses that face the Quartier
Marais and the Quai aux Fleurs. There is freedom and charm in the
treatment of the foreground, where a little tug puffs along the river
and the big barges move cumbrously under the lee of the near bank, and
in the middle distance where the light plays pleasantly over the old
houses; but the roof of the cathedral itself, put in with unpleasing
rigidity of line, comes like cold fact in the middle of romance. It is
as though Meryon here had imposed his weakness as well as his strength
upon Mr. Webster, for in the _Morgue_, for instance, the one small
blemish is the ruled precision of the lines upon a roof. A fitting
companion to this vision of Notre Dame is _Le Pont Neuf_, another of
the etcher’s largest and most distinguished plates. The stern solidity
of the bridge, with its massive masonry, its corbeled turrets, and its
deeply shadowed arches, makes pleasing contrast with the irregular
sky-line of the sunlit houses that rise beyond.
It may be said of all Mr. Webster’s etchings--and perhaps there could
be no higher praise--that each possesses the faculty of provoking fresh
interest. That is certainly the case with four of his most recent
plates. One is an interior of _St. Saturnin, Toulouse_, majestic and
stately, full of suggestive mystery in the religious light that falls
with soft touch upon the pillars, throws into relief the dark masses
of the choir-stalls, and strives to penetrate the dim recesses of
the vaulted roof. _St. Saturnin_ will be among the rariora of the
collector, for the plate unfortunately broke when twelve proofs only
had been printed.
The artist’s subtle perception of light and his refined draughtsmanship
have been used to singular advantage in the _Ancienne Faculté de
Médecine, 1608_. One is grateful to him for his fine record of this
domed building that was a little gem of Renaissance art, though
there is a note of sadness in the substructure of balks and struts set
at its base by the ruthless hand of the destroyer.
[Illustration: WEBSTER. “ST. SATURNIN, TOULOUSE”
Size of the original etching, 10⅛ × 4¾ inches]
[Illustration: WEBSTER. ANCIENNE FACULTÉ DE MÉDECINE, PARIS
“The artist’s subtle perception of light and his refined draftsmanship
have been used to singular advantage in the _Ancienne Faculté de
Médecine, 1608_. One is grateful to him for his fine record of this
domed building that was a little gem of Renaissance art, though there
is a note of sadness in the substructure of balks and struts set at its
base by the ruthless hand of the destroyer.”
Martin Hardie.
Size of the original etching, 11⅞ × 7⅞ inches]
Gothic canopies and tracery are drawn with loving care in the _Porte
des Marmousets, St. Ouen, Rouen_, but here again it is the mystery of
shadow in the deep porch that supplies the true theme. A church porch
has also supplied the subject of one of Mr. Webster’s latest works,
_Notre Dame des Andelys_. The ordinary observer will delight in the
print for its beautiful rendering of a noble fragment of architecture.
Those who have real knowledge of etching will appreciate it still more
for its clever biting and for its subtle delicacy of line so cunningly
used for the indication of stone, glass, and woodwork with their
different surfaces and textures.
That plate of _Notre Dame des Andelys_, though not the most instantly
engaging, is perhaps the most accomplished which the artist has
produced. It is in this accomplishment that from the coldly critical
point of view I see an indication--a hint only--of possible danger.
Here, and to some extent in the _Pont Neuf_ and the _Rue Grenier_,
the careful, tense, concentrated work shows almost too disciplined a
self-control. Close study of these prints gives just a touch of the
irritation that comes from watching the monotonous perfection of a
first-class game-shot or golfer, bringing a malicious desire for some
mistake or piece of recklessness. The true etching always appeals in
some degree by its spice of adventure, by some happiness of accident,
and so while the _Pont Neuf_ and the _Notre Dame des Andelys_ rouse
full admiration and respect for their splendid artistry, the more
haphazard methods of the _Rue Brise Miche_ and _Les Blanchisseuses_
touch a far deeper note of sympathy. They have in them the breezy,
natural oratory that is often so much more stirring than the fluent,
polished periods of the accomplished speaker. But even where Mr.
Webster is most precise in his articulation, most resolute in his
adherence to familiar truths, he always combines with this a personal
aspect and a power of selection that, disregarding the commonplace and
petty, lends poetry to the interpretation. His “careful” work is very
far removed from the cold and careful work of the ordinary uninspired
craftsman.
