The Serapion Brethren Volume Ii Part 27

"Do so," said Salvator; "place full confidence in me--you may, for I do not know when a man's face went more truly to my very heart than does yours. The more I look at you the more clear it becomes to me that there is a great likeness in your face to that of the heavenly, G.o.dlike lad--I mean the Sanzio." Antonio's eyes glowed with flashing fire; he seemed to strive in vain to find words.

Just then Dame Caterina came in with Father Bonifazio, bringing a draught which he had skilfully compounded, and which the sick man took, and relished better than the Acherontic liquids of the Pyramid Doctor, Splendiano Accoramboni.

Antonio Scacciati comes to high honour through the intervention of Salvator Rosa.--He confides to Salvator the causes of his continual sorrowfulness, and Salvator comforts him, and promises him help.

What Antonio promised came to pa.s.s. The simple, healing medicines of Father Bonifazio, the careful nursing of Dame Caterina and her daughters, the mild season of the year which just then came on, had such a speedy effect on Salvator's strong const.i.tution, that he soon felt well enough to begin thinking of his art, and, as a beginning, made some magnificent sketches for pictures which he intended to paint at a future time.

Antonio scarcely left Salvator's room. He was all eye when the master was sketching, and his opinions on many matters showed him to be initiated in the mysteries of art himself.

"Antonio," said Salvator, one day, "you know so much about art that I believe you have not only looked on at a great deal with correct understanding, but have even wielded the pencil yourself!"

"Remember, dear master," answered Antonio, "that when you were recovering from unconsciousness, I told you there were many things lying heavy on my heart. Perhaps it is time, now, for me to divulge my secrets to you fully. Although I am the surgeon who opened a vein for you, I belong to Art with all my heart and soul. I intend now to devote myself to it altogether, and throw the hateful handicraft entirely to the winds."

"Ho, ho, Antonio!" said Salvator, "bethink you what you are going to do. You are a clever surgeon, and perhaps will never be more than a bungler at painting. Young as you are in years, you are too old to begin with the crayon. A man's whole life is scarcely enough in which to attain to one single perception of the True, still less to the power of representing it poetically."

"Ah, my dear master," said Antonio, smiling gently, "how should I entertain the mad idea of beginning now to turn myself to the difficult art of painting, had I not worked at it as hard as I could ever since I was a child, had not heaven so willed it that, though I was kept away from art, and everything in the shape of it, by my father's obstinacy and folly, I made the acquaintance, and enjoyed the society, of masters of renown. Even the great Annibale interested himself in the neglected boy, and I have the happiness to be able to say I am a pupil of Guido Reni."

"Well, good Antonio," said Salvator, a little sharply, as his manner sometimes was. "If that is so, you have had great teachers; so, no doubt, in spite of your surgical skill, you may be a great pupil of theirs too. Only what I do not understand is, how you, as a pupil of the gentle and tender Guido (whom, perhaps, as pupils in their enthusiasm sometimes do--you even outdo in tenderness, in your work), how you can hold me to be a master in my art at all."

Antonio coloured at those words of Salvator's; in fact, they had about them a ring of jeering irony.

Antonio answered: "Let me lay aside all bashfulness, which might close my lips. Let me speak freely out exactly what is in my mind. Salvator, I have never revered a master so wholly from out the very depths of my being as I do you. It is the often superhuman grandeur of the ideas which I admire in your works. You see, and comprehend, and grasp the profoundest secrets of Nature. You read, and understand, the marvellous hieroglyphs of her rocks, her trees, her waterfalls; you hear her mighty voices; you interpret her language, and can transcribe what she says to you. Yes, transcription is what I would call your bold and vivid style of working. Man, with his doings, contents you not; you look at him only as being in the lap of Nature, and in so far as his inmost being is conditioned by her phenomena. Therefore, Salvator, it is in marvellous combinations of landscape with figure that you are so wondrous great. Historical painting places limits which hem your flight, to your disadvantage."

