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margin-left: 2.5%; margin-right: 2.5%;} + + +div.chapter {page-break-before: always;} +h2.nobreak {page-break-before: avoid;} + + +table { + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; +} + +.tdl {text-align: left;} +.tdll {text-align: left; + font-size: large;} +.tdlp {text-align: left; + padding-left: 2em;} +.tdr {text-align: right;} +.tdrb {text-align: right; vertical-align: bottom;} +.tdcs {text-align: center; + font-size: 80%;} + +.pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + /* visibility: hidden; */ + position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; + font-style: normal; + font-weight: normal; + font-variant: normal; + text-indent: 0; +} /* page numbers */ + + +.blockquot { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + font-size: 90%; +} + +.c {text-align: center;} + +.xxlarge {font-size: 180%;} +.xlarge {font-size: 140%;} +.large {font-size: 120%;} +.less {font-size: 90%;} +.more {font-size: 80%;} +.med {font-size: 70%;} + +.pad {padding-left: 2em;} +.pad1 {padding-left: 20em;} +.pad2 {padding-left: 12em;} +.pad3 {padding-left: 28em;} + +.sp {word-spacing: 0.2em;} + + +.ph2 {text-align: center; text-indent: 0em; + font-size: 160%; + margin-top: 1em; + word-spacing: 0.2em;} + +p.drop-cap { + text-indent: -0.2em; +} + +p.drop-cap2 { + text-indent: -0.6em; +} + +p.drop-cap:first-letter, p.drop-cap2:first-letter +{ + float: left; + margin: 0.1em 0.1em 0em 0em; + font-size: 270%; + line-height:0.85em; +} + + +@media handheld +{ + p.drop-cap:first-letter, p.drop-cap2:first-letter + { + float: none; + margin: 0; + font-size: 100%; + } +} + +.r {text-align: right; + margin-right: 2em;} + +.l {text-align: left; + margin-left: 1em;} + +.l2 {text-align: left; + margin-left: 2em;} + +.gtb +{ + letter-spacing: 1em; + font-size: 155%; + text-align: center; + font-weight: bold; +} +.smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + +.allsmcap {font-variant: small-caps; text-transform: lowercase;} + +.gesperrt +{ + letter-spacing: 0.2em; + margin-right: -0.2em; +} + +em.gesperrt +{ + font-style: normal; +} + +.caption {text-align: center; + font-size: 80%; + word-spacing: 0.2em;} + +.caption1 {text-align: justify; + font-size: 80%; + word-spacing: 0.2em; + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%;} + +/* Images */ + +img { + max-width: 100%; + height: auto; +} + + +.figcenter { + margin: auto; + text-align: center; + page-break-inside: avoid; + max-width: 100%; +} + +.figcenter1 { + padding-top: 2em; + margin: auto; + text-align: center; + page-break-inside: avoid; + max-width: 100%; +} + +.figcenter2 { + padding-top: 4em; + margin: auto; + text-align: center; + page-break-inside: avoid; + max-width: 100%; +} + +/* Footnotes */ + +.footnote {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;} + +.footnote .label {position: absolute; right: 84%; text-align: right;} + +.fnanchor { + vertical-align: super; + font-size: .8em; + text-decoration: + none; +} + +/* Poetry */ +.poetry-container {text-align: center;} +.poetry {text-align: left; margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 5%; + font-size:85%;} + + .poetry {display: inline-block;} +.poetry .stanza {margin: 1em auto;} +.poetry .verse {text-indent: -3em; padding-left: 3em;} + +.poetry .indent0 {text-indent: -3em;} +.poetry .indent2 {text-indent: -2em;} +.poetry .indent4 {text-indent: -1em;} +.poetry .indent5 {text-indent: 3.5em;} + +/* Transcriber's notes */ +.transnote {background-color: #E6E6FA; + color: black; + font-size:smaller; + padding:0.5em; + margin-bottom:5em; + font-family:sans-serif, serif; } + + /* ]]> */ </style> +</head> +<body> +<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 68720 ***</div> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/cover.jpg" alt="" /> +</div> + + +<h1>PRINTS AND THEIR MAKERS</h1> + +<div class="figcenter1" id="f1"> +<img src="images/fig1.jpg" alt="" /> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Profile Bust of a Young Woman</span></p> +</div> + +<p class="c less">After Leonardo da Vinci</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>“Of the prints attributed to Leonardo, the fascinating <i>Profile Bust of +a Young Woman</i> stands out from the rest for the sensitive quality +of its outline, but even here I would be more ready to see the hand +of an engraver like Zoan Andrea.” <span class="pad">Arthur M. Hind.</span></p> + + +<p class="c less">Reproduced from the unique impression in the British Museum</p> +</div> + +<hr class="full x-ebookmaker-drop" /> + +<p class="c xxlarge p2 sp"> +PRINTS<br /> +AND THEIR MAKERS</p> + +<p class="c sp p2"> +ESSAYS ON ENGRAVERS AND<br /> +ETCHERS OLD AND MODERN</p> + +<p class="c p4 sp"> +<span class="med">EDITED BY</span><br /> +<span class="large">FITZROY CARRINGTON</span><br /> +<span class="med">EDITOR OF “THE PRINT-COLLECTOR’S QUARTERLY”</span></p> + +<p class="c p4 sp med"> +WITH 200 ILLUSTRATIONS</p> + +<div class="figcenter2"> +<img src="images/fig2.jpg" alt="" /> +</div> + +<p class="c p6 sp"> +NEW YORK<br /> +<span class="large">THE CENTURY CO.</span><br /> +1912 +</p> + +<hr class="full x-ebookmaker-drop" /> + + +<p class="c more"> +Copyright, 1912, by<br /> +<span class="smcap">The Century Co.</span><br /> +————<br /> +Copyright, 1911, 1912, by<br /> +<span class="smcap">Frederick Keppel & Co.</span><br /> +————<br /> +<i>Published October, 1912</i></p> + +<p class="c med p6"> +THE DE VINNE PRESS +</p> + + + + +<p class="c p6 sp"> +<span class="more">TO</span><br /> +<span class="large">FREDERICK KEPPEL</span><br /> +<span class="more">IN MEMORY OF A FRIENDSHIP OF TWENTY<br /> +YEARS THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED BY</span><br /> +<span class="large">THE EDITOR</span> +</p> +<hr class="full x-ebookmaker-drop" /> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_vii">[Pg vii]</span></p> + +<p class="ph2">CONTENTS</p> +</div> + +<table> + +<tr> + <td class="tdl"></td> + <td class="tdr"><span class="more">PAGE</span></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdll"><span class="smcap">Dürer’s Woodcuts</span></td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#c1">1</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdcs" colspan="2"><span class="smcap">By</span> CAMPBELL DODGSON, M.A.</td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdll"><span class="smcap">Some Early Italian Engravers before the Time<br /> + of Marcantonio</span></td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#c2">17</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdcs" colspan="2"><span class="smcap">By</span> ARTHUR M. HIND</td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdll"><span class="smcap">A Prince of Print-collectors: Michel de<br /> + Marolles, Abbé de Villeloin</span></td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#c3">33</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdcs" colspan="2"><span class="smcap">By</span> LOUIS R. METCALFE</td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdll"><span class="smcap">Jean Morin</span></td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#c4">52</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdcs" colspan="2"><span class="smcap">By</span> LOUIS R. METCALFE</td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdll"><span class="smcap">Robert Nanteuil</span></td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#c5">70</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdcs" colspan="2"><span class="smcap">By</span> LOUIS R. METCALFE</td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdll"><span class="smcap">Rembrandt’s Landscape Etchings</span></td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#c6">94</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdcs" colspan="2"><span class="smcap">By</span> LAURENCE BINYON</td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdll"><span class="smcap">Giovanni Battista Piranesi</span></td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#c7">112</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdcs" colspan="2"><span class="smcap">By</span> BENJAMIN BURGES MOORE</td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdll"><span class="smcap">Francisco Goya y Lucientes</span></td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#c8">153</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdcs" colspan="2"><span class="smcap">By</span> CHARLES H. CAFFIN</td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdll"><span class="smcap">A Note on Goya</span> </td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#c9">164</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdcs" colspan="2"><span class="smcap">By</span> WILLIAM M. IVINS, JR.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_viii">[Pg viii]</span></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdll"><span class="smcap">The Etchings of Fortuny</span></td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#c10">166</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdcs" colspan="2"><span class="smcap">By</span> ROYAL CORTISSOZ</td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdll"><span class="smcap">Personal Characteristics of Sir Seymour<br /> + Haden, P.R.E.</span></td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#c11">173</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdcs" colspan="2"><span class="smcap">By</span> FREDERICK KEPPEL</td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdll"><span class="smcap">The Water-Colors and Drawings of Sir<br /> +Seymour Haden, P.R.E.</span></td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#c12">196</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdcs" colspan="2"><span class="smcap">By</span> H. NAZEBY HARRINGTON</td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdll"><span class="smcap">Meryon and Baudelaire</span></td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#c13">204</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdcs" colspan="2"><span class="smcap">By</span> WILLIAM ASPENWALL BRADLEY</td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdll"><span class="smcap">Félix Bracquemond: An Etcher of Birds</span></td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#c14">220</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdcs" colspan="2"><span class="smcap">By</span> FRANK WEITENKAMPF</td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdll"><span class="smcap">Auguste Lepère</span></td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#c15">228</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdcs" colspan="2"><span class="smcap">By</span> ELISABETH LUTHER CARY</td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdll"><span class="smcap">Herman A. Webster</span></td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#c16">239</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdcs" colspan="2"><span class="smcap">By</span> MARTIN HARDIE</td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdll"><span class="smcap">Anders Zorn—Painter-Etcher</span></td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#c17">259</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdcs" colspan="2"><span class="smcap">By</span> J. NILSEN LAURVIK</td></tr> + +</table> + +<hr class="full x-ebookmaker-drop" /> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_ix">[Pg ix]</span></p> + +<p class="ph2">LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS</p> +</div> + +<table> + +<tr> + <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Profile Bust of a Young Woman</span></td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f1"><i>Frontispiece</i></a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdl"></td> + <td class="tdr"><span class="med">FACING PAGE</span></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Dürer.</span> Portrait of Albert Dürer, aged 56</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f3">2</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">The Four Riders of the Apocalypse</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f4">3</a></td></tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">The Whore of Babylon, Seated upon the Beast with<br /> + Seven Heads and Ten Horns </td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#f5">4</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">Christ Bearing His Cross</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f6">5</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">The Resurrection</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f7">6</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">Samson and the Lion</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f8">7</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">The Annunciation to Joachim </td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f9">8</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">The Annunciation</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f10">9</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">The Flight into Egypt</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f11">10</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">The Assumption and Crowning of the Virgin</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f12">11</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">St. Jerome in his Cell</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f13">12</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">The Holy Family</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f14">13</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">Saint Christopher </td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f15">14</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">The Virgin with the Many Angels</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f16">15</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Bartolommeo di Giovanni.</span> Triumph of Bacchus and<br /> + Ariadne</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#f17">18</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Botticelli.</span> The Assumption of the Virgin</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f18">19</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Finiguerra School.</span> The Libyan Sibyl</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f19">20</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Finiguerra School.</span> The Libyan Sibyl</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f20">21</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Maso Finiguerra.</span> The Planet Mercury</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f21">22</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Finiguerra School.</span> A Young Man and Woman Each<br /> + Holding an Apple</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#f22">23</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Antonio Pollaiuolo.</span> Battle of Naked Men</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f23">24</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Cristofano Robetta.</span> The Adoration of the Magi</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f24">25</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Andrea Mantegna.</span> The Risen Christ between St. Andrew<br /> + and St. Longinus</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#f25">26</a><span class="pagenum" id="Page_x">[Pg x]</span></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Zoan Andrea</span> (?). Four Women Dancing</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f26">27</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Nicoletto da Modena.</span> The Adoration of the Shepherds</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f27">28</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Jacopo de ’Barbari.</span> Apollo and Diana</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f28">29</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Giulio Campagnola.</span> St. John the Baptist</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f29">30</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Giulio and Domenico Campagnola.</span> Shepherds in a<br /> Landscape</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#f30">31</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Claude Mellan.</span> Portrait of Michel de Marolles, Abbé<br /> + de Villeloin</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#f31">38</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Nanteuil.</span> Portrait of Michel de Marolles, Abbé de<br /> + Villeloin</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#f32">39</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">Jules, Cardinal Mazarin</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f33">42</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">Louis XIV</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f34">43</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Claude Mellan.</span> Agatha Castiglione</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f35">50</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">Claude de Marolles</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f36">51</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Morin.</span> Louis XIII, King of France</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f37">54</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">Anne of Austria, Regent of France</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f38">55</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">Cardinal Richelieu</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f39">58</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">Pierre Maugis des Granges</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f40">59</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">Henri de Lorraine, Comte d’Harcourt</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f41">62</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">Guido, Cardinal Bentivoglio</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f42">63</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">Nicolas Chrystin</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f43">66</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">Antoine Vitré</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f44">67</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">Jean-François-Paul de Gondi</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f45">68</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">Omer Talon</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f46">69</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Nanteuil.</span> Louis XIV</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f47">76</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">Anne of Austria, Queen of France</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f48">77</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">Jules, Cardinal Mazarin</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f49">78</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">Bernard de Foix de la Valette, Duc d’Epernon</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f50">79</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">Jean Loret</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f51">82</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">François de la Mothe le Vayer</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f52">83</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">Nicolas Fouquet</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f53">86</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">Basile Fouquet</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f54">87</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">Jean Chapelain</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f55">88</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">Pompone de Bellièvre</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f56">89</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">Henri de la Tour d’Auvergne, Vicomte de Turenne,<br /> + Maréchal de France</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#f57">90</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">Jean-Baptiste Colbert</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f58">91</a><span class="pagenum" id="Page_xi">[Pg xi]</span></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Rembrandt.</span> The Windmill</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f59">96</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">View of Amsterdam</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f60">97</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">The Three Trees</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f61">102</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">Six’s Bridge</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f62">103</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">Landscape with a Boat in the Canal</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f63">104</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">Farm with Trees and a Tower</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f64">105</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">The Gold-weigher’s Field</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f65">106</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">Landscape with a Milkman</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f66">107</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">F. Polanzani.</span> Portrait of Giovanni Battista Piranesi</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f67">112</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Piranesi.</span> Arch of Septimius Severus</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f68">113</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">Arch of Vespasian</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f69">114</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">Arch of Trajan at Benevento, in the Kingdom of Naples</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f70">115</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">The Basilica, Pæstum</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f71">116</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">The Temple of Neptune at Pæstum</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f72">117</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">The Temple of Concord</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f73">118</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">Site of the Ancient Roman Forum</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f74">119</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">View of the “Campo Vaccino”</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f75">120</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">The Arch of Titus</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f76">121</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">The Arch of Titus</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f77">122</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">Façade of St. John Lateran</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f78">123</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">View of the Ruins of the Golden House of Nero,<br /> Commonly + Called the Temple of Peace</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#f79">124</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">Interior of the Pantheon, Rome</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f80">125</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">Piazza Navona, Rome</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f81">126</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">Interior of the Villa of Mæcenas, at Tivoli</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f82">127</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">The Temple of Apollo, near Tivoli</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f83">128</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">The Falls at Tivoli</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f84">129</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">The Falls at Tivoli</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f85">130</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">St. Peter’s and the Vatican</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f86">131</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">The Villa d’Este at Tivoli</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f87">132</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">Title-page of “The Prisons”</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f88">133</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">The Prisons. Plate III</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f89">134</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">The Prisons. Plate IV</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f90">135</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">The Prisons. Plate V</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f91">136</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">The Prisons. Plate VI</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f92">137</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">The Prisons. Plate IX</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f93">138</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">The Prisons. Plate VII</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f94">139</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">The Prisons. Plate VIII</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f95">140</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">The Prisons. Plate XI</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f96">141</a><span class="pagenum" id="Page_xii">[Pg xii]</span></td></tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">The Prisons. Plate XIII</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f97">142</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">The Prisons. Plate XIV</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f98">143</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Francesco Piranesi.