In studying the work of a young etcher--and Mr. Webster is still young
as an etcher--it is almost always possible to trace certain influences
which, quite legitimately, have acted upon his choice of subject and
his technique. In one of his first etchings, _The Court, Bourron_, the
Whistler influence is frankly apparent. _Les Blanchisseuses_ is in no
sense an imitative plate, but I should have said it was the work of a
man who knew Whistler’s _Unsafe Tenement_ by heart. And there comes in
the critic’s danger of leaping to rash conclusions, for Mr. Webster
tells me he never saw that print by Whistler till long after his
etching was made. For the Meryon influence, which is clearly apparent
in much of his work, Mr. Webster makes no apology. Nor need he do
so; for if he reminds us, here a little of Whistler, there a little
of Meryon, there is always a large measure of himself besides. The
true artist lights his torch from that of his predecessors: it is his
business to carry on great traditions. “I have done my best simply to
learn from him, not to steal”--that is Mr. Webster’s own expressive
way of putting it.
[Illustration: WEBSTER. NOTRE DAME DES ANDELYS
“The ordinary observer will delight in _Notre Dame des Andelys_ for its
beautiful rendering of a noble fragment of architecture. Those who have
real knowledge of etching will appreciate it still more for its clever
biting and for its subtle delicacy of line so cunningly used for the
indication of stone, glass, and woodwork with their different surfaces
and textures.” Martin Hardie.
Size of the original etching, 11 × 7⅛ inches]
[Illustration: WEBSTER. PORTE DES MARMOUSETS, ST. OUEN, ROUEN
“Gothic canopies and tracery are drawn with loving care in the _Porte
des Marmousets, St. Ouen, Rouen_, but here again it is the mystery of
shadow in the deep porch that supplies the true theme.”
Martin Hardie.
Size of the original etching, 10⅛ × 7 inches]
Mr. Webster has not learned from Meryon at the cost of his own
individuality, and one reason for the freshness that characterizes
his work is that he is one of those who like to transfer their first
impressions of nature direct to the plate in the open air. With very
few exceptions, that is how his etchings have been made. A certain
amount of work is necessarily done afterward in the retirement of the
studio, but the straightforward method of rendering nature gives a
vividness and spontaneity that careful work from intermediate studies
in pencil or color can rarely produce. This spontaneity is the very
essence of good etching, for with etching, as with water-color, its
highest charm is inevitably troubled by mechanical labor; it is
essentially a method of which one feels that “if ’twere done, ’twere
well done quickly.” The etcher should no more be able to stay the quick
gliding of his needle in the middle of a line than the skater to stand
still upon the outside edge. And I think that the etcher who works
straight from nature is more apt to search out the notes and accents
of character and to seize upon those structural lines which are a
fundamental necessity to his work.
Another chief excellence in Mr. Webster’s work lies in the fact that
from the first he has been his own printer. He is no believer in the
principle followed by many other etchers of biting their plate and
leaving it to some one “with the palm of a duchess” to do the rest.
Patient acquisition of craftsmanship is bound to tell, for the paid
printer, be he never so skilled, cannot hope to understand an artist’s
intentions quite so well as the artist himself. Mr. Webster, however,
has no need of any artifice; there is no trace in his etchings of the
meretricious printing which Whistler condemned as “treacly.” Light and
shade enter into charming alliance in his prints, but line is always
of the confederacy, and it is to purity of line that the shadows which
tell so strongly owe their strength. In the very depths of them there
is always a luminous gloom, never a trace of the harshness and opacity
that come from slurred workmanship and reliance upon printer’s ink.
Perhaps I have said too much already, for Mr. Webster’s work is well
able to speak for itself. But there is one noteworthy feature, common
to all his plates, that claims attention, and that is his power of
rendering sunlight. If he loves dark and dingy thoroughfares with
dilapidated roofs and moldering plaster, it is for the sake of those
quaint shadows that peep from their recesses and climb the high walls,
and still more for the patches of brilliant, quivering sunlight to
which the shadows give so full a value. He seems to hear, like Corot,
the actual crash of the sun upon the wall--“l’éclat du soleil qui
frappe.”
PART II
It is difficult to clothe one’s speech in the detached terms of a
catalogue when writing of an artist whose work always kindles fresh
enthusiasm. And so I may perhaps be pardoned if, in adding something to
a previous essay upon the etchings of Herman A. Webster, I venture to
strike a more personal note.
[Illustration: WEBSTER. VIEILLES MAISONS, RUE HAUTEFEUILLE, PARIS
“He loves dark and dingy thoroughfares with dilapidated roofs and
moldering plaster, ... for the patches of brilliant, quivering sunlight
to which the shadows give so full a value.” Martin Hardie.
