Jennie Ellis Keysor

“ The ramparts of the city with their towers and gateways, the splendid buildings enclosed, were like miracles to the youth. It was a fête day in celebration of the marriage of the son of a prominent citizen, Pirkheimer by name. Albrecht Durer, for that was the youth’s name, long studied the gay throng, little thinking how in the future the name of his son and that of [169] the bridegroom there would together be known to fame, the one as the greatest artist, the other as the most learned man of Nuremberg. ”

“ At Rubens’ cradle the evil fairy must well nigh have forgotten his task, for the babe grew up one of the most fortunate of men.
In order to understand as we should any great man, we must always study his country and his time. No man can be great enough not to be like the nation that produced him, or the time when he came into the world. For these reasons we love to study a man’s time and country, and, indeed, find it quite necessary if we would understand him aright.
It is impossible to think of Rubens without associating him with Flanders and with Antwerp, his home city. ”

“ It was to glorify a beautiful idea, that Mary was as pure and spotless as her divine son. It is called the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, and so much did it appeal to Murillo that he painted it over and over again. He has left us at least twenty different pictures embodying this doctrine. The one most familiar is perhaps the greatest. It is the one that now graces the gem-room of the Louvre. I so name this room, for in it, within a few feet of one another, are pictures by Raphael, Da Vinci, Correggio, Rembrandt, Veronese, in short, by the foremost masters of the world. ”

“ It is far more than a mother and child, for one sees in the [43] Madonna a look suggesting that she sees vaguely the darkness of Calvary and the glory of the resurrection. This is no ordinary child, either, that she holds, for He sees beyond this world into eternity and that His is no common destiny;—at least, one feels these things as we gaze at the lovely apparition on its background of clouds and innumerable angel heads. St. Sixtus on one side would know more of this mystery, while St. Barbara on the other is dazzled by the vision and turns aside her lovely face. ”

“ Even in our practical time we all have more or less faith in the guardian spirit that watches over every little child. If by some miracle these children could all come to life, what a joyous yet thoughtful assembly it would be! Difficult indeed would it be to select the one beyond all others precious. No more certain proof exists of Murillo’s high appreciation of spiritual things, of the simplicity and purity of his own life and thought than this selfsame throng of little children that he has given us. ”

“ Peter’s, of its storied bell-tower, the Giralda, of that fairy palace, the home of generations of Moorish kings, the Alcazar, of the Golden Tower by the river’s edge, where Christian rulers stored their treasure. And then to our vision of Seville the beautiful, we add the silver Guadalquivir which divides, and yet encloses this dream city of Andalusia. If we are not interested in [64] art, still must we be enthusiastic over Seville, for its bewitching little women with their lustrous eyes, their glossy dark hair, held by the ever present single rose. ”

“ One of the loveliest is the one Murillo caught from the depths of his own pure soul, and held long enough to transfer it to canvas to delight the people of his own day, and us of this later time who no longer see visions. It is still in the cathedral of Seville for which it was painted. It is merely called “St. Anthony of Padua.” Never was a more soul-thrilling vision sent to man to illumine his earthly pathway. ”

“ Rubens was too great to be conceited, but he stood at the end of a most successful life. If ever a man had conquered the dragon of disappointment, that lies crouching at the door of every life, Rubens had. He did well to represent himself as St. George. In both of these last pictures the painter shows at his very strongest.
He died May 30th, 1640, and was buried in the church beside his mother and his first wife. All the city attended his funeral, for in three capacities they mourned their illustrious citizen—as an artist, as a diplomat and scholar, and as a man of noble character. ”

“ Church doorways are carved with beautiful and fantastic forms by men whose names were long ago forgotten. Common dwellings are adorned with picturesque dormer windows. Even the narrow crooked streets hold their share of beauty, for here are fountains so exquisite in their workmanship that their like is not to be found elsewhere. Here it is the Beautiful Fountain, gay with sculptures of heroes and saints, and there it is the Little Gooseman’s Fountain where humor is added to beauty. ”

“ A few months after a much longed for son came to bless the Pirkheimers, a little boy was born in the goldsmith’s house whom they named, for his father, Albrecht Durer. As the years went by, seventeen other children came to the Durer home. Three only of all these children grew to maturity.
With such a family to support we can easily imagine that the father’s life was a hard one. He was a pious and industrious man whom his illustrious son never tires of praising. ”

