Ary Scheffer

“ No other painter that I can recall has gotten such effects from colors so simple.
But Scheffer's life was not all sadness. For even when the Little Mother had passed away, Ary Scheffer wrote calmly to his friend August Thierry: "I yet have my daughter Cornelie, and were it not for her I fear my work would be a thing of the past; but with her I still feel that God exists. My life is filled with love and light."
It was a curious circumstance that Ary Scheffer, who conducted the Citizen King to Paris, was to lead him away. ”

“ He burst into the room and tossed into his mother's lap fifty francs.
When he got his breath he explained that he had sold his first picture.
Ary, the elder boy, was eighteen; Henri, the younger, was thirteen. "It was just like a play, you see," said Ary Scheffer, long years afterward. "When things get desperate enough they have to mend—they must. The pictures I painted were pretty bad, but I really believe they were equal to many that commanded large prices, and I succeeded in bringing a few buyers around to my views. Genius may starve in a garret, if alone ”

“ The town of Dordrecht proposes to erect a statue in commemoration of the fame of the great artist.
It is too early to assign to Ary Scheffer the rank which he will finally occupy in the new era of French Art which is coeval with his labors. He will always stand as the companion of Ingres and Delaroche and Géricault; and if his successors surpass him even in his own path, they will owe much to him who helped to open the way. He lived through times of trouble, when a man's faith in humanity might well be shaken, yet he remained no less a believer in and lover of mankind. ”

“ My dear Macready,
I want you—you being quite well again, as I trust you are, and resolute to come to Paris—so to arrange your order of march as to let me know beforehand when you will come, and how long you will stay. We owe Scribe and his wife a dinner, and I should like to pay the debt when you are with us. Ary Scheffer too would be delighted to see you again. If I could arrange for a certain day I would secure them. We cannot afford (you and I, I mean) to keep much company, because we shall have to look in at a theatre or so, I daresay! ”

“ How gladly one turns from its horrors to the calm, sad strength in the face of the Christ in Ary Scheffer’s “Temptation,” rejoicing in the grand expression the artist has given to the power before which ultimately shall shrink back all the pain of the world, all the horrors and shames of sin. ”

“ Ary Scheffer might have made an excellent tea-dealer.
The museum at Dordrecht only showed in excess an aspect of displayed art which is in some degree common to all museums. For there is no museum which is not a place of desolation. Indeed, I remember to have seen only one collection of pictures, public or private, in which every item was a cause of joy—that of Mr. Widener, near Philadelphia. Perhaps the most wonderful thing in the tourist’s Holland is the fact that the small museum at Haarlem, with its prodigious renown, does not disappoint. ”

“ He was a noble, generous, active, benevolent friend of humanity. He gave freely to all who were in need, counsel, money, advice, personal care, and love. Young artists found him ever ready to help them. "He gave them," says M. Vitet, "home, atelier, material, sympathy,—whatever they needed." Another writer, M. Anatole de la Lorge, said of him, while yet living,—"Ary Scheffer has the rare good luck not to be exclusive. His heart can pity every suffering as fully as his pencil can portray it. ”

“ During the Empire the Viardots used to give in their apartment on Thursday evenings really fine musical festivals which my surviving contemporaries still remember. From the salon in which the famous portrait by Ary Scheffer was hung and which was devoted to ordinary instrumental and vocal music, we went down a short staircase to a gallery filled with valuable paintings, and finally to an exquisite organ, one of Cavaillé-Coll’s masterpieces. In this temple dedicated to music we listened to arias from the oratorios of Handel and Mendelssohn. ”

“ Many distinguished artists have been the sons of painters or designers of superior note. Raffaello, Albert Dürer, Alonzo Cano, Vandyck, Luca Giordano are familiar instances. It seems as if the accumulation of two generations of talent were necessary to produce the fine flower of genius. The father of Ary Scheffer was an artist of considerable ability, and promised to become an eminent painter, when he was cut off by an early death. ”