Size of the original etching, 11¼ × 5⅞ inches]
[Illustration: WEBSTER. LA ROUTE DE LOUVIERS
“In landscape, as in his architectural work, Webster sets his theme
upon the plate with fine skill of arrangement and with exquisite
draughtsmanship.” Martin Hardie.
Size of the original etching, 6 × 8¼ inches]
There can be few men to whom art is more of a religion than to Webster.
On two occasions when I saw him during his hurried visits to London
in the spring of 1910, he spoke of his art with all the zeal of a
missionary and the fervor of a convert. He seemed to be laboring in
a slough of despond, beset with a feeling that his past work was
something worthless, to be thrown aside like Christian’s bundle. He
appeared to be torn in sunder by divers doctrines, telling me of the
constant ebb and flow of argument in the Paris cafés and studios
between the _parti métier_ and the _parti âme_--those who maintained
that finished technique, the “_cuisine_” of the French student, was
the final aim, and those who held that the artist’s own emotion,
howsoever it might find expression, was the greatest thing of all.
Webster felt--and it was a fact, indeed, at which I hinted in writing
of his work before--that he was sacrificing something of the _âme_
to the _métier_; and his own realization of that is already becoming
apparent in his outlook and his style. Then, too, his talk was all of
the attainment and suggestion of light as the supreme quality in an
etching; and here I could reassure him, for few have ever preached the
gospel of light with more truth and earnestness than Webster himself in
the _Quai Montebello_ and many other plates.
Still, there matters stood more than a year ago, and the plates that
Webster had etched at Marseilles and elsewhere lay rejected and
unbitten in his studio. Then he set out to America, where he spent
the summer of 1910, and, like Mr. Pennell, fell a victim to the
sky-scrapers of New York. “They are the most marvelous things,” he
wrote, “on the face of Mother Earth to-day. It took me two months to
begin to see them, but then they began to glow, to take shape, and to
grow. Perhaps no work of human hands in all the world offers such a
stupendous picture as New York seen from almost anywhere within the
down-town district, or from the river or the bay. There are cliffs and
cañons where sun and shadow work the weirdest miracles, and soaring
above them, between forty and fifty stories from the ground, rise
arched roofs and pointed ones, gray and gold and brown, that one must
see with one’s own eyes to have the faintest conception of. From across
the Hudson in the afternoon when the sun goes down you can watch the
shadows creep up the sides of these mountains of brick and stone until
you’d swear you were looking out on some gigantic fairyland.”
His admiration of those sky-scrapers found expression in a series of
drawings made on behalf of _The Century Magazine_, and in, at any
rate, one etching--the _Cortlandt Street, New York_. The subject will
appeal most, perhaps, to those who live beneath the familiar shade
of these monstrous habitations, with their hundreds of staring eyes;
but the ordinary man, though he may find it strangely uninspiring
and unromantic, will at any rate admire the firm decision of the
drawing and welcome the slender filaments and trembling gray spirals
of smoke--so difficult to express in line with a point of steel--that
cast a veil over the sordid reality of the scene. Though Webster
carried that one plate to a finish, he was still obsessed by all sorts
of doubts. Many drawings were torn up, and many plates that he etched
were wilfully destroyed. Just as the golfer falls victim to too much
reading of theoretical works, so for Webster his eager indulgence in
theory and science put him “off his game.” I say all this to account
for what must seem a small output during two years for a man whose
sole work is etching. It is all to the artist’s credit; but, none
the less, we have suffered, _nous autres_, for his convictions. Now,
however, Richard is himself again. A month or more spent in Frankfort
this summer has produced a series of pencil-drawings and etchings which
should bring satisfaction and content both to the artist and to all who
admire his work.
[Illustration: WEBSTER. BENDERGASSE, FRANKFORT
“Then there are the _Street of the Three Kings_, the _Bendergasse_, and
_Sixteenth Century Houses_, all of them felicitous in charm of theme,
in play of light and shade, and in the suggestion of life given by the
animated figures.” Martin Hardie.