“ The drawings for these pictures were made by Raphael, but most of the painting was done by his pupils. As we study these pictures of the joys and sorrows of this beautiful pair, we are interested, but we regret that our angel-painter was willing, even for a short time, to leave his own proper subjects, the religious. We feel like saying, “Let men who know not the depth of religious feeling, as did Raphael, paint for us the myth and the secular story, but let us save from any earthly touch our painter of sacred things.” ”

“ Spain was not blessed as Italy was with one generation after another of artists so great that all the world knows them even at this distant day. Spain has only two unquestionably great painters that stand out as world-artists. They are Velazquez and Murillo. ”

“ Often in examining the lives of great men we are compelled to pass over some events which, to say the least, are not creditable. Of Raphael this was not true. He was gifted with all admirable qualities, and so many-sided was his genius that, while we think of him first as a painter, we must not forget that he also carved statues, wrote poems, played musical instruments, and planned great buildings. ”

“ To Raphael, with his love of the beautiful, with his zeal to learn, Florence was the city of all others that he longed to see. At last his dream was to be realized. A noble woman of Urbino gave him a letter to the Governor of Florence, expressing the wish that the young artist might be allowed to see all the art treasures of the city. The first day of the year 1505 greeted Raphael in Florence, the art center of Italy. ”

“ When the dead were buried, the charred ruins of buildings removed, and the Spanish soldiery withdrawn, the mist-beclouded Netherland sun shone out on a dead city which even to-day bears marks of the Spaniard’s fury. Grass grew in what had been its busiest streets, trade almost ceased, and thousands of weavers and other artisans went to England where they could pursue their vocations unmolested. ”

“ For this we need hardly take more than the one name, Peter Paul Rubens, for he represented very completely the art of Flanders or Belgium, as we call it to-day.
If we love to read of happy, fortunate people, as I am sure we do, we shall be more than pleased in learning about Rubens. You know there is an old story, that by the side of every cradle stand a good and an evil fairy, who by their gifts make up the life of the little babe within. The good fairy gives him a wonderful blessing, perhaps it is the power to write [102] poems or paint pictures. ”

“ After a while he began to feel that he might paint pictures instead of merely drawing designs for metal work. He loved the work and so had the courage to tell his father of his wish to become a painter. The elder Durer was patient with the boy, regretting only that he had lost so much time learning the goldsmith’s trade. Albrecht, then only sixteen, was surely young enough to begin his life work! His father put him to study with Wolgemut, the foremost painter of the city, which is not high praise, for the art of painting was then new in the prosperous city of the Pegnitz. ”

“ It may not be out of place to stop here and notice the wonderful variety of holy children that Murillo has given us. His Madonnas invariably hold very beautiful children, not so heavenly, perhaps, as Raphael’s in the [84] Sistine Madonna, but nevertheless, children that charm us into loving them. From the holy babe, with all his lovely qualities, let us turn to that dear little boy of older growth, that Joseph and Mary hold so tenderly by either hand in the picture of the “Holy Family ” in the National Gallery in London, or to those other boys, “The Divine Shepherd ” and “St John.” ”

“ Durer was above everything a true representative of the German people, and so we ought to take note of some of the qualities of the German mind. As Goethe, their greatest poet, says, one of their strongest characteristics is that of wishing to learn and to do rather than to enjoy. The Germans love truth and they do not stop short in their imaginings when they wish to drive it home. So in German art, the toiling man or woman is often accompanied by angels and demons, the equal of which were never pictured by any other people. ”

“ We delight in illustrated books to-day, indeed we will hardly have a book without pictures. Imagine then the joy that must have been felt in this time of the scarcity of even printed books to have those that were illustrated. There was ready sale for all the books Durer could print.
[188] Some prints came into Raphael’s hands. He wrote a friendly letter to the artist and sent him several of his own drawings. In return Durer sent his own portrait, life size, which Raphael greatly prized and at his death bequeathed to his favorite pupil, Julio Romano. ”

“ Thus my dear father was most anxious to bring up his children to honor God. His highest wish was that his children should be pleasing to God and man; therefore he used to tell us every day that we should love God and be true to our neighbors.”
Durer sorrowed deeply when his father died in 1502. On his death-bed he commended the mother to her son. Durer was faithful to his trust and cared tenderly for his mother until her death, several years later. Never did boy or man more faithfully keep the command, “Honor thy father and mother,” than did our artist. ”

