At Home And Abroad Part 32

Among landscape painters Cropsey and Cranch have the true artist spirit. In faculties, each has what the other wants. Cropsey is a reverent and careful student of nature in detail; it is no pedantry, but a true love he has, and his pictures are full of little, gentle signs of intimacy. They please and touch; but yet in poetic feeling of the heart of nature he is not equal to Cranch, who produces fine effects by means more superficial, and, on examination, less satisfactory. Each might take somewhat from the other to advantage, could he do it without diminishing his own original dower. Both are artists of high promise, and deserve to be loved and cherished by a country which may, without presumption, hope to carry landscape painting to a pitch of excellence unreached before. For the historical painter, the position with us is, for many reasons, not favorable; but there is no bar in the way of the landscape painter, and fate, bestowing such a prodigality of subject, seems to give us a hint not to be mistaken. I think the love of landscape painting is genuine in our nation, and as it is a branch of art where achievement has been comparatively low, we may not unreasonably suppose it has been left for us. I trust it will be undertaken in the highest spirit. Nature, it seems to me, reveals herself more freely in our land; she is true, virgin, and confiding,--she smiles upon the vision of a true Endymion.

I hope to see, not only copies upon canvas of our magnificent scenes, but a transfusion of the spirit which is their divinity.

Then why should the American landscape painter come to Italy? cry many. I think, myself, he ought not to stay here very long. Yet a few years' study is precious, for here Nature herself has worked with man, as if she wanted to help him in the composition of pictures. The ruins of Italy, in their varied relations with vegetation and the heavens, make speeches from every stone for instruction of the artist; the greatest variety here is found with the greatest harmony. To know how this union may be accomplished is a main secret of art, and though the coloring is not the same, yet he who has the key to its mysteries of beauty is the more initiated to the same in other climates, and will easily attune afresh his more instructed eye and mind to the contemplation of that which moulded his childhood.

I may observe of the two artists I have named, that Cranch has entered more into the spirit of Italian landscape, while Cropsey is still more distinguished on subjects such as he first loved. He seemed to find the Scotch lake and mountain scenery very congenial; his sketches and pictures taken from a short residence there are impressive. Perhaps a melancholy or tender subject suits him best; something rich, bold, and mellow is more adapted to call out the genius of Cranch.

Among the sculptors new names rise up, to show that this is decidedly a province for hope in America. I look upon this as the natural talent of an American, and have no doubt that glories will be displayed by our sculptors unknown to cla.s.sic art. The facts of our history, ideal and social, will be grand and of new import; it is perfectly natural to the American to mould in clay and carve in stone. The permanence of material and solid, relief in the forms correspond to the positiveness of his nature better than the mere ephemeral and even tricky methods of the painter,--to his need of motion and action, better than the chambered scribbling of the poet. He will thus record his best experiences, and these records will adorn the n.o.ble structures that must naturally arise for the public uses of our society.

It is particularly gratifying to see men that might ama.s.s far more money and attain more temporary power in other things, despise those lower lures, too powerful in our country, and aim only at excellence in the expression of thought. Among these I may mention Story and Mozier. Story has made in Florence the model for a statue of his father. This I have not seen, but two statuettes that he modelled here from the "Fisher" of Goethe pleased me extremely. The languid, meditative reverie of the boy, the morbid tenderness of his nature, is most happily expressed in the first, as is the fascinated surrender to the siren murmur of tire flood in the second. He has taken the moment

"Half drew she him; half sank he in," &c.

I hope some one will give him an order to make them in marble. Mozier seemed to have an immediate success. The fidelity and spirit of his portrait-busts could be appreciated by every one; for an ideal head of Pocahontas, too, he had at once orders for many copies. It was not an Indian head, but, in the union of sweetness and strength with a princelike, childlike dignity, very happily expressive of his idea of her character. I think he has modelled a Rebecca at the Well, but this I did not see.

These have already a firm hold on the affections of our people; every American who comes to Italy visits their studios, and speaks of them with pride, as indeed they well may, in comparing them with artists of other nations. It will not be long before you see Greenough's group; it is in spirit a pendant to Cooper's novels. I confess I wish he had availed himself of the opportunity to immortalize the real n.o.ble Indian in marble. This is only the man of the woods,--no Metamora, no Uncas. But the group should be very instructive to our people.