</span> Statue of Piranesi</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f99">146</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Piranesi.</span> Antique Marble Vase</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f100">147</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">Section of one of the Sides of the Great Room, or Library,<br /> + of Earl Mansfield’s Villa at Kenwood. Engraved<br /> + by I. Zucchi</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#f101">148</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">Ionic Order of the Anteroom, with the rest of the Detail<br /> + of that Room at Sion House, the Seat of the Duke<br /> + of Northumberland in the County of Middlesex. Engraved<br /> + by Piranesi</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#f102">149</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">Title-page to “Il Campo Marzio dell’Antica Roma”</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f103">150</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">Upper left-hand Portion, bearing a Dedication to Robert<br /> + Adam, of Piranesi’s etched plan of the Campus<br /> + Martius</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#f104">151</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Goya.</span> Portrait of Goya, drawn and etched by himself</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f105">154</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">The Dead Branch</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f106">155</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">Back to his Ancestors!</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f107">156</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">“Birds of a Feather Flock Together”</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f108">157</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">They have Kidnapped her</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f109">158</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">“Bon Voyage!”</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f110">159</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">The Infuriated Stallion</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f111">160</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">The Bird-Men</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f112">161</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">Good Advice</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f113">162</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">God Forgive her—It’s her own Mother!</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f114">163</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">Love and Death</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f115">164</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">Hunting for Teeth</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f116">165</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Fortuny.</span> Arab watching beside the Dead Body of his<br /> + Friend</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#f117">166</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">Idyll</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f118">167</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">The Serenade</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f119">168</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">A Moroccan Seated</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f120">169</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">A Horse of Morocco</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f121">170</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">Interior of the Church of Saint Joseph, Madrid</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f122">171</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Portrait of Seymour Haden.</span> At the Age of Sixty-two.<br /> + By C. W. Sherborn</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#f123">174</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Haden.</span> Portrait of Seymour Haden etched by himself at<br /> + the Age of Forty-four</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#f124">175</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">Portrait of Sir Seymour Haden. By A. Legros</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f125">176</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">Woodcote Manor. By Percy Thomas</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f126">177</a><span class="pagenum" id="Page_xiii">[Pg xiii]</span></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">Reproduction of a Page of Manuscript in the<br /> + Handwriting of Sir Seymour Haden</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#f127">178</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">Facsimile of the Certificate of Seymour Haden’s Candidacy<br /> + for Membership in the Athenæum Club</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#f128">179</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">Whistler’s House, Old Chelsea</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f129">180</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">Battersea Reach</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f130">181</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">Out of Study Window</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f131">182</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">Thomas Haden of Derby</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f132">183</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Portrait of Seymour Haden</span> in 1882 (photograph)</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f133">184</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Portrait of Sir Seymour Haden.</span> By J. Wells Champney</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f134">185</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">Mytton Hall</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f135">186</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">On the Test</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f136">187</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">A By-road in Tipperary</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f137">188</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">A Sunset in Ireland</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f138">189</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">A Lancashire River</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f139">190</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">Sawley Abbey</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f140">191</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">The Breaking-up of the Agamemnon</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f141">192</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">Calais Pier</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f142">193</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">An Early Riser</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f143">194</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">Harlech</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f144">195</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">Salmon Pool on the Spey</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f145">198</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">Old Oaks, Chatsworth</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f146">199</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">Course of the Ribble below Preston</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f147">200</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">Dinkley Ferry</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f148">201</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">Encombe Woods</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f149">202</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">An Elderly Couple, Chatsworth Park</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f150">203</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Bracquemond.</span> Frontispiece for “Les Fleurs du Mal” of<br /> + Baudelaire</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#f151">206</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Portrait of Charles Baudelaire.</span> By Bracquemond</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f152">207</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Portrait of Charles Meryon.</span> By Bracquemond</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f153">208</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Meryon.</span> Le Pont au Change</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f154">209</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">Le Petit Pont</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f155">210</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Portrait of Charles Meryon.</span> By Flameng</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f156">211</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Bracquemond.</span> Ducks at Play</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f157">220</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">A Flock of Teal Alighting</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f158">221</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">Pheasants at Dawn: Morning Mists</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f159">222</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">The Bather (Canards Surpris)</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f160">223</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">Geese in a Storm</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f161">224</a><span class="pagenum" id="Page_xiv">[Pg xiv]</span></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">Sea-gulls</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f162">225</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">The Old Cock</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f163">226</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">Swallows in Flight</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f164">227</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Lepère.</span> Rheims Cathedral</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f165">228</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">Belle Matinée. Automne</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f166">229</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">Vue du Port de la Meule</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f167">230</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">Peupliers Tétards</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f168">231</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">Le Moulin des Chapelles</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f169">234</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">A Gentilly</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f170">234</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">La Chaumière du Vieux Pecheur</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f171">235</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">Le Nid</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f172">235</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">Provins</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f173">236</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">L’Eglise de Jouy le Moutier</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f174">236</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">L’Enfant Prodigue</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f175">237</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Webster.</span> St. Ouen, Rouen</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f176">240</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">La Rue Grenier sur l’Eau, Paris</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f177">241</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">Quai Montebello</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f178">242</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">Le Pont Neuf, Paris</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f179">243</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">La Rue Cardinale</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f180">244</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">La Rue de la Parcheminerie, Paris</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f181">245</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">St. Saturnin, Toulouse</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f182">246</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">Ancienne Faculté de Médecine, Paris</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f183">247</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">Notre Dame des Andelys</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f184">248</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">Port des Marmousets, St. Ouen, Rouen</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f185">249</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">Vieilles Maisons, Rue Hautefeuille, Paris</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f186">250</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">La Route de Louviers</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f187">251</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">Bendergasse, Frankfort</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f188">252</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">Cortlandt Street, New York</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f189">253</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">Lowenplätzchen, Frankfort</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f190">254</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">Der Langer Franz, Frankfort</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f191">255</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">The Old Bridge, Frankfort</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f192">256</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">La Rue St. Jacques, Paris</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f193">257</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Zorn.</span> Portrait of the Artist and his Wife</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f194">260</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">The Waltz</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f195">261</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">Madame Simon</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f196">262</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">Ernest Renan</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f197">263</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">August Strindberg</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f198">264</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">Sunday Morning in Dalecarlia</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f199">265</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">The Bather, Seated</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f200">266</a></td></tr> + +<tr> + <td class="tdlp">Edo</td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#f201">267</a></td></tr> + +</table> + + + +<hr class="full x-ebookmaker-drop" /> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p class="ph2">PREFACE</p> +</div> + + +<p class="drop-cap">“GOOD wine needs no bush,” and these essays need +no commendatory word from the Editor. The +plan of this book is a simple one. Certain lovers +of prints have been asked to write on the engravers, +etchers, or periods which chiefly interest them and upon +which they are best qualified to speak; and, furthermore, +to treat their special subjects in their own way. +So far as subject matter is concerned, the essays are +grouped approximately in chronological order, and the +reader may range from Italian engravers before the +time of Raphael and woodcuts by Albrecht Dürer to +contemporary etchings by Zorn, Lepère, and Herman +A. Webster. Throughout the essays one dominant note +will be found—a sincere love of Prints and an interest +in their Makers.</p> + +<p class="r large"><span class="smcap">FitzRoy Carrington.</span></p> + +<p class="l">New York,</p> + +<p>September, 1912.</p> +<hr class="full x-ebookmaker-drop" /> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="c1">DÜRER’S WOODCUTS</h2> +</div> + +<p class="c"><span class="smcap">By</span> CAMPBELL DODGSON, M.A.</p> + +<p class="c more">Keeper of Prints and Drawings in the British Museum<br /> +Author of the Catalogue of German and Flemish Woodcuts in the British<br /> +Museum and Honorary Secretary of the Dürer Society</p> + + +<p class="drop-cap">THE first decade of the twentieth century lies +not very far behind us, but perhaps it is not +too soon to assert that one of its marked features, +in the retrospect of a print-lover, is a great +revival or extension of interest in every form of +engraving among cultivated people who are not specialists. +Increased attention has been paid, among +other things, to the German woodcuts of the fifteenth +and sixteenth centuries, which used to be rather +despised by the old-fashioned nineteenth-century collector, +with a few enlightened exceptions, as rough +and ugly old things which were curious as specimens +of antiquity or instructive as illustrations of +the life and religion of the generations that produced +them, but were not to be taken very seriously +as works of art. That estimate is being revised. A +generation no longer blinded to the merits of primitive +art by the worship of Raphael and the antique is +ever tapping fresh sources of delight and enriching +itself by the perception of beauty where its fathers +saw nought but the grotesque and quaint. It is not +surprising, indeed, that German art has made slower +progress than Italian on the road to popularity. Even<span class="pagenum" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</span> +the primitives, on the south side of the Alps, shared in +the winning grace and suavity of the old Mediterranean +culture, while their brethren in the North, the +French excepted, were indisputably more rugged and +barbarous in draughtsmanship and painting, and few +of their engravers, except Schongauer, can vie with +the Florentines if their achievements are judged by +the test of formal beauty. But it is wonderful how, +in the North, now and again, art could suddenly blossom +and ripen under the creative impulse of an innovator, +whose successors, rather than the pioneer +himself, lay themselves open to the charge of angularity +and uncouthness. The perfection of the very +earliest printed books is a commonplace. Less generally +known, perhaps, is the great beauty to which +the earliest of all the German engravers known to us +at all as a personality, though not by name, was capable +of attaining. The “Master of the Playing-Cards,” +who was at work about 1430-40, produced work of +extraordinary charm, not only in some of the figures, +animals and flowers of the playing-cards themselves, +but especially in the large engraving of the Virgin +Mary with the human-headed serpent, or Lilith, beneath +her feet, which is one of the most splendid and +mature creations of the fifteenth century. Then, again, +the early book illustrators of Augsburg and Ulm, in +the seventies, when the use of blocks for such a purpose +had only recently come in, produced woodcuts +that were never surpassed by any successors in their +simple and direct vivacity and strength, with the utmost +economy of line. But the real beauty of some of +the much earlier single woodcuts, illustrating, chiefly, +the legends of Our Lady and the Saints, has been +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</span>much less generally appreciated. They are very rare, +and most of them repose, in a seclusion seldom disturbed, +in their boxes in the great European print-rooms +or even in monastic libraries. They are only +beginning to be reproduced, and they are rarely exhibited. +But such an exhibition of the earliest German +woodcuts as was held at Berlin in the summer of +1908 was truly a revelation. The soft and rounded +features, the flowing lines of the drapery, in the prints +of the generation before sharp, broken folds were introduced +under the influence of the Netherlands, have +something of the charm of Far Eastern art, and the +gay coloring with which most of the prints were finished +has often a delightfully decorative effect when +they are framed and hung at a proper distance from +the eye. Such praise is due, of course, only to some of +the choicer examples; there are plenty of fifteenth-century +woodcuts in which the line is merely clumsy +and the coloring merely gaudy, but these are more +often products of the last quarter of the century than +of its beginning or middle. It would not be true to +say that the advance of time brought with it progress +and perfection in the woodcutter’s art; on the contrary, +the first vital impulse spent itself all too soon, +and gave way to thoughtless and unintelligent imitation.</p> + +<div class="figcenter1" id="f3"> +<p class="caption">Albrecht Dürer Conterfeyt in seinem alter<br /> +Des L V I. Jares.</p> +<img src="images/fig3.jpg" alt="" /> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Dürer. Portrait of Albert Dürer, aged 56</span></p> +<p class="caption">The rare second state (of 3 states) before the monogram of<br /> +Dürer and the date 1527</p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original woodcut, 12¾ × 10 inches</p> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter1" id="f4"> +<a href="images/fig4big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig4.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Dürer. The Four Riders of the Apocalypse</span></p> +<p class="caption">From “The Apocalypse”<br /> +Size of the original woodcut, 15¼ × 11 inches</p> +</div> + + +<p>What was the state of things when Dürer appeared +upon the scene? He did so long before the close of the +fifteenth century, for his first authenticated woodcut +is an illustration to St. Jerome’s Epistles, printed at +Basle in 1492. Whether he or an unknown artist is +responsible for a large number of other illustrations +produced at Basle about 1493-95, is a question about<span class="pagenum" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</span> +which no consensus of opinion has been formed, and +this is not the place to discuss it. All the woodcuts +that the world knows and esteems as Dürer’s were produced +at Nuremberg after his return from the first +Venetian journey (1495). Let us see, for a moment, how +they stand comparison with what had gone before +them. The older woodcuts are nearly all anonymous, and +if they bear any signature, it is that of a woodcutter +(Formschneider or Briefmaler) who was a craftsman +allied to the joiner, rather than the painter. Just before +Dürer’s time the painter begins to make his appearance +on the scene as a designer of woodcuts. +There are a few isolated cases in which the almost +universal rule of anonymity is broken, and we learn +from the preface to a book the name of the artist who +designed the illustrations. Breydenbach’s “Travels +to the Holy Land” (Mainz, 1486) was illustrated by +woodcuts after Erhard Reuwich, or Rewich, a native +of Utrecht, who had accompanied the author on his +journey, and the immense number of woodcuts in the +“Nuremberg Chronicle” by Hartmann Schedel (1493) +were the work of the painters Wohlgemuth and Pleydenwurff; +to whom the much finer illustrations of the +“Schatzbehalter” (1491) may also safely be attributed. +It is now almost universally believed that the “Master +of the Hausbuch,” one of Dürer’s most gifted predecessors +in the art of engraving on copper, was also +a prolific illustrator, the principal work assigned to +him being the numerous illustrations in the “Spiegel +der menschlichen Behaltnis” printed by Peter Drach +at Speyer about 1478-80. There are speculations, +more or less ill-founded, about the illustrators of a few +other woodcut books of the fifteenth century, but I believe +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</span>it is true that the first book after those already +named in which the artist’s name is settled beyond +doubt is Dürer’s “Apocalypse” of 1498.