Clara Erskine Clement Waters

“ We must regard Italy as the land of art in a peculiar sense, but it is easy to understand that under the political misfortunes which she has suffered an advance in artistic life could not be made. Now, when a new spirit is active there, and a freer thought prevails in other directions, may we not believe that in the arts there will be a revival of the best inspiration that has ever come to that home of grace and beauty? ”

“ The religion of the Greek, too, taught that the body was the beautiful and godlike temple of his soul; and the truth that human beings have something in common with a higher power than their own gave him a great respect for humanity, and, in truth, he felt that if he could escape death he should be content and almost, if not quite, a god. For we must remember that the gods of the Greek were not all-wise, all-powerful, and all-good, as we believe our God to be. ”

“ Canova was one of the few artists who received their full merit of praise and the benefits of their labors while alive. Without doubt he was a great sculptor, and coming as he did, at a time when art was at its worst, he seemed all the more remarkable to the men around him. But the verdict of to-day would not exalt him as highly as did his friends and patrons. His statues lack the repose which makes the grandest feature of the best sculpture; his female figures have a sentimental sort of air that is not all we could wish, and does not elevate them above what we may call pleasing art. ”

“ The Venus de Milo is justly admired, not only for the grandeur of its design, the perfection of its proportion, and the exquisite moulding of the superb and luxuriant form, but for the vivid freshness of the flesh and the velvet softness of the skin, in which it stands unrivalled in ancient and modern art. The extraordinary skill with which minute details, such as the folds of the skin in the neck, are harmonized with the ideal beauty of the whole is beyond all imitation and all praise. ”

“ In tracing this progress we have seen that Italy, the German nations, Spain, France, and England have all striven to dream dreams of beauty and grandeur, of tenderness and love, and to fix them in fitting colors where all the world could see them.
The past is always fascinating. No stories are so pleasantly begun as those that say, “A long time ago there lived,” etc. One can have the most complete satisfaction in the study of what has happened so far in the past that we can see all its effects and judge of it by the tests which time is sure to bring to everything. ”

“ After the days of classic art we have endeavored to trace painting through a period when it could scarcely be termed an art, so little of it was done, and that little was so far below our ideal. Again, this decline was followed by a Renaissance—an awakening—and from that day in the fourteenth century when the Madonna of Cimabue was carried in triumph through the streets of Florence, this art moved on with progressive steps until Michael Angelo, Leonardo, Raphael, Titian, and others highly gifted, had set up the standards which have remained as beacons and guides to all the world. ”

“ That, under such circumstances, painting reaches a new and truly artistic importance may be traced above all to the great masters who now cultivated the art, and still more to the tone of the age, which promoted it in a rare measure.... The same spirit, however, which imparted such genuine importance to painting produced the ruin of sculpture. This epoch, more than any other, is a proof that the greatest men of talent, appearing in a perverted age, are carried by their very genius all the more certainly to ruin. ”

“ Vandyck kept up a fine establishment, and lived luxuriously. He had a habit of asking his sitters to dinner; thus he could study their faces and retouch their portraits with the more natural expressions of their conversational hours, for it is rare that one is natural when posing before an artist who is painting one’s portrait. But in the midst of his busy life as an artist and his gay life as a man of the world, Sir Anthony did not forget the needs of his brother painters. There was at that time no club or place where artists met socially to consult and aid each other in their profession. ”

“ He devoted himself to her and to her father with untiring affection, and when the old man died he was happy in the thought that his beloved daughter had so true a friend as Zucchi.
From this time their home was in Rome, where Angelica was the centre of an artistic and literary society of a high order. Among her visitors were such men as Herder and Goethe. The latter wrote of her: “The light and pleasing in form and color, in design and execution, distinguish the numerous works of our artist. No living painter excels her in dignity or in the delicate taste with which she handles the pencil.” ”

“ It has long been the custom to attribute to Orcagna some of the most important frescoes in the Campo Santo at Pisa; but it is so doubtful whether he worked there that I shall not speak of them. His father was a goldsmith, and Orcagna first studied his father’s craft; he was also an architect, sculptor, mosaist, and poet, as well as a painter. He made an advance in color and in the painting of atmosphere that gives him high rank as a painter; as a sculptor, his tabernacle in the Church of Or San Michele speaks his praise. ”

“ What is thus true of portrait sculpture is true of all Roman art. Its decline kept step with the decline of the nation, and both fell at length into a pitiable state of feebleness and corruption. From this we are glad to turn to the study of Christian art, which, even in its primary struggles, when groping its way through ignorance and helplessness, was still a living thing, and held the promise of a new life—a renaissance of that which had gradually died in Greece and Rome. ”

“ These last productions are a calamity to his reputation; yet we may, perhaps, safely assert that since Rembrandt there has been no painter of such originality and power as Turner.” Dr. Waagen says in his Treasury of Art in Great Britain: “No landscape painter has yet appeared with such versatility of talent. His historical landscapes exhibit the most exquisite feeling for beauty of hues and effect of lighting, at the same time that he has the power of making them express the most varied moods of nature.” ”

