Shearjashub Spooner

“ He once overheard a low fellow cursing himself. “God damn you, indeed!” exclaimed the artist in wonder; “God may damn the Duke of Marlborough, and perhaps Sir Godfrey Kneller; but do you think he will ever take the trouble of damning such a scoundrel as you?” To his tailor, who proposed his son for a pupil, he said, “Dost thou think, man, I can make thy son a painter? No, God Almighty only makes painters.” He gave a reason for preferring portraiture to historical painting, which forms an admirable bon-mot, for its shrewdness, truthfulness, and ingenuity. ”

“ The Prince frankly said, "I have come, Signor Rosa, for the purpose of seeing and purchasing some of those beautiful landscapes, whose subjects and manner have delighted me in many foreign collections."—"Be it known then, to your excellency," interrupted Salvator impetuously, "that I know nothing of landscape painting. Something indeed I do know of painting figures and historical subjects, which I strive to exhibit to such eminent judges as yourself, in order that, once for all, I may banish from the public mind that fantastic humor of supposing I am a landscape and not an historical painter." ”

“ There is a tradition at Seville, that he took the opportunity one day, when the painting room was empty, of giving the first proof of his abilities, by finishing the head of a Virgin, that stood ready sketched on his master's easel. Pleased with the beauty of this unexpected interpolation, Murillo, when he discovered the author of it, immediately promoted Gomez to the use of those colors which it had hitherto been his task to grind. "I am indeed fortunate, Sebastian," said the good-natured artist, "for I have not only created pictures, but a painter." ”

“ It is a luxury to have the walls of our rooms hung round with them, and no less so to have such a gallery in the mind,—to con over the relics of ancient art bound up ‘within the book and volume of the brain, unmixed, (if it were possible) with baser matter.’ A life passed among pictures, in the study and love of art, is a happy, noiseless dream: or rather it is to dream and to be awake at the same time, for it has all ‘the sober certainty of waking bliss,’ with the romantic voluptuousness of a visionary and abstracted being. ”

“ He is equally wonderful, whether he employs his pencil to depict a subject of everyday life, or he abandons himself completely to his imagination; and he is equally incomprehensible, whether he employs the orb of day or the orb of night, natural or artificial lights, to light his pictures with: he is always bold, harmonious, and staid, like those great poets whose judgment balances all things so well, that they are never either exaggerated or cold. ”

“ But it then pleased Heaven, the earth having been for so many years destitute of any distinguished mind and divine genius, that Filippo Brunelleschi should leave to the world, the most noble, vast, and beautiful edifice that had ever been constructed in modern times, or even in those of the ancients; giving proof that the talent of the Tuscan artists, although lost for a time, was not extinguished. He was, moreover, adorned by the most excellent qualities, among which was that of kindliness, insomuch that there never was a man of more benign and amicable disposition ”

“ Few works are more evanescent than paintings. Sculpture retains its freshness for twenty centuries. The Apollo and the Venus are as they were. But books are perhaps the only productions of man coeval with the human race. Sophocles and Shakspeare can be produced and reproduced forever. But how evanescent are paintings, and must necessarily be! Those of Zeuxis and Apelles are no more, and perhaps they have the same relation to Homer and Æschylus, that those of Raffaelle and Guido have to Dante and Petrarch. ”

“ He had himself lashed to the main mast, and while he was tossed about in every direction, saturated with seawater, and excited by this hand-to-hand struggle with his model, he painted the tempest, not on his canvass, but in his memory, which never forgot anything. He saw and remembered all—clouds, waves, and rock, hues and colors, with the motion of the boats and the rocking of the ship, and the accidental light which intersected a slate-colored sky that served as a ground to the whiteness of the sea-foam. ”

“ Is it not a burning shame, that the most gifted artists of this great and glorious country should be compelled to go abroad to seek both fame and bread, not fortune? What merchant prince will set his countrymen an example, and, like Sir George Beaumont, bribe Congress and his fellow citizens to form a national gallery, by giving a collection of casts from the antique, first class paintings and engravings, rare works of art, and a library on art, worth 70,000 guineas? It is a mistaken opinion, entertained by many, that the fine arts are of little importance to our country. ”