</p> + +<div class="figcenter1" id="f5"> +<a href="images/fig5big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig5.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Dürer. The Whore of Babylon, Seated upon the Beast with Seven<br /> +Heads and Ten Horns</span></p> +<p class="caption">From “The Apocalypse”<br /> +Size of the original woodcut, 15¼ × 11 inches</p> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter1" id="f6"> +<a href="images/fig6big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig6.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Dürer. Christ Bearing His Cross</span></p> +<p class="caption">From “The Great Passion”<br /> +Size of the original woodcut, 15¼ × 11⅛ inches</p> +</div> + + +<p>Dr. Naumann, the editor of a recent facsimile of the +cuts in the Speyer book just mentioned, claims for the +“Hausbuchmeister” that he was the first painter, or +painter-engraver, who attempted to get the most out +of the craftsmen employed in cutting blocks from his +designs. That is rather a speculative opinion, and the +woodcuts in question are not, from the technical point +of view, superior to many other contemporary illustrations. +But there can be no question that Dürer +effected an immense reform in this respect, and +carried the technique of wood-engraving to a perfection +unparalleled in its previous history. Not by his +own handiwork, for there is no reason to suppose that +Dürer ever cut his blocks himself. All the evidence +points, on the contrary, to his having followed the +universal practice of the time, according to which the +designer drew the composition in all detail upon the +wood block, and employed a professional engraver to +cut the block, preserving all the lines intact, and cutting +away the spaces between them, so that the result +was a facsimile of the drawing as accurate as the +craftsman was capable of making it. Dürer set his +engravers, we may be sure, a harder task than they +had ever had to grapple with before, and he must +have succeeded in gradually training a man, or +group of men, on whom he could rely to preserve +his drawing in all its delicacy and intricate complexity. +This was a work of time, and perfection +was not reached till after Dürer’s return from his +second journey to Venice, when a great increase<span class="pagenum" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</span> +of refinement on the technical side becomes noticeable, +culminating in that extraordinary performance, +the <i>Holy Trinity</i> woodcut of 1511. But even +in the large fifteenth-century blocks, the “Apocalypse,” +the earlier portion of the “Great Passion” +and the contemporary single subjects, much cross-hatching +is used and the space is filled with detail to +an extent hitherto unknown. Without ever losing +sight of the general decorative effect, the telling pattern +of black and white, Dürer put in a vast amount +of interesting little things, with the conscientiousness +and care that characterized everything that he did, +and every detail of the leaves of a thistle or fern, or +of the elaborate ornament, birds and flowers and foliage +and rams’ heads, on the base of a Gothic candle-stick, +had to be reproduced so that the crisp clearness +of the original pen-drawing lost nothing of its precision. +The result was a work so perfectly complete +in black and white, as it stood, that nobody ever +thought of coloring it, and that in itself was a great +innovation and advance. The fifteenth-century “Illuminirer,” +or the patron who gave him his orders, +seems to have had an instinctive respect for excellent +and highly finished work in black and white, which +made him leave it alone. Line-engravings of the +fifteenth century are very frequently found colored, +but they are usually quite second-rate specimens, and +prints by the great men, such as the “Master E. S.” and +Schongauer, were respected and left alone. But such +consideration was not often shown to woodcuts, which +were frequently colored, especially when used as illustrations, +well into the sixteenth century. It was very +rarely, however, that any illuminator laid profane +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</span>hands on anything of Dürer’s, woodcut or engraving, +and when he did so the result is stupid and disagreeable, +for it is always the work of a later generation, out +of touch with Dürer’s genius.</p> + +<div class="figcenter1" id="f7"> +<a href="images/fig7big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig7.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Dürer. The Resurrection</span></p> +<p class="caption">From “The Great Passion”<br /> +Size of the original woodcut, 15⅜ × 10⅞ inches</p> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter1" id="f8"> +<a href="images/fig8big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig8.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Dürer. Samson and the Lion</span></p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original woodcut, 15 × 10⅞ inches</p> +</div> + + +<p>It may be said that if Dürer and his contemporaries +did not cut their own blocks, the woodcuts are not +original prints by the masters themselves. It must be +conceded that they are not original prints quite in the +same sense as engravings and etchings, in which the +whole work was carried out upon the plate by the +masters’ own hand, but it would be a mistake to describe +them as examples of reproductive engraving. +Such a thing as a reproductive engraving was, in fact, +unknown in the Germany of Dürer’s time. A design +originally projected in one medium might be reproduced +in another in a case where an engraving by +Schongauer, or Meckenen, or Dürer himself, was +copied by some inferior woodcutter, as an act of +piracy, for a bookseller who was too stingy to pay an +artist to draw him a new Virgin or Saint for his purpose. +But it would never have occurred to any one to +reproduce an engraving or woodcut, a picture or drawing, +done for its own sake, as a separate and complete +work of art. Reproductions of pictures scarcely exist +in German art of the sixteenth century; they are +commoner in the Venetian School, among the woodcutters +influenced by Titian, and Rubens established +the practice once for all by his encouragement of engraving +from his pictures, a century after Dürer’s +time. But when woodcutting was taken up by the +German painters, with Dürer as their leader, for the +purpose of circulating their compositions at a cheaper +price than they could charge for engravings of their<span class="pagenum" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</span> +own, they always had a strictly legitimate object according +to the canons of graphic art. Rarely working +even from sketches, never from a work already +finished in another medium, they drew the subjects +intended for printing directly upon the block in a +technique adapted for the purpose, avoiding such +combinations of lines as the most skilful craftsmen +would be unable to cut. Their actual handiwork was +preserved upon the surface of the block, much as in +the modern original lithograph the artist’s actual +work survives upon the surface of the stone; if it was +in any way disfigured, as often, no doubt, it was, that +must be set down to failure on the cutter’s part. Anything +original that the cutter puts in, any swerving +that accident or clumsiness permits him to make from +the line fixed by the painter’s pen for him to follow, +is a blemish, and the best woodcuts of Dürer, Holbein, +Baldung, Cranach, Burgkmair and the rest of their +generation have no such blemishes. They are strictly +autographic: the lines that the artist’s pen has traced +remain and are immortalized by the printing-press; +the white spaces, also limited by his controlling will +and purpose, result from the mere mechanical cutting +away of blank wood that any neat-handed workman +can perform. So when we speak of the woodcuts of +Millais, Rossetti, Whistler, Walker, Pinwell, Sandys +and the rest of the “Men of the Sixties,” we know +that the blocks were cut by Dalziel or Swain, but +every good print is none the less what the designer +meant it to be, and what none but himself could have +made it.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" id="f9"> +<a href="images/fig9big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig9.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Dürer. The Annunciation to Joachim</span></p> +<p class="caption">From “The Life of the Virgin”<br /> +Size of the original woodcut, 11⅝ × 8³/₁₆ inches</p> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter1" id="f10"> +<a href="images/fig10big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig10.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Dürer. The Annunciation</span></p> +<p class="caption">From “The Life of the Virgin”<br /> +Size of the original woodcut, 11⅝ × 8¼ inches</p> +</div> + + +<p>Of Dürer’s woodcutters, unluckily, we know nothing +till the comparatively late period when he had +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</span>been enlisted in the service of the Emperor Maximilian, +whose imposing, but somewhat ponderous and +pedantic, <i>Triumphal Arch</i> was cut from the designs +of Dürer and his school by Hieronymus Andreä. +There is much more information about the +Augsburg cutters than about those of Nuremberg, and +there is no single artist in the latter city whose work +is so strongly marked out by its excellence from that +of his contemporaries as was Lützelburger’s, who cut +Holbein’s “Dance of Death.”</p> + +<p>To understand Dürer’s woodcuts aright, it is necessary +to get to know them in their chronological sequence. +In conservative collections, where they are +arranged by order of subject, on the system of +Bartsch, the student is continually confused by the +juxtaposition of quite incongruous pieces, placed together +merely because “Jérôme,” for instance, comes +in alphabetical order next after “Jean.” The British +Museum collection has been arranged for more than +ten years past in chronological order, which, in +Dürer’s case, is unusually easy to determine with approximate +accuracy, because his methodical turn of +mind caused him to be fond of dates, while the undated +pieces can be fitted in without much difficulty +by the evidence of style. The justification of the system +became all the more apparent when the woodcuts +were exhibited for a few months in 1909, and fell +naturally into consistent and coherent groups upon +the screens, while separated, as a matter of practical +convenience, from the engravings. Since then two even +more interesting experiments have been made, in exhibitions +held at Liverpool and Bremen, toward a +reconstruction of Dürer’s entire life-work in its<span class="pagenum" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</span> +chronological sequence, his pictures, drawings, engravings +and woodcuts—represented mainly, of +course, by reproductions—being merged in a single +series. That is a timely warning against the risks of +excessive concentration upon one single side of his +many activities, but here we will not digress further +from the woodcuts, which are at present our theme.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" id="f11"> +<a href="images/fig11big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig11.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Dürer. The Flight into Egypt</span></p> +<p class="caption">From “The Life of the Virgin”<br /> +Size of the original woodcut, 11⅝ × 8¼ inches</p> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter1" id="f12"> +<a href="images/fig12big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig12.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Dürer. The Assumption and Crowning of the Virgin</span></p> +<p class="caption">From “The Life of the Virgin”<br /> +Size of the original woodcut, 11½ × 8⅛ inches</p> +</div> + + +<p>The series opens magnificently with the group of +large and stately woodcuts, abounding in vitality and +dramatic invention, produced by Dürer between 1495 +and 1500. These include the fifteen subjects of the +“Apocalypse,” the seven early subjects of the “Great +Passion” (not completed until 1510-11) and seven +detached pieces uniform with the two series already +named in dimensions and style, but independent of +them in subject. The blocks of the majority of these +single pieces are now, by the way, in an American +collection, that of Mr. Junius S. Morgan, but they +have suffered sadly from the ravages of the worm. +There is a certain exaggeration and over-emphasis of +gesture in the “Apocalypse” woodcuts, but Dürer +never invented anything more sublime than the celebrated +<i>Four Riders</i> or the <i>St. Michael defeating the +Rebel Angels</i>, which I regard as at least equal to the +subject more frequently praised. Superb, too, is the +group of <i>Angels restraining the Four Winds</i>. The +landscape at the foot of <i>St. John’s Vision of the Four-and-twenty +Elders</i> (B. 63) is a complete picture by +itself, and there is a rare early copy of this portion +alone, which is itself a beautiful print, and doubtless +the earliest pure landscape woodcut in existence. +<i>Samson and the Lion</i>, the mysteriously named <i>Ercules</i> +and the <i>Knight and Man-at-arms</i>, often described as +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</span>its companion, and the <i>Martyrdom of St. Catherine</i> +are among the finest of the single subjects. After this +tremendously impressive group, there is for a time a +certain relaxation of energy, or rather Dürer was +more bent on other things, especially engraving. To +the years 1500-04 belong a number of woodcuts of +Holy Families and Saints, much smaller than the +“Apocalypse,” and rather roughly cut. Some critics +have wished to dismiss one or another of them as +pupils’ work, but for this there is really no justification. +Then comes another very good period, that of +the “Life of the Virgin,” of which set Dürer had +finished seventeen subjects before he left for Venice +in 1505, while the <i>Death of the Virgin</i> and <i>The Assumption</i> +were added in 1510, and the frontispiece in +1511, when the whole work came out as a book, assuredly +one of the most desirable picture-books the +world has ever seen! It is impossible to weary of the +beautiful compositions, the details drawn with such +loving care, the tender and homely sentiment, the +humor, even, displayed in the accessory figures of +<i>The Embrace of Joachim and Anne</i>, the beer-drinking +gossips in the <i>Birth of the Virgin</i>, where the atmosphere +of St. Anne’s chamber is sweetened by an angelic +thurifer, and the merry group of angelic children +playing round Joseph, bent on his carpenter’s +business, while their elders keep solemn watch round +Mary at her distaff and the Holy Child in the cradle. +We find landscapes at least as beautiful as those in +Dürer’s best engravings in the pastoral background +of the <i>Annunciation to Joachim</i> and the mountainous +distance of the <i>Visitation</i>. The architectural setting +of the <i>Presentation of Christ in the Temple</i>, and the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</span> +tall cross held aloft, with the happiest effect on the +composition, by the Apostle kneeling on the left in +Mary’s death-chamber, are among the memorable +features of the set.</p> + +<p>Beautiful again, especially in fine proofs, is the next +and latest of the long sets, the “Little Passion,” consisting +of thirty-six subjects and a title-page, begun +in 1509 and finished, like all the other books, in 1511. +But it has not the monumental grandeur of the earlier +religious sets, and there is an inevitable monotony +about the incessant recurrence of the figure of Our +Lord, when the history of the Passion is set forth in +such detail. The most original and impressive subjects, +in my opinion, are <i>Christ Appearing to St. +Mary Magdalen</i> and the next following it, <i>The Supper +at Emmaus</i>.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" id="f13"> +<a href="images/fig13big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig13.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Dürer. St. Jerome in his Cell</span></p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original woodcut, 9¼ × 6¼ inches</p> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter1" id="f14"> +<a href="images/fig14big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig14.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Dürer. The Holy Family</span></p> +<p class="caption">St. Anne, attended by St. Joseph and St. Joachim, receiving from<br /> +His Mother the Infant Jesus</p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original woodcut, 9¼ × 6⅛ inches</p> +</div> + + +<p>The years 1510 and 1511 were the most prolific of +all, and witnessed the publication of other connected +pieces, the <i>Beheading of John the Baptist</i> and <i>Salome +bringing the Baptist’s Head to Herod</i>, and then the +three little woodcuts, <i>Christ on the Cross</i>, <i>Death and +the Soldier</i>, and <i>The Schoolmaster</i>, which Dürer +brought out on large sheets at the head of his own +verses, signed with a large monogram at the end of all. +The single sheets of 1511 include, besides the marvelous +<i>Trinity</i> already mentioned, the large <i>Adoration +of the Magi</i>, the <i>Mass of St. Gregory</i>, a <i>St. Jerome +in his Cell</i>, which is the best, after the celebrated engraving +of 1514, of Dürer’s repeated versions of that +delightful subject; the <i>Cain and Abel</i>, which is one +of the great rarities; two rather unattractive <i>Holy +Families</i>; and the beautiful square <i>Saint Christopher</i>, +of which many fine impressions are extant to bear witness +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</span>to its technical virtues. The average level of all +the work of the year 1511 is so astonishingly high, that +it must be regarded as the culminating period of the +woodcuts, just as a slightly later time, the years +1513-14, witnesses the climax of the engravings. In +the next few years Dürer’s time was much taken up +with carrying out the emperor’s important but rather +tiresome commissions for the <i>Triumphal Arch</i> and +two <i>Triumphal Cars</i>, the small one which forms part +of the <i>Procession</i>, and the much bigger affair, with the +twelve horses and allegorical retinue, which did not +appear till 1522. All this group offers a rich field of +research to the antiquary, but is simply unintelligible +without a learned commentary, and appeals much less +than the sacred subjects to the average collector and +lover of art, who cannot unearth the heaps of pedantic +Latin and German literature in which the motives by +which Dürer was inspired, if I may use the word, lie +buried. Inspiration certainly flagged under the influence +of Wilibald Pirkheimer and other learned +humanists who encouraged Maximilian in his penchant +for allegory, and compelled Dürer, probably +somewhat against his will, to use a multitude of symbols, +intelligible only to the learned, instead of speaking +directly to the populace in the familiar pictorial +language derived from old tradition but enriched and +ennobled by his own matchless art.</p> + +<p>The later woodcuts are comparatively few in number. +They include a few that are primarily of scientific +interest, such as the celestial and terrestrial +globes and the armillary sphere, besides the numerous +illustrations to Dürer’s own works on Measurement, +Proportion, and Fortification. But among them are<span class="pagenum" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</span> +the two splendid portraits made from drawings now +in the Albertina, the <i>Emperor Maximilian</i> of 1518 and +the <i>Ulrich Varnbüler</i> of 1522. Of the former several +varieties exist, from no less than four different blocks, +and it is now established that the only original version +is the very rare one in which the letters “ae” of +the word “Caesar” are distinct, not forming a diphthong, +and placed within the large “C.” The other +cuts are all copies, produced probably at Augsburg, +the fine large one, with an ornamental frame and the +imperial arms supported by griffins, being indisputably +the work of Hans Weiditz. Only three impressions +of the original are known, in the British Museum, the +Berlin Kupferstichkabinett, and the Hofbibliothek at +Vienna, in addition to which the École des Beaux-Arts +at Paris possesses a fragment damaged by fire at the +time of the Commune, when it was still in private +hands. It is more generally known that the handsome +chiaroscuro impressions of the <i>Varnbüler</i> date, like +those of the <i>Rhinoceros</i>, from the seventeenth century, +the color blocks having been added in Holland. The +brown and green varieties belong to different editions, +distinguished by the wording of the publisher’s address +at the foot, which in the majority of cases has +been cut off.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" id="f15"> +<img src="images/fig15.jpg" alt="" /> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Dürer. Saint Christopher</span></p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original woodcut, 8⁵⁄₁₆ × 8¼ inches</p> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter1" id="f16"> +<a href="images/fig16big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig16.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Dürer. The Virgin with the many Angels</span></p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original woodcut, 11¹³/₁₆ × 8⅜ inches</p> +</div> + +<p>The <i>Virgin with the many Angels</i>, of 1518, is one +of Dürer’s most accomplished woodcuts, and quite +good impressions of it are comparatively common to-day. +The latest of his compositions of this class, the +<i>Holy Family with Angels</i>, of 1526, is, on the other +hand, extremely rare. Some critics doubt its being an +authentic work of Dürer, but in spite of certain rather +eccentric and unpleasant peculiarities in the drawing, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</span>I consider this scepticism unfounded. Quite at the +end of Dürer’s life comes that rather fascinating subject, +<i>The Siege of a Fortress</i>, unique among Dürer’s +woodcuts in the tiny scale on which its countless details +are drawn. Of the many heraldic woodcuts and +ex-libris attributed by Bartsch and others to Dürer, +very few can be regarded as his genuine work, and +most of these are very rare. The best authenticated +are his own coat of arms; the arms of Ferdinand I in +the book on Fortification; those of Michel Behaim, of +which the block is extant with a letter written by +Dürer on the back; the arms of Roggendorf, mentioned +in the Netherlands <i>Journal</i>, of which only one +impression is known, and the arms of Lorenz Staiber, +of which the original version is also unique. There +can be no doubt that the Ebner book-plate of 1516 +is by Dürer; the much earlier Pirkheimer book-plate +is intimately connected with the illustrations to the +books by Celtes, and cannot be regarded as a certain +work of the master himself, while the arms of Johann +Tschertte are also doubted.</p> + +<p>It is a fortunate circumstance for the museums and +collectors of to-day that Dürer’s prints have always +been esteemed, and his monogram was held in such +respect and so generally recognized as the mark of +something good that they have been preserved during +four centuries, while so much that was interesting was +allowed to perish because it was unsigned or its signature +was not recognized as the work of any one important. +It may be paradoxical to say that Dürers +are common; few of them are to be had at any particular +moment when one wants to get them; but they +are commoner than any other prints of their period,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</span> +and a large number of impressions of some subjects +must come into the market in the course of every ten +years. But the sort of Dürer the collector wants, the +really beautiful, fresh, clean impression, with the +right watermark and genuine, unbroken border-line, +is not, and never has been, common. It is surprising +how few, even of the famous museums of Europe, +have a really fine collection of the woodcuts, perhaps +because so many of them were formed some generations +ago in uncritical times, when people were apt to +think it enough if the subject was represented, in +whatever condition it might be. The first-rate proofs +are scarce, and getting scarcer every year; when they +are to be had, they should be grasped and treasured.