“ Mme Galli Marié, the original interpreter of the title-rôle, had modelled her conception of the part upon the well-known picture by Ary Scheffer, and Mignon at once took the fancy of the public, its success being repeated all over the continent. It has since remained one of the most popular operas belonging to the second half of the 19th century. ”

“ The art world of Paris had both recognized and acknowledged the genius of her boy—with that she was content.
In the year Eighteen Hundred Eighteen, we find General Lafayette writing to Lady Morgan in reference to a proposed visit to the Chateau de la Grange. He says: "I do not think you will find it dull here. Among others of our household is a talented young painter by the name of Scheffer."
Later, Lady Morgan writes to friends in England from La Grange, "Ary Scheffer, a talented artist, is a member of our company here at the chateau. He is quite young, but is already a person of note. ”

“ Into the domestic life of Scheffer it is not at present our privilege to enter. Some near friend—the brother, the daughter, the wife—may, perhaps, hereafter, lift the veil from the sacred spot, and reveal him to us in those relations which most deeply affect and most truly express a man's inmost nature. We close this notice with some slight sketch of his life in the atelier.
None could enter this room without a feeling of reverence and sacredness. In the failing light of a November afternoon, all was subdued to a quiet and religious tone. ”

“ Scheffer has two prominent qualities, by which he has won his place in the popular estimation. The first is his sentiment. His works are full of simple, tender pathos. His pictures always tell their story, first to the eye, next to the heart and soul of the beholder. His admirable knowledge of composition is always subordinate to expression. ”

“ I beg that you would put it in a better Dress, and let it come abroad; that my Mistress, who is an Admirer of your Speculations, may see it.
T.
Footnote 1:
John Scheffer, born in 1621, at Strasburg, was at the age of 27 so well-known for his learning, that he was invited to Sweden, where he received a liberal pension from Queen Christina as her librarian, and was also a Professor of Law and Rhetoric in the University of Upsala. He died in 1679. ”

“ Seven years went dragging by, and one morning there came word from London that the Duchess of Orleans, the mother of the beloved Marie, was dying. Scheffer was ill, but he braced himself for the effort, and hastily started away alone, leaving a note for Cornelie.
He arrived in England in time to attend the funeral of his lifelong friend, and then he himself was seized with a deadly illness.
His daughter was sent for, and when she came the sick man's longing desire was to get back to France. If he was to die, he wanted to die at home. "To die at home at last," is the prayer of every wanderer. ”

“ How strangely appropriate is this punishment of spirits driven hither and thither by the winds, with no hope of rest, to those who reject the firm anchorage of duty and principle, and allow themselves to float at the mercy of their impulses and passions! The overpowering compassion and sympathy of the poets is shown in their earnest faces. Neither here, nor in the well-known "Dante and Beatrice," which is too familiar to need description, does Scheffer quite do justice to our ideal of the sublime poet of Heaven and Hell ”

“ It has been reproachfully said that Scheffer is the painter for pretty women, for poets, and for lovers. The reproach is also a eulogium, since he must thus meet the demand of the human soul in its highest and finest development. Others have accused him of morbid sensibility. There is reason for the charge. He has not the full, round, healthy, development which belongs to the perfect type of Art. ”

“ The first factor in the evolution of Scheffer, in point of both time and importance, was his mother. She was the flint upon which he tried his steel: his teacher, adviser, critic, friend. She was a singularly strong and capable woman, seemingly slight and fragile, but with a deal of whipcord, sinewy strength in both her physical and mental fiber.
No one can study the lives of eminent artists without being impressed with the fact that the artist is essentially the child of his mother. ”

“ The silent grief of the stern old man is very touching. This sorrow, so contrary to Nature, when old age stands by the grave of youth, always moves the deepest feeling; and Scheffer, in the noble old man and the brave and beautiful boy before him, has given it its simplest and most appropriate expression. This picture was painted in 1834. At that period Scheffer was engaged in some experiments in color, and this sad subject led him to employ the dark tints of Rembrandt. ”