Size of the original etching, 8 × 5¼ inches]
[Illustration: WEBSTER. CORTLANDT STREET
Size of the original etching, 12⅞ × 7½ inches]
Before speaking of the Frankfort series of etchings, a word may be
said about Webster’s pencil-drawings. I know of no other artist, save
perhaps Mr. Muirhead Bone, who can use the pencil-point with such
exquisite fineness and precision in the production of an architectural
drawing that, with all its accuracy, still retains the freshness of
a sketch. Finding in a portfolio a drawing of _Cortlandt Street_ and
several others that repeated the subjects of the Frankfort etchings,
I felt curious as to the exact relationship between these drawings
and the work on the copperplate. This interest was largely, perhaps,
that of a fellow-etcher, keen to see “how the wheels go round,” but
Webster’s reply to a question on this subject may interest others as
well. “I determine my composition,” he wrote, “in outline first. This
outline I transfer to the plate. Then I go out and carefully study
in pencil, on the original outline sketch, the subject I want to do,
so as to ‘get acquainted’ with it before beginning the more exacting
work upon the copperplate. I never use a drawing to work from except
sometimes as an extra guide in the biting, where a careful study can
be very useful.” They are beautiful things, these pencil-drawings
of New York and Frankfort, but there can be only one of each. The
etchings, fortunately, can be shared and enjoyed by many possessors.
Frankfort has grown to be a large and very modern town with broad
thoroughfares and palatial buildings; but it has its old quarter
as well, and among the houses that nestle in narrow streets round
the cathedral, Webster has found the same kind of subject that
fascinated him before in Bruges and Marseilles and Paris. A brilliant
draughtsman, he never seems to hesitate or lose his way among the
manifold intricacies of the old-world buildings that he depicts. He
aims always at knitting his subjects into fine unity of composition
by broad massing of light and shade. “In the last few months,” he
writes, “I have grown never to make an etching for etching’s sake, but
for the means it gives of studying closely the play of light across
my subject.” That is his main theme: the light that travels now with
cold curiosity as it did centuries ago, glancing into open windows,
throwing into relief a corbel or a crocket, casting a shadow under eave
or window ledge, revealing, like a patch in some tattered garment, the
cracks and seams in moldering plaster or time-worn timber. In depicting
these storehouses of human joys and aspirations, hopes and despairs,
he has none of Meryon’s gloom and morbidness. It is true that behind
many of the windows in these poor homes of his pictures some Marie
Claire may be toiling in sad-eyed poverty; yet for Webster the outside
shall be sunny, little white curtains shall veil the gloom, and flowers
shall blossom on the window ledge, though the sad worker may have
watered them with her tears. And if sunshine is still potent in these
new plates, there is also a fresh and joyous note of life and movement
in the streets. The introduction of figures, well placed and full of
character, is a new development in Webster’s art. Bustling workers, or
happy groups of gossiping women, or the dark mass of a distant crowd,
are introduced with consummate skill, and the picturesqueness of the
old streets gains new value from the suggestion of this living stream
of human traffic. The presence of modern life enhances the gray and
wrinkled age of the buildings which have watched so many generations
come and go.
[Illustration: WEBSTER. LOWENPLÄTZCHEN, FRANKFORT
Size of the original etching, 8 × 6⁵⁄₁₆ inches]
[Illustration: WEBSTER. DER LANGER FRANZ, FRANKFORT
“_Der Langer Franz_, a view of the Rathaus tower that took its nickname
from a tall burgomaster of the town, is a little gem, brilliant with
light and rich in the mystery of shadow.”
Martin Hardie.
Size of the original etching. 4⅞ × 3⅜ inches]
Among the new plates are four that deal with street scenes in the Alt
Stadt of Frankfort. _Der Langer Franz_, a view of the Rathaus tower
that took its nickname from a tall burgomaster of the town, is the
smallest of all, but a little gem, brilliant with light and rich in the
mystery of shadow. Then there are the _Street of the Three Kings_, the
_Bendergasse_, and _Sixteenth-century Houses_, all of them felicitous
in charm of theme, in play of light and shade, and in the suggestion of
life given by the animated figures. There are admirable figures again
in _An Old Court_, one of the plates that the collector of future days
will most desire to possess. There is less in it of obvious labor than
in the street scenes; the etcher has overcome a natural fear of blank
spaces; and his reticence and more summary execution have lent to this
plate much of the unconscious and unpremeditated charm that is one of
the finest qualities which an etching can possess.
Two etchings of old bridges over the Main at Frankfort must rank
among the best work that Webster has yet produced. One is a small and
spirited plate showing the tower of the cathedral and a row of houses,
most delicately drawn, rising with a beautiful sky-line above the solid
mass of the shadowed bridge with its heavy buttresses. The other shows
the old bridge that spans the Main between Frankfort and Sachsenhausen.