"You tell me this, Antonio," said Salvator, "as the envious historical painters do, who throw landscape to me by way of a _bonne-bouche_, that I may occupy myself in chewing it, and abstain from tearing their flesh. Do I not know the human figure, and everything appertaining to it? However, all those silly slanders, echoed from others----"

"Do not be indignant, dear master," answered Antonio. "I do not repeat things blindly after other folks, and least of all should I pay any attention to the opinions of our masters here in Rome just now. Who could help admiring the daring drawing, the marvellous expression, and particularly the lively action, of your figures! One sees that you do not work from the stiff, awkward model, or from the dead lay figure, but that you are, yourself, your own living model, and that you draw and paint the figure which you place on the canvas in front of a great mirror."

"Heyday, Antonio!" cried Salvator, laughing. "I believe you must have been peeping into my studio without my knowledge, to know so well what goes on there."

"Might not that have been?" said Antonio. "But let me go on. The pictures which your mighty genius inspires I should by no means narrow into one cla.s.s so strictly as the pedantic masters try to do. In fact, the term 'landscape,' as generally understood, applies badly to your paintings, which I should prefer to call 'historical representations.'

In a deeper sense, it often seems that this or the other rock, that or the other tree, gazes on us with an earnest look: and that this and the other group of strangely-attired people is like some wonderful crag which has come to life. All Nature, moving in marvellous unity, speaks out the sublime thought which glowed within you. This is how I have looked at your pictures, and this is how I am indebted to you, my great and glorious master, for a profound understanding of art. But do not suppose that, on this account, I have fallen into a childishness of imitation. Greatly as I wish I possessed your freedom and daring of brush, I must confess that the colouring of Nature seems to me to be different from what I see represented in your pictures. I hold that, even for the sake of practice, it is helpful to a learner to imitate the style of this or that master: but still, when once he stands on his own feet, to a certain extent, he should strive to represent Nature as he sees it himself. This true seeing, this being at unity with oneself, is the only thing which can produce character and truth. Guido was of this opinion, and the unresting Preti, whom, as you know, they call the Calabrese, a painter who certainly reflected on his art more than any other, warned me in the same way against slavish imitation. And now you know, Salvator, why I reverence you more than all the others, without being in the slightest degree your imitator, in any way."

Salvator had been gazing fixedly into the young man's eyes as he spoke, and he now clasped him stormily to his breast.

"Antonio," he said, "you have spoken very wise words of deep significance. Young as you are in years, you surpa.s.s, in knowledge of art, many of our old, much belauded masters, who talk a great deal of nonsense about their art, and never get to the bottom of the matter.

Truly, when you spoke of my pictures, it seemed that I was, for the first time, beginning to come to a clear understanding of myself, and I prize you very highly just because you do not imitate my style--that you don't, like so many others, take a pot of black paint, lay on staring high lights, make a few crippled-looking figures, in horrible costumes, peep out of the dirty-looking ground, and then think 'There's a Salvator.' You have found in me the truest of friends, and I devote myself to you with all my soul."

Antonio was beyond himself with joy at the good will which the master thus charmingly displayed to him. Salvator expressed a strong desire to see Antonio's pictures, and Antonio took him at once to his studio.

Salvator had formed no small expectations of this youth who spoke so understandingly about art, and in whom there seemed to be a peculiar genius at work; and yet the master was most agreeably astonished by Antonio's wealth of pictures. He found everywhere boldness of idea, correctness of drawing; and the fresh colouring, the great tastefulness of the breadth of the flow of folds, the unusual delicacy of the extremities, and the high beauty of the heads evidenced the worthy pupil of the great Reni; although Antonio's striving was not, like that of his master (who was overapt to do this), to sacrifice expression to beauty, often too visibly. One saw that Antonio aimed at Annibale's strength, without, as yet, being able to attain to it.

