Thoughts on Art and Autobiographical Memoirs of Giovanni Dupre Part 5

"Go on before me. You know the way. I will keep behind you in the distance, and no one will perceive that we are together."

This I did, and arriving at the Commissariato, was immediately introduced to the Commissario. The Commissario was in those days a sort of justice of the peace, who possessed certain attributes and powers, by which he was enabled to adjudge by himself certain causes, and to punish by one day's imprisonment in the Commissariato itself. If the affair after the interrogatory required a longer punishment, the accused party was conducted to the Bargello.

The interrogatory then took place; and after severely blaming me for my conduct, he told me that the matter in itself was very grave, both on account of the a.s.sault and the injuries done by me to these persons, and also of the tumult which had been occasioned on a _fete_ which was not only public but sacred, and that therefore it was beyond his power to deal with such an offence. I felt myself grow cold, and had scarcely breath to speak, so completely had the idea of being sent to the Bargello overwhelmed me. But the good magistrate hastened to add, "However, do not fear. The single deposition of only one of the _corrisanti_ is not in itself sufficient, and therefore it may be a.s.sumed that the provocation came from their side, and that you acted in legitimate self-defence. But as there was disorder, and injuries were received, you must be content to pa.s.s the day shut up in one of our cells." Thus saying, he rang his bell, and said to a _sbirro_ who appeared at the door, "Conduct this gentleman out, and lock him up;" and as I went out he added, "Another time be cautious, and remember that you might fall into the hands of some one whose name is not entered here;"

and he laid his hand upon a large book which he had on the table. I bowed, went out, and the _sbirro_ opened a door in the court of the Commissariato, made a gesture to me to enter, and shut me in.

[Sidenote: MY PRISON WALLS.]

The room in which I found myself was tolerably large, with a fair amount of light, which came in from a high iron-barred window. In one corner was a heap of charcoal; and from this, perhaps, the room had received the name of the Carbonaia. The walls were dirty, and covered with obscene inscriptions. There was a bench to sit upon, a closet, and nothing else. I remained standing and looking about, but I saw nothing.

My thoughts were wandering sadly and confusedly from one thing to another, and fixed themselves with fear and sorrow upon my mother and Marina, who, in the state in which I found myself, seemed to me more than ever dear and worthy of honour. I thought of their grief, and felt a shudder of emotion come over me. But the a.s.surance that I should soon be free, and should not pa.s.s the night there, strengthened me and gave me courage, and I walked up and down the room humming to myself. Then, not knowing what to do, and how to occupy the time, which is always so long and tedious when one has nothing to do, I caught sight of the charcoal, and my spirits rose, and I said, "Now I have nothing to fear, for here is an occupation which will last me as long as there is light;"

and I began to draw upon the wall a composition of figures almost as large as life, the subject of which was the death of Ferruccio. This was a composition which I had seen at about that time in the exhibition of the Academy of Fine Arts, in a picture which had struck my fancy. It represented Ferruccio lying on the ground mortally wounded, and wrapped in the flag of the Commune. With a fierce and scornful look he seemed to be saying to Maramaldo, who was giving orders to finish killing him, "You kill a dead man." The author of this picture was the painter Bertoli, a young man of great promise, and who unhappily died not long afterwards in the insane asylum. The drawing that I made upon the wall was a reminiscence of that composition, and there was nothing of mine in it beyond an effort of memory.

[Sidenote: DRAWING ON PRISON WALLS.]

My poor mother, having been informed by the people of the shop, came to the Commissario, in the hope of obtaining my liberation, but she could not even obtain permission to see me. The only thing allowed to her was permission to bring me my dinner--that is, to give it to some one to bring in to me, all but the wine; and this she did. Oh, my sweet mother, may G.o.d grant thee the reward of thy love!