Legend tells that in compensation for finishing the building within
a certain time the architect made a vow to sacrifice to the devil
the first living being that crossed the bridge. Then, when the fatal
day arrived, he drove a cock across, and so cheated the devil of his
due. Much the same story of outwitting the devil is told about the
building of the cathedral at Aix-la-Chapelle. Whether Webster ventured
upon any compact I do not know; but this plate, in its building, in
its well-constructed composition, in its splendid effect of brilliant
sunshine, is one of the most successful tasks he has ever accomplished.
The group of figures on the near bank, happily placed like those in
Vermeer’s famous _View of Delft_, adds no little to the charm of the
scene. I would set this plate beside _Les Blanchisseuses_ and the
_Quai Montebello_, which Mr. Wedmore has found “modestly perfect,” as
representing the very summit of Webster’s art.
[Illustration: WEBSTER. THE OLD BRIDGE, FRANKFORT
This old bridge spans the river Main between Frankfort and Sachsenhausen
“I would set this plate beside _Les Blanchisseuses_ and _Quai
Montebello_, which Mr. Wedmore has found ‘modestly perfect,’ as
representing the very summit of Webster’s art.” Martin Hardie.
Size of the original etching, 5½ × 8½ inches]
[Illustration: WEBSTER. LA RUE ST. JACQUES, PARIS
“... One of the best etchings he has ever made.... It is not merely
fine in its pattern of light and shade, but it has a direct force and
simplification that are rich with promise for the future.”
Martin Hardie.
Size of the original etching, 8⅝ × 5⅞ inches]
While he has surrendered for the time being to the charm of Frankfort,
Webster has not been unfaithful to the Paris of his early love. Of
Paris he might say, like Montaigne, “That city has ever had my heart;
and it has fallen out to me, as of excellent things, that the more
of other fine cities I have seen since, the more the beauty of this
gains on my affections. I love it tenderly, even with all its
warts and blemishes.” All the more for the warts and blemishes of
its old buildings Webster loves it, too; and while working on his
Frankfort plates he has completed another of _La Rue St. Jacques,
Paris_, which, I think, is one of the best etchings he has ever
made. At times, even in his Frankfort plates, one still feels that
his superb draughtsmanship and his love of detail--_ce superflu, si
nécessaire_--have led him to a uniformity of finish that is almost
too “icily regular.” I do not mean that Webster’s elaboration is the
cold, almost meaningless, elaboration of the line-engraver; nor do I
forget that the technique of Meryon, one of the greatest masters of
etchings, was, in Mr. Wedmore’s happy phrasing, “one of unfaltering
firmness and regularity, one of undeterred deliberation.” All the same,
one wishes that Meryon had done a few more things like the _Rue des
Mauvais Garçons_, and wishes that Webster also, in a similar way, were
now and then less sure of himself, were held sometimes by a trembling
hesitancy, or driven sometimes by the passion of the moment to allow
room for fortunate accident and rapid suggestion. For that reason I
welcome his _Rue St. Jacques_. It is not merely fine in its pattern of
light and shade, but it has a direct force and simplification that are
rich with promise for the future.
Since writing the above, I have seen working-proofs of two new etchings
of landscape. And here, too, there is high promise. They show, at
least, that Webster is not going to remain a man of one subject; that
he is opening his heart to the beauty and romance of simple nature. He
has sought his first themes in that pleasant countryside where, between
tall poplars, you get peeps of Château Gaillard, nobly set upon its
hill. In landscape, as in his architectural work, Webster sets his
theme upon the plate with fine skill of arrangement and with exquisite
draughtsmanship. These two plates, _Château Gaillard_ and _La Route
de Louviers_, are exhilarating in their feeling of sunshine, and they
please by their absolute simplicity of statement. They are honest, and
without artifice. Printed “as clean as a whistle,” without any of the
doubtful expedients that give a meretricious attractiveness to so much
modern etching, they appeal by their rightness of pattern and precision
of line. Those who see high promise as well as present fulfilment in
Webster’s art, will not regret that he has left the town and set out
where
thro’ the green land,
Vistas of change and adventure,
The gray roads go beckoning and winding.
ANDERS ZORN--PAINTER-ETCHER
BY J. NILSEN LAURVIK
Broadly speaking there are but two kinds of artists--innovators and
imitators. The first may be known by the opposition they arouse in
the sacred sanctums of mediocrity and by their final but reluctant
acceptance by the self-appointed custodians of the Hall of Fame whose
business it is to exclude genius until Time shall have tempered all its
buoyant, youthful enthusiasms, which are the very signs and tokens of
those starry creatures whom the gods have blessed. Youth and all its
amazing prodigality are of the very essence of genius, and it is by
virtue of this exuberant overflowing of the spirit that the works of
Anders Zorn make their vital appeal.