You seem as crazy about Powers's Greek Slave as the Florentines were about Cimabue's Madonnas, in which we still see the spark of genius, but not fanned to its full flame. If your enthusiasm be as genuine as that of the lively Florentines, we will not quarrel with it; but I am afraid a great part is drawing-room rapture and newspaper echo.

Genuine enthusiasm, however crude the state of mind from which it springs, always elevates, always educates; but in the same proportion talking and writing for effect stultifies and debases. I shall not judge the adorers of the Greek Slave, but only observe, that they have not kept in reserve any higher admiration for works even now extant, which are, in comparison with that statue, what that statue is compared with any weeping marble on a common monument.

I consider the Slave as a form of simple and sweet beauty, but that neither as an ideal expression nor a specimen of plastic power is it transcendent. Powers stands far higher in his busts than in any ideal statue. His conception of what is individual in character is clear and just, his power of execution almost unrivalled; but he has had a lifetime of discipline for the bust, while his studies on the human body are comparatively limited; nor is his treatment of it free and masterly. To me, his conception of subject is not striking: I do not consider him rich in artistic thought.

He, no less than Greenough and Crawford, would feel it a rich reward for many labors, and a happy climax to their honors, to make an equestrian statue of Washington for our country. I wish they might all do it, as each would show a different kind of excellence. To present the man on horseback, the wise centaur, the tamer of horses, may well be deemed a high achievement of modern, as it was of ancient art. The study of the anatomy and action of the horse, so rich in suggestions, is naturally most desirable to the artist; happy he who, obliged by the brevity of life and the limitations of fortune, to make his studies conform to his "orders," finds himself justified by a national behest in entering on this department.

At home one gets callous about the character of Washington, from a long experience of Fourth of July bombast in his praise. But seeing the struggles of other nations, and the deficiencies of the leaders who try to sustain them, the heart is again stimulated, and puts forth buds of praise. One appreciates the wonderful combination of events and influences that gave our independence so healthy a birth, and the almost miraculous merits of the men who tended its first motions. In the combination of excellences needed at such a period with the purity and modesty which dignify the private man in the humblest station, Washington as yet stands alone. No country has ever had such a good future; no other is so happy as to have a pattern of spotless worth which will remain in her latest day venerable as now.

Surely, then, that form should be immortalized in material solid as its fame; and, happily for the artist, that form was of natural beauty and dignity, and he who places him on horseback simply represents his habitual existence. Everything concurs to make an equestrian statue of Washington desirable.

The dignified way to manage that affair would be to have a committee chosen of impartial judges, men who would look only to the merits of the work and the interests of the country, unbia.s.sed by any personal interest in favor of some one artist. It is said it is impossible to find such a committee, but I cannot believe it. Let there be put aside the mean squabbles and jealousies, the vulgar pushing of unworthy friends, with which, unhappily, the artist's career seems more rife than any other, and a fair concurrence established; let each artist offer his design for an equestrian statue of Washington, and let the best have the preference.

Mr. Crawford has made a design which he takes with him to America, and which, I hope, will be generally seen. He has represented Washington in his actual dress; a figure of Fame, winged, presents the laurel and civic wreath; his gesture declines them; he seems to say, "For me the deed is enough,--I need no badge, no outward, token in reward."

This group has no insipid, allegorical air, as might be supposed; and its composition is very graceful, simple, and harmonious. The costume is very happily managed. The angel figure is draped, and with, the liberty-cap, which, as a badge both of ancient and modern times, seems to connect the two figures, and in an artistic point of view balances well the c.o.c.ked hat; there is a similar harmony between the angel's wings and the extremities of the horse. The action of the winged figure induces a natural and spirited action of the horse and rider. I thought of Goethe's remark, that a fine work of art will always have, at a distance, where its details cannot be discerned, a beautiful effect, as of architectural ornament, and that this excellence the groups of Raphael share with the antique. He would have been pleased with the beautiful balance of forms in this group, with the freedom with which light and air play in and out, the management of the whole being clear and satisfactory at the first glance. But one should go into a great number of studies, as you can in Rome or Florence, and see the abundance of heavy and inharmonious designs to appreciate the merits of this; anything really good seems so simple and so a matter of course to the unpractised observer.