In the meantime the evening drew nigh; the walls were covered with my poor drawings, and my hands and face and handkerchief were all black. I would willingly have remained in prison till another day in order to finish a little less badly the Ferruccio; but to stay there for long hours in the dark, and with nothing to do, so irritated and disquieted me, that I began to cry out, and beat on the door, asking for a light at my own expense. But no one heeded me; and as I continued to drum loudly on the door, and had even taken the bench to hammer with, a voice different from the others called out to me, "Sir, for your own good I pray you to stop. The rules forbid lights; and if you go on in this way, I promise you that you shall sleep to-night in the Bargello." Never did so short a speech produce the desired effect like this. I hastened to answer that I would be absolutely quiet. I put back my bench in its place, and seated myself upon it, in the att.i.tude perhaps of Marius sitting on the ruins of Carthage; and there I remained until eleven o'clock at night. The door was then opened, and I was told to go to the Signor Commissario to thank him. This I did, and he repeated to me the sermon of the morning, and added that I owed to him the mildness of my sentence. I renewed my thanks to him, and ran home, where I found my mother and father awaiting me--he with a severe face, and she with tears in her eyes.

[Sidenote: RELEASE FROM PRISON.]

The day after, I went to the house of Marina--for I invented some sort of lie to explain why I had not come the day before, as I had promised--and taking aside Regina (as Marina had established a school in the house), I expressed to her my desire to be married as soon as possible. It was rather soon, I confess; but for me there was no other safety. With her--with my good Marina--I felt that I should cut short the too excited kind of life I was then leading, and which carried me into company and into gambling, and down that decline which leads every one knows where. That very evening I returned and insisted on acquainting the dear girl with my determination, at which she showed herself modestly happy. The true affection that I felt for that good creature, and the solemn pledge that I then took, put an absolute end to the thoughtless life which I had been leading. Stronger than ever came back to me my love for study, and I began to turn over in my mind how to occupy myself in marble work, even though it should be as a simple workman. At that time I made the acquaintance of Signor Luigi Magi, who was in the Studio Ricci, in Via S. Leopoldo, now Via Cavour, and I opened my mind to him, and he did not dissuade me from my purpose. But he advised me first to learn how to draw well and to model, and after going through a certain course of these studies, then to attempt to work in marble. He offered to procure for me copies to draw from; and then, as he intended to set up a studio for himself, he offered to give me lessons in modelling in clay. This being agreed upon, I returned home happy in the hope of carrying out this plan. But the many little things that I had to think of, and not the least of which was to save all the time I could in order to provide for the unusual expenses of my marriage, upset entirely for several months this ambitious project.

[Sidenote: LITTLE ECONOMIES.]

The ideas of wise economy which have up to the present time always accompanied me, I owe to my most excellent Marina. One day she said to me, "You make four _pauls_ a-day, and two you spend on the house. What do you do with the other two?"

"I dress, buy cigars, and I don't know what else."

"See," she answered, "on your dress it is evident that you don't spend much; your cigars are a small matter; so it seems to me that you might put a part aside to supply what we most need."

[Sidenote: MARINA--AND A POT OF VERBENA.]

"The fact is, that I cannot keep the money."

"If you like, I will keep it for you."

I accepted with pleasure, and every week brought her the surplus; and I strove that it should not be small, for she knew pretty well what I had over. At the end of a few weeks I found that I had a package of six or eight beautiful shirts with plaited cuffs, such as I had always worn ever since I was a boy. An intelligent economy saves us from need, and even in narrow circ.u.mstances makes life easy. I owe to this wise woman the exact and judicious regulation of my family, as well in the first years of our marriage--when we were very much restricted in means--as in those which came after.

My eagerness to see her every evening, my exactness in carrying her all my savings, and the respect which I showed her by my words and acts, made me dearer to her eyes than I ever was before. One evening we were standing at the window of our little parlour, which overlooked a garden which was not ours. On its ledge were some pots of flowers reaching out over the windows, and among the flowers was a plant of verbena, which she liked above all things. I talked to her of my studies, of my hopes, of the happiness I felt in being near her; and all the time I was so close to her, that our two breathings were mingled together.

She was silent, her face and eyes lifted to the starry heavens. The perfume of the flowers, the silence of the evening, and her sweet and chaste ecstasy so touched me, that, impelled by an irresistible force, I reached my lips towards hers. My movement was instantaneous, but I failed to carry out my purpose; she turned away her face, and my lips only brushed against a lock of her hair, and then she immediately moved away and seated herself beside her mother. After forty years this comes back to me as if it had just happened. Her face had an expression neither of displeasure nor of joy; but a certain somewhat of sorrow was there, which seemed an answer to all that I had been saying. When she perceived that I was serious and a little mortified, she said with calm benignity--

[Sidenote: MY MARRIAGE.]

"Do you like verbena?"

"Oh yes; I like it so much."