He celebrates with fervent, dramatic strokes the pageant of the visible
world, and all that his alert eyes can see his nimble fingers depict
with an unfailing sense of the pictorial possibilities inherent in the
passing procession of contemporary life. There is in his work something
of childlike spontaneity,--a healthy, natural enjoyment in the mere
practice of his art that is infectious. He has the same impartial
love for nature as it is as had Velasquez and Frans Hals, and the
same incomparable interdependence of head and hand. His art is, in
the best sense of the word, purely objective, dedicated to a specific
transcription of the outward semblance of things. These bright,
vivacious plates are not evolved by any painful process of mental
cogitation, nor are they the result of imaginative vagaries.
Zorn is concerned but little with abstract form or involved
compositions. But he cannot be accused of evading difficulties through
any fear of failure, as he has so convincingly demonstrated in his
vivid, sun-flecked _Interior of a Parisian Omnibus_ with its sharply
characterized passengers, and in his dramatically effective _Waltz_
with its assemblage of swaying figures moving rhythmically through the
spacious ball-room, both marvels of discerning observation recorded
with an almost clairvoyant magic of line that evoke the kaleidoscopic
shimmer and brilliancy of the scenes depicted. The difficulties
presented by these complex subjects are surmounted with the same
nonchalant ease and certainty that distinguish his long series of
individual portraits and figure pieces. That the latter predominate
in the hierarchy of his etched work is a matter of choice rather than
of chance and may, I think, be taken as an indication of his keen
appreciation of the limitations as well as the possibilities of this
medium. No one, not even Whistler, has realized more clearly than he
that etching at its best is essentially an impressionistic art, to be
practised only in the happiest moods, and his finest plates are marvels
of swift, stenographic notations that have been scratched upon the
copper direct from nature in a white heat of enthusiasm.
[Illustration: ZORN. PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AND HIS WIFE
Size of the original etching, 12½ × 8⅜ inches]
[Illustration: ZORN. THE WALTZ
Size of the original etching, 13¼ × 9 inches]
He calls etching his diversion, which accounts for the uniformly
high quality of this side of his art. Done for the sheer love of
it, as other men would ride horseback or play golf, these plates are
the product of a joyousness that is the mother of all great art. It
is typical of him that he should have taken up the practice of this
exacting though elusive art merely as an amusement, as he himself
says, “with which to while away odd hours, instead of sitting at
home or going about for entertainment.” This is characteristic of
his whole life and harks back to the genesis of his artistic career
when, as a mere lad, he carved in birch-wood with his clasp-knife
images of the flocks he tended in the Dalecarlian forests. Even in
those early days this son of humble peasant folk revealed a power of
lifelike characterization that did not pass unnoticed by these shrewd,
clear-eyed peasantry whose sole criterion in matters of art was whether
or not the counterfeit presentment looked like the original. And in
these small carved images of cows and sheep they found a striking
resemblance to their models that aroused their keenest admiration. His
first patron was one of these peasant folk, a shepherd friend of his,
who bought from him a carved statuette of an enraged cow for which
Zorn received in payment a sou and a little white loaf. To make his
sculpture more lifelike he used to imitate antique statuary by tinting
his work. His palette was the palm of his hand, in which he mixed a
composite of bilberry juice and certain coloring substances obtained
from little forest flowers.
That was the beginning of a sturdy naturalism that no subsequent
academic training has been able to nullify. Even in these first
tentative attempts at personal expression he revealed the essential
qualities of his genius,--his very powerful color sense and his acute
observation of natural phenomena. His work betrays an almost savage
delight in the truth of nature, and if to be truthful is to be cruel,
then Zorn is often cruel. He employs no gentle gloss, and, whether it
be friend or casual sitter, each is treated with unblushing frankness.
A full-blooded art, somewhat primitive and exulting in its crude
strength, it gives one a pulsating sense of reality. His work has the
natural daring of one who is on familiar terms with all the secrets
of his art. Conveying an appearance of brilliant, almost reckless
improvisation, it is none the less the result of astute and penetrating
observation that has in each case recorded the face of actuality as
well as its deeper and abiding spirit.
