Italy, the Magic Land Part 1

Italy, the Magic Land.

by Lilian Whiting.

PREFATORY NOTE

That Florence, the "Flower City," receives only a pa.s.sing allusion in this record of various impressions that gleam and glow through the days after several visits to the Magic Land, is due to the fact that in a previous volume by the writer--one ent.i.tled "The Florence of Landor"--the lovely Tuscan town with its art, its ineffable beauty, and its choice social life, formed the subject matter of that volume. Any attempt to portray Florence in the present book would savor only of the repet.i.tion of loves and enthusiasms already recorded in the previous work in which Walter Savage Landor formed the central figure. For that reason no mention of Florence, beyond some mere allusion, is attempted in these pages, which only aim to present certain fragmentary impressions of various sojourns in Italy, refracted through the prism of memory. Whatever inconveniences or discomfort attend the traveller swiftly fade, and leave to him only the precious heritage of resplendent sunset skies, of poetic a.s.sociation, of artistic beauty. In spirit he is again lingering through long afternoons in St. Peter's till the golden light through the far windows of the tribune is merged into the dusk of twilight in which the vast monumental groups gleam wraith-like. Again he is ascending the magnificent _Scala Regia_, and lingering in the Raphael Stanze, or in the wonderful sculpture galleries of the Vatican, or sauntering in the sunshine on the Palatine. In memory he is again spellbound by ancient and mediaeval art. In the line of modern sculpture the work of Franklin Simmons in Rome is a feature of Italy that haunts the imagination. No lover of beauty would willingly miss his great studios in the Via San Nicolo da Tolentino, with their wealth of ideal creations that contribute new interest to the most divine of all the arts.

"The world of art is an ideal world,-- The world I love, and that I fain would live in; So speak to me of artists and of art, Of all the painters, sculptors, and musicians That now ill.u.s.trate Rome."

The mystic charm of the pilgrimage to a.s.sisi; the romance that reflects itself in the violet seas and flaming splendors of the sky on the sh.o.r.es of Ischia and Capri; the buried treasures of Amalfi; the magnetic impressiveness of the Eternal City,--all these enter into life as new forces to build and shape the future into undreamed-of destinies.

L. W.

THE BRUNSWICK, BOSTON, October Days, 1907.

"_Rest we content if whispers from the stars In wafting of the incalculable wind Come blown at midnight through our prison-bars._"

THE MAGIC LAND

_By woodland belt, by ocean bar, The full south breeze our forehead fanned; And, under many a yellow star, We dropped into the Magic Land._

_We heard, far-off, the siren's song; We caught the gleam of sea-maids' hair; The glimmering isles and rocks among We moved through sparkling purple air._

_Then Morning rose, and smote from far Her elfin harps o'er land and sea; And woodland belt, and ocean bar To one sweet note sighed--"Italy!"_

OWEN MEREDITH.

ITALY, THE MAGIC LAND

I

THE PERIOD OF MODERN ART IN ROME

But ah, that spring should vanish with the Rose!

That youth's sweet-scented ma.n.u.script should close?

The nightingale that in the branches sang, Oh, where and whither flown again,--who knows?

OMAR KHAYYAM.

ROME, as the picturesque city of the Popes in the middle years of the nineteenth century, was resplendent in local color. It was the Rome of sunny winters; the Rome of gay excursions over that haunted sea of the Campagna to pictorial points in the Alban and Sabine hills; the Rome of young artist life, which organized impromptu festas with Arcadian freedom, and utilized the shadow or the shelter of ruined temples or tombs in which to spread its picnic lunches and bring the glow of simple, friendly intercourse into the romantic lights of the poetic, historic, or tragic past. There were splendid Catholic processions and ceremonials that seemed organized as a part of the stage scenery that ensconced itself, also, with the nonchalance of easy possession, in the vast salons of historic palaces where tapestried walls and richly painted ceilings, arched high overhead, with statues dimly seen in niches here and there, and the bust of some crowned Antoninus, or radiant Juno, gleaming from a shadowy corner, all made up the _mise-en-scene_ of familiar evenings. There were lingering hours in the gardens of the Villa Medici into whose shades one strolled by that beguiling path along the parapet on Monte Pincio, through the beautiful grove with its walks and fountains. The old ilex bosquet, with its tangled growth and air of complete seclusion, had its spell of fascination. Then, as now, the elevated temple, at the end of the main path, seemed the haunt of G.o.ds and muses. In all the incidental, as well as the ceremonial social meeting and mingling, art and religion were the general themes of discussion. This idyllic life--

"Comprehending, too, the soul's And all the high necessities of art"--

has left its impress on the air as well as its record on many a page of the poet and the romancist. The names that made memorable those wonderful days touch chords of a.s.sociation that still vibrate in the life of the hour. For the most part the artists and their a.s.sociates have gone their way--not into a Silent Land, a land of shadows and vague, wandering ghosts--but into that realm wherein is the "life more abundant," of more intense energy and of n.o.bler achievement; the realm in which every aspiration of earth enlarges its conception and every inspiration is exalted and endowed with new purpose; the realm where, as Browning says,--

"Power comes in full play."