“ Now, the greatest of all the Umbrian painters, before Raphael, was a queer little miserly man named Perugino, who at that time had a studio in Perugia, an Umbrian town not far distant from Urbino. Although he was of mean appearance and ignoble character, he had an [12] unmistakable power in painting mild-eyed Madonnas and spotless saints against delicate landscape backgrounds. People disliked the man, but they could not help seeing the beauty of his art, and so his studio was crowded. ”

“ As was the custom in his country, he secluded himself for four months in a convent attached to the church where his mother was buried.
The profound sorrow for his mother, and the sudden change from the life he had so recently led made him melancholy. He longed for the skies, the pictures, and the society of Italy. When he came forth from his retirement, his countrymen could not bear the thought [124] of their now illustrous artist returning to Italy. They wanted him among them to glorify with his splendid brush the now reviving city of the Scheldt. ”

“ Nor can we forget his ideal portrait of “Æsop,” with his book under his arm. How well we know that book of fables! The rugged, good-natured face, homely as can be, holds us, as by a spell, and if we have not already done so, we read his book because we must, after looking into that dear old face.
One of the loveliest things we remember of Velazquez was his kindness to Murillo when he came to Madrid, a poor art student. Although Velazquez was rich and his pictures in demand, he took a keen interest in the young Murillo, who should one day stand beside him—they two the greatest artists of Spain. ”

“ He had studied carefully the best art that the world could show, and he had absorbed into his own characteristic style what was best for him—his style of painting was now definitely formed. His fame as a painter was established from the Mediterranean to the Zuyder Zee. He was overwhelmed with orders for his pictures, so that he had plenty of money at his command. He had the confidence of princes, and was attached to one of the richest courts of Europe. A crowd of anxious art students awaited the choice privilege of entering his studio when he should open one. ”

“ Anthony’s face we know that the Child of God has been drawn to earth by the prayerful love in the saint’s heart. We feel certain that the open book on the table near by is none other than the best of all good books. The vision has come to Saint Anthony on the earth, for that is common daylight that streams in through the open door, and those are perishable lilies in the vase there by the open book. By the painting of this picture Murillo gained for himself the title of “The Painter of Heaven.” ”

“ And so they alternate, the good and evil, until the sum of a human life is made up, and the child grows up to live out his years, marked by joy and sorrow as every life must be.
As we look at the men and women about us we feel, often, that one or the other of these fairies must have slept while distributing their gifts and so lost a turn or two in casting in the good or ill upon the babe, so happy are some lives, so sorrowful are others. ”

“ The Duke of Mantua, a most liberal and discerning patron of art, was in Venice when Rubens reached that city. One of the Duke’s suite happened to be in the house with Rubens. He took notice of the painter’s courtly bearing, his fine physique, and his ability to paint, and introduced him to the Duke. Never did our painter’s handsome face and fine presence so quickly win a patron. He was at once attached to the Duke’s [120] court and began copying for him the masterpieces of Italy—the pictures of Titian, Correggio, Veronese, leading all others. ”

“ His funeral was of the sort that draws all classes—a beloved man and a profound genius had passed away. His grave was covered with a stone slab on which were carved but few words beside his name. The church was destroyed during the French wars, and the Plaza of Santa Cruz occupies its place. In later years a statue of bronze was erected in one of the squares of the city in honor of Murillo; there it stands, through all changes, the very master spirit of the city.
If this sketch has implied anything, it has emphasized over and over again the sweet and lovable character of Murillo. ”

“ The text was illustrated by Durer on the margin in pen and ink drawings in different colored inks. Sometimes the artist’s fancy is expressed in twining vines and flying birds and butterflies, again it is the kneeling Psalmist listening in rapt attention to some heavenly harpist, or it may be that the crafty fox beguiles the unsuspecting fowls with music from a stolen flute. Thus through almost endless variety of subjects stray the artist’s thought and hand. ”

“ In art, too, these low country provinces had made much progress. There had been Hubert and Jan [108] Van Eyck who had painted with minute skill devout pictures. They had, moreover, given to the world the process of painting in oils. This discovery, worked out with the extreme care natural to the Netherlanders, changed the whole character of painting, and made it possible to have such colorists as Titian, Raphael and Rubens. We must remember that the colors used in fresco painting were mixed with a sort of “size” and that they had none of the richness of oil colors. ”