Strongly opposed to all the conventionalities of the studio, he abhors
posing as much as he dislikes monogamy, preferring to study his
subjects under natural conditions when they are off their guard and
then to transcribe his impressions very largely from memory, after the
essential lines have been noted. Thus have come into being some of his
most memorable plates, such as the _Renan_, and the portrait of himself
and his wife, each executed in a few hours of concentrated effort. The
very swiftness with which these impressions have been recorded has no
doubt contributed much toward giving them that convincing finality
which, paradoxically enough, are theirs in a preëminent degree no
matter how casual may appear the means by which this effect has been
achieved. That is the impression left upon one by his illuminating
portrait of the pontifical-looking Renan, for example.
[Illustration: ZORN. MADAME SIMON
Size of the original etching, 9 × 6¼ inches]
[Illustration: ZORN. ERNEST RENAN
Size of the original etching, 9⅜ × 13½ inches]
Here is set down for all time in a few unerring lines the soul and body
of the man--the casuist and the voluptuary of thought, the Balzacian
bulk of him physically and the bigness of him mentally. The massive and
apparently grotesque exterior of this speculative dreamer, immersed in
his own meditations, conveys something of the same sense of aloofness
with which Rodin has invested his statue of Balzac. They both appear
to be dreaming of life and its mysteries until the immense torso seems
but an Olympian pedestal supporting the domelike head. It is more than
a pocket-edition biography, this portrait. Executed in one sitting in
Renan’s study in April of 1892, nine years after his initiation into
the mysteries of etching, this plate may be said to epitomize the whole
art of Zorn,--his vigorous truthfulness, his synthetic treatment of
salient points of character, and his love of dramatic contrasts of
sharply juxtaposed masses of black and white. Moreover, it furnishes a
striking exposition of the purely technical side of his art in which
he has created for himself a highly original and personal method. No
one has eschewed more rigorously than he the “happy accidents” employed
as a convenient cloak by masquerading incompetents, foisting their
meaningless scrawls on a bewildered public, to whom etching has become
synonymous with a pretty dilettantism that is within the easy reach of
every aspiring fledgling of art. These parallel, slanting strokes that
seem to cut and divide the form into unrelated sections are really the
expression of an accurate and well-defined intention that manifests
itself in the extraordinary verisimilitude of the figure and its
adroitly suggested accessories. It is like a fleeting glimpse in a
mirror in which the impalpable spirit of reality is reflected, evoking
by some mysterious incantation the most fugitive nuances of expression
and gesture with the slightest inflection of his modeling.
It is the extreme refinement and subtility in this seeming brutality
that give to these plates their unique value and interest. Seldom
has a man suggested his predecessors less than does Zorn in these
epigrammatic etchings. They are according to no established formula.
If he has looked upon Rembrandt, as what practitioner of aqua fortis
has not, there is but slight evidence of it in these straightforward
vibrant plates. To be sure, he has the same love of bold contrasts of
light and shade as had the master of Amsterdam, without the romantic
glamour of the dreamy Dutchman. This modern Swede is more direct, more
incisive, his line has something of the penetrating and biting analysis
of a page from Strindberg, and not infrequently, as in the case of
his haunting portrait of the besotted poet Paul Verlaine, there is
discernible a sort of ironic humor that throws a revealing light upon
his sitter. With what discerning and subtle insight he has portrayed
that gentle flavor of intellectual skepticism which is the chief
characteristic of Anatole France; while the head of Rodin, laughing in
his foaming beard, is highly indicative of the immense creative energy
of the author of _Le Penseur_. In every instance he has successfully
summarized the essential and abiding characteristics of his sitter,
no less effectually accomplished in the twenty-minute impromptu of
Marcelin Berthelot than in the more deliberately studied portrait
of Marquand, or the very succinctly realized version of August
Strindberg, the Swedish author. These portraits of contemporary men and
women are fascinating records of repeated excursions into the realm of
_character_, which holds for Zorn the strongest appeal, as it has ever
for all men of the North, whose supreme happiness is the realization of
a clearly defined individualism.
[Illustration: ZORN. AUGUST STRINDBERG
Size of the original etching, 11⅜ × 7⅝ inches]
[Illustration: ZORN. SUNDAY MORNING IN DALECARLIA
Size of the original etching, 10¾ × 7¾ inches]
While Zorn to-day occupies a position of unchallenged supremacy in the
difficult and exacting field of portraiture--his portrait etchings
would alone make a notable Pantheon of contemporary worthies--it is in
his frank, unabashed nudes and in his delineations of Swedish peasant
types that we find the most personal expression of his peculiar genius.