“ Everything is to turn out just as he wants! But do things often, I wonder?'
'Yes, with August Scheffer—the only one I know of.'
'But you never can know the struggle he passed through; it was terrible. You call him a philosopher; he is so, because he found out early how to fight the good fight. Nothing will ever look so alluring to him as the career he might have had by choosing the thing he did not choose.' Ceasing to speak aloud and to Paul, Josephine added, in a voice no one could hear: 'I was in the midst of that struggle; I understand him as no one else does. ”

“ Scheffer was more powerful in pictures which he painted from nature, such as the portrait of Reynolds the engraver, in the Dordrecht Museum, which, with its fluently-painted design, seems inspired by the English painters. Towards the end of his life, in painting his biblical subjects he underwent the influence of the Italian masters, which produced the more vigorous colour-scheme and the more positive, although still very sensitive conception of the Christ bearing the Cross at Dordrecht. ”

“ In the division the Women must have none of the posteriours, for they belong only to the men; neither is it lawful for a Woman to come and fetch their division, but ’tis sent them by two men, who say thus to them, Olmai Potti Sueregislandi, Polandi, Engelandi, Frankichis, i. e. that they came a great way off, from Swedland, Poland, England, or [97] France; these men the women meet, and sing Olmai Potti Sweregislandi, Polandi, Engelandi, Frankichis, Kalka Kaubsis laigit touti tiadnat, i. e. you men that come from Swedland, Poland, England, or France ”

“ She was shading her eyes with her right hand, looking towards the sun, in the direction where the mountain peaks of the Hegau rose into the air. She knew them well, for the old hag, was the woman of the wood. Banished by Ekkehard, she had wandered away into stranger lands; vengeance being her first thought when she awoke in the morning, and her last before she fell asleep in the evening. Thus she came as far as Augsburg. At the foot of the hill on which the wooden temple of the Suabian Goddess Zisa had once stood, the Huns' camp-fires were burning, and with them she remained. ”

“ The individual just described, was about to repeat his cursing, when he beheld Ekkehard's tonsure and Benedictine garment, and quickly changing his tone, he cried: "Oho! salve confrater! By the beard of St. Patrick of Armagh! If your curiosity had left me unmolested another quarter of an hour, I might have invited you to a goodly repast of the game of our lake." With a melancholy expression he cast a look at the covey of wild ducks in the distance.
Ekkehard smilingly lifted his fore-finger: "Ne clericus venationi incumbat! No consecrated servant of God shall be a sportsman!" ”

“ Heribald, however, did not heed the curious horseman's warning. The woman of the wood had meanwhile got down from her cart, and approached Ellak. With a sinister grin she looked at the monk. "I have read in the stars, that by the hands of such bald-headed men, evil will befall us," cried she. "To prevent the coming danger, you ought to hang up this miserable creature before the cloister-gate, with his face turned towards yonder mountains!"
"Hang him up," echoed many voices in the crowd, the pantomime of the old woman, having been understood. Ellak once more turned his head towards Erica. ”

“ Throwing aside his grey mantle, the chamberlain Spazzo, now likewise came forwards, and embraced Ekkehard like an old friend.
"In the name of our gracious mistress, please to receive the kiss of peace."
A faint suspicion that he was being played with, crossed Ekkehard's mind; but the Duchess now called out laughingly: "You have been paid in your own coin. As you did not allow the Duchess of Suabia, to cross the threshold of St. Gallus otherwise, it was but fair that she also should have the man of St. Gall, carried through the gateway into her castle." ”

“ In the dry moat outside the gate, the cloister-pupils had hidden themselves. "Long life to the Duchess of Suabia! Hail! hail!--and she must not forget to send us the Felchen!" was loudly shouted after her, as a parting salutation.
"He who as reward for his bad behaviour, obtains three holidays, and the best fish of the lake, may well shout," said Master Spazzo.
Slowly the Abbot went back to the monastery, and as soon as he got there, he sent for Ekkehard the custodian.
"A dispensation has come for you. You are to take a volume of Virgil to the Duchess Hadwig, and become her teacher. ”