In his first silence Salvator had examined each of Antonio's pictures for a long time. At length he said: "Listen, Antonio, there is not the slightest doubt about it, you are born for the n.o.ble painter's art. For not only has Nature given you the creative spirit, from which the most glorious ideas flame forth in inexhaustible wealth, but she has further endowed you with the rare talent, which, in a brief time, overcomes the difficulties of technical practice. I should be a lying flatterer if I said you had as yet equalled your teachers, that you had attained to Guido's marvellous delightsomeness, or Annibale's power; but it is certain that you far surpa.s.s our masters who give themselves such airs here in the Academy of San Luca, your Tiarini, Gessi, s.e.m.e.nta, and whatever they may call themselves, not excepting Lanfranco, who can only draw in chalk; and yet, Antonio, were I in your place I should consider long before I threw away the lancet altogether, and took up the brush. This sounds strange; but hear me further. Just at present an evil time for art has begun; or rather, the devil seems to be busy amongst our masters, stirring them up pretty freely. If you have not made up your mind to meet with mortifications and vexations of every kind, to suffer the more hatred and contempt the higher you soar in art, as your fame increases everywhere to meet with villains, who will press round you with friendly mien, to destroy you all the more surely--if, I say, you have not made up your mind for all this, keep aloof from painting! Think of the fate of your teacher, the great Annibale, whom a knavish crew of fellow-painters in Naples persecuted so that he could not get a single great work to undertake, but was everywhere shown the door with despite, which brought him to his untimely grave. Think what happened to our Domenichino, when he was painting the cupola of the chapel of St. Januarius. Didn't the villains of painters there (I shall not mention any of their names, not even that scoundrel Belisario's or Ribera's), did not they bribe Domenichino's servant to put ashes into the lime, so that the plastering would not bind? The painting could thus have no permanence.

Think on all those things, and prove yourself well, whether your spirit is strong enough to withstand the like; for otherwise your power will be broken, and when the firm courage to make is gone, the power to do it is gone along with it."

"Ah, Salvator," said Antonio, "it is scarcely possible that, had I once devoted myself entirely to painting, I should have to undergo more despite and contempt than I have had to suffer already, being still a surgeon. You have found pleasure in my pictures, and you have said, doubtless from inner conviction, that I have it in me to do better things than many of our San Luca men. And yet it is just they who turn up their noses at all that I have, with much industry, achieved, and say, contemptuously, 'Ho, ho, the surgeon thinks he can paint a picture!' But, for that very reason my decision is firmly come to, to get clear of a calling which is more and more hateful to me every day.

It is on you, master, that I pin all my hopes. Your word is worth much.

If you chose to speak for me you could at once dash my envious persecutors to the dust, and put me in the place which is mine by right."

"You have great confidence in me," said Salvator; "but now that we have so thoroughly understood each other as to our art, and now that I have seen your works, I do not know any one for whom I should take up the cudgels, and that with all my might, so readily as I should for you."

Salvator once more examined Antonio's pictures, and paused before one representing a Magdalone at the Saviour's feet, which he specially commended.

"You have departed," he said, "from the style in which people generally represent this Magdalene. Your Magdalene is not an earnest woman, but rather an ingenuous, charming child, and such a wondrous one as n.o.body else (except Guido) could have painted. There is a peculiar charm about the beautiful creature. You have painted her with enthusiasm, and, if I am not deceived, the original of this Magdalene is in life, and here in Rome. Confess, Antonio, you are in love."

Antonio cast his eyes down and said, softly and bashfully: "Nothing escapes those sharp eyes of yours, my dear master. It may be as you say, but don't blame me. I prize this picture most of all, and I have kept it concealed from every one's sight, like a holy mystery."

"What!" cried Salvator, "have none of the painters seen this picture?"

"That is so," said Antonio.

"Then," said Salvator, his eyes shining with joy, "be a.s.sured, Antonio, that I will overthrow your envious, puffed-up enemies, and bring you to merited honour. Entrust your picture to me--send it secretly in the night to my lodgings, and leave the rest to me. Will you?"

"A thousand times yes, with gladness," answered Antonio. "Ah! I should like to tell you, at once, the troubles connected with my love-affair, but somehow it seems to me that I do not dare, to-day, just when our hearts have opened to one another in art; but some day I shall probably ask you to advise and help me in that direction too."