Nowhere has his faculty of instantaneous perception, his ability to
grasp at a glance and in its entirety either an isolated individual or
a group of figures, been employed to greater advantage than in these
brilliant, dazzling nudes and in these veracious records of his beloved
Dalecarlian peasants. With a few swift, sure strokes he gives us the
soft contour, the undulating curves of the fresh, firm flesh, of these
strong-limbed Junos, as well as the wrinkled, time-worn visages of the
aged tillers of the soil.
His interest in this type is not episodic, it is persistent. They were
his first subjects as well as his first patrons, and throughout his
career it is to them that he has turned for rest and refreshment from
the social banalities of the mundane life in the great capitals of the
world where he is in constant demand as a painter of exclusive society.
At heart he remains a peasant, retaining a strong love for the scenes
of his boyhood with all their simple associations. Here he is at home,
and here he has given untrammeled expression to that paganism which is
the dominant trait of his character. He delights in portraying these
sturdy, flaxen-haired peasants in all the unconscious abandon of their
naïve natures, and the series of plates celebrating the intimate life
of these people are the most authentic expressions of his art because
the most closely related to the mainsprings of his personality.
His love of the unstudied, unposed naturalness of life has found its
culminating expression in these nudes of women and children as seen in
the open air in the free solitude of the shores of Dalecarlia. Zorn
regards nature with the eagerness of the primitive, and these ruddy
women are virile protests against the anemic, hyperæsthetic refinements
of the school-room conventions. Stripped of all regard for the accepted
ideals of feminine beauty these women of Zorn repel or appeal by the
unfeigned candor of every look and gesture. These big, blonde women,
whose naked bodies move with unrestrained freedom through the tonic,
balsam air are imbued with a superb, healthy animalism such as has
never been depicted in the whole history of art. They spring from a
strong artistic impulse that has its roots in the subsoil of nature.
To see these frankly realistic versions of unsophisticated, throbbing
femininity is to feel that the nude has never before been adequately
portrayed--all other nudes seem mere means toward some elaborately
preconceived end while those of Zorn are gloriously self-sufficing, an
end in themselves.
[Illustration: ZORN. THE BATHER, SEATED
Size of the original etching, 6¼ × 4¾ inches]
[Illustration: ZORN. EDO
“Edo” is the name of the Swedish island where Zorn etched this
beautiful plate
Size of the original etching, 7 × 4⅝ inches]
An ardent sensuousness marks all these things, but it is sane and
wholesome, with no trace of doubtful submeaning. That is strikingly
exemplified in _My Model and my Boat_, in which the exuberant,
re-creating force of life is presented in all its tantalizing
seductiveness of ample, quivering curves. The beauty of vigorous
symmetry, of inherent strength, overcome the somewhat obvious
coarseness of the type of woman depicted here, and one can have nothing
but admiration for the underlying sincerity as well as the consummate
mastery revealed in every stroke of these plates. But the purely
physical allure of his nudes is by no means always as insistent as in
the foregoing. The elusive and half-reticent feminine charm has not
escaped him, and there are some nudes out of doors, in the lambent
light of dawn and twilight, more delicate, more subtly suggestive, than
anything hitherto accomplished in etching.
The nudes of Rembrandt would look singularly coarse and heavy by
comparison with these silvery, exquisitely modeled Brunhildas of
Zorn, who disport themselves on the sunlit beach or emerge from
the enveloping shadow of some protruding cliff with a childlike
unconsciousness and a pagan naïveté that disarms prudish prejudices. In
its supple grace and vibrant vitality the delicately modulated back of
the bending figure of _The Bather--Evening_ is a pantheistic hymn to
the eternal efflorescence of life. She pauses in the silvery twilight,
before breaking the surface of the mirror-like lake into a thousand
jewels of refracted light, and she is as much a part of the enshrouding
stillness as the aged rocks on which she stands. Whistler never did
anything more evanescent than the landscape of this plate, which is
printed in a key as light and airy as the magically executed lines,
that give the softness of the figure’s contours as well as the hardness
of the rocks and the veiled serenity of distant lake and woodland.
It is a splendid affirmation of the extremely delicate sensibilities
possessed by this most vigorous and brilliant of contemporary etchers,
whose art is one of the most powerful and significant manifestations of
the re-awakened æsthetic impulse of the twentieth century.
Transcriber’s Notes:
Italics are shown thus: _sloping_.
Small capitals have been capitalised.
Variations in spelling and hyphenation are retained.
Perceived typographical errors have been changed.
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