The poet's vision recognizes the truth:--

"I know there shall dawn a day, --Is it here on homely earth?

Is it yonder, worlds away, Where the strange and new have birth, That Power comes in full play?"

The names of sculptor, painter, and poet throng back, imaged in that retrospective mirror which reflects a vista of the past, rich in ideal creation. Beautiful forms emerge from the marble; pictorial scenes glow from the canvas; song and story and happy, historic days are in the very air. To Italy, land of romance and song, all the artists came trooping, and

"Under many a yellow Star"

they dropped into the Magic Land. If the wraiths of the centuries long since dead walked the streets, they were quite welcome to revisit the glimpses of the moon and contribute their mystery to the general artistic effectiveness of the Seven-hilled City. All this group of American idealists, from Allston and Page to Crawford, Story, Randolph Rogers, Vedder, Simmons, and to the latest comer of all, Charles Walter Stetson, recognized something of the artist's native air in this Mecca of their pilgrimage.

It was, indeed, quite natural, on account of the stupendous work of Michael Angelo and the unrivalled museums of the Vatican, that Rome should have become pre-eminently the artistic centre of the nineteenth century and should have attracted students and lovers of art from all parts of the world. The immortal works of the two great periods, the Greek and the Renaissance,--the art that was forever great because it was the outgrowth of profound religious conviction,--were enshrined in the churches and the galleries of Rome. The leading countries of Europe sent here their aspiring students and established permanent academies for their residence. Germany, France, and England were thus represented.

Thorwaldsen came as a pensioner from the Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen; and it was during his life, and that of the n.o.ble Canova, that Rome began to be recognized as the modern world-centre of art. Was it not a natural sequence that the early painters and sculptors who came to study under the stimulating influences of the great masterpieces of the past should linger on in the city whose very air became to them the breath of inspiring suggestion? Where but in Rome would have come to Crawford the vision of his "Orpheus" and of his n.o.ble Beethoven? or to Story his "Libyan Sibyl," and that exquisite group, "Into the Silent Land"? or to Vedder his marvellous creations of "The Fates Gathering in the Stars," the "c.u.maean Sibyl," or the "Dance of the Pleiades"? to Simmons his triumphant "Angel of the Resurrection," and "The Genius of Progress Leading the Nations"? or to Stetson that ineffable vision of "The Child," and that wonderful group called "Music"? whose coloring t.i.tian or Giorgione might well mistake for their own.

Under the Pontifical _regime_ the general character of Rome was mediaeval and religious. The perpetual festas of the church made the streets constantly picturesque with their processions of monks, and friars, and priests, and these wonderful blendings of color and scenic effect stimulated the artistic sense. The expenses of living in Rome were then only a fraction of what the cost is at the present time; and as the city was the resort of the wealthy and cultured few, the artists were surrounded by the stimulus of critical appreciation and of patronage.

Their work, their dreams, were the theme of literary discussion, and focussed the attention of the polite world. Their studios were among the important interests to every visitor in the Eternal City. In those days the traveller did not land with his touring car at Naples, make "the run" to Rome in a record that distanced any possibilities of railroad trains, pa.s.s two or three days in motoring about the city and its environs, seeing the exterior of everything in a dissolving view and the interior of nothing,--as within this time, at least, he must flash on in his touring car to Florence. On the contrary, the traveller proceeded to Rome with serious deliberation, and with a more realizing sense of undertaking a journey than Walter Wellman experiences in attempting to fly in his aero-car to the North Pole and send his observations across the polar seas by wireless telegraphy. The visitor went to Rome for a winter, for a year, and gave himself up to leisurely impressions. Rome was an atmosphere, not a spectacle, and it was to be entered with the lofty and reverent appreciation of the poet's power and the artist's vision.

In Rome, Thomas Cole painted some of his best pictures; and in Rome or Florence wrought a long list of painters and sculptors. Whether in the Eternal City or in the Flower City, their environment was alike Italy--the environment of the Magic Land. Among the more prominent of all these devotees of Beauty several nationalities were represented.

Each might have said of his purpose, in the words of William Watson:--

"I follow Beauty; of her train am I, Beauty, whose voice is earth and sea and air; Who serveth, and her hands for all things ply; Who reigneth, and her throne is everywhere."

Among these artists there flash upon memory the names of Vanderlyn, Benjamin West, Allston, Rauch, Ange, Veit, Tenerani, Overbeck, Schadow, Horace Vernet, Thorwaldsen, John Gibson, Hiram Powers, Crawford, Page, Clark Mills, Randolph Rogers, William Rinehart, Launt Thompson, Horatio and Richard Greenough, Thomas Ball, Anne Whitney, Larkin G. Mead, Paul Akers, William Wetmore Story, Harriet Hosmer, J. Rollin Tilton, and, later, Elihu Vedder, Moses Ezekiel, Franklin Simmons, Augustus St.