"Both my advice and my help shall be at your service wherever and whenever they may be necessary," Salvator answered. As he was leaving he turned round and said with a smile: "Antonio, when you told me you were a painter, I was sorry I had mentioned your likeness to the Sanzio. I thought you might be silly enough, as many of our young fellows are, if they chance to have a pa.s.sing likeness in the face to this or that great master, they take to wearing their hair and beard as he does, and find it necessary to imitate his style in art as well, though it may be quite contrary to their character. We have neither of us named the name of Raphael; but, believe me, in your pictures I find distinct traces of the extent to which the whole heaven of G.o.dlike ideas in the works of the greatest master of our time has been revealed to you. You understand Raphael. You will not reply to me as did Velasquez, whom I asked, the other day, what he thought of the Sanzio.

He said t.i.tian was the greater master; Raphael knew nothing about flesh colour. In that Spaniard is the Flesh, not the Word; yet they laud him to the skies in San Luca, because he once painted cherries which the birds came and tried to peck."

A few days after the above conversation, it happened that the Academists of San Luca a.s.sembled in their church to judge the pictures of the painters who had applied for admission to the Academy. Salvator had sent Scacciati's beautiful Magdalene picture. The painters were amazed by the charm and the power of the work, and the most unstinted praise resounded from every lip when Salvator explained that he had brought the picture with him from Naples--the work of a young painter, prematurely s.n.a.t.c.hed away by death.

In a very short time all Rome streamed to see and admire this work of the young, unknown, dead master. Every one was unanimously of opinion that no such picture had been painted since Guido Reni's time, and, indeed, people carried their enthusiasm so far as to declare that this work was even to be ranked above Guido Reni's creations of the same kind. Among the crowd of people who were always collected before Scacciati's picture, Salvator one day observed a man, who, besides being of very remarkable exterior, was conducting himself like a madman. He was advanced in years, tall, lean as a spindle, pale of face, with a long, pointed nose, and an equally long chin, which increased its pointedness by being tipped with a little beard, and green, flashing eyes. Upon his thick, extremely fair peruke he had stuck a tall hat with a fine feather. He had on a short, dark-red cloak with many shining b.u.t.tons, a sky-blue Spanish-slashed doublet, great gauntlets trimmed with silver fringe, a long sword by his side, light grey hose drawn over his bony knees, and bound with yellow ribbons, and bows of the same ribbon on his shoes. This strange figure was standing, as if enraptured, before the picture. He would stand up on his tiptoes, then bob himself quite low down; then hop up, with both legs at once, sigh, groan, close his eyes so tightly that the tears streamed from them, and then open them as wide as they would go; gaze incessantly at the beautiful Magdalene, sigh afresh, and lisp out in his mournful, _castrato_ voice, "Ah, Carissima! Benedetissima! Ah, Marianna!

Marianna! Belissima!" &c.

Salvator, always greedy after figures of this sort, got as near to him as he could, and tried to enter into conversation with him about Scacciati's picture, which seemed to delight him so much; but, without taking much heed of Salvator, the old fellow cursed his poverty, which would not allow him to buy this picture for a million, and so prevent any one else from fixing his devilish glances upon it. And then he hopped up and down again, and thanked the Virgin and all the saints that the infernal painter who had painted this heavenly picture, which drove him to madness and despair, was dead and gone.

Salvator came to the conclusion that the man must be either a maniac, or some Academician of San Luca whom he did not know.

All Rome rang with the fame of Scacciati's wonderful picture. Scarce anything else was talked of, and this ought to have been enough to show its superiority. When the painters held their next meeting in San Luca to decide as to the reception of sundry applicants for admission, Salvator Rosa made a sudden inquiry whether the painter of the Magdalene at the Saviour's feet would not have been worthy to be admitted. All the members of the Academy, not excepting the excessively critical Cavaliere Josepin, declared, with one voice, that such a great master would have been an ornament to the Academy, and, in the most studied forms of speech, expressed their regret that he was dead (though in their hearts they thanked heaven that he was). Not only this, but in their enthusiasm for art, they decided to elect this marvellous young painter an Academician, notwithstanding that he had been withdrawn from art by a premature death; directing ma.s.ses to be said for the repose of his soul in the church of San Luca. Wherefore they requested Salvator to acquaint them with the full names of the deceased, as well as the year and place of his birth, &c., &c.