Some say the Americans will not want a group, but just the fact; the portrait of Washington riding straight onward, like Marcus Aurelius, or making an address, or lifting his sword. I do not know about that,--it is a matter of feeling. This winged figure not only gives a poetic sense to the group, but a natural support and occasion for action to the horse and rider. Uncle Sam must send Major Downing to look at it, and then, if he wants other designs, let him establish a concurrence, as I have said, and choose what is best. I am not particularly attached to Mr. Greenough, Mr. Powers, or Mr. Crawford. I admire various excellences in the works of each, and should be glad if each received an order for an equestrian statue. Nor is there any reason why they should not. There is money enough in the country, and the more good things there are for the people to see freely in open daylight, the better. That makes artists germinate.

I love the artists, though I cannot speak of their works in a way to content their friends, or even themselves, often. Who can, that has a standard of excellence in the mind, and a delicate conscience in the use of words? My highest tribute is meagre of superlatives in comparison with the hackneyed puffs with which artists submit to be besmeared. Submit? alas! often they court them, rather. I do not expect any kindness from my contemporaries. I know that what is to me justice and honor is to them only a hateful coldness. Still I love them, I wish for their good, I feel deeply for their sufferings, annoyances, privations, and would lessen them if I could. I have thought it might perhaps be of use to publish some account of the expenses of the artist. There is a general impression, that the artist lives very cheaply in Italy. This is a mistake. Italy, compared with America, is not so very cheap, except for those who have iron const.i.tutions to endure bad food, eaten in bad air, damp and dirty lodgings. The expenses, even in Florence, of a simple but clean and wholesome life, are little less than in New York. The great difference is for people that are rich. An Englishman of rank and fortune does not need the same amount of luxury as at home, to be on a footing with the n.o.bles of Italy. The Broadway merchant would find his display of mahogany and carpets thrown away in a country where a higher kind of ornament is the only one available. But poor people, who can, at any rate, buy only the necessaries of life, will find them in the Italian cities, where all sellers live by cheating foreigners, very little cheaper than in America.

The patrons of Art in America, ignorant of these facts, and not knowing the great expenses which attend the study of Art and the production of its wonders, are often guilty of most undesigned cruelty, and do things which it would grieve their hearts to have done, if they only knew the facts. They have read essays on the uses of adversity in developing genius, and they are not sufficiently afraid to administer a dose of adversity beyond what the forces of the patient can bear. Laudanum in drops is useful as a medicine, but a cupful kills downright.

Beside this romantic idea about letting artists suffer to develop their genius, the American Maecenas is not sufficiently aware of the expenses attendant on producing the work he wants. He does not consider that the painter, the sculptor, must be paid for the time he spends in designing and moulding, no less than in painting and carving; that he must have his bread and sleeping-house, his workhouse or studio, his marbles and colors,--the sculptor his workmen; so that if the price be paid he asks, a modest and delicate man very commonly receives _no_ guerdon for his thought,--the real essence of the work,--except the luxury of seeing it embodied, which he could not otherwise have afforded, The American Maecenas often pushes the price down, not from want of generosity, but from a habit of making what are called good bargains,--i.e. bargains for one's own advantage at the expense of a poorer brother. Those who call these good do not believe that

"Mankind is one, And beats with one great heart."

They have not read the life of Jesus Christ.

Then the American Maecenas sometimes, after ordering a work, has been known to change his mind when the statue is already modelled. It is the American who does these things, because an American, who either from taste or vanity buys a picture, is often quite uneducated as to the arts, and cannot understand why a little picture or figure costs so much money. The Englishman or Frenchman, of a suitable position to seek these adornments for his house, usually understands better than the visitor of Powers who, on hearing the price of the Proserpine, wonderingly asked, "Isn't statuary riz lately?" Queen Victoria of England, and her Albert, it is said, use their royal privilege to get works of art at a price below their value; but their subjects would be ashamed to do so.