Gaudens, and Charles Walter Stetson, the name of Mr. Stetson linking the long and interesting procession with the immediate life of to-day. Of these later artists Story, Miss Hosmer, Ezekiel, Vedder, Simmons, and Stetson are identified with Rome as being either their permanent or their prolonged residence. Mr. St. Gaudens was a transient student, returning to his own country to pursue his work; and of two young sculptors, Hendrick Christian Anderson and C. Percival Dietsch, time has not yet developed their powers beyond an experimental stage of brilliant promise.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ANGEL, CHURCH OF SAN ANDREA DELLE FRATTE, ROME Giovanni Lorenzo Bernini _Page 32_]

The Rome of the artists of clay and canvas was also the Rome of the poets and romancists, of authors in all lines of literary achievement.

How the names of the procession of visitors and sojourners in the Eternal City, from Milton, Goethe, and Mme. de Stael to Henry James, Marion Crawford, Richard Bagot, and Grace Ellery Channing (Mrs. Charles Walter Stetson), gleam from that resplendent panorama of the modern past of Rome! Like the words in electric fire that flash out of the darkness in city streets at night, there shine the names of Sh.e.l.ley and of Keats; of Gladstone, on whom in one memorable summer day, while strolling in Italian sunshine, there fell a vision of the sacredness and the significance of life and its infinite responsibility in the fulfilment of lofty purposes. What charming a.s.sociations these guests and sojourners have left behind! Hawthorne, embodying in immortal romance the spirit of the scenic greatness of the Eternal City; Margaret Fuller, Marchesa d'Ossoli, allying herself in marriage with the country she loved, and living in Rome those troubled, mysterious years that were to close the earthly chapter of her life; Robert and Elizabeth Browning, the wedded poets, who sang of love and Italy; Harriet Beecher Stowe, finding on the enchanted Italian sh.o.r.es the material which she wove with such irresistible attraction into the romance of "Agnes of Sorrento;" Longfellow, with his poet's vision, trans.m.u.ting every vista and impression into some exquisite lyric; Lowell, bringing his philosophic as well as his poetic insight to penetrate the untold meaning of Rome; Thomas William Parsons, making the country of Dante fairly his own; Thackeray, with his brilliant interpretation of the _comedie humaine_; Emerson, who, oblivious of all the glories of art or the joys of nature, absorbed himself in writing transcendental letters to his eccentric, but high-souled aunt, Mary Moody Emerson; Ruskin, translating Italian art to Italy herself; Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe and his poet wife, Mrs. Julia Ward Howe, in the first flush of their bridal happiness, when Mrs. Howe's impa.s.sioned love for the Seven-hilled City inspired many a lyric that mirrors the Roman atmosphere of that day; Kate Field, with a young girl's glad enthusiasm over the marvellous loveliness of a Maytime in Rome, and her devotion to those great histrionic artists, Ristori and Salvini; George Stillman Hillard, leaving to literature the rich legacy of his "Six Months in Italy,"--a work that to this day holds precedence as a clear and comprehensive presentation of the scenic beauty, the notable monumental and architectural art, and the general life and resources of this land of painter and poet. Other names, too, throng upon memory--that of William Dean Howells, painting Italian life in his "Venetian Days," and charming all the literary world by his choice art; and among later work, the interesting interpretations of Rome and of social life in Rome, by Marion Crawford, Henry James, and Richard Bagot,--in chronicle, in romance, or in biographical record. During the last quarter of the nineteenth century, indeed, the visitors to Rome--authors, artists, travellers of easy leisure--defy any numerical record. Mrs. Louise Chandler Moulton, poet, romancist, and delightful _raconteur_ as well, has recorded some charming impressions of her various sojourns in Rome both in her "Random Rambles" and in "Lazy Tours." Of the Palatine Hill we find her saying:--

"Sometimes we go to the Palace of the Caesars, and look off upon the heights where the snow lingers and the warm light rests, making them shine like the Delectable Mountains. Nearer at hand are the almond trees, in flower, or the orange trees, bright at once with their white, sweet blossoms and their golden fruit."

Mrs. Moulton writes of the "stately dwellers" in Rome whom time cannot change; and to whom, whenever she returns, she makes her first visit; some of whom are in the mighty palace of the Vatican and some of whom dwell in state in the Capitol.

"The beautiful Antoninus still wears his crown of lotus in Villa Albani and the Juno whom Goethe worshipped reigns forever at the Ludovisi," she writes; "I can never put in words the pleasure I find in these immortals." Mrs. Moulton loved to wander in the Villa Borghese "before the place is thronged with the beauty and fashion of Rome as it is in the late afternoon. I do not wonder that Miriam and Donatello could forget their fate in these enchanted glades,"

she wrote, "and dance as the sunbeams danced with the shadows.

Sometimes I seem to see them where the sun sifts through the young green leaves, and her beauty--her human, deep-souled beauty--and his fantastic grace are the only things here that cannot change.