Then quickly rising, she cut off a sprig, put it in the b.u.t.tonhole of my coat, and said--

"There, that looks well!"

I took my leave, and on going away said to her _addio_, and not a _rivederla_.

The 7th of December 1836, on the Vigil of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary, I married my good Marina in the Church of St Ambrogio.

This was, in truth, the great event of my life, and that which exercised the most salutary influence over my studies, over my peace, and over the prosperity and morality of my family. We were married in the evening, not only to screen ourselves from the curious, but also because our joy was as secret as it was great. Our witnesses were Luigi Sani, son of my chief--he for whom (as I hope my reader has not forgotten) I used when a boy to prepare his clay--and Bartolomeo Bianciardi, who was a workman in the shop of Sani. At our modest supper, besides the witnesses, were my father and mother.

My new existence being thus a.s.sured, I began to think seriously how to carry out and give real form to the dream of all my life, which resolved itself into this--_to be a sculptor_. My young wife was timid, and sought to persuade me that I was very well as I was. My father openly blamed me, and kept repeating in his beloved Latin, "Multi sunt vocati pauci vero electi" (Many are called but few chosen). This I knew as well as he; but he referred it to my desire to be an artist, and my ambition did not reach further than merely to be a workman in marble. My mother listened to me kindly, and half sympathised with me in my bold hope of becoming a workman in some sculptor's studio. To my dear wife (for she above all others was nearest my heart, and on her account it behoved me to take care what I was doing) I kept repeating--

[Sidenote: COPYING DESIGNS AND DRAWINGS.]

"My good Marina, listen. I risk nothing. I do not lose my skill as a wood-carver, and if I only study sculpture in the off-hours of my work, this very study may be useful to me as a carver; and if I succeed in becoming a sculptor, I shall be able to earn more, and acquire reputation, and enable you to live well and to give up your trade. Say, would not this be a good thing?"

And she would look at me sadly, and gently smiling would say--

"But we are very well off as we are."

In the meantime, in view of an offer of Signor Magi to give me some drawings and designs to copy, I went, according to our agreement, to his studio in the Licei di Candeli, and begged him to fulfil his promise; and a few days after he gave me some heads in light and dark from the "Transfiguration" of Raphael, which I copied, working at them early in the morning and in the evenings. Having finished these rapidly and to his satisfaction, he gave me plate by plate the whole course of anatomy of Professor Sabatelli, done in red chalk. In this task I was so interested that I worked till very late at night, until I had attained such facility and knowledge, that after sketching in the general outlines, I at once finished them without requiring to make a rough copy. Magi was surprised that I was able so easily to turn off every day a copy of one of these drawings of legs, arms, and _torsi_, which were of life size. Afterwards he gave me a number of the so-called _Accademie_, which are nude studies of the entire figure--and these, too, I drew rapidly and with increasing taste; and so enamoured was I of them, that I afterwards repeated them at the shop upon any fragment of paper or wood, drawing them in all their att.i.tudes from memory.

[Sidenote: ANXIETIES AND STRUGGLES.]

I made, as I was well aware, very rapid progress, and I longed for the moment when the master should say to me that it was time to begin to model. In fact, he soon suggested this. However, as it was necessary to have a certain apparatus and help, I could only begin to model in the studio of Magi. It was therefore arranged that I should go to him during all the off-hours of my work; and this I did. I will not stop to note the number of hands, feet, and heads that he made me copy; I will only say that my life was most exhausting, and my wife, poor dear, had to suffer for it. She had to wait for dinner, and I was often so late, that I had only time to swallow a little soup and a piece of bread, and then to rush back to the shop.

When I remember this life of mine, with its painful anxieties and struggles, it makes me angry to see some of the youths of to-day, with every opportunity and all their time, and without a care in the world, either for their family or any thing or person, who rot in idleness, a.s.sume airs of scorn for others, even for their masters, and then swear out against adverse fortune, and deplore their genius crushed and unrecognised, and similar insipidities. My two hours of rest during the day, which were from one to three o'clock, were thus occupied: one hour was given to study, and the other was but just sufficient to enable me to go from my shop in the Piazza di San Biagio to the Liceo di Candeli, and there take my dinner, and then return to the shop. I was punctual too, for I was determined to do my duty, and to keep my promise to my wife never to allow my study of sculpture to interfere with my regular occupation.