“ The view of the majestic ruins; the solemn grandeur of the churches and palaces; the recollections of the past; the religious customs; the magic and almost melancholy tranquillity which pervades the city; the enjoyment of the endless treasures of art—all conspire to raise the mind of the traveler to a high state of excitement. The churches, palaces, villas, squares, streets, fountains, aqueducts, antiquities, ruins—in short, everything proclaims the ancient majesty and the present greatness of Rome. Almost every church, palace, and [Pg 61] villa is a treasury of art. ”

“ From the swoon into which the Fine Arts were cast by the overthrow of the Roman Empire, they were long in waking: all that was learned or lofty was extinguished: of Painting, there remained but the memory, and of Sculpture, some broken stones, yet smothered in the ruins of temples and cities [Pg 245] the rules which gave art its science were lost; the knowledge of colors was passed away, and that high spirit which filled Italy and Greece with shapes and sentiments allied to heaven, had expired. ”

“ Moreland was a man of genius, and might have shone as a bright star in the history of art, had he not degraded himself by dissipation, almost to a level with the pigs he delighted to paint. The glory of both Stuart and Jarvis is obscured by the same fatal passion. “O that men should put an enemy in their mouths, to steal away their brains! that we should, with joy, revel, pleasure, and applause, transform ourselves into beasts.” ”

“ Comparing himself to the great painters, his rivals, he says, "If you ask me whether I painted skies better than such and such an artist, I should answer 'no!' or figures better than any one else, I should also say 'no!' or trees and landscapes better than others, still I should answer 'no!' or fogs, water, and vapors better than others, my answer would ever be the same but though inferior to each of them in one branch of the art, I surpass them in all the others." ”

“ THE TRIALS OF GENIUS. FILIPPO BRUNELLESCHI.
This eminent architect was one of those illustrious men, who, having conceived and matured a grand design, proceed, cool, calm, and indefatigable, to put it in execution, undismayed by obstacles that seem insuperable, by poverty, want, and what is worse, the jeers of men whose capacities are too limited to comprehend their sublime conceptions. The world is apt to term such men enthusiasts, madmen, or fools, till their glorious achievements stamp them almost divinely inspired. ”

“ Such was the unparalleled eminence which this wonderful genius attained in the three sister arts of sculpture, architecture, and painting. His chief characteristics were grandeur and sublimity. His powers were little adapted to represent the gentle and the beautiful; but whatever in nature partook of the sublime and the terrible, were portrayed by him with such fidelity and grandeur as intimidates the beholder. Never before nor since has the world beheld so powerful a genius. ”

“ Although visited for more than a thousand years by various calamities, she is still the most majestic of cities; the charm of beauty, dignity, and grandeur still lingers around the ruins of ancient, as well as the splendid structures of modern Rome, and brilliant recollections of every age are connected with the monuments which the passing traveler meets at every step. ”

“ What he most loved after painting was music. He had formed at Rome, an intimate friendship with Pergolesi, the composer, who afterwards became so celebrated, and they lived almost continually together. Vernet placed a harpsichord in his studio for the express use of his friend, and while the painter, carried away by his imagination, put the waters of the mighty main into commotion, or suspended persons on the towering waves, the grave composer sought, with the tips of his fingers, for the rudiments of his immortal melodies. ”

“ The Art-Union of New-York have struck a commemorative medal, with Allston’s face on the obverse side; and thus is the great artist rewarded.
Genius, that breaks the fetters encircling the mind, is fated to drink life’s bitterest cup to the dregs. After earth has flung the gem away, she proclaims its value.
Reformers must be martyrs. Every Socrates must quaff his hemlock—every Burns pine in unpitied poverty. In life, the artist appears on the reverse side of the world’s medal—in death, on the obverse.”—Dewey Fay. ”

“ Donatello having examined the painting very closely, turned to the painter with a disappointed look, and said, "Why, Paolo, thou art uncovering thy picture at the very moment when thou shouldst be shutting it up from the sight of all!" These words so grievously afflicted the painter, who at once perceived that he would be more likely to incur derision from his boasted master-piece, than the honor he had hoped for, that he hastened home and shut himself up, devoting himself to the study of perspective, which, says Vasari, kept him in poverty and depression till the day of his death. ”