“ As an engineer his canal of Mortesana was enough to give him fame; as an artist he may be called the “Poet of Painters,” and, if those who followed him surpassed him, it should be remembered that it is easier to advance in a path once opened than to discover a new path. Personally he was much beloved, and, though he lived when morals were at a low estimate, he led a proper and reputable life. His pictures were pure in their spirit, and he seemed only to desire the progress of art and science, and it is a pleasure to read and learn of him, as it is to see his works. ”

“ When he came to be a man the dreadful wars which had ravaged Greece were over, and the destruction of the older structures prepared the way for the rebuilding of Athens. Large quantities of "marble, bronze, ivory, gold, ebony and cypress wood" were there, and a great number of skilful workmen were at hand to work under his command. The Athenians were ablaze with zeal to rebuild the temples and shrines of their gods, who, as they believed, had led them to their victories, and not only the public, but the private means were used to make Athens the grandest and most beautiful city of the world. ”

“ But in painting the Greeks followed nothing that had preceded them. They were the first to make pictures which were a life-like reproduction of what they saw about them: they were the first to separate painting from sculpture, and to give it such importance as would permit it to have its own place, quite free from the influence of any other art, and in its own way as grand and as beautiful as its sister arts. ”

“ The court of France was devoted to pomp and pleasure, and sculpture was used for the glorification of the leaders in all its follies. In one sense this is more agreeable than the art in Italy which we have been considering, for nothing can be more disagreeable than a false religious sentiment in art; it is only when the artist is filled with true devotion and feels deeply in his own soul all that he tries to express in his work that religious representations can appeal to us agreeably or benefit us by their influence. ”

“ She represents herself seated in a solitary landscape, with a portfolio in one hand and a pencil in the other. She has an air of perfect unconsciousness, as if she thought of her work only. Her etchings are much valued, and sell for large prices. Many of her pictures were engraved by Bartolozzi, and good prints of them are rare. On one of her pictures she wrote: “I will not attempt to express supernatural things by human inspiration, but wait for that till I reach heaven, if there is painting done there.” ”

“ The chief aim of the enlightened Greek, his highest ambition and his greatest joy, was to be a man in the fullest sense of the word—man in the most complete development of his bodily strength and beauty, in the active exercise of the keenest senses, in the greatest because tempered enjoyment of sensual pleasure, in the free and joyous play of an intellect strong by nature, graced and guided by the most exquisite taste, and enlightened by the sublimest philosophy. ”

“ His first contribution to the Royal Academy was a water-color sketch in 1790. Within the next ten years he exhibited over sixty pictures of castles, cathedrals, and landscapes. All through his life he made sketches. Wherever he was, if he saw a fine or an unusual effect, he treasured it up for use. He sketched on any bit of paper, or even on his thumb-nail, if he had nothing better. Nothing escaped his attention, whether of earth, or sea, or sky. Probably no artist that ever lived gave nature such careful and profound study. His studies of cloud scenery were almost a revelation to mankind. ”

“ Verocchio is said to have spent much time in drawing from the antique, and his works prove him to have been diligent and painstaking; these qualities made him the sculptor that he was; but we see no traces in his work of the heaven-born genius which makes the artist great, and so inspires himself that his works fill all beholders with an enthusiasm in a degree akin to his own; the works of such artists as Verocchio, who have only the excellencies which come from patient industry, interest us, but they cannot move our hearts. ”

“ It is now believed that the statue of the Dying Gaul, often called the Dying Gladiator, was the work of a sculptor of Pergamon, and represents a Gaul who has killed himself rather than submit as a slave to his conquerors. The moment had come when he could not escape, and he chose death rather than humiliation. We learn from history that when these barbarians saw that all was lost they frequently slew their wives and children and then themselves, to avoid being taken as prisoners, which really meant being made slaves. This warrior has thrown himself upon his shield ”

“ We have seen that the Egyptians and Assyrians were skilful in sculpture, but at the same time their works have not moved us as we wish to be moved by art; there is always something beyond them to be desired, and it remained for the Greeks to attain to that perfection in sculpture which satisfies all our nature and fills our highest conceptions of beauty and grace. ”

“ On the other hand, when a sculptor does succeed in producing a draped figure which satisfies artistic taste, he has achieved much, and merits the highest praise. A drapery which has gracefully composed masses and flowing lines adds great dignity to the figure of a patriarch or a prophet, and there are numerous subjects, religious and monumental, in which a full, graceful drapery is requisite; but when, as is often the case, the sculptor is required to reproduce the actual costume of the day, what can we look for? ”

“ In the later art of Phidias she is still stern and severe, but her face also expresses dignity and grandeur of thought and character. Later still, her warlike attributes are made less prominent: the shield rests on the ground, and the lance is more like a sceptre, until, in the decline of art, she is represented as lovely and gentle, and all her grand power is lost, and she is not above a great number of other goddesses who are attractive for their soft, lovely grace, but have no selfhood, no individuality to command our admiration or respect. ”