Giovanni Duprè

“ I see a little smile of incredulity, almost of triumph, come over the face of my unbelieving reader, and the old story, so often sung and perhaps exaggerated, of Raphael and the Fornarina placed before me, to belie my words. This case of Raphael and the Fornarina was a unique one, and quite different from the ordinary relations that exist between the artist and his models. [329] A model is for us like an instrument or a tool, necessary for our work. If good and beautiful, we prize her and respect her as we would a good tool; if neither beautiful nor good, we bid her be off. ”

“ It is common for the young sculptors of our day to scorn and sneer at any work that is offered to them which they think beneath that skill and capacity which they suppose themselves to possess; and they will not, as they say, abase themselves to mere work in plaster. If any one orders of them a bust or a statue in plaster, their pretence is so excessive that they deem it an insult. Now, I say the material counts for nothing; and a plaster statue merely for decoration, well executed, is worth more than a statue in marble or bronze which is ill executed. ”

“ I only desire to remind the profane in art, that when we have a model before us, our mind and all our strength is so absorbed in our work, and the difficulties are so great in taking from nature just so much as is required for the character, expression, and form of our subject, that nothing else affects us. He who does not credit this is not an artist, and does not feel art. ”

“ His life had been so pure, so conscientious, and so animated by high purpose—his temper and character had been so blameless and free from envy and stain of any kind—he had been so generous and kindly in all the varied relations of life, as a son, as a husband, as a father, as a friend,—and he had so greatly distinguished himself as a sculptor, that over his grave the carping voice of criticism was hushed, and a universal voice of praise and sorrow went up everywhere. ”

“ The immense vault of the heavens; the innumerable planets resplendent in light; the sun that illuminates, warms, and fertilises the earth; the expanse of the waters of the sea; the prodigious variety and beauty of animals, plants, and fruits; the loveliness of colours, harmony of sounds from everywhere, and for all our senses,—come to us as the proof of God. But more even than from exterior things we feel it within ourselves. The blood shed by the martyrs fighting for the faith; life given in large profusion for the defence of country, liberty, and honour, or our women and children ”

“ LONGING TO BE AN ARTIST.
In the meantime, however, many doubts and self-questionings arose within me. I knew that there was a school where one could really learn to draw and paint and make statues. Heavens, how delightful it would be to know how to make statues! In fact, I understood there was the Academy of Fine Arts, for so I had been told, and some of the fortunate young men who frequented this Academy were my acquaintances, and had shown me their designs, which seemed to me, as my friend Dotti would say, most stupendous! ”

“ On the base is a bas-relief representing the dead members of that family; and as they died at brief intervals the one from the other, as if Death had blown them down with her breath as the wind overthrows the trees in the country, so they are laid out, shoulder to shoulder, by each other. A little angel hovers in the air near them with hands clasped in prayer, and in the background, on the horizon line, one perceives Verona. The bas-relief is in bronze, and its colours add seriousness and sadness to the scene. ”

“ CHOLERA AT LEGHORN.
My mother wrote to me from Florence urging my immediate return; but I—I know not why—felt myself, as it were, riveted to Leghorn. It may have been perhaps on account of the effect of the sea air, the novelty of the life, and the excitement produced in me by the danger to which my life was exposed, which I not only did not fear, but even felt strong enough almost to challenge, and more than all, the notable improvement that I daily felt in my health, which decided me to remain. I had found some friends even gayer and more thoughtless than myself. ”

“ Whoever has lost a father knows the kind of grief it is!
As I have said, I stayed but a few days in Paris. I saw, on the wing as it were, and without being able to study them, the monuments of art in which that great capital is rich. I repeat, I felt an irresistible desire to return home. Of the artists, I saw only Gendron, whom I had known in Florence; Anieni, a Roman; and Prince Joseph Poniatowsky, then in his prime. What was most to my taste was to ride up and down the streets of Paris in an omnibus to get an idea of the movement and grandeur of that city ”

“ I saw smiling dreams of fame and honour vanish little by little. I heard a voice whispering within me—"Put an end, poor fool, to your melancholy; you were born poor and ignorant, and so you will die. Qualities are required to lift one's self above others that you are entirely wanting in. Genius is necessary, and you cannot say that you have it. Education is necessary, and you have none. Money is necessary, and you have not a farthing. Above all, a strong will is needed, and yours is most variable, transient, and weak, bending to the slightest breath of a contrary wind. ”