“ Correggio was one of that splendid triumvirate of painters who, living at the same time, were working on different principles, and achieving, each in his own department, excellence hitherto unequalled; and if Correggio must be allowed to be inferior to Raffaelle in invention and expression, and to Titian in life-like color, he has united design and color with the illusion of light and shadow in a degree of perfection not then nor since approached by any painter. Hence Annibale Caracci, on seeing one of his great pictures, exclaimed in a transport that he was “the only painter!” ”

“ On the contrary, if the figures which people his pictures had a modern air and countenance, if they appeared like our countrymen, if the draperies were like cloth or silk of our manufacture, if the landscape had the appearance of a modern one, how ridiculous would Apollo appear instead of the sun, and an old Man or a Nymph with an urn to represent a river or lake? ”

“ A common mind, having no sympathy with his soaring, perceives his defects at once, and ranks him with the wild and unsober—a poetic mind will not allow the want of serenity and composure to extinguish the splendor of the conception; but whilst it notes the blemish, will feel the grandeur of the work. The approbation of high minds fixes the degree of fame to which genius of all degrees is entitled, and the name of Fuseli is safe. ”

“ In his directions to the Prefect of Rome, on the architecture of the public edifices, Theodoric thus wrote:
"The beauty of the Roman buildings requires a skillful overseer, in order that such a wonderful forest of edifices should be preserved with constant care, and the new ones properly constructed, both internally and externally. Therefore we direct our generosity not only to the preservation of ancient things, but to the investing the new ones with the glories of antiquity. Be it known, therefore, to your illustrious person, that for this end an architect of the Roman walls is appointed. ”

“ I will draw your portrait, for you have been an angel to me.” She obeyed, and the dying artist made a fine likeness. He was cheerful and contented to the last. “I glory,” said he, “in dying, and have no grief but in leaving you, Katharine; we have lived happy and we have lived long; we have ever been together, but we shall be divided soon. Why should I fear death! ”

“ It is said that the first artists in Italy were the Etruscans, and thus posterity has given to them, as well as to Rome, almost the power of creating man. How wonderful are the horses, so full of spirit, with their fiery nostrils, their sparkling eyes, their easy and graceful limbs;—they would move, if not of metal. And what shall we say of those lofty, slender, and finely fluted columns, which appear a part of the sublime structure they support? ”

“ The artists of the heathen religion wrought in a far different spirit; the forms which they called to their canvas, and endowed with life and beauty, were all, or mostly naked; they saw and felt the symmetry and exquisite harmony of the human body, and they represented it in such elegance, such true simplicity and sweetness, as to render their nude figures the rivals in modesty and innocence of the most carefully dressed. A sense of this excellence of form is expressed by many writers. ”

“ As the mild and saintly Joanes was wont to prepare himself for his daily task by prayer and fasting, so his riotous countryman used to excite his imagination to the proper creative pitch by beating a drum, or blowing a trumpet, and then valiantly assaulting the walls of his chamber with sword and buckler, laying about him, like another Don Quixote, with a blind energy that told severely on the plaster and furniture, and drove his terrified scholars or assistants to seek safety in flight. ”

“ It is the disentombing of temple-palaces from the sepulchre of ages; the recovery of the metropolis of a powerful nation from the long night of oblivion. Nineveh, the great city 'of three days' journey,' that was 'laid waste, and there was none to bemoan her,' whose greatness sank when that of Rome had just begun to rise, now stands forth again to testify to her own splendor, and to the civilization, and power, and magnificence of the Assyrian Empire. This may be said, thus far, to be the crowning historical discovery of the nineteenth century. But the century as yet, is only half elapsed. ”

“ Commerce is the means, not the end of happiness or pleasure; the end is a rational enjoyment by means of arts and sciences. It is therefore the highest degree of folly to set the means in a higher rank of esteem than the end. It is as much as to say that the brick-maker is superior to the architect.” He might have added that the artisan is indebted to the artist for the design of every beautiful fabric, therefore the artist is a more “valuable member of society” than the manufacturer or the merchant. ”

“ A stranger, on coming to the ground, is struck with wonder when for the first time he obtains a near view of the vast piles of masonry towering majestically above all the surrounding objects—strong as the pillars of Hercules, and apparently as endurable—his eyes wander instinctively to the ponderous tubes, those masterpieces of engineering constructiveness and mathematical adjustment; he shrinks into himself as he gazes, and is astonished when he thinks that the whole is the developed idea of one man, and carried out, too, in the face of difficulties which few would have dared to encounter. ”