</p> +<hr class="full x-ebookmaker-drop" /> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="c2">SOME EARLY ITALIAN ENGRAVERS<br /> +BEFORE THE TIME OF MARCANTONIO</h2> +</div> + +<p class="c"><span class="smcap">By</span> ARTHUR M. HIND</p> + +<p class="c more">Of the Department of Prints and Drawings, British Museum<br /> +Author of “Catalogue of Early Italian Engravings in the British Museum,”<br /> +“Short History of Engraving and Etching,” “Rembrandt’s Etchings:<br /> +an Essay and a Catalogue,” etc.</p> + + +<p class="drop-cap">FIFTEENTH-CENTURY Italian engraving is +not an easy hunting-ground for the collector, +but it is one of the most fascinating not less +for its own sake than for the difficulty of securing +one’s prize.</p> + +<p>From the time of Raphael onward Italian engraving +presents an overwhelmingly large proportion of +reproductions of pictures, and loses on that account +its primary interest. But in the fifteenth and the early +sixteenth century, the engravers, though for the most +part less accomplished craftsmen, were artists of real +independence. We may in some cases exaggerate this +independence through not knowing the sources which +they used, but the mere lack of that knowledge +adds a particular interest to their prints. Treated not +only in virtue of their special claim as engravings, but +merely as designs, we find something in them which +the paintings of the period do not offer us.</p> + +<p>In general, the presence and influence of one of the +greater artistic personalities of the time may be recognized, +but seldom definitely enough for us to trace the +painter’s immediate direction. Mantegna is the most<span class="pagenum" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</span> +brilliant exception of a painter of first rank who is +known to have handled the graver at this period. But +forgetting the great names it is remarkable how in the +early Renaissance in Italy even the secondary craftsmen +produced work of the same inexpressible charm +that pervades the great masterpieces.</p> + +<p>One of the most beautiful examples I can cite is the +<i>Triumph of Bacchus and Ariadne</i>, which is known +only in the British Museum impression. It has all +the fascination of Botticelli’s style without being +quite Botticelli—unless the engraver himself is to account +for the coarsening in the drawing of individual +forms. Mr. Herbert P. Horne, the great authority on +Botticelli and his school, thinks it is by Bartolommeo +di Giovanni (Berenson’s “Alunno di Domenico”). +But whether immediately after Botticelli or after some +minor artist of the school, there is the same delightful +flow and rhythmic motion in the design that one +thinks of in relation to Botticelli’s <i>Spring</i>.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" id="f17"> +<a href="images/fig17big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig17.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Triumph of Bacchus and Ariadne</span></p> +<p class="caption">After a design by a close follower of Botticelli, possibly by Bartolommeo di Giovanni</p> +<p class="caption1">“But whether immediately after Botticelli or after some minor artist of the school, there is the same +delightful flow and rhythmic motion in the design that one thinks of in relation to Botticelli’s <i>Spring</i>.... +We could ill afford to lose the charm of the early Florentine <i>Triumph of Bacchus and Ariadne</i> for all the +finished beauty of Marcantonio’s <i>Lucretia</i>, and it is still the youth of artistic development, with its naïve +joy and freshness of outlook, which holds us with the stronger spell.”<br /> <span class="pad">Arthur M. Hind.</span></p> +<p class="caption">Reproduced from the unique impression in the British Museum<br /> +Size of the original engraving, 8⅛ × 22 inches</p> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter1" id="f18"> +<a href="images/fig18big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig18.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">The Assumption of the Virgin</span></p> +<p class="caption">Florentine engraving, in the Broad Manner, after a design by Botticelli</p> +<p class="caption1">“Most important of all the contemporary engravings after Botticelli +is the <i>Assumption of the Virgin</i>.... An original study by Botticelli +for the figure of St. Thomas, who is receiving the girdle of +the Virgin, is in Turin, and clinches the argument in favor of +Botticelli’s authorship. The view of Rome, a record of Botticelli’s +visit, is an interesting feature of the landscape.” <span class="pad">Arthur M. Hind.</span></p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original engraving, 32⅝ × 22¼ inches</p> +</div> + +<p>Botticelli was in early life under the immediate +inspiration, if not in the very service, of the great +goldsmith Pollaiuolo (witness his picture of <i>Fortitude</i> +in Florence). One almost expects in consequence that +he may at some period have tried his hand at engraving, +but there is no proof that he did anything besides +supplying the engravers with designs. His chief connection +with the engravers was in the series of plates +done for Landino’s edition of Dante’s “Divine Comedy” +(Florence, 1481). Altogether nineteen plates +(and a repetition of one subject) are known, but although +spaces are left throughout the whole edition +for an illustration to each canto, it is only in rare +copies that more than two or three are found. Even +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</span>the fine presentation copy to Lorenzo de’ Medici (now +in the National Library, Florence) is without a single +plate, showing perhaps the small regard that was paid +to engraving for book decoration at that period. This +lack of appreciation and the difficulties (or double +labor) the printers experienced in combining copperplate +impressions with type led soon after this and a +few other experiments of the period to the use of +woodcut as the regular mode of book illustration for +well over a century. Apart from the plates to this +edition, Botticelli’s devotion to Dante is shown in +the beautiful series of pen drawings—in the most +subtly expressive outline—preserved at Berlin and in +the Vatican. It seems on the whole probable that they +are later than the 1481 edition, so that we cannot point +to the original drawings for the prints.</p> + +<p>Most important of all the contemporary engravings +after Botticelli is the <i>Assumption of the Virgin</i>, the +largest of all the prints of the period (printed from +two plates, and measuring altogether about 82.5 × 56 +cm.). An original study by Botticelli for the figure +of St. Thomas, who is receiving the girdle of the Virgin, +is in Turin, and clinches the argument in favor of +Botticelli’s authorship. The view of Rome, a record +of Botticelli’s visit, is an interesting feature of the +landscape.</p> + +<p>This engraving is produced in what has been called +the <span class="smcap">Broad Manner</span> in contradistinction to the <span class="smcap">Fine +Manner</span>, e.g. of the <i>Dante</i> prints. In the <span class="smcap">Broad Manner</span> +the lines are laid chiefly in open parallels, and +generally the shading is emphasized with a lighter +return stroke laid at a small angle between the parallels. +Its aim is essentially the imitation of pen drawing<span class="pagenum" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</span> +after the manner of such draughtsmen as Pollaiuolo +and Mantegna. The <span class="smcap">Fine Manner</span> on the other +hand shows shading in close cross-hatching (somewhat +patchy and cloudy in effect in most of the early Florentine +prints), and gives the appearance of imitating +a wash drawing.</p> + +<p>The two manners may be well compared in the +series of “Prophets and Sibyls,” which exists in two +versions, the earlier being in the Fine, and the later +in the Broad Manner. The first series shows a craftsman +who drew largely from German sources (putting +a <i>St. John</i> of the Master E. S. into the habit of the +<i>Libyan Sibyl</i>). In the second we have an artist who +discarded all the ugly and awkward features which +originated in the German originals, and showed +throughout a far truer feeling for beauty and a much +finer power of draughtsmanship than the earlier engraver. +Mr. Herbert Horne suspects, rightly I think, +that Botticelli himself directly inspired this transformation +of the “Prophets and Sibyls.”</p> + +<p>Through our lack of knowledge of the engravers of +this early period in Florence we are driven to a rather +constant use of the somewhat unattractive distinctions +of the Fine and Broad Manners. We may claim, +however, to have advanced a little further in the elucidation +of questions of authorship, though the great +German authority on this period, Dr. Kristeller of +Berlin, would still keep practically all the early Florentine +engravings in an unassailable anonymity. This +is of course better than classing all the engravings of +the period and school, both in the Fine and Broad +Manners, under the name of Baccio Baldini, which has +long been the custom. A certain “Baccio, <i>orafo</i>” has<span class="pagenum" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</span> +been found in documents as buried in 1487, but there +is practically nothing to connect his name with the +substance of our prints. We would not on that account +regard him as a myth, but are reduced at the moment +to Vasari’s statement that “Baldini, the successor of +Finiguerra in the Florentine school of engraving, having +little invention, worked chiefly after designs by +Botticelli.” Considering the fact that both Broad +and Fine Manners (in all probability the output of +two distinct workshops) show prints definitely after +Botticelli, we are still in entire darkness as to the position +of Baldini.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" id="f19"> +<a href="images/fig19big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig19.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">The Libyan Sibyl</span></p> +<p class="caption">From a series of the “Prophets and Sibyls,” engraved in the Fine<br /> +Manner of the Finiguerra School</p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original engraving, 7 × 4¼ inches</p> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter1" id="f20"> +<a href="images/fig20big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig20.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">The Libyan Sibyl</span></p> +<p class="caption">From a series of the “Prophets and Sibyls,” engraved in the<br /> +Broad Manner of the Finiguerra School</p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original engraving, 7 × 4¼ inches</p> +</div> + + +<p>With regard to an important group of Fine Manner +prints, Sir Sidney Colvin has given strong reasons +for the attribution to Maso Finiguerra, made famous +by Vasari as the inventor of the art of engraving. +Considering Vasari’s evident error in regard to the +discovery of engraving (for there were engravings in +the north of Europe well before the earliest possible +example of Finiguerra), modern students have been +inclined to regard Finiguerra as much in the light of +a myth as Baldini. But there is no lack of evidence +as to his life and work, and without repeating the +arguments here, which are given in full in Sir Sidney +Colvin’s “Florentine Picture-Chronicle” (London, +1898), we would at least state our conviction that a +considerable number of the early Florentine engravings, +as well as an important group of nielli, must be +from his hand. Vasari speaks of him as the most +famous niello-worker in Florence, and he also speaks +of his drawings of “figures clothed and unclothed, and +histories” (the “figures” evidently the series traditionally +ascribed to Finiguerra in Florence, but now<span class="pagenum" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</span> +for a large part labeled with an extreme of timidity +“school of Pollaiuolo”; the “histories,” probably the +“Picture-Chronicle” series, acquired from Mr. Ruskin +for the British Museum). Then considering Vasari’s +fuller statement that Finiguerra was also responsible +for larger engravings in the light of a group of Florentine +engravings which correspond closely in style +with many of the only important group of Florentine +nielli (chiefly in the collection of Baron Édouard de +Rothschild, Paris) as well as with the Uffizi drawings, +we can hardly escape the conviction that Vasari was +correct in his main thesis. A curiously entertaining +side-light is given by one of these engravings, the +<i>Mercury</i> for the series of “Planets.” Here we see +the representation of a goldsmith’s shop in the streets +of Florence, stocked just as we know from documents +Finiguerra’s to have been. And the goldsmith is +evidently engaged in engraving, not a niello, but a +large copperplate.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" id="f21"> +<a href="images/fig21big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig21.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">The Planet Mercury</span></p> +<p class="caption">Florentine engraving in the Fine Manner, attributed to<br /> +Maso Finiguerra, or his school</p> +<p class="caption1">“A curiously entertaining side-light is given by one of these engravings, +the <i>Mercury</i> for the series of ‘Planets.’ Here we see the representation +of a goldsmith’s shop in the streets of Florence, stocked +just as we know from documents Finiguerra’s to have been. And the +goldsmith is evidently engaged in engraving, not a niello, but a large +copperplate.” <span class="pad">Arthur M. Hind.</span></p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original engraving, 12¾ × 8⁹⁄₁₆ inches</p> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter1" id="f22"> +<img src="images/fig22.jpg" alt="" /> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">A Young Man and Woman Each Holding An Apple</span></p> +<p class="caption">A Florentine engraving in the Fine Manner, attributed<br /> +to the school of Finiguerra</p> +<p class="caption1">“One of the “Otto Prints” (so called from the eighteenth-century collector +who possessed the majority of the series), <i>A Young Man and +Woman Each Holding An Apple</i>, is in the Gray Collection, Harvard, +and it is a charming example of the amatory subjects of the series, +prints such as the Florentine gallant might have pasted on the spice-box +to be presented to his <i>inamorata</i>. The badge of Medici (the +six “palle” with three lilies in the uppermost) added by a contemporary +hand in pen and ink suggests that this one may have been used by +the young Lorenzo himself between about 1465 and 1467, which +accords well with the probable date of the engravings.” <span class="pad">Arthur M. Hind.</span></p> +<p class="caption">(The inscription above reads <i>ò amore te qª</i> (questa) and<br /> +<i>piglia qª</i>: “O Love, this to you” and “Take this.”)</p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original engraving, 4¼ × 4¼ inches</p> +</div> + +<p>The engravings most certainly by Finiguerra, such +as the <i>Judgment Hall of Pilate</i> (Gotha), the <i>March to +Calvary and the Crucifixion</i> (British Museum), <i>Various +Wild Animals Hunting and Fighting</i> (British +Museum), are of course rarities which most collectors +can never hope to possess. The same may also be said +of somewhat later prints in the same manner of engraving +(which may be the work of the heirs of Finiguerra’s +atelier, which is known to have been carried +on by members of his family until 1498), such as the +Fine Manner “Prophets and Sibyls” and the “Otto +Prints.” We will in consequence devote less space to +these rarities, possessed chiefly by a few European +collections, than their artistic interest would justify, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</span>keeping our argument henceforward more to the engravings +that the American amateur has the chance of +seeing or acquiring at home.</p> + +<p>One of the “Otto Prints” (so called from the eighteenth-century +collector who possessed the majority +of the series), <i>A Young Man and Woman Each Holding +An Apple</i>, is in the Gray Collection, Harvard, and +it is a charming example of the amatory subjects of +the series, prints such as the Florentine gallant might +have pasted on the spice-box to be presented to his +<i>inamorata</i>. The badge of Medici (the six “palle” +with three lilies in the uppermost) added by a contemporary +hand in pen and ink suggests that this one +may have been used by the young Lorenzo himself +between about 1465 and 1467, which accords well with +the probable date of the engravings.</p> + +<p>The only known engraving by the goldsmith and +painter Antonio Pollaiuolo, the large <i>Battle of Naked +Men</i>, shows a far greater artist than his slightly elder +contemporary Finiguerra. They had both studied in +the same workshop and probably continued a sort of +partnership until Finiguerra’s death. Pollaiuolo’s +draughtsmanship evinces a grip and intensity that +Finiguerra entirely lacks in his somewhat torpid academic +drawings, and it is seen at its best in this magnificently +vigorous plate. An excellent impression, +surpassed by few in the museums of Europe, is, I +believe, in the collection of Mr. Francis Bullard of +Boston.</p> + +<p>Before leaving Florence for north Italy we would +allude to that attractive engraver of the transition +period, Cristofano Robetta. His art has lost the finest +flavor of the primitive Florentine without having succeeded<span class="pagenum" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</span> +to the sound technical system of the contemporaries +of Dürer, but it has a thoroughly individual +though delicate vein of fancy. The <i>Adoration of the +Magi</i>, one of his finest plates, is a free translation of +a picture by Filippino Lippi in the Uffizi, but the +group of singing angels is an addition of his own, and +done with a true sense for graceful composition. Fine +early impressions of this print are of course difficult +to get, but it is perhaps the best known of Robetta’s +works, because of the number of modern impressions +in the market. The original plate (with the <i>Allegory +of the Power of Love</i> engraved on the back) belonged +to the Vallardi Collection in the early nineteenth century, +and is now in the British Museum, happily safe +from the reprinter.</p> + +<p>Among the greatest rarities of early engraving in +north Italy is the well-known series traditionally +called the “Tarocchi Cards of Mantegna”—somewhat +erroneously, for they are neither by Mantegna, +nor Tarocchi, nor playing-cards at all. As in the case +of the “Prophets and Sibyls,” there are two complete +series of the same subjects by two different engravers. +Each series consists of fifty subjects divided into five +sections and illustrating: (1) the Sorts and Conditions +of Men; (2) Apollo and the Muses; (3) the +Arts and Sciences; (4) the Genii and Virtues; (5) the +Planets and Spheres. A considerable number of the +earliest impressions known are still in contemporary +fifteenth-century binding, and it seems as if the series +was intended merely as an instructive or entertaining +picture-book for the young. There is the most absolute +divergence of opinion as to which is the original series, +and the student is encouraged to whet his critical acumen +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</span>on the problem by the excellent set of reproductions +which has recently been issued by the Graphische +Gesellschaft and edited by Dr. Kristeller. Unfortunately +Dr. Kristeller takes what seems to me an +entirely wrong view of the matter. I cannot but feel +that the more finely engraved series is at the same +time the more ancient, and almost certainly Ferrarese +in origin, so characteristic of Cossa is the type of these +figures with large heads, rounded forms, and bulging +drapery. The second series shows a more graceful +sense of composition and spacing (the heads and figures +being in better relation to the size of the print), +but its very naturalism is to me an indication of its +somewhat later origin. The less precise technical quality +of this second series is closely related to the Florentine +engravings in the Fine Manner, and I am +inclined to regard it as the work of a Florentine +engraver of about 1475 to 1480, i.e. about a decade +later than the original set.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" id="f23"> +<a href="images/fig23big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig23.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Antonio Pollaiuolo. Battle of Naked Men</span></p> +<p class="caption1">“The only known engraving by the goldsmith and painter Antonio Pollaiuolo, the large <i>Battle of Naked +Men</i>, shows a far greater artist than his slightly elder contemporary, Finiguerra. Pollaiuolo’s +draughtsmanship evinces a grip and intensity that Finiguerra entirely lacks in his somewhat torpid +academic drawings, and it is seen at its best in this magnificently vigorous plate.” <span class="pad">Arthur M. Hind.</span></p> +<p class="caption">Reproduced from the impression in the Print Department, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston</p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original engraving, 15¹¹⁄₁₆ × 23⁷⁄₁₆ inches</p> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter1" id="f24"> +<a href="images/fig24big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig24.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Cristofano Robetta. The Adoration of the Magi</span></p> +<p class="caption1">“Cristofano Robetta’s art has lost the finest flavor of the primitive +Florentine without having succeeded to the sound technical system +of the contemporaries of Dürer, but it has a thoroughly individual +though delicate vein of fancy. The <i>Adoration of the Magi</i>, one of his +finest plates, is a free translation of a picture by Filippino Lippi in +the Uffizi, but the group of singing angels is an addition of his own, +and done with a true sense for graceful composition.” <span class="pad">Arthur M. Hind.</span></p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original engraving, 11⅝ × 11 inches</p> +</div> + +<p>Leaving the pseudo-Mantegna for the master himself, +we are in the presence of the greatest of the +Italian engravers before Marcantonio—if not of all +time. Like the Florentines, Mantegna was an ardent +lover of antiquity, but his spirit was far more impassive, +far more like the antique marble itself. His classical +frame of mind was to some extent the offspring +of his education in the school of Squarcione and in +the academic atmosphere of Padua. His art has a +monumental dignity which the Florentines never possessed, +but it was without the freshness and inexpressible +charm that pervade Tuscan art. An engraving +like the <i>Risen Christ between St. Andrew and St. +Longinus</i> is an indication of the genius that might<span class="pagenum" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</span> +have made one of the noblest sculptors, and one regrets +that he never carried to accomplishment the project +of a monument to Vergil in Mantua, which Isabella +d’Este wished him to undertake.</p> + +<p>Seven of the engravings attributed to Mantegna +(including the <i>Risen Christ</i>) are so much above the +rest in subtle expressiveness, as well as in technical +quality, that we cannot but agree with Dr. Kristeller’s +conclusion that these alone are by Mantegna’s hand, +and the rest engraved after his drawings. They are +similar to Pollaiuolo’s <i>Battle of Naked Men</i> in style, +engraved chiefly in open parallel lines of shading +with a much more lightly engraved return stroke between +the parallels. It is this light return stroke, +exactly in the manner of Mantegna’s pen drawing, +which gives the wonderfully soft quality to the early +impressions. But it is so delicate that comparatively +few printings must have worn it down, and the majority +of impressions that come into the market show +little but the outline and the stronger lines of shading. +Even so these Mantegna prints do not lose the +splendidly vigorous character of their design, but it is +of course the fine early impressions which are the joy +and allure of the true connoisseur. The seven certainly +authentic Mantegna engravings are the <i>Virgin +and Child</i>, the two <i>Bacchanals</i>, the two <i>Battles of the +Sea-Gods</i>, the horizontal <i>Entombment</i>, and the <i>Risen +Christ</i>, already mentioned.