“ From this it is evident that I have a predilection for the naturalist who caresses an idea and the idealist who is a faithful and not a timid friend of truth. The artist is not a servile copyist of nature—of ugly nature; not the imitator of statues, even though they are beautiful; not the slave of the name and teaching of the masters, ancient and modern. ”

“ The Fornarina was beautiful, and perhaps she may have been even good; but unfortunately she was of a sanguine temperament, imaginative, and ardent, as she appears from the portraits Raphael has left of her. The graceful nature, the delicate figure of the young artist, and the prestige of his fame, roused the love and ambition of the beautiful Trasteverina.
"Amor che a nullo amato amar perdona," [10]
"Love, that exempts no one beloved from loving,"
seized hold of that angel and smothered him in its embrace. ”

“ It is true, however, that the enjoyment of song and sound passes in a moment—its waves die upon the air, and our ears catch their last echo—while the view of a statue, with all its beauty and meaning, remains, so to speak, to all eternity. But this is a rather subtle and abstract consideration that not all can understand.
Thinking over it well, I do not believe the fiasco about the statue of Michael Angelo occurred for want of enthusiasm for art or statuary, or much less for the subject. ”

“ In these works the artist shows a real sentiment for truth in the expression of the woman holding the little girl firmly by the hand, both of them with their heads bent down, eyes tightly shut to avoid the sand that the wind is blowing with great force into their faces—their quick step and close clinging garments blown about them, showing the violence of the wind and approach of the storm. It is, if you will, a common subject, not very attractive, and at best more suitable to be rendered in small proportions than in life-size ”

“ There is no doubt about it—Art fraternises all nations. Our speeches, half French and half Italian and Hungarian-Latin, were spoken freely, and without giving even a thought that a phrase or word might offend the political opinion or oratorical taste of any one. Everything was good, everything applauded, and we drank to everything. I remember a Hungarian artist, who, drinking to the toast of Art and the Italians, said that Italy had always been great; and if, in days gone by, she had been able to glory in Michael Angelo, to-day she gloried in Garibaldi! ”

“ In those days a man of high intellect and great spirit, burning with a love for all that was truly beautiful, also left us. Lorenzo Bartolini died, after a few days' illness, of congestion of the brain, not young in years, but always very young in his affections and inspirations. Some moments before he was overtaken by illness, he was working on the marble with the energy and precision of a man in the prime of life. ”

“ With the growth of the revolution, the departure of the Grand Duke, and the dread of a dangerous crisis, artistic life was not one of the most flourishing, and I had not work of any kind, except to retouch the wax of "Abel and Cain," that the Grand Duke had given an order to Papi to cast in bronze.
Seeing this, I concentrated all my life in my family affections. My studio had become deserted; my scholars—Tito Sarrocchi, Luigi Majoli, and Enrico Pazzi—had left me to go to the camp. They returned afterwards, but were always tossed about on the wave of the revolution. ”

“ But as soon as a sufficient number of people is collected to make a respectable audience, one must lay aside the great drum and begin to speak seriously. And this is just what the maestro did: he gave up the hunchback, inculcated the imitation of beautiful nature in all its varieties of sex, age, and temperament. But, in the ears of the greater number of persons the beat of the great drum still sounded, and the words of Bartolini were not understood. From that time to this there have been no more statues of Apollo, Jove, and Minerva. ”

“ But a youth who once is set going on this incline never stops; for he finds it far easier to draw freely on his memory than to keep within the proper bounds of imitation.
I repeat, then, that he who does not select from beautiful nature with studious love shows little faith in her beauty, and thence come carelessness and unwillingness to portray her, and then a headlong fall into the conventional. He, however, who finds the beautiful in everything, or rather, he who despises antique art and calls it conventional, even though it be by Phidias, is quite as conventional himself in his realism. ”

“ One day, seeing me more than ordinarily melancholy, he rose from his work, took me by the hands, and puffing from his pipe a larger volume of smoke than usual, asked what was troubling me; and when I had made a clean breast of it to him, he laid his pipe down, and embracing me, said, "Cheer up, my son! drive away from your head all those whims: go back to Florence, take up your work again with courage, and have more faith in yourself and in your powers. It is an old man who is speaking to you, who neither can nor will deceive you." ”