On this Salvator rose up and said: "Signori, the honours which you fain would pay to a man in his grave are due to, and had better be bestowed on, a living painter, who is walking to and fro in our midst. Know ye that the Magdalene at the Saviour's feet--the picture which you have such a high opinion of justly, and esteem so highly above anything which living painters have produced--is not the work of a Neapolitan painter no longer in life, as I pretended it was, that your verdict might be unbia.s.sed. This picture, this masterpiece, which all Rome admires at this moment, is by the hand of Antonio Scacciati, the surgeon."

The painters glared dumb and motionless at Salvator, like men struck by lightning. Salvator enjoyed their consternation for a short time, and then went on to say: "Well, gentlemen, you would not allow Antonio to come amongst you because he is a surgeon; but I think the Academy of San Luca is in very great need of a surgeon to mend and set the crippled arms and legs of the figures which come from the studios of many of its members. However, I presume you will not longer delay to do what you ought to have done long ago; that is, to admit this admirable painter, Antonio Scacciati, a member of your Academy."

The Academicians swallowed Salvator's bitter pill; they said they were much overjoyed that Antonio had displayed his talent in such a striking and decided manner, and they elected him a member of the Academy with much ceremony. As soon as it was known in Rome that Antonio was the painter of the wonderful picture, there streamed in upon him from all sides congratulations, and commissions to undertake great and important works. Thus was this young painter--thanks to Salvator's method of setting to work--brought, in a moment, out of obscurity, and raised to high honour, at the very juncture when he had made up his mind to start upon his career as an artist.

Floating and hovering, as he was, in an atmosphere of happiness and bliss, it all the more surprised Salvator one day when Antonio came to him, pale and upset, full of anger and despair. "Ah, Salvator," he cried, "what does it avail me that you have set me up on a pinnacle, where I could never have dreamt of being, that I am overwhelmed with praise and honour, that the prospect of the most delightful and glorious artistic career opens before me, when I am inexpressibly unhappy, when the very picture, to which, next to yourself, dear master, I am indebted for my victory, is the express cause of irremediable misfortune to me?"

"Silence!" cried Salvator. "Do not commit a sin against your art and your picture. I don't believe a word as to your irremediable misfortune. You are in love, and perhaps things are not going in all respects exactly as you wish; but that is all, no doubt. Lovers are like children, they cry and yell the moment anybody touches their toy.

Leave off lamenting, I beg of you; it is a thing which I cannot endure.

Sit down there, and tell me quietly how matters stand as regards your beautiful Magdalene and your love-affair altogether, and where the stumbling-blocks are which we must get out of the way, for I promise you, to commence with, that I will help you. The more difficult and arduous and adventurous the things are that we have to set about, the better I shall be pleased, for the blood is running quick in my veins again, and the state of my health calls upon me to set to work and play a wild trick or two; so tell me all about it, Antonio, and, as aforesaid, none of your 'Ohs' and your 'Ahs.'"

Antonio sat down in the chair which Salvator had placed for him near the easel where he was at work, and commenced as follows:--

"In Strada Ripetta, in the lofty house whose projecting balcony you see as soon as you go through the Porta del Popolo, lives the greatest a.s.s and most idiotic donkey in all Rome. An old bachelor, with all the faults of his cla.s.s--vain, trying to be young, in love, and a c.o.xcomb.

He is tall, thin as a whip-stalk, dresses in party-coloured Spanish costume, with a blonde periwig, a steeple-crowned hat, gauntlets, and long sword at his side----"

"Stop, stop! wait a moment, Antonio," cried Salvator, and, turning round the picture he was working at, he took a crayon, and, on the reverse side of it, drew, in a few bold touches, the curious old fellow who had been going on so absurdly in front of Antonio's picture.