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" id="f25"> +<a href="images/fig25big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig25.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Andrea Mantegna. The Risen Christ between<br /> +St. Andrew and St. Longinus</span></p> +<p class="caption1">“Of all the early Italian engravers, Andrea Mantegna is by far the +most powerful, though scarcely the most human. Like many of the +Florentines, he was an ardent lover of antiquity, but his spirit was +far more impassive than theirs, and far more like the antique marble +itself. His art has a monumental dignity which the Florentines +never possessed, but it lacks the freshness and inexpressible charm +that pervade Tuscan art. His was a genius that would have made +one of the noblest sculptors: the engraving of the <i>Risen Christ</i> shows +what he might have achieved in the field.” <span class="pad">Arthur M. Hind.</span></p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original engraving, 15⁷⁄₁₆ × 12¹¹⁄₁₆ inches</p> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter1" id="f26"> +<a href="images/fig26big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig26.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Zoan Andrea(?). Four Women Dancing</span></p> +<p class="caption">This engraving, based on a study by Mantegna for a group in the Louvre picture of <i>Parnassus</i>,<br /> +is one of the most beautiful prints of the school of Mantegna. It is most probably by Zoan Andrea.<br /> +Size of the original engraving, 8⅞ × 13 inches</p> +</div> + +<p>Nearest in quality to these comes the <i>Triumph of +Caesar: the Elephants</i>, after some study for the series +of cartoons now preserved at Hampton Court. But it +lacks Mantegna’s distinction in drawing, and Zoan +Andrea, who is probably the author of one of the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</span>anonymous engravings of <i>Four Women Dancing</i> +(based on a study for a group in the Louvre picture of +<i>Parnassus</i>), one of the most beautiful prints of the +school, was certainly capable of this achievement. +Even Giovanni Antonio da Brescia, who did work of +a very third-rate order after migrating to Rome, produced +under Mantegna’s inspiration so excellent a +plate as the <i>Holy Family</i>.</p> + +<p>Other prints attributed to Mantegna, such as the +<i>Descent into Hell</i> and the <i>Scourging of Christ</i>, possess +all Mantegna’s vigor of design, and reflect the +master’s work in the manner of the Eremitani frescos, +but we can hardly believe that they were engraved by +the same hand as the “seven,” even supposing a considerably +earlier date for their production.</p> + +<p>Each of Mantegna’s known followers (Zoan Andrea +and G. A. da Brescia) entirely changed his manner of +engraving after leaving the master; in fact, except in +his immediate entourage, Mantegna’s style was continued +by few of the Italian engravers. For all its +dignified simplicity, it is more the manner of the +draughtsman transferred to copper, than of the engraver +brought up in the conventional use of the +burin. We see Mantegna’s open linear style reflected +in the earlier works of Nicoletto da Modena, and the +Vicentine, Benedetto Montagna, but each of these engravers +tended more and more in their later works to +imitate the more professional style of the German +engravers, and of Dürer in particular. Dürer was +constantly copied by the Italian engravers of the early +sixteenth century, and details from his plates (chiefly +in the landscape background) were even more consistently +plagiarized.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</span></p> + +<p>In the example of Nicoletto da Modena, the <i>Adoration +of the Shepherds</i>, which we reproduce, it is +Dürer’s immediate predecessor, Martin Schongauer, +from whom the chief elements in the subject are +copied. But in this example the background, with its +vista of lake with ships and a town, suggested no +doubt by one of the subalpine Italian lakes, is thoroughly +characteristic of the South, while Schongauer’s +Gothic architecture is embellished with classical details. +Isolated figures of saints or heathen deities +against a piece of classical architecture, set in an open +landscape, became the most frequent type of Nicoletto’s +later prints, which are practically all of small +dimensions.</p> + +<p>Like Nicoletto da Modena, Benedetto Montagna +gradually developed throughout his life a more delicate +style of engraving, entirely giving up the large +dimensions and broad style of his <i>Sacrifice of Abraham</i> +for a series of finished compositions which from +their smaller compass would have been well adapted +for book illustration. Several of these, such as the +<i>Apollo and Pan</i>, illustrate incidents in Ovid’s “Metamorphoses,” +but there is no evidence for, and there is +even probability against, their having ever been used +in books. Several of the subjects are treated very similarly +in the woodcuts of the 1497 Venice edition of +Ovid in the vernacular. When engravings and woodcuts +thus repeat each other, the woodcutter is generally +the copyist, but in this case the reverse is almost +certainly the case, as the Ovid plates belong to Montagna’s +later period, and could hardly have preceded +1500.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" id="f27"> +<a href="images/fig27big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig27.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Nicoletto da Modena. The Adoration of the Shepherds</span></p> +<p class="caption1">“In the <i>Adoration of the Shepherds</i> it is Dürer’s immediate predecessor. +Martin Schongauer, from whom the chief elements in the +subject are copied. But in this example the background, with its +vista of lake with ships and a town, suggested no doubt by one of +the subalpine Italian lakes, is thoroughly characteristic of the South, +while Schongauer’s Gothic architecture is embellished with classical +details.” <span class="pad">Arthur M. Hind.</span></p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original engraving, 9⅞ × 7¼ inches</p> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter1" id="f28"> +<a href="images/fig28big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig28.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Jacopo de’ Barbari. Apollo and Diana</span></p> +<p class="caption1">“Jacopo de’ Barbari is of peculiar interest as a link between the styles +of Germany and the South. Whether of Northern extraction or +not is uncertain, but the earlier part of his life was passed in +Venice. Dürer was apparently much impressed by his art on his +first visit to Venice between 1495 and 1497, and ... even seems to +have taken an immediate suggestion for a composition from Barbari, +i.e. for his <i>Apollo and Diana</i>. Dürer’s version shows a far greater +virility and concentration of design, but for all its power it lacks +the breezier atmosphere of Barbari’s print.” <span class="pad">Arthur M. Hind.</span></p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original engraving, 6¼ × 3⅞ inches</p> +</div> + +<p>Apart from Mantegna, Leonardo and Bramante are +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</span>the two great names which have been connected with +engravings of the period. But I incline to doubt +whether either of them engraved the plates which have +been attributed to them. The large <i>Interior of a +Ruined Church</i>, splendid in design and reminiscent +of the architect’s work in the sacristy of S. Satiro, +Milan, might equally well have been engraved by a +Nicoletto da Modena, with whose earlier style it has +much in common. Of the prints attributed to Leonardo, +the fascinating <i>Profile Bust of a Young Woman</i> +(p. 252), unique impression in the British Museum, +stands out from the rest for the sensitive quality of +its outline, but even here I would be more ready to +see the hand of an engraver like Zoan Andrea, who +after leaving Mantua seems to have settled in Milan +and done work in a finer manner influenced by the +style of the Milanese miniaturists (such as the Master +of the Sforza Book of Hours in the British Museum).</p> + +<p>In Venice Giovanni Bellini’s style is reflected in the +dignified engravings of Girolamo Mocetto, and in the +region of Bologna or Modena one meets the anonymous +master “I B (with the Bird),” whose few engraved +idyls are among the most alluring prints of +the lesser masters of north Italy.</p> + +<p>More individual than Mocetto and far less dependent +on any other contemporary painter is Jacopo de’ +Barbari, who is of peculiar interest as a link between +the styles of Germany and the South. Whether of +Northern extraction or not is uncertain, but the earlier +part of his life was passed in Venice. Dürer was apparently +much impressed by his art on his first visit to +Venice between 1495 and 1497, and his particular interest +in the study of a Canon of Human Proportions<span class="pagenum" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</span> +was aroused by some figure-drawings which Barbari +had shown him. Dürer even seems to have taken an +immediate suggestion for a composition from Barbari, +i.e. for his <i>Apollo and Diana</i>. Dürer’s version shows +a far greater virility and concentration of design, but +for all its power it lacks the breezier atmosphere of +Barbari’s print; it is redolent of the study, while the +latter has the charm of an open Italian landscape. +There is a distinct femininity about Barbari; perhaps +this very feature and the languorous grace of his +treatment of line and the sinuous folds of drapery give +his prints their special allure.</p> + +<p>I would close this article with some reference to +two other engravers of great individuality of style—Giulio +and Domenico Campagnola, of Padua.</p> + +<p>Domenico’s activity as a painter continued until +after 1563, but the probable period of his line-engravings +(about 1517-18), and his close connection with +Giulio Campagnola (though the exact nature of the +relationship is unexplained), justify his treatment +among the precursors rather than in the wake of +Marcantonio.</p> + +<p>Giulio Campagnola, like Giorgione, whose style he +so well interpreted, was a short-lived genius. He was +a young prodigy, famous at the tender age of thirteen +as a scholar of Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, besides +being accomplished as a musician and in the arts of +sculpture, miniature, and engraving. Little wonder +that he did not long survive his thirtieth year. +Probably his practice as an illuminator as well as his +particular aim of rendering the atmosphere of Giorgione’s +paintings led him to the method of using dots, +or rather short flicks, in his engraving, which is in a +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</span>sense an anticipation of the stipple process of the +eighteenth century, though of course without the use +of etching. Most of his prints are known in the two +states—in pure line, and after the dotted work had +been added.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" id="f29"> +<a href="images/fig29big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig29.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Giulio Campagnola. St. John the Baptist</span></p> +<p class="caption1">“One of the most splendid of his plates is the <i>St. John the Baptist</i>, +with a dignity of design whose origin may probably be traced back to +some drawing by Mantegna, though the landscape is of course thoroughly +Paduan or Venetian in its character.” <span class="pad">Arthur M. Hind.</span></p> +<p class="caption">Reproduced from the impression in the Print Department,<br /> +Museum of Fine Arts, Boston</p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original engraving. 13⅝ × 9⁵⁄₁₆ inches</p> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter1" id="f30"> +<a href="images/fig30big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig30.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Giulio and Domenico Campagnola. Shepherds in a Landscape</span></p> +<p class="caption1">“It is Giorgione again whom we see reflected in the <i>Shepherds in a Landscape</i>, a plate which seems to have +been left unfinished by Giulio and completed by Domenico Campagnola. There is a drawing in the Louvre +for the right half of the print, and there is every reason to think that this drawing as well as the +engraving of that portion of the landscape is by Giulio. But the group of figures and trees on the left is +entirely characteristic of the looser technical manner of Domenico.” <span class="pad">Arthur M. Hind.</span></p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original engraving, 5⅜ × 10⅛ inches</p> +</div> + + +<p>One of the most splendid of his plates is the <i>St. +John the Baptist</i>, with a dignity of design whose origin +may probably be traced back to some drawing by +Mantegna, though the landscape is of course thoroughly +Paduan or Venetian in its character. More +completely characteristic, and the most purely Giorgionesque +of all his prints, is the <i>Christ and the Woman +of Samaria</i>, one of the most wonderfully beautiful +of all the engravings of this period.</p> + +<p>It is Giorgione again whom we see reflected in the +<i>Shepherds in a Landscape</i>, a plate which seems to +have been left unfinished by Giulio and completed +by Domenico Campagnola. There is a drawing in +the Louvre for the right half of the print, and there +is every reason to think that this drawing as well as +the engraving of that portion of the landscape is by +Giulio. But the group of figures and trees on the left +is entirely characteristic of the looser technical manner +of Domenico. The existence of a copy of the right-hand +portion of the plate alone points to the existence +of an unfinished state of the original, though no such +impressions have been found. In any case it distinctly +supports the theory that the other part of the +original print was a later addition.</p> + +<p>We may have to admit in conclusion that there is +nothing in Italian engraving before Marcantonio +quite on a level with the achievement of Albrecht +Dürer, but the indefinable allure that characterizes<span class="pagenum" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</span> +so much of the work of the minor Italian artists of +the earlier Renaissance is more than enough compensation +for any lack of technical efficiency. With Marcantonio +we find this efficiency in its full development, +joined to a remarkable individuality in the interpretation +of sketches by Raphael and other painters. Yet +we could ill afford to lose the charm of the early Florentine +<i>Triumph of Bacchus and Ariadne</i> for all the +finished beauty of Marcantonio’s <i>Lucretia</i>, and it is +still the youth of artistic development, with its naïve +joy and freshness of outlook, which holds us with the +stronger spell.</p> +<hr class="full x-ebookmaker-drop" /> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="c3">A PRINCE OF PRINT-COLLECTORS:<br /> +MICHEL DE MAROLLES,<br /> +ABBÉ DE VILLELOIN<br /> +(1600-1681)</h2> +</div> + +<p class="c"><span class="smcap">By</span> LOUIS R. METCALFE</p> + + +<p class="drop-cap">THE French make a fine distinction between +three varieties of that very special individual +to whom we refer in a general way as “a collector.” +They have always been authorities on that +subject and one of them has said: “On est amateur +par goût, connaisseur par éducation, curieux par +vanité.” While another adds: “Ou par spéculation.” +By “collector” we simply mean a person who has +formed the habit of acquiring the things in which +he is particularly interested, and these in as many +varieties as possible. It implies neither an artistic +pursuit nor a deep knowledge of the subject. By +<i>curieux</i>, however, is meant, as a rule, an <i>amateur</i>, a +man of taste who collects things which pertain to art +exclusively; he is in most cases a <i>connaisseur</i>, and always +an enthusiast.</p> + +<p>Paris, the home of taste, has never been that of the +<i>curieux</i> more so than at the present day, when, it +seems, every one who can afford a rent of over four +thousand francs has a hobby of some sort and is a mad +collector. A general history of the weakness for +things either beautiful or odd or rare, or merely fashionable,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</span> +would be both voluminous and chaotic, if a +distinction were not made between that which pertained +to art and that which did not. A complete +description of the latter, a hopelessly heterogeneous +mass, would make an amusing volume, for there is no +end to the variety of things in which vanity and folly +have caused human beings to become interested to the +point of collecting in large numbers.</p> + +<p>George IV collected saddles; the Princess Charlotte +and many others, shells. Tulips were so madly sought +after in Holland that one root was exchanged for 460 +florins, together with a new carriage, a pair of horses, +and a set of harness. Shop-bills and posters have been +the specialty of many, while thousands of persons have +collected postage-stamps and coins. A Mr. Morris had +so many snuff-boxes that it was said he never took two +pinches of snuff out of the same box. A Mr. Urquhart +collected the halters with which criminals had been +hanged; and another enthusiast, the masks of their +faces. Suett, a comedian, collected wigs, and another +specialist owned as many as fifteen hundred skulls, +Anglo-Saxon and Roman. If there have been men +who have shown a propensity to collect wives, Evelyn +tells us in his diary:</p> + +<p>“In 1641 there was a lady in Haarlem who had been +married to her twenty-fifth husband, and, having been +left a widow, was prohibited from marrying in future; +yet it could not be proved that she had ever made any +of her husbands away, though the suspicion had +brought her divers times to trouble.”</p> + +<p>Although we much regret that such an intensely +interesting work as a Comprehensive History of +Collecting has never been written, we realize that a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</span> +mere description of rare and beautiful objects would +be unsatisfactory as long as we did not know their +history and the way in which they had been gathered +together. It is the soul of the collector which we +should like to see laid bare. Was his work a labor of +vanity or one of love? Were his possessions mere +playthings, speculation, to him, or did they represent +treasures of happiness greater than all the gold in +Golconda?</p> + +<p>Without a doubt, it is one thing to collect what is +highly prized on all sides, with large means at one’s +disposal, and the constant advice of experts, and quite +another to search patiently oneself for things which +the general public has not yet discovered, and then to +acquire them with difficulty.</p> + +<p>Who shall know with what admirable zeal some collectors +have made themselves authorities on the things +which they loved? with what untiring energy they +have sifted for years masses of trash in the hope of +finding the hidden pearl? Who can tell the inner +history of the auction-room, the heart-beats of those +who were after the jewel which no one else seemed to +have noticed, the sacrifices which many with a slender +purse have made in order to secure the precious +“find,” and lastly the enjoyment which they ever +afterward derived from its possession? Many of the +great French collections of the last century were made +in this spirit: they were begun with a modest outlay +and devoted to things which, at that time, no one else +wanted. I know of one of the first collectors of Eastern +Art in the nineteenth century, who at one time +had greatly to reduce his household in order to satisfy +his passion for Japanese vases; and of another wealthy<span class="pagenum" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</span> +enthusiast who would travel third-class to London to +secure an old Roman bronze. The history of such +collections becomes that of human beings for whom +life is nothing without beauty, and it is too personal to +be recorded. The collector will seldom believe that his +enthusiasm can be understood by others besides himself: +maybe, also, he would be unwilling to reveal the +more or less innocent subterfuges to which he had +recourse in order to acquire more than one of his +treasures.</p> + +<p>The American chapter of such a history is the most +recent one, and the world is now watching its development +with bated breath. The art of the Old World is +being imported by the ship-load; fortunes are paid for +single paintings, while the paneled wainscots of French +châteaux, the ceilings of Italian palaces, the colonnades +of their gardens, and the tapestries of the Low +Countries, not to mention a hundred varieties of <i>objets +d’art</i>, are constantly wending their way to the +treasure-houses—still in course of construction—of +the New World. All this is taking place to the indignation +of Europeans and the æsthetes who consider +such a radical change of background a desecration, +and do not stop to think that this transplantation is +hardly more unnatural than the sight of the Elgin +marbles in foggy London, or the winged bulls of Ecbatana +in the halls of the Louvre.</p> + +<p>So long as we as a nation will learn a much-needed +lesson and thereby greatly improve our taste, let all +honor and glory be given to those who have been responsible +for such valuable acquisitions. Our American +collections already contain many “gems of purest +ray serene,” and who will dare say that they are not<span class="pagenum" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</span> +destined to become in time worthy successors of the +famous ones which have preceded them?</p> + +<p>From the writings of Pliny and other classic historians, +and from several catalogues and rare documents +which have come down to us from the Middle +Ages and the Renaissance, we have abundant proof +that there never was a time when works of art were +not treasured. Cicero, Atticus, and Varro collected +writings, and the libraries of Aristotle, Theophrastus, +and that of Epaphroditus of Chæronea, which contained +thirty-two thousand manuscripts, were famous. +Hannibal was a lover of bronzes: it was he who owned +the little Hercules of Lysippus which the master himself +had presented to Alexander the Great and which +afterward became the property of Sulla.</p> + +<p>Both Pompey and Julius Cæsar possessed splendid +masterpieces of that Greek art which was so highly +prized in Italy. The Venus of the Hermitage comes +from Cæsar’s gallery, and the Jupiter of the Louvre +from that of Antony; while the Faun with the Child, +and the Borghese vase, now treasured in the Louvre, +were once among the possessions of Sallust in his +palace on the Quirinal. Not only sculpture was collected +in those times, for we also hear of the tapestries +of Saurus, valued at twenty millions in the currency +of the day; the jewelry of Verres, reputed the finest in +existence; the priceless crystals of Pollio; and the two +thousand vases of precious stone owned by Mithridates, +King of Pontus.</p> + +<p>Throughout the Middle Ages the <i>trésor</i> of the kings +and the most powerful nobles was in reality their collection. +That of Dagobert was the result of four +Italian conquests. The inventory of the jewels of the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</span> +Duc d’Anjou, son of John the Good, contains 796 +numbers, while his brother, the Duc de Berry, had a +passion for reliquaries, old church ornaments, and +rare manuscripts which he caused to be mounted like +jewels. The library of Charles V and his <i>trésor</i> were +valued at twenty millions of francs, and the collection +of curiosities of Ysabeau de Bavière had not its equal. +It contained, among other things, an ivory box in +which was kept the cane with which Saint Louis used +to flagellate himself. The Dukes of Burgundy for +centuries were the greatest collectors of richly inlaid +armor. And what of the treasures of Jacques Cœur, +the great banker of Charles VII? With his fleet of +trading-vessels and his many banking-houses he secured +the pick of the market. We know that his silverware +was piled up to the ceiling in the vaults of his +palace at Bourges.</p> + +<p>In the <i>Gazette des Beaux-Arts</i> for the year 1869 +we read a description of the home of Jacques Duchié, +a famous art collector who flourished during the first +half of the fifteenth century. In the courtyard were +peacocks and a variety of rare birds. In the first room +was a collection of paintings and decorated signs; in +the second, all kinds of musical instruments—harps, +organs, viols, guitars, and psalterions. In the third +was a great number of games, cards and chessmen; +and in the adjoining chapel, rare missals on elaborately +carved stands. In the fourth room the walls +were covered with precious stones and sweet-smelling +spices, while on those of the next was hung a great +variety of furs. From these rooms one proceeded to +halls filled with rich furniture, carved tables, and +decorated armor.