To supply means of judging to the American merchant (full of kindness and honorable sympathy as beneath the crust he so often is) who wants pictures and statues, not merely from ostentation, but as means of delight and improvement to himself and his friends, who has a soul to respect the genius and desire the happiness of the artist, and who, if he errs, does so from ignorance of the circ.u.mstances, I give the following memorandum, made at my desire by an artist, my neighbor:--

"The rent of a suitable studio for modelling in clay and executing statues in marble may be estimated at $200 a year.

"The best journeyman carver in marble at Rome receives $60 a month.

Models are paid $1 a day.

"The cost of marble varies according to the size of the block, being generally sold by the cubic palm, a square of nine inches English.

As a general guide regarding the prices established among the higher sculptors of Rome, I may mention that for a statue of life-size the demand is from $1,000 to $5,000, varying according to the composition of the figure and the number of accessories.

"It is a common belief in the United States, that a student of Art can live in Italy and pursue his studies on an income of $300 or $400 a year. This is a lamentable error; the Russian government allows its pensioners $700, which is scarcely sufficient. $1,000 per annum should be placed at the disposal of every young artist leaving our country for Europe."

Let it be remembered, in addition to considerations inevitable from this memorandum, that an artist may after years and months of uncheered and difficult toil, after he has gone through the earlier stages of an education, find it too largely based, and of aim too high, to finish in this world.

The Prussian artist here on my left hand learned not only his art, but reading and writing, after he was thirty. A farmer's son, he was allowed no freedom to learn anything till the death of the head of the house left him a beggar, but set him free; he walked to Berlin, distant several hundred miles, attracted by his first works some attention, and received some a.s.sistance in money, earned more by invention of a ploughshare, walked to Rome, struggled through every privation, and has now a reputation which has secured him the means of putting his thoughts into marble. True, at forty-nine years of age he is still severely poor; he cannot marry, because he cannot maintain a family; but he is cheerful, because he can work in his own way, trusts with childlike reliance in G.o.d, and is still sustained by the vigorous health he won laboring in his father's fields. Not every man could continue to work, circ.u.mstanced as he is, at the end of the half-century. For him the only sad thing in my mind is that his works are not worth working, though of merit in composition and execution, yet ideally a product of the galvanized piety of the German school, more mutton-like than lamb-like to my unchurched eyes.

You are likely to have a work to look at in the United States by the great master of that school, Overbeck; Mr. Perkins of Boston, who knows how to spend his money with equal generosity and discretion, having bought his "Wise and Foolish Virgins." It will be precious to the country from great artistic merits. As to the spirit, "blessed are the poor in spirit." That kind of severity is, perhaps has become, the nature of Overbeck. He seems like a monk, but a really pious and pure one. This spirit is not what I seek; I deem it too narrow for our day, but being deeply sincere in him, its expression is at times also deeply touching. Barabbas borne in triumph, and the child Jesus, who, playing with his father's tools, has made himself a cross, are subjects best adapted for expression of this spirit.

I have written too carelessly,--much writing hath made me mad of late.

Forgive if the "style be not neat, terse, and sparkling," if there be naught of the "thrilling," if the sentences seem not "written with a diamond pen," like all else that is published in America. Some time I must try to do better. For this time

"Forgive my faults; forgive my virtues too."

March 21.

Day before yesterday was the Feast of St. Joseph. He is supposed to have acquired a fondness for fried rice-cakes during his residence in Egypt. Many are eaten in the open street, in arbors made for the occasion. One was made beneath my window, on Piazza Barberini. All the day and evening men, cleanly dressed in white ap.r.o.ns and liberty caps, quite new, of fine, red cloth, were frying cakes for crowds of laughing, gesticulating customers. It rained a little, and they held an umbrella over the frying-pan, but not over themselves. The arbor is still there, and little children are playing in and out of it; one still lesser runs in its leading-strings, followed by the bold, gay nurse, to the brink of the fountain, after its orange which has rolled before it. Tenerani's workmen are coming out of his studio, the priests are coming home from Ponte Pio, the Contadini beginning to play at _moro_, for the setting sun has just lit up the magnificent range of windows in the Palazzo Barberini, and then faded tenderly, sadly away, and the mellow bells have chimed the Ave Maria. Rome looks as Roman, that is to say as tranquil, as ever, despite the trouble that tugs at her heart-strings. There is a report that Mazzini is to be made Dictator, as Manin is in Venice, for a short time, so as to provide hastily and energetically for the war. Ave Maria Sanissima!