“ The upturned looks of the mother, and the mouth half open in supplication, seem to accuse the invisible wrath of Heaven. The daughter, clinging in the agonies of death to the bosom of her mother, in her infantile innocence, can have no other fear than for herself; the innate impulse of self-preservation was never represented in a manner more tender and affecting. Can there, on the other hand, be exhibited to the senses, a more beautiful image of self-devoting, heroic magnanimity than Niobe, as she bends her body forward, that, if possible, she may alone receive the destructive bolt? ”

“ ALLSTON’S DEATH.
“Notwithstanding the general respect which is manifested to the memory of this distinguished artist, there are unsympathising, ice-hearted men of the world who yet reproach him for uncontrollable events in his career.
The actions of the painter, the poet, and the musician, are dictated often by other motives than those impelling the arm of the mechanic, or the tongue of the advocate. Men of genius are of a more delicate organization than those possessing inferior abilities, and are swayed by emotions the most lofty that can actuate humanity. ”

“ From the Pincio, Salvator Rosa was generally accompanied home by the most distinguished persons, both for talent and rank; and while the frugal Poussin was lighting out some reverend prelate or antiquarian with one sorry taper, Salvator, the prodigal Salvator, was passing the evening in his elegant gallery, in the midst of princes, nobles, and men of wit and science, where he made new claims on their admiration, both as an artist and as an improvisatore; for till within a few years of his death he continued to recite his own poetry, and sing his own compositions to the harpsichord or lute. ”

“ Everything in this enchanting sight was then fresh and splendid; the halls of the Villa Medici, which at present only echo to the steps of a few French students or English travelers, were then the bustling and splendid residence of the old intriguing Cardinal Carlo de Medici, called the Cardinal of Tuscany, whose followers and faction were perpetually going to and fro, mingling their showy uniforms and liveries with the sober vestments of the neighboring monks of the convent della Trinità! ”

“ At the sale of the effects of the former after his decease, they brought two hundred and fifty guineas each!
Shall instances like these stain the annals of American Art, or will this free people accord to its gifted sons the encouragement they so richly deserve? May the sympathies of those who can perceive in painting and sculpture, most efficient means of mental culture, refinement, and gratification, be enlisted by these sad memories, to render timely encouragement to exalted genius! It adds to national and individual profit, pride, and glory. ”

“ Of the heaven which the great artist wished to infuse into his works, there was but little in painting, when it rose to aid religion in Italy. The shape was uncooth, the coloring ungraceful, and there was but the faint dawn of that divine sentiment, which in time elevated Roman art to the same eminence as the Grecian. Yet all that Christianity demanded from Art, at first, was readily accomplished: fine forms, and delicate hues, were not required for centuries, by the successors of the Apostles ”

“ Mengs, who saw them near, and judged of them as an artist, appears astonished at their boldness, which he calls “sconcia terribile,” particularly that of Christ, which occupies the centre. But the effect, when seen from below, proves that the painter had deeply studied that delicate branch of the art; for nothing can exceed the bold and exquisite management of the light and shade, and the beautiful proportion in which the figures appear to the eye, except the life and spirit with which they are animated, and the general harmony of the whole. ”

“ The habit of the goddess, on which she sits, is of crimson velvet, a little inclining to purple, and ornamented with an edging of gold lace, which is, however, so subdued in tone as not to look gaudy, its lining being of a delicate straw color, touched here and there with a slight glazing of lake. The dress of Adonis, also, is crimson, but of a somewhat warmer hue. ”

“ A nobleman, not remarkable for personal beauty, once sat to Hogarth for his portrait, which the artist executed in his happiest manner, but with rigid fidelity. The peer, disgusted at this exact counterpart of his dear self, did not feel disposed to pay for the picture. After some time had elapsed, and numerous unsuccessful attempts had been made to obtain payment, the painter resorted to an expedient which he knew must alarm the nobleman’s pride. ”

“ When I look back some five or six-and-thirty years, when we were both in Rome, and next-door neighbors on the Trinita del Monte, and in the spring of life, full of enthusiasm for our art, and fancying fair prospects awaiting us in after years—and few certainly had more right than my worthy colleague to look towards such a futurity—it is painful to reflect how far these hopes have been from being realized. ”