“ The statue represents Modesty—one of the principal virtues that distinguished the Princess. See, gentlemen, she is enveloped in a transparent veil, beneath which is revealed the whole of her figure: this is a method of sculpture unknown even to the Greeks, for the ancients only painted their draperies, but did not cut them in marble. The other prodigy of art is a statue representing the father of the Prince himself as 'Disinganno.' In this statue behold a man caught in a net; you see all the meshes of the net, and inside it the body itself. ”

“ And here was another of those great souls that warmed itself in the rays of that faith which broke asunder the chains of the slave—opened the mind and softened the heart of the savage—restrained the flights of fancy within the beaten road of truth and good—willed that power, justice, and charity should be friends with each other, and made one taste of peace and happiness in poverty—and that enlarged and extended the confines of the intellect, of morality, and of civilisation. ”

“ Religious sentiment has its root in the heart, in the intellect, in the imagination, and, in a word, in all the impulses of the soul. A heart without God is a heart without love, and will not love woman but for the brutal pleasure she procures, and, in consequence, not even the children that are the fruit of, and also a burden upon, his selfishness. He will not love his country except for the honours and the gain that can be got out of it, and will sacrifice it carelessly for a single moment of pleasure or interest, because a heart without God is a heart without love. ”

“ This model cost me an immense deal of work. The subject required character, bearing, and attitude of an absolutely simple and natural treatment, such as I gave the Giotto; but fearing to meet with censure from the lovers of the classic, I kept doing and undoing my work in my sketches, as well as in my large model. It is useless! One must be decided, and sure of the side one wishes to take. This see-sawing between ideal beauty and truth to nature in portraiture will not do, just as it would be absurd and bad to adhere entirely to nature in other subjects, especially sacred ones. ”

“ In the shop there were two beautiful bas-reliefs from the pulpit in Santa Croce, two from the doors of the sacristy of the Duomo by Luca della Robbia, and several of those little figures by Ghiberti which surround the principal door of San Giovanni. All these casts I drew during this period—badly, as one may imagine, and without guide or method; but still, this served to occupy me pleasantly, and also to keep alive within me the craving to learn and advance myself, so as to be able to do other and more important work in the shop, and thus gain distinction. ”

“ I CHANGE MY STUDIO.
"Rauch," began Bartolini, ... but I have said above that the dead sleep in peace, and the portraits of Bartolini and Rauch are also at peace with each other, for in my house, at the villa of Lampeggi, they look each other in the face, and smile good-naturedly. Evviva! So, perhaps, they smile in the true life eternal at the littlenesses of our brief life here. ”

“ She also is endowed by nature with sentiment for art, and her drawings and certain little models in clay are the indications of wide-awake, ready aptitude. I treasure a bust of Dante that she modelled, and that was cut in marble, and deplore that the new life she has entered upon, and perhaps a delicate feeling of consideration for her sister, have made her desist from the continuation of a career well begun. Now she is a mother; and the duties of a mother are so noble and so arduous as to repress any other tendencies even more natural to her and more attractive. ”

“ And, in fact, I know no subject more worthy of consideration than to seek among the statues of Canova for the reasons of his oscillation between the imitation of nature and the imitation of the antique; for exactly here is the knot of that grave question which even to-day keeps artists divided into two schools—that of the Academicians and that of the veristi. [245]
CANOVA AND THE BELLO IDEALE.
Doubtless nature is the foundation of art, as beauty is its object; and to forget either one or the other is to fall into error. ”

“ Oh, music comes directly from heaven! The harmony of sounds is something of a more intimate, secret, and mysterious nature than the harmony of lines and colours; for what constitutes the beauty, harmony, [414] and attraction of exterior things, is not there alone in appearance, but radiates from the spirit within: therefore it is that the beautiful, emanating from the divine harmony of sound, is more exquisite and more living, because it is the manifestation of the soul and the spirit without encumbrance. ”

“ The subject that I treated for the Favard monument was the Angel of the Resurrection, who, poised on his wings, offers his hands to the dead woman, who is in the act of rising, to lead her to heaven. She has half lifted herself up on the sarcophagus where she was laid out, and her expression shows her happiness in awakening to eternal day. The only adulation—excusable, I think—that I offered to that lady was having made her appear younger than she was,—not more beautiful, for one can still see that she must have been most beautiful. ”