when thou didst gaze on thy babe with such infinite hope, thou didst not dream that, so many ages after, blood would be shed and curses uttered in his name. Madonna Addolorata! hadst thou not hoped peace and good-will would spring from his b.l.o.o.d.y woes, couldst thou have borne those hours at the foot of the cross. O Stella! woman's heart of love, send yet a ray of pure light on this troubled deep?

LETTER x.x.x.

THE STRUGGLE IN ROME.--POSITION OF THE FRENCH.--THE AUSTRIANS.--FEELING OF THE ROMAN PEOPLE.--THE FRENCH TROOPS.--EFFECTS OF WAR.--HOSPITALS.--THE PRINCESS BELGIOIOSO.--POSITION OF MR. Ca.s.s AS ENVOY.--DIFFICULTIES AND SUGGESTIONS.--AMERICA AND ROME.--REFLECTIONS ON THE ETERNAL CITY.--THE FRENCH: THE PEOPLE.

Rome, May 27, 1849.

I have suspended writing in the expectation of some decisive event; but none such comes yet. The French, entangled in a web of falsehood, abashed by a defeat that Oudinot has vainly tried to gloss over, the expedition disowned by all honorable men at home, disappointed at Gaeta, not daring to go the length Papal infatuation demands, know not what to do. The Neapolitans have been decidedly driven back into their own borders, the last time in a most shameful rout, their king flying in front. We have heard for several days that the Austrians were advancing, but they come not. They also, it is probable, meet with unexpected embarra.s.sments. They find that the sincere movement of the Italian people is very unlike that of troops commanded by princes and generals who never wished to conquer and were always waiting to betray. Then their troubles at home are constantly increasing, and, should the Russian intervention quell these to-day, it is only to raise a storm far more terrible to-morrow.

The struggle is now fairly, thoroughly commenced between the principle of democracy and the old powers, no longer legitimate. That struggle may last fifty years, and the earth be watered with the blood and tears of more than one generation, but the result is sure. All Europe, including Great Britain, where the most bitter resistance of all will be made, is to be under republican government in the next century.

"G.o.d moves in a mysterious way."

Every struggle made by the old tyrannies, all their Jesuitical deceptions, their rapacity, their imprisonments and executions of the most generous men, only sow more dragon's teeth; the crop shoots up daily more and more plenteous.

When I first arrived in Italy, the vast majority of this people had no wish beyond limited monarchies, const.i.tutional governments. They still respected the famous names of the n.o.bility; they despised the priests, but were still fondly attached to the dogmas and ritual of the Roman Catholic Church. It required King Bomba, the triple treachery of Charles Albert, Pius IX., and the "ill.u.s.trious Gioberti," the naturally kind-hearted, but, from the necessity of his position, cowardly and false Leopold of Tuscany, the vagabond "serene"

meannesses of Parma and Modena, the "fatherly" Radetzsky, and, finally, the imbecile Louis Bonaparte, "would-be Emperor of France,"

to convince this people that no transition is possible between the old and the new. _The work is done_; the revolution in Italy is now radical, nor can it stop till Italy becomes independent and united as a republic. Protestant she already is, and though the memory of saints and martyrs may continue to be revered, the ideal of woman to be adored under the name of Mary, yet Christ will now begin to be a little thought of; _his_ idea has always been kept carefully out of sight under the old _regime_; all the worship being for the Madonna and saints, who were to be well paid for interceding for sinners;--an example which might make men cease to be such, was no way coveted. Now the New Testament has been translated into Italian; copies are already dispersed far and wide; men calling themselves Christians will no longer be left entirely ignorant of the precepts and life of Jesus.