[Sidenote: A HOME-PICTURE.]

It was indeed a life full of agitations, anxieties, fears, and privations, but animated with what joyous hopes! Every evening when I came back from my work, I devoted myself at home to making anatomical drawings from casts, while my wife did her ironing in the same room; and I drew until the hour of supper came. It was a pure sweet pleasure to me to see that strong and lively creature coming and going with her flat-irons from the fireplace to the table, and gaily ironing, and singing

"Muskets and broadswords; fire--fire--poum!"[4]

as she smoothed and beat with the flat-iron on the linen, while her mother sat silently spinning in the corner. Truly that blessed woman was right when she said, "We are so happy as we are"--for one of the purest joys that cheers my present life is the memory of those days. No joy is purer than that which comes from the memory of that past time of work, of study, and of domestic peace. Those days of narrow means and agitations now shine upon me with a serene and lovely light; and I bless the Lord, who softens by His grace the bitterness of poverty and the harshness of fatigue, and so preserves this sweetness of remembrance in the heart, that neither time nor fortune has the power to extinguish it, or even to diminish it.

[4] "Schioppi, sciabola; fuoco--puhm!"

In the opinion of my master, Signor Magi, I had arrived at that point in my studies that I could be permitted to make portraits from life.

Accordingly he proposed that I should find some friend who had time and patience to stand for me as a model. I soon found one, and his was the first bust I modelled. The likeness was good, and Magi and the others began to have a strong faith in my future. Encouraged by this trial from life, I determined to make a statuette of small dimensions. The subject which was given to me by Magi was Santa Filomena standing with her head and eyes turned to heaven, one hand on her breast and the other holding a bunch of lilies, while the anchor, the sign of her martyrdom, lay at her feet. The statuette was liked; and I pleased myself with executing it in wood, and finished it with great care of handling and delicacy of detail. It was exhibited at the Accademia delle Belle Arti in 1838; was praised by distinguished artists, such as Benvenuti and Bartolini; and the latter recalled it to me when, some time afterwards, I went to ask for work in his studio, and said--

[Sidenote: STATUETTE OF SANTA FILOMENA.]

"Believe me, my dear sir, if I had any work to give you to do, I would give it with pleasure, for I have seen that statuette of yours, which shows that you have intelligence and love."

My Santa Filomena was liked--liked by artists and by those who were not artists; but no purchaser presented himself, and I was anxious to sell it, not only for the sake of a little money, which would have been very opportune, but still more for the satisfaction of my _amore proprio_ as an artist. But the purchaser did not come, and I was obliged to place my statuette in the magazine of antiquities of the Brothers Pacetti, on the ground-floor of the Borghese Palace in the Via del Palagio. It did not long remain here, however. It was frequented by many strangers, who found there a great number of things which were curious, and some of which were really beautiful. In this magazine there were, first of all, old pictures of our Florentine school: whence they had been excavated I know not, but the exportation of them out of the country was not as difficult as it now is. There were also _terre cotte_ of the school of Luca della Robbia, statuettes in bronze, marble busts of the Roman school, to ornament halls or staircases in palaces; chests of ebony inlaid with _pietra dura_, ivory, tortoise-sh.e.l.l, &c. Specially rich was it in Venetian gla.s.s, antique plates, enamels, laces, &c., &c. There, among all these antiquities, figured my Santa Filomena, which seemed more pure and white from contrast with all the chests of drawers, and stuffs, and tapestries which formed its background.

[Sidenote: SANTA FILOMENA.]

A Russian gentleman asked the price; and it being stated to him, without refusing to take it, he made a strange condition of purchase. He would not have it a saint, and in consequence he exacted that all the attributes which belonged to Santa Filomena should be removed. I took great pains to make him see that this could not be done, and that the statuette would in so doing lose much of its artistic value. If the lilies were taken from the hand, it would be perfectly meaningless and idle, and would injure the expression of the figure. He seemed to a certain extent persuaded, but he still persisted that he would not have it as a saint; and after thinking for a long time how he could change the name, and seeing that there was an anchor at her feet, he said that it might be called Hope. I remained between yes and no, and only observed to him that Hope ought to hold the anchor in her hand, and not leave it on the ground as if she had forgotten it.

"No matter," he answered, "I insist on calling it Hope; but the lilies must be removed."