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" id="f31"> +<img src="images/fig31.jpg" alt="" /> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Portrait of Michael de Marolles, Abbé de Villeloin</span></p> +<p class="caption">Engraved by Claude Mellan, from his own design from life, in 1648</p> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter1" id="f32"> +<img src="images/fig32.jpg" alt="" /> +<p class="caption"><i>Illustrissimi Viri L. H. Haberti Monmory libellorum<br /> +Supplicum Magistri, EPIGRAMMA in Effigiem</i></p> +<p class="caption"><i>MICHAELIS DE MAROLLES Abbatis de Villeloin.</i></p> +<p class="caption"><i>Nobilitas, Virtus, Pietas, Doctrina MAROLLI<br /> +Debuerant Sacrà cingere fronde comam.</i><br /> +<span class="pad1"><i>Nantüeil ad viuum faciebat 1657</i></span></p> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</span></p> + +<p>The Renaissance was the Golden Age of Collectors. +What could have withstood the influence of that tremendous +movement? The art of Italy and the magnificence +of the nobility and the princes of the Church +shed, like the Augustan Age, a golden glamour over +civilization.</p> + +<p>The Médicis set the example, and they were closely +followed by the Sforzas, the Farneses, and the Gonzagas. +The patronage of the Fine Arts was on such a +scale, and the rivalry among the collectors so keen, +that in 1515 there were in Rome thirty-nine cardinals +who had veritable museums for palaces. It was for +Agostino Chigi that Raphael decorated that Farnesina +Villa in which such treasures were stored, and for +whom, later, he designed those plates on which parrots’ +tongues were served to Leo X.</p> + +<p>What a rage for beauty there was when Baldassarre +Castiglione advised all the sons of noble families to +study painting, in order that they might become better +judges of architecture, sculpture, vases, medals, +intaglios, and cameos. What a madness for antiques, +when Cardinal San Giorgio sent back to Michelangelo +his “Amorino” because he considered it too modern. +Would that we could follow the vicissitudes through +which went the great collections of the day—the drawings +of Vasari, the books of Aldus and Pico della +Mirandola, the armor of Cellini, the portraits of Paolo +Giovio and the medals of Giulio Romano!</p> + +<p>Certain is it that many of their treasures eventually +crossed the Alps. It was after Charles VIII had +shown to the élite of his nation “the remnants of +antiquity gilded by the sun of Naples and of Rome” +that the French Renaissance, already well on its way,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</span> +received new inspiration, and that the French collectors +renewed their activity. Judging by the fabulous +accounts given by the country-folk, the contents of +many a turreted castle on the Loire must have been +wonderful, indeed. Following the lead of Francis I, +who had his library, his <i>pavillon d’armes</i>, and his +<i>cabinet de curiosités</i>, and the example of Catherine +de Médicis, who had brought from Italy many of her +family’s treasures, the leading nobles, like Georges +d’Amboise in his Château de Gaillon, collected beautiful +things with admirable catholicity. It was not only +books in sumptuous bindings which were sought after +by Louis XII and the Valois, Diane de Poitiers, Queen +Margot, Amyot, and de Thou, but art in every form. +In the case of Grolier himself, are we not told by +Jacques Strada, in his “Epithome du Thrésor des +Curiositez,” that “great was the number of objects of +gold, silver, and copper in perfect condition, and remarkable +the variety of statues in bronze and marble, +which his agents were collecting for him all over the +world”?</p> + +<p>Most significant is the inventory of the collection of +Florimond Robertet, the able treasurer of the royal +finances under Charles VIII, Louis XII, and Francis +I, which was made in 1532 by Michelle de Longjumeau, +his widow. Never was a catalogue such a labor +of love as this one. It is a detailed description of the +entire contents of a museum on which a great financier +spent his entire fortune; it is full of significant +touches concerning the customs of the time and the +origin and use of the objects described; and it bears +witness to the great enjoyment which both husband +and wife derived from their treasures throughout<span class="pagenum" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</span> +their lifetime. There were many jewels and some +pear-shaped pearls of great size, silver andirons, +thirty sets of silks and tapestries, bronzes and ivories. +Among the paintings and sculpture were a canvas and +a statue by Michelangelo. The porcelain was the +first brought to France from China, and there was +much pottery from Turkish lands and Flanders, +French faïence, Italian majolica, church ornaments, +precious books, and four hundred pieces of Venetian +glass, “gentillisez des plus jolies gayetez que les verriers +sauraient inventer.”</p> + +<p>It was the religious wars of the end of the century +which brought French collecting to a stop. Constant +strife and persecution discouraged the last artists of +the Renaissance, ruined many a noble family, and +scattered the contents of their palaces. Not until +years afterward, during the seventeenth century, was +it taken up again; then it was to reach great brilliancy +during the reign of Louis XIV. The leading families +of France began to rebuild their collections when +Henry IV and his favorite, Gabrielle d’Estrées, indulged +their fondness for medals, cameos, and intaglios, +and Marie de Médicis had brought from +Tuscany those paintings which she considered such +an indispensable luxury. In after years Louis XIII +collected armor; Anne of Austria, delicate bindings; +and Richelieu, finely chased silverware. And when +Louis XIV began to reign, Paris was the proud center +of the collecting world. From this time on we have +full records of the treasures amassed by many people +of taste and culture and we are able to follow them +into the following century, no matter how often they +change hands—this, thanks to specialists like Felibien<span class="pagenum" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</span> +and Germain Brice and the thousand references to art +in the memoirs of the time. In 1673 there were in +Paris eighty-five important art collectors who owned +among them seventy-three libraries, and twenty years +later this number had increased to one hundred and +thirty-four, a remarkable development for such a +short space of time.</p> + +<p>The greatest example was set by Cardinal Mazarin +and Fabri du Peiresc. The wily Italian who had succeeded +Richelieu gave as much time to his collections +as to the ship of state, and his fellow-grafter, Nicolas +Fouquet, treasurer of the kingdom, was allowed to +make himself the most powerful man in France just +as long as he was able to supply his Eminence with +the millions he was so constantly in need of for the +army and his gold-threaded tapestries and busts of +Roman emperors. Just before his death. Mazarin had +himself carried through a gallery lined with 400 marbles, +nearly 500 canvases (among them seven Raphaels), +and 50,000 volumes, while he kept weeping and +exclaiming: “Faudra-t-il quitter tout cela?” In the +south of France, Fabri du Peiresc, great savant and +collector, had agents in constant quest of rarities. It +is related that “no ship entered a port in France +without bringing for his collections some rare example +of the fauna and flora of a distant country, some antique +marble, a Coptic, Arab, Chinese, Greek, or +Hebrew manuscript, or some fragment excavated from +Asia or Greece.”</p> + +<div class="figcenter" id="f33"> +<img src="images/fig33.jpg" alt="" /> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Nanteuil.</span> <span class="smcap">Jules, Cardinal Mazarin</span></p> +<p class="caption">Engraved in 1655 when Mazarin was fifty-three years of age<br /> +Size of the original engraving, 12⅝ × 9½ inches</p> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter1" id="f34"> +<img src="images/fig34.jpg" alt="" /> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Nanteuil.</span> <span class="smcap">Louis XIV</span></p> +<p class="caption">Engraved in 1664, from Nanteuil’s own drawing from life<br /> +Louis was twenty-six years of age when this<br /> +portrait was engraved</p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original engraving, 15⅜ × 12 inches</p> +</div> + +<p>By this time there was a new fine art to be collected +seriously—that of Engraving. To the masterpieces +of Dürer, Lucas van Leyden, and Marcantonio, now +over a century old, had succeeded the spirited etchings +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</span>of Callot. It was he who first popularized the art in +France and paved the way for the enthusiastic appreciation +of Morin, Mellan, and Nanteuil. The school +of engravers established by Colbert at the Gobelins +made their art rank in importance with Painting and +Sculpture, and their work won such popular favor +that many engravers became publishers, and did a +great business selling their prints and those of their +pupils to the leading collectors. The first man of taste +to make a serious collection of engravings was Claude +Maugis, Abbé de Saint Ambroise, almoner to the +Queen, Marie de Médicis. He spent forty years making +a collection which at his death was sold to Charles +Delorme, that physician-in-ordinary to Henry IV and +Louis XIII of whom Callot has made such an interesting +little portrait. It was when the first part of the +Delorme Collection and that of a Sieur de Kervel had +been added to his own possessions by the Abbé de +Marolles that there was begun the greatest collection +of prints and drawings ever assembled.</p> + +<p>Michel de Marolles, Abbé de Villeloin, was one of +the most picturesque figures of the seventeenth century. +He was born in Touraine in 1600, and died in +1681, the son of the gallant Claude de Marolles, <i>maréchal +de camp</i> in the army of Louis XIII, who had won +a famous duel fought in the presence of two armies in +the War of the Ligue. His life was indeed a peaceful +one. At the age of twenty-six, after having pursued +a complete course of studies, he was presented by +Richelieu with the abbey of Villeloin in Touraine, and +for the remainder of his days he drew its income, +cultivated the most interesting people in France, +translated the classics, wrote his memoirs, and collected<span class="pagenum" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</span> +prints as no one ever did before him, or after. +Truly, an ideal existence!</p> + +<p>Although he tells us that at the age of nine he decorated +the walls of his bedroom with prints given him +by a Carthusian monk, we know that for the first half +of his life the Abbé de Villeloin did little more than +collect friends. This must have given him little trouble, +for his rank gained him admission to the entire +nobility, and his appreciation of literature and the +fine arts enabled him to carry on a friendly intercourse +with the best-known artists and <i>connoisseurs</i>. +During this intercourse there was a constant exchange +of gifts; in fact, to receive presents seemed to have +been the Abbé’s object in life. In his “Memoirs” +there are one hundred and fifty pages devoted to a +complete enumeration of all the persons who have +presented him with a gift, or “honored him extraordinarily +by their civility,” and the list includes the +best-known personages of the day.</p> + +<p>What did de Marolles give them in return, besides +the pleasure of his company and the charm of his appreciation? +A mass of bad translations of the classics: +that was the great weakness of the Abbé de +Villeloin. Chapelain, the poet, complained of it in a +curious letter to Heinsius, saying:</p> + +<p>“That fellow has vowed to translate all the classic +authors, and has almost reached the end of his labors, +having spared neither Plautus nor Lucretius nor +Horace nor Virgil nor Juvenal nor Martial, nor many +others. Your Ovid and Seneca have as yet fought him +off, but I do not consider them saved, and all the +mercy they can expect is that of the Cyclops to Ulysses—to +be devoured last.” That Chapelain was not the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</span> +only one who did not appreciate the literary talent of +the Abbé, and that he often found difficulty in finding +publishers for his translations, is admitted by de +Marolles himself when, in his poem on “The City of +Paris,” he says:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> +<div class="stanza"> +<div class="verse indent0">“J’ai perdu des amis par un rare caprice</div> +<div class="verse indent0">Quand je leur ai donné des livres que j’ai faits</div> +<div class="verse indent0">Comme gens offensés, sans pardonner jamais</div> +<div class="verse indent0">Bien qu’on n’ait point blessé leur méchant artifice.”</div> +</div> +</div> +</div> + +<p>But it is not as a man of letters that de Marolles interests +us: it is as a great lover of the art of Engraving +and the greatest collector of prints in history. Not +until he had reached the age of forty-four did he begin +to collect them systematically. Then he purchased +the first part of the Delorme Collection for one thousand +<i>louis d’or</i>, the prints owned by Kervel, and those +of several other small collectors. His activity was so +great that nine years later, in his memoirs, he was able +to refer to this collection as follows:</p> + +<p>“God has given me grace to devote myself to pictures +without superstition, and I have been able to +acquire a collection numbering more than 70,000 engravings +of all subjects. I began it in 1644, and have +continued it with so much zeal, and with such an expense +for one not wealthy, that I can claim to possess +some of the work of all the known masters, painters as +well as engravers, who number more than 400.”</p> + +<p>He further adds:</p> + +<p>“I have found that collecting such things was more +suited to my purse than collecting paintings, and +more serviceable to the building up of a library. Had +we in France a dozen such collectors among the nobility,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</span> +there would not be enough prints to satisfy them +all, and the works of Dürer, Lucas, and Marcantonio, +for which we now pay four and five hundred <i>écus</i> +when in perfect condition, would be worth three times +that amount.... It seems to me that princes and +noblemen who are collecting libraries should not neglect +works of this kind, as long as they contain so much +information on beautiful subjects; but I know of no +one who has undertaken to do this except for medals, +flowers, architecture, machines, and mathematics.”</p> + +<p>The collection of the Abbé de Marolles had become +so famous by 1666, that Colbert, after having had it +examined and appraised by Felibien and Pierre +Mignard, advised Louis XIV to purchase it for the +royal library. The deed was signed in 1667, and in +the following year the Abbé de Villeloin received from +the royal treasury the sum of twenty-six thousand +livres ($25,000) for what was described in a seal-colored +document as “un grand nombre d’estampes des +plus grands maîtres de l’antiquité.” Let us see what +this meant.</p> + +<p>De Marolles tells us himself, in his catalogue of +1666, that his collection consisted of 123,400 original +drawings and prints, the work of over 6000 artists, +and that it was contained in 400 large and 141 small +volumes. As to the variety of subjects represented, it +had no end: it included, for instance, landscapes, +views of cities, architecture, fountains, vases, statues, +flowers, gardens, jewelry, lacework, machines, grotesques, +animals, costumes, decoration, anatomy, +dances, comedies, jousts, heraldry, games, heroic +fables, religious subjects, massacres, tortures, and +over 10,000 portraits.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</span></p> + +<p>In describing his collection to Colbert, the Abbé +made especial note of his greatest treasures as follows:</p> + +<p>“<i>Leonardo da Vinci.</i> His work is in 5 pieces.</p> + +<p>“<i>Anthony van Dyck.</i> There are 210 plates after +his work, of which 14 are etched by his own hand.</p> + +<p>“<i>Marcantonio</i> from Bologna, that excellent engraver +who has done such beautiful work after Dürer, +Mantegna, Raphael, and Michelangelo, is the greatest +of all engravers, and the one whose works are the most +sought after. I own 570 of them, in two volumes.</p> + +<p>“<i>Andrea and Benedetto Mantegna.</i> The work of +the former is in 104 pieces, that of the latter in 74, all +rare, making 178 pieces in all, some of which are +engraved by Marcantonio.</p> + +<p>“<i>Lucas van Leyden</i>, excellent painter and engraver, +of whom I have collected in one volume all the +works engraved both on copper and on wood, besides +25 drawings in pen and pencil from his own hand, all +very singular. I have 180 of these engravings, many +in duplicate, all of great beauty, among them the portrait +of Eulenspiegel, unique in France, the other +having been sold more than twelve years ago for 16 +<i>louis d’or</i>. Among the woodcuts, the Kings of Israel +are here done in chiaroscuro, and unique in this state.</p> + +<p>“<i>Albert Dürer.</i> One folio volume, bound in vellum, +contains 12 portraits of the artist by various masters; +15 drawings by his own hand, which are singular and +priceless; his three plates on brass [<i>sic</i>], his six etched +plates, and all his copper engravings in duplicate, +with three impressions of Maximilian’s sword-hilt, all +having been collected by the Abbé de Saint Ambroise, +almoner of Queen Marie de Médicis....</p> + +<p>“<i>Rhinbrand</i> [<i>sic</i>]. The work of this Dutch painter<span class="pagenum" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</span> +and etcher consists of many prints, of which I have +collected 224, among which are portraits and fancy +subjects most curious.”</p> + +<p>He further adds that he possesses 192 original +crayon portraits by Lagneau, a successor of the +Clouets, and 50 by Dumonstier, and that the prints of +the old masters of Italy, Germany, and Flanders are +contained in 19 folio volumes.</p> + +<p>After this enormous collection had passed into the +hands of the King, the Abbé de Marolles was engaged +to catalogue and classify it, and also to superintend +the binding of its 541 volumes. For this he received +on two occasions a payment of 1200 livres. The binding +was done in full levant morocco, decorated with +the royal arms, Louis’s monogram, and richly tooled +borders; for this purpose 500 green and 1200 crimson +skins had been specially imported from the East.</p> + +<p>Our indefatigable collector had hardly parted with +the result of the labor of twenty-two years when he +began the formation of a second collection. To the +second part of the Delorme Collection which he then +purchased were added the prints of MM. Odespunck +and la Reynie, the collection of M. Petau, who had +made a specialty of portraits, and that of the Sieur de +la Noue, which contained a great number of original +drawings. We know very little about this second collection +of the Abbé de Marolles, except that when it +was catalogued in 1672 it was contained in 237 folios. +What became of it has never been ascertained; in all +probability it found its way into the print-cabinets of +the many <i>amateurs</i> of the end of the century. It is +evident that he wished to dispose of it, probably for +the purpose of starting a third collection, for we have<span class="pagenum" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</span> +a letter on the subject addressed to M. Brisacier, <i>secrétaire +des commandements de la Reine</i>, of whom +Masson made that famous engraved plate known as +“The Gray-haired Man.” In it de Marolles describes +his second collection as being hardly less important +than the one he had previously sold to the King, and +as containing a great number of masterpieces which +were unique.</p> + +<p>Not satisfied with such extensive researches in the +realm of art, the Abbé de Villeloin decided to record +all his information on the subject, and in the spring +of 1666 announced the title of a colossal work on +which he was engaged as: “Une histoire très ample +des peintres, sculpteurs, graveurs, architectes, ingenieurs, +maîtres-écrivains, orfèvres, menuisiers, brodeurs, +jardiniers et autres artisans industrieux, où il +est fait mention de plus de dix mille personnes, aussi +bien que d’un très grand nombre d’ouvrages considérables, +avec une description exacte et naīve des plus +belles estampes ou de celles qui peuvent servir à donner +beaucoup de connaissances qui seraient ignorées sans +cela.” This work was, unfortunately, never published, +and its manuscript has never been found; it +would have been a wonderful compendium of French +art during the seventeenth century, and would have +given us much precious information concerning a +number of prominent engravers of whom so little is +known to-day.</p> + +<p>All that remains of it is the summary, written in +bad verse and published under the title of “Le livre +des peintres et des graveurs.” It is a curious little +book, containing little more than the names of thousands +of artists who were obscure in their day and who<span class="pagenum" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</span> +are now completely forgotten. To many of them, however, +and particularly to the most prominent, are +affixed such descriptive little touches, that what would +otherwise have been a monotonous pattern becomes +an original piece of historical ornament.</p> + +<p>As to the “Memoirs” of the Abbé de Marolles, they +possess the same defect as many other autobiographies +of the time: they were published too soon, and they +prove how anxious the author was to witness the sensation +he thought he would make. In this case they +were published in 1653, fourteen years before the +Abbé had sold his first collection, and they tell us +little more than that he possessed a very extended +circle of acquaintances who thought the world of him +on account of his patronage of the fine arts and his +literary talent. It is evident that he included himself +among his most sincere admirers, and that he regarded +the friendship of such a charming woman as Louise-Marie +de Gonzague, who later became Queen of Poland, +and the incense which all the engravers in France +ostentatiously scattered before him, as both natural +and deserved. Claude Mellan, Poilly, and Robert +Nanteuil were on particularly friendly terms with +him, each in turn engraving his portrait from life, the +last with such delicacy and finish that that plate ranks +among his most successful portraits. Mellan, furthermore, +engraved the portraits of his parents, Claude de +Marolles and Agatha Castiglione.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" id="f35"> +<img src="images/fig35.jpg" alt="" /> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Agatha Castiglione</span></p> +<p class="caption">Wife of Claude de Marolles and mother of Michel de Marolles,<br /> +Abbé de Villeloin<br /> +Engraved by Claude Mellan from his own design</p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original engraving, 6¼ × 5 inches</p> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter1" id="f36"> +<img src="images/fig36.jpg" alt="" /> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Claude de Marolles</span></p> +<p class="caption">Father of Michel de Marolles, Abbé de Villeloin<br /> +Engraved by Claude Mellan from his own design</p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original engraving, 9¼ × 7⅜ inches</p> +</div> + +<p>The tastes and the mania for collecting of the Abbé +de Villeloin were so well known that it is not impossible +that it was he of whom La Bruyère was thinking +when, in his famous “Caractères,” he gives the following +description of a collector:</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</span></p> + +<p>“‘You wish to see my prints,’ says Democenes, and +he forthwith brings them out and sets them before +you. You see one which is neither dark nor clear nor +completely drawn, and better fit to decorate on a holiday +the walls of the Petit Pont or the Rue Neuve than +to be treasured in a famous collection. He admits +that it is engraved badly and drawn worse, but hastens +to inform you that it is the work of an Italian artist +who produced very little, and that the plate had +hardly any printing; that, moreover, it is the only one +of its kind in France; that he paid much for it, and +would not exchange it for something far better. ‘I +am,’ he adds, ‘in such a serious trouble that it will +prevent any further collecting. I have all of Callot +but one print, which is not only not one of his best +plates, but actually one of his worst; nevertheless, it +would complete my Callot. I have been looking for it +for twenty years, and, despairing of success, I find +life very hard, indeed.’”</p> + +<p>This is admirably descriptive of a born collector; +and what would have been a ridiculous mania in a +philistine became a natural attitude on the part of +such a <i>connaisseur</i> as the Abbé de Marolles. In our +eyes his weaknesses were insignificant, and we forgive +him his bad translations, his unpublished history of +Art, and the rather monotonous self-sufficiency of his +Memoirs, for the encouragement which his honest enthusiasm +and indomitable collecting gave to the artists +who made the Golden Age of Engraving—for having +been the Prince of Print-collectors.</p> +<hr class="full x-ebookmaker-drop" /> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="c4">JEAN MORIN</h2> +</div> + +<p class="c">1600-1666</p> + +<p class="c"><span class="smcap">By</span> LOUIS R. METCALFE</p> + + +<p class="drop-cap">THE Exhibitions of French Engraved Portraits +of the Seventeenth Century recently made at +the New York Public Library and at the Boston +Museum of Fine Arts, give one an excellent idea +of the vogue of the portrait and the excellence attained +by that remarkable school of engravers which +flourished under the auspices of Louis XIV. A +score of masters are represented, from Michael Lasne +to the superb Nanteuil, and their models, the most +representative personages of that grand century of +French history, whether plotters against Henry IV, +friends and foes of Richelieu or flatterers of Louis +XIV, stand proudly on parade for the twentieth-century +American, in all their glory of immense wigs, +armor and lace collars, or in the quieter garb of +prelates and counselors to the king. It is a remarkable +illustration to the history of a great period. The +nobility represented the survival of the fittest, for in +the early part of the century four thousand of them +had died in those street duels which Richelieu had +abolished only with the help of the executioner. As to +the clergy, no wonder that so many of those portly +prelates could afford to have their portraits painted<span class="pagenum" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</span> +and engraved: the wealth of the church had never +been greater. Their example was followed by every +one of any importance in the public eye; he had his +portrait made with no more hesitation than one has +nowadays to sit to a photographer of recognized excellence.</p> + +<p>It was the Golden Age of Portrait-painting, for +they were the days of Rubens, Van Dyck, Rembrandt +and that host of splendid Dutch artists for whom physiognomy +had no secrets. They in turn inspired Philippe +de Champaigne and, later, Lebrun and Mignard, +Rigaud and Largillière. Many of their glorious canvases +have long been public property and remain +to-day enshrined in national museums, but many more +have for years remained jealously guarded heirlooms +in private collections, and have been known only to +a few. Many of those which have not been destroyed +have become so altered by time and damaged by +faulty restoration that they hardly do justice to their +creators.</p> + +<p>Thanks to the engraver, these portraits are just as +alive to-day as when they were painted, for in an +engraving there is no paint to fade or darken, no +values to become altered. A brilliant impression of an +early state remains to-day what it was when it emerged +from the master’s hand two and a half centuries ago. +Such collections as are now exhibited represent more +than brilliant examples of an art which is lost; they +are historical and artistic documents of great importance, +and the French Engravers of the Seventeenth +Century deserve infinite praise for having showed all +the possibilities of an art which, as Longhi claims in +his book <i>La Calcografia</i>, “publishes and immortalizes<span class="pagenum" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</span> +the portraits of eminent men for the example of +present and future generations, better than any other +serving as the vehicle for the most extended and +remote propagation of deserved celebrity.”</p> + +<p>Among the many artists who were responsible for +the Golden Age of Engraving, Jean Morin occupies +a unique position. He was born in 1600 and died in +1666. Morin has the distinction of having not only +immediately preceded and influenced the master of +them all, Nanteuil, but also of having produced fifty +portraits which, in contradistinction to all other reproductive +engravers, he etched instead of engraved +with the burin. It is difficult, however, to realize +what a strikingly original and personal artist he was, +without first considering in what stage of development +his first efforts had found the art.</p> + +<p>When had engraved portraiture begun in France? +We must look for its first steps in the illustrations of +the books which were published during the second +half of the sixteenth century; they teem with carefully +executed small-sized portraits which, as a rule, +were framed in decorative cartouches and bore lengthy +inscriptions. Very few of them have been drawn from +life; the first engravers, not trusting their own powers, +were content to copy those exquisitely sensitive +and delicate drawings, the crayon portraits which the +Clouets made of royalty and the court at the time of +Francis I, Henry II, and Catherine de Medicis. They +are a wonderful pendant to Holbein’s drawings of the +courtiers of Henry VIII. The finest are now hanging +in the famous Gallery of Psyche at Chantilly. Nothing +can describe the subtlety with which the artist +has combined refinement and realism and drawn with<span class="pagenum" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</span> +delicate color the features of the famous personages +of those tragic times.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" id="f37"> +<img src="images/fig37.jpg" alt="" /> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Morin.</span> <span class="smcap">Louis XIII, King of France</span></p> +<p class="caption">After the painting by Philippe de Champaigne<br /> +Size of the original engraving, 11⅜ × 9⅛ inches</p> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter1" id="f38"> +<img src="images/fig38.jpg" alt="" /> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Morin.</span> <span class="smcap">Anne of Austria, Regent of France</span></p> +<p class="caption">Widow of Louis XIII and Mother of Louis XIV<br /> +After the painting by Philippe de Champaigne</p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original engraving, 11½ × 9¼ inches</p> +</div> + +<p>Here is Henry IV as a careless youth next to the +terrible Catherine when she was an innocent-looking +young bride; further on are the baby daughter of +Francis I and the indomitable head of the house of +Guise. The sad Charles IX is represented here as a +mere boy; there, a week before his death, shaking with +fever and tortured by remorse for the fearful massacre +which he had instigated. The ill-fated Mary +Stuart wears becomingly her widow’s mourning, and +is surrounded by the chivalry and the beauty of the +court. The success of these drawings was so great that +every one desired complete sets of them, and the result +was that they were copied over and over again, first +by other artists, and finally by amateurs who were +not very faithful to their models. The work of the +Clouets was intelligently continued by several members +of the family of Dumonstier, and the vogue of +this exquisite form of portraiture lasted until the middle +of the following century.</p> + +<p>It was these finished miniatures which the first engravers +attempted to reproduce on wood and copper; +their drawing was in most cases weak, and consequently +the resemblance was seldom faithful; their +knowledge of line-work was very meager, and therefore +the modeling was most primitive; but in spite of +this, their work is interesting for its exquisite finish +and its consistent effort to express the character of the +individual. Such very personal little portraits as +those of Philibert Delorme in his treatise on architecture, +Orlando di Lasso in a book of motets, and the +great Ambroise Paré in his treatise on the fractures of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</span> +the skull, shared the fame of those of Henry IV by +Thomas de Leu, and greatly increased the popularity +of engraving.</p> + +<p>By the beginning of the seventeenth century it had +become extremely fashionable to dabble in engraving, +and painters, architects, goldsmiths, noblemen and +even ladies were busy gouging wood and cutting copper +with an enthusiasm which has bequeathed us a +mass of small illustrations, tail-pieces, grotesques, +mottos, emblems and other embellishments. Then +there appeared during the reign of Louis XIII a peculiar +genius in Claude Mellan. He adopted such an +original technique that he had practically no followers. +Considering cross-hatching rank heresy, Mellan +spent a great part of his life making facsimiles on +copper of more than four score charming pencil-drawings +which he had made from life, using distinct lines +which he made broader in the shadows. Although he +thereby succeeded in producing a set of very remarkable +plates, he was prevented by the exaggerated simplicity +of his system from securing all the detail, the +refinement of expression necessary to a real psychological +study, and he was unable to express any color, +texture or chiaroscuro whatever.</p> + +<p>The most original artistic genius at that time was +Callot, who had introduced etching in France; he +delighted everybody with the facility and <i>esprit</i> with +which he handled the needle, and he produced a great +number of plates full of crisply drawn little figures +which possessed so much animation that nothing like +them had previously been seen. His two attempts at +portraiture, however, are far from being significant;<span class="pagenum" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</span> +it may be said that he was not serious enough for +such work.</p> + +<p>By that time portrait-engraving had become extinct +in Germany, and it was achieving little of importance +in Italy and Spain; in the Low Countries, however, it +was producing masterpieces. Even if Rembrandt and +Van Dyck had given the world nothing more than +their etched portraits, their fame would live forever. +In the former, the world found an artist who +painted as effectively with the needle as with the +brush, and an etcher who reveled in such powerful +and correct chiaroscuro that his portraits were a perfect +revelation. The glowing light with which he +illumined his faces and the boldness and freedom of +his line-work amazed the engravers of his time, for in +comparison they had worked only in outline, and +those who attempted to imitate him achieved very little +success. In the plates of Rembrandt the engraved +portrait reaches the last degree of warmth of expression +and life.</p> + +<p>As to Anthony Van Dyck, he had followed the +example of Rubens and encouraged the leading engravers +of Antwerp to reproduce his portraits on copper. +The result was that noble work called his +“Iconography,” which contained over a hundred portraits +of the leading painters and art patrons of the +time, most brilliantly engraved by Soutman, the Bolswerts, +Vorstermann and Paul Pontius under the +master’s jealous supervision. In directing this work +Van Dyck developed such enthusiasm that he himself +etched eighteen portraits from life, in which the faces +are modeled with small dots; they are charming drawings +which exhibit such a wonderful knowledge of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</span> +physiognomy, and possess so much life and color in +spite of the simplicity of their treatment, that they +remain masterpieces for all times.</p> + +<p>Through the genius of Rubens and Van Dyck the +art of engraving had become transformed; at last life +and color had come into it. No such brilliancy in the +treatment of flesh and varied texture had been attained +by pure line-work before the appearance of +Pontius’s portrait of Rubens, and with the exception +of the etchings of Rembrandt, nothing so human had +previously been seen as Van Dyck’s etching of Pontius +himself.</p> + +<p>But in spite of the best achievements of the Flemish +engravers, there was still an important advance to be +made before the copperplate could give such a faithful +translation of a painting that besides the drawing +and the color, it could reproduce all the refinement of +detail, all the texture and chiaroscuro, all the painter-like +effect of the canvas. That interval could be +bridged only by a born draughtsman who had the soul +of a portrait-painter and by an artist who would devote +himself exclusively to the solution of that one +problem. For that final step of its development, +reproductive engraving had to go to France and to +the unique Jean Morin.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" id="f39"> +<img src="images/fig39.jpg" alt="" /> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Morin.</span> <span class="smcap">Cardinal Richelieu</span></p> +<p class="caption">After the painting by Philippe de Champaigne<br /> +Size of the original engraving, 11½ × 9¼ inches</p> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter1" id="f40"> +<img src="images/fig40.jpg" alt="" /> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Morin.</span> <span class="smcap">Pierre Maugis des Granges</span></p> +<p class="caption">Maître-d’Hôtel of Louis XIII<br /> +After the painting by Philippe de Champaigne</p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original engraving, 11½ × 9⅛ inches</p> +</div> + +<p>It is incredible that so little should be known about +an artist of his prominence, particularly as at that +time the best artists were constantly “<i>en evidence</i>” +and undertaking distant travels for the sake of their +education and in order to gain patrons. We must +assume that Morin lived a very quiet life and cared +little for recognition. Who were his first masters remains +a mystery; the references which are made to +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</span>him in the records of the time point only to the fact +that he was always held in high esteem for the excellence +of his work, and that everywhere his serious +character commanded respect. Two things are nevertheless +certain concerning him. One is that he had +begun by becoming a well-schooled painter, for his +etched work is of singularly uniform excellence; the +other is that he had been influenced exclusively by +the Flemish School. It was the etching of Van Dyck +which tempted him to give up the brush for the +graver, and it was his own peculiarly calm and conscientious +temperament which impelled him to carry +the original technique of that prince of portraiture to +the last degree of finish.</p> + +<p>On the other hand, it was from another Flemish +artist, Philippe de Champaigne, who had made +France his home, that he received inspiration and +guidance throughout his life-work. In return for this +he devoted himself to the faithful reproduction of as +many of that master’s canvases as he could engrave +before his death.</p> + +<p>Morin’s work consists of a few figure-subjects and +landscapes and fifty portraits. These are among the +finest that were engraved during the seventeenth century, +and they have the distinction of illustrating the +reign of Louis XIII and his minister Richelieu. As +an historical gallery they possess as much importance +as the portraits made later by the school of Nanteuil: +four of them are after Van Dyck, fourteen are from +the works of various painters, including Titian, and +all the rest, thirty-two in number, reproduce the dignified +canvases of Philippe de Champaigne. It was +natural for Morin to turn to the Flemish painter, not<span class="pagenum" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</span> +only because the latter had soon after his arrival become +the painter of the court and the head of the +French School, but because his calm, precise art was +admirably suited to the engraver’s work.</p> + +<p>The canvases of Philippe de Champaigne have little +of the power of Rubens, or the coloring and supreme +elegance of Van Dyck, nor do they possess the depth +and originality of the portraits of Rembrandt, but +they are characterized by an uncommon strength of +draughtsmanship and composition, and they unfailingly +exhibit such profound seriousness, restraint and +dignity as few masters can boast of. As in the case of +most of Morin’s portraits, it is hard to gaze upon +them without experiencing that peculiar sensation of +familiarity with the human being represented, without +being convinced that here is the bare truth just as +an intelligent and thoroughly sincere nature beheld it, +without feeling that some of the model’s soul has +passed into the canvas. It could not be otherwise +with the work of an artist who had toiled so earnestly +to follow an ideal, and who himself had been visited +by so much affliction. De Champaigne became at +the end of his life a Jansenist and a devoted Port +Royalist—that is, a member of a community of austere +human beings whose lives were so simple and whose +thoughts were so high that they were a perpetual +reproach to the selfish clergy of the day and the empty +butterflies who crowded the salons of Versailles.</p> + +<p>He has never come into his own, principally because +he stood in such close proximity to more brilliant +lights, and also because so many of his scattered +paintings have become darkened with age. His work +as the painter of Richelieu established such a popularity<span class="pagenum" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</span> +for the portrait as it had not known before and +as it has not known since. To-day, when his name is +mentioned, one shrugs his shoulders and says: “Oh, +well, but what was he compared to Rubens, Van Dyck +and Rembrandt?”, and then suddenly remembers that +it was he who painted Richelieu and that the full +length portrait which hangs in the Salon Carré of the +Louvre and the triple study of the head which is in +the National Gallery, London, will always rank with +the masterpieces of portrait-painting.</p> + +<p>Such was the artist to whom Jean Morin went for +advice and for whom he developed such intense admiration +and devotion. The Flemish painter must +have readily seen how much the engraver’s temperament +had in common with his own, and immediately +understood that his faultless drawing and conscientious +nature would make of him an admirable interpreter +of his canvases. Certain it is that he lost no +time in encouraging him to develop his technique, and +that he cheerfully gave him his portraits to copy. The +friendship which ensued continued until death, and +Morin devoted his life to popularizing the portraits of +Philippe de Champaigne, later becoming himself affiliated +with the noble sect of Port Royalists.</p> + +<p class="gtb">* * * * *</p> + +<p>The peculiar significance of Morin’s work, aside from +the fact that it has been the principal means of perpetuating +the work of a remarkable artist, is that it +represents the first effort in the history of Engraved +Portraiture to reproduce a painted portrait with all +its refinement of drawing and variety of tones. No +such trouble had previously been taken fully to represent +all the color and chiaroscuro of a picture. In<span class="pagenum" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</span> +order to accomplish this the engraver had to develop +a painter’s technique, and that was something very +different from the precise and methodical line-work +of the engravers who had preceded him. The etched +work of Callot was mere line-work; Van Dyck supplemented +this with some delicate modeling made with +small dots; and Morin, developing this system to the +last degree of refinement, bent all his energy to the +absolutely faithful reproduction of the canvas in +every detail of line and gradation of light. His technique +is chiefly etching combined with burin work. +As a rule, his faces are modeled entirely with etched +dots, and he does this with such delicacy and refinement +that in many cases they have the quality of a fine +mezzotint. Only in a few of his plates does he use +line-work to deepen his shadows, and this is done over +the stippling. By means of this system he was able to +express the greatest variety of tones, from the very +light complexion of a blond Englishwoman to the +dark skin and blue-black hair of a southern Frenchman. +The hair he always etched with great care, with +a line admirable alike for its precision and freedom; +the frame alone seems to have been done with the +burin. It is, however, in the treatment of the costume +that Morin shows his independence of technical finish; +he makes little pretense at securing realism in his +expression of texture. Compared to the work of Nanteuil +the surface of his armor and his moiré silk cassocks +and rich lace collars often lack realism, while his +backgrounds possess little of that soft gradation which +enhances the beauty of so many later engravings.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" id="f41"> +<img src="images/fig41.jpg" alt="" /> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Morin.</span> <span class="smcap">Henri de Lorraine, Comte d’Harcourt</span></p> +<p class="caption">The Marshal-in-Chief of the Armies of Louis XIII<br /> +After the painting by Philippe de Champaigne</p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original engraving, 11¹¹⁄₁₆ × 9⅜ inches</p> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter1" id="f42"> +<img src="images/fig42.jpg" alt="" /> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Morin.</span> <span class="smcap">Guido, Cardinal Bentivoglio</span></p> +<p class="caption">The Papal Nuncio to the Court of Louis XIII<br /> +After the painting by Anthony Van Dyck</p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original engraving, 11½ × 9⅛ inches</p> +</div> + +<p>But it is this very freedom which makes his plates +so original and gives them such especial charm. Besides, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</span>why should etching partake of the character of +slow and precise burin work? Morin’s chief preoccupation +is the rendering of the face and the preservation +of all the character of the original; it is +evident that he spares no pains to make his reproduction +an absolutely faithful one. As to the rest of the +picture, he does not consider it necessary to do more +than recall the picturesque effect of the original’s +ensemble, but if he treats it with freedom he is careful +to make every line serve a definite purpose; he is +never careless. It is to his great sympathy and +conscientiousness that Morin owed his success as a +reproductive engraver, and the fact that his plates +had a great influence on his contemporaries. Before +him no such delicate tones and deep velvety blacks +had been seen, no engraver had been so consistently +correct and expressive in his drawing; so much justice +had never been done to a painter.</p> + +<p>The art of Morin was so personal that the efforts of +his pupils Alix, Plattemontagne and Boulanger to +follow his technique remained unsuccessful; he was +as inimitable in his brilliant effects of chiaroscuro as +Mellan with his fiendishly clever but exaggerated simplicity +of line.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, the lesson of thorough faithfulness he +had given was not lost; the seed fell on fertile ground +when Robert Nanteuil, at the outset of his career, +studied Morin’s work closely enough to imitate his +technique in such portraits as those of Pierre Dupuis, +the royal librarian, and the poet Gilles Menage. The +engraver from Rheims had doubtless profited by the +example of his own master Regnesson, whose work +had already shown Morin’s influence. Those clever<span class="pagenum" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</span> +little portraits as well as a few others done in that +style show a marked advance on the previous ones, in +which he had followed that of Mellan, and the delicate +little dots with which their faces are modeled paved +the way for that system of close, short strokes with +which he eventually succeeded in imitating to perfection +the peculiar texture of skin. Nanteuil was to +inherit the best in all who had preceded him and +to combine all previous systems into one which would +carry the art of Engraved Portraiture to its greatest +development; but it was Morin who gave him the most +eloquent example and who pointed out to him the last +remaining step to technical perfection.</p> + + +<p class="c large"><span class="smcap">His Work</span></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">On</span> looking through a complete collection of Morin’s +portraits one is immediately impressed by the small +number of plates which denote crude beginnings. As +none of them is dated, it is next to impossible to arrange +his works chronologically, all the more so as +the engraver perfected his technique and found his +manner very early in his career. We find only one +portrait which is really unsatisfactory, that of <i>Louis +XI</i>, copied possibly from an old miniature, and only +two which show any hardness of tone, the portraits of +<i>Augustin</i> and <i>Christophe de Thou</i>; they are undoubtedly +early works, the head of the dreaded hermit of +Plessis-les-Tours being probably Morin’s first effort. +Then we have that most Gallic of Frenchmen, <i>Henry +IV</i>, a quaint head drawn with much character; <i>Marie +de Médicis</i>, after Pourbus; and <i>Henry II</i>, after +Clouet. These last two are most excellent plates, the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</span> +first showing us that intriguing Italian princess +shortly after her arrival from Florence, in all the +glory of her wonderful complexion and golden hair; +the second recalling the exquisite art of Clouet in the +simplicity and delicacy of the treatment of the face +and the superb detail of the costume.<a id="FNanchor_1" href="#Footnote_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> We are then +brought face to face with the great <i>Philip II</i> of Spain, +in one of Morin’s most serenely elegant plates after +Titian, and the portraits of the two great saints of the +time, <i>Saint François de Sales</i> and <i>San Carlo Borromeo</i>. +To the four portraits after Van Dyck we must give +special attention, for they contain Morin’s masterpieces, +the portrait of <i>N. Chrystin</i>, son of the Spanish +plenipotentiary at the Peace of Vervins, and that of +<i>Cardinal Bentivoglio</i>, the papal nuncio to the court of +Louis XIII. Here we have Morin in his grand manner, +transferring all the color of the original canvas to his +copperplate and interpreting his models with a boldness, +a softness, a clearness of purpose and a strength +of sympathy wholly admirable. In awarding the +palm, we hesitate between the deep tones, the velvety +finish in the head of the somber Spaniard and the +subtle modeling of the beautifully illumined, sensitive +Italian face. Either of these portraits alone would +have established Morin’s fame.</p> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_1" href="#FNanchor_1" class="label">[1]</a> Why such an authority as Robert-Dumesnil should have +classed the portrait of Henry IV’s queen among the doubtful +plates of Morin is a mystery. It is clearly the work of that +master, and although an early plate, it is one of his brilliant +ones.</p> + +</div> + +<p>The other two plates after Van Dyck represent +women, <i>Margaret Lemon</i>, beloved of the painter, and +the <i>Countess of Caernarvon</i>, a remarkable study in +high lights, and one of Morin’s most delicate plates.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</span></p> + +<p>The remainder of the gallery consists of his interpretation +of Philippe de Champaigne’s portraits, and +the array of celebrities there represented is a notable +one. What would we know of the features of that +eccentric monarch, the melancholic <i>Louis XIII</i>, if we +did not possess this striking etching of Morin? The +father of “<i>le roi soleil</i>” is here posing, ill at ease, and +probably wondering what Richelieu is going to make +him do next. An unsatisfactory human being was he +whose “principal merit was to have done what few +mediocre characters ever do, bow down to the superiority +of genius.” His queen, <i>Anne of Austria</i>, is here +shown both in the quiet garb of a widow (a delightfully +simple portrait) and in the more ceremonious +court mourning, while his prime minister, <i>Richelieu</i>, +is represented in a plate than which there is none more +interesting among Morin’s works. A comparison between +this impression of the great cardinal’s character +and that recorded in the superb engraving by +Nanteuil is a most interesting one. In the latter we +see the steersman of the ship of state in all his grandeur +of noble purpose and responsibility, and we feel +the immense will-power with which, in constant danger +of his life, he bore long with his enemies, and then, +driven to action, “went far, very far and covered +everything with his scarlet robe.” But in Morin’s interpretation +of the canvas of de Champaigne we see +quite another side of the great statesman. It is the +Richelieu whom we perceive through some memoirs of +the time (and not the least trustworthy ones), and in +the literary history of the early seventeenth century. +It is a man wholly lacking in a sense of humor, possessing +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</span>plenty of vanity and constantly yearning for recognition +as a literary light and a squire of dames.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" id="f43"> +<img src="images/fig43.jpg" alt="" /> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Morin.</span> <span class="smcap">Nicolas Chrystin</span></p> +<p class="caption">Son of the Plenipotentiary of King Philip IV of Spain to the<br /> +Peace of Vervins<br /> +After the painting by Anthony Van Dyck</p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original engraving, 11½ x 9¼ inches</p> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter1" id="f44"> +<img src="images/fig44.jpg" alt="" /> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Morin.</span> <span class="smcap">Antoine Vitré</span></p> +<p class="caption">Printer to the King and the Clergy<br /> +After the painting by Philippe de Champaigne</p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original engraving, 12¼ x 8⅜ inches</p> +</div> + + +<p>Quite a different portrait is that of his nephew, +<i>Vignerod</i>, shown here in three-quarter figure as the +Abbé de Richelieu, a most attractive plate, and one of +the only two portraits of Morin’s in which the model +is shown otherwise than in the usual bust form. The +other one is that of <i>Vitré</i>, a famous printer of the +time; it is one of the lowest-toned engraved portraits +extant, and in its velvety blackness it is a most striking +production. A fine impression of it will turn one’s +thoughts to Rembrandt and show the full extent of +Morin’s originality.</p> + +<p>The list contains many famous personages: <i>Mazarin</i>; +<i>Michel Le Tellier</i>; <i>Charles de Valois, duc d’Angoulême</i>, +son of Charles IX and the beautiful Marie +Touchet; the <i>Maréchal d’Harcourt</i>, the “<i>Cadet à la +perle</i>” of the more famous portrait by Masson and the +valorous head of the armies of Louis XIII; the charming +<i>Comtesse de Bossu</i> and her secretly married second +husband the <i>Duc de Guise</i>; the <i>Maréchal de Villeroy</i>, +preceptor of Louis XIV; <i>Potier de Gesvres</i>, also a warrior; +and the <i>Chancellor Marillac</i>, whose brother was +executed by Richelieu and who himself became the cardinal’s +victim, though in a less tragic way. All these +plates are an admirable interpretation of their models, +and show an absolute lack of mannerism. With their +brilliant contrasts of light and shade and the uncommon +amount of texture due to the freedom of the line-work +and the rich color of the ink employed, they have +a richness of tone and a decorative effect shared by few +of the portraits made later in the century. Some of +them are engraved in a rather high key and show a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</span> +simply modeled head against a light background, as +in the case of <i>Brachet de la Milletière</i>, the savant who +was first an intolerant Calvinist and then became a +militant Roman Catholic. In other portraits like that +of <i>Maugis</i>, the <i>maître-d’hôtel</i> of the king, the artist +seems to have reveled in the deepest tones of his inky +palette, and he renders the olive skin and the raven +hair of this strong-featured individual with a most +striking intensity.</p> + +<p>Splendid likenesses of prominent ecclesiastical dignitaries +are to be found among the portraits which +complete this interesting gallery, but one there is +which we must pause to contemplate, and it is the +faithfully reproduced portrait of that extraordinary +human being, J. Paul de Gondi, better known as +the <i>Cardinal de Retz</i>. In a masterpiece of draughtsmanship, +Morin duplicates the art of de Champaigne +in expressing all the cleverness and daring, the ambition +and the sense of humor, of this born gambler, +whose genius for intrigue was at the bottom of the +war of the Fronde. One can see him, with his yellow, +oily face, unkempt and unshaven, limping through +the narrow streets of Paris, distributing largesses +among a populace which, the following hour, he would +betray to the nobles, and then again champion.</p> + +<p>As a pendant we have the brilliantly executed head +of <i>Omer Talon, avocat-général du Parlement</i>, the +greatest pillar of French jurisprudence and a great +man in his day; it is a plate which Rembrandt would +have deigned to look at more than once.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" id="f45"> +<img src="images/fig45.jpg" alt="" /> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Morin.</span> <span class="smcap">Jean-François-Paul de Gondi</span></p> +<p class="caption">This personage is better known by his later title of Cardinal de Retz<br /> +After the painting by Philippe de Champaigne</p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original engraving, 11½ × 9⅛ inches</p> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter1" id="f46"> +<img src="images/fig46.jpg" alt="" /> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Morin. Omer Talon</span></p> +<p class="caption">Advocate-General of the Parliament of Paris<br /> +After the painting by Philippe de Champaigne</p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original engraving, 12¼ × 9⅛ inches</p> +</div> + +<p>Finally the famous Port Royal is here represented +in the persons of <i>Jansenius, Bishop of Ypres</i>, who +raised such a storm in church circles of that time; +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</span><i>Arnauld d’Andilly</i>, the head of the great family of +that name and the protector of Port Royal; and <i>Jean +Du Verger de Houranne, abbé de Saint-Cyran</i>, its confessor, +a man worthy of the first centuries of Christianity. +They were famous men in their day, and their +names were on everybody’s lips; their story spells the +most serious chapter of the history of their age, and +still they are all but forgotten in comparison with the +great personages of the court, and even their painted +portraits are relegated to obscurity.</p> + +<p>In these masterly prints of Morin, however, they +appear to us just as they looked in their day, with +much of their strength and weakness, their aspirations +and their secret ambitions. So much animation is +there in their faces that it is no hard matter to feel +like the old monk in the Spanish monastery who, left +alone of all his brothers, said, as he looked on the new +pictures by Velasquez, “I sometimes think <i>we</i> are the +shadows.”</p> +<hr class="full x-ebookmaker-drop" /> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="c5">ROBERT NANTEUIL</h2> +</div> + +<p class="c">1630-1678</p> + +<p class="c"><span class="smcap">By</span> LOUIS R. METCALFE</p> + + +<p class="drop-cap">IT is a curious fact that in these days of exhaustive +research in everything which concerns the fine +arts, Robert Nanteuil, the portrait-engraver of +Louis XIV, has remained until so recently both illustrious +and unknown. To be sure, his name has been +mentioned in all the histories of art, and in the +text-books of engraving he is dwelt upon at some +length and given a prominent place among the engravers +of his time; but he was never found worthy +of any especial study, of the least little <i>brochure</i>. His +name has been familiar only to the connoisseurs and +the print-collectors; to them it has always been +synonymous with the greatest excellence attained by +the lost art of line-engraving.</p> + +<p>This silence was broken finally in the artist’s own +birthplace. In 1884 Mr. Charles Loriquet, curator of +the library of the city of Rheims, who had just completed +a collection of Nanteuil’s portraits for the city +museum, addressed the Academy at one of its public +sittings and eloquently pleaded with the authorities +to erect a monument to him whom he considered second +only to the great Colbert as the most illustrious +son of Rheims. His description of the artist and his +work created such enthusiasm that he was later induced<span class="pagenum" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</span> +to publish it, together with some interesting +documents concerning Nanteuil. The unique little +book found its way into many libraries, private as +well as public, and has ever since been unfindable.</p> + +<p>Many new books on engraving have appeared since +that day which have devoted as much as two or three +pages to this brilliant artist without, however, giving +his work more than a superficial criticism. It was +not until Mr. T. H. Thomas published his recent work +“French Portrait Engravers of the Seventeenth and +Eighteenth Centuries” that the artist received proper +recognition. Nanteuil is here frankly recognized as +one of the most admirable figures in the history of +art, and proclaimed not only prince of portrait-engravers +but also a great artist among the portrait-makers +of all times. The thirty pages which are +devoted to him constitute the most brilliant and thorough +criticism that has ever been made of a line-engraver,—they +are a splendid analysis of the artist’s +technique, his development, his influence on his contemporaries, +and the exalted position which he occupied +among them. Without doubt many readers of +that interesting work will wonder why they never +had before heard of such an important artist.</p> + +<p>It was only four years ago that I for one made his +acquaintance. While I was looking through a large +collection of old engraved portraits, one head in particular +arrested my attention; it was drawn with such +rare precision, modeled with such <i>maestria</i>, it had +such expressive eyes and mouth, that it made all the +other portraits seem flat and lifeless. My admiration +turned into wonderment when I saw by the signature<span class="pagenum" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</span> +that the artist had drawn it from life as well as engraved +it. I had known the work of only those showy +engravers who, in the time of Louis XV, were content +to copy the work of the leading painters of the day +and improve on it if they could. There was no <i>traduttore +traditore</i> about this expressive portrait; here +was something of a very different order. The artist +was a real portrait-maker, a student of character, a +worthy comrade of Holbein, a draughtsman whose +ambition it was first to represent the subject as he +really looked, then to make as fine an engraved plate +as possible.</p> + +<p>The text-books on engraving which fell into my +hands informed me of the rank he had occupied in +that famous school of engraving established by Louis +XIV and of the great number of prominent people he +had drawn from life. That was enough to whet my +curiosity to the limit, for my interest in physiognomy +had become a passion, and whenever I had found in +the galleries of Europe a convincing portrait of a +well-known historical personage, my delight had been +keen. Holbeins, Van Dycks, Mierevelts and Quentin +de Latours had been for years the objects of my enthusiasm; +they were living documents, revelations of +personalities such as few memoirs provided. When +the catalogue of Robert-Dumesnil, the only complete +list of Nanteuil’s portraits, had informed me that +Nanteuil’s models had been in great part the men +who had given so much greatness to the reign of the +most splendid of modern potentates, I felt that the +collection must constitute an historical document of +no mean interest, if the likenesses of those celebrities<span class="pagenum" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</span> +were as convincing as that of the obscure <i>Louis Hesselin, +Président de la Chambre des Deniers</i>, which I +now owned.</p> + +<p>But it was not until I had pored over the contents +of six huge volumes containing his complete works, at +the Cabinet des Estampes of the Bibliothèque Nationale, +that I realized what a unique achievement +had been that of the engraver from Rheims. He had +made, it seems, a multitude of drawings from life of +his contemporaries, in pencil, silverpoint, crayons, +and pastels, from the King himself down to the humblest +curé of his parish, and had then engraved many +of them on copper, securing thereby so many impressions +that although almost all of his original drawings +have disappeared, his work has been perpetuated +for all times. (Whoever has said that a multitude of +sheets of paper scattered among the museums of the +world constituted a monument more enduring than +the pyramids, must have been a collector, for he realized +with how much jealousy a treasure can be +guarded.) Throughout all this work Nanteuil exhibited +such power as a draughtsman that his portraits +won international fame for their resemblance, and +moreover he engraved with such perfection that his +work and the influence he exerted over the great +school formed by Louis XIV mark the Golden Age of +Line-engraving.</p> + +<p>It is therefore in a dual capacity that Nanteuil +must be admired, and this point has not been sufficiently +emphasized by his critics. He is an inspiring +example of a man who has set out to do only one thing +(for he never attempted anything but heads)—but +has learned to do it so well that he rises far above his<span class="pagenum" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</span> +rivals and has made his name a synonym for supreme +excellence. To carry the engraved portrait to its +greatest possible perfection had been his ambition, +and he succeeded in this, for it is not possible to imagine +the burin producing more decided color, greater +fullness of tone, and finer finish than can be found in +a great many portraits by Nanteuil. It can be said +that he used the sharp metal point with the same freedom +as a great painter uses a brush; his technique +was so elastic and susceptible of modification that he +was enabled to test to the fullest extent the possibilities +of his medium and to determine its limitations.</p> + +<p>When one is lucky enough to have the wonderful +collections of the Cabinet des Estampes at his disposal, +the next thing to do after having seen the works +of Nanteuil is to examine those of his contemporaries. +It becomes perfectly clear which artists have influenced +him, and to what extent; it will also be evident +at a glance that he influenced all the rest. This study, +however superficial, will take several days, for the +number of <i>peintre-graveurs</i> encouraged by Louis +XIV through the indefatigable Colbert was great, +and their work was enormous. Edelinck, who until +recently has been better known than Nanteuil, was +extremely prolific, and Pitau, the Poillys, Masson, +Lombart, and Van Schuppen, to say nothing of Mellan +and Morin among many others, produced a great +many portraits. What a collection! What a complete +iconography of <i>le grand siècle</i>! Here is everybody +who was at all prominent in the most civilized +country of the time. Is it possible not to develop a +love of portraiture, a strong interest in engraving and +a desire to collect engraved portraits, of all pictures<span class="pagenum" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</span> +the most convenient, the most possible to acquire and +keep in large numbers?</p> + +<p>I am reminded of John Evelyn and Samuel Pepys +as well as of the abbé Michel de Marolles, who were +the first great or systematic collectors of engraved +portraits, the Frenchman owning twenty thousand +prints and all the portraits extant. Evelyn wrote to +Pepys advising him to collect them, for, as he said, +“some are so well done to the life that they may +stand in competition with the best paintings.” He +then adds: “This were a cheaper and so much a more +useful curiosity as they seldom are without their +names, ages and eulogies of the persons whose portraits +they represent. I say you will be exceedingly +pleased to contemplate the effigies of those who have +made such a noise and bustle in the world, either by +their madness and folly, or a more conspicuous figure +by their wit and learning. They will greatly refresh +you in your study and by your fireside when you are +many years returned.” We later see him write in +his “Diary” that he had “sat to the great Nanteuil +who had been knighted by the king for his art” and +had considered himself “unworthy of being included +in that gallery of models whom Nanteuil’s art has +made famous.” We know by his own “Diary” that +Pepys became an enthusiastic collector and that he +went over to Paris to buy many prints by the great +engraver, at a later date commissioning his wife to +secure for him many more which he strongly desired.</p> + +<p>Portrait-painting had at that time become a mania, +and there was no one of any prominence who did not +wish to leave to posterity a record of his physical appearance. +Richelieu in a single order had called for<span class="pagenum" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</span> +an entire gallery full of portraits of celebrities. The +French <i>peintre-graveurs</i> proved how effectively color +could be translated into black and white, and by revealing +the true relation of engraving to painting +shared the fame of their contemporaries in the other +arts.</p> + +<p>It is not possible for the lover of prints to glance +at this interminable gallery and not be amazed at the +number of portraits which show much originality in +their treatment and infinite skill in their execution, +but I defy the admirer of truth in art not to be +impressed by the small number of those by other engravers +which are distinguished by both simplicity +and conviction. The heads of Mellan, which were +drawn with as few lines as possible, remain absurdly +unique, and the etched portraits of Morin, who was +a faithful translator of Philippe de Champaigne, are +too personal for comparison. But the mass of the +<i>peintre-graveurs</i> give constant proofs of having been +influenced by Nanteuil’s method, and in the case of +Van Schuppen there is a very close following indeed +in the master’s footsteps. He is supposed to have +been his favorite pupil.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, Edelinck, brilliant colorist as he was +and a wonderfully clever artist with his burin, refused +to do any original work and too frequently attempted +to add vigor and brilliancy to the portraits +he copied. In modeling his faces he, in the opinion of +Nanteuil himself, broke his lines unnecessarily. The +work of Masson lacks quiet and balance, when his +faces are not out of drawing, while that of the rest of +the school displays that great vitality and style which +made it a model for all the artists of the following +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</span>century, without, however, combining these qualities +with the solidity, consummate science, and restraint +which characterize almost all Nanteuil’s portraits.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" id="f47"> +<img src="images/fig47.jpg" alt="" /> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Nanteuil. Louis XIV</span></p> +<p class="caption">Engraved in 1666 from Nanteuil’s own drawing from life<br /> +Louis XIV was twenty-eight years of age when this portrait<br /> +was engraved</p> +<p class="caption1">“In appearance Louis, though admirably proportioned, was slightly +below the middle height. His eyes were blue, his nose long and well +formed. His hair, which was remarkable for its abundance, was +allowed to fall over his shoulders. With his handsome features and +his serious—perhaps phlegmatic—expression he seemed admirably +fitted to play the part of a monarch.” <span class="pad">Arthur Hassall. <i>Louis XIV.</i></span></p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original engraving, 19¾ × 16¾ inches</p> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter1" id="f48"> +<img src="images/fig48.jpg" alt="" /> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Nanteuil. Anne of Austria, Queen of France</span></p> +<p class="caption">Engraved in 1666 from Nanteuil’s own design from life</p> +<p class="caption1">Anne of Austria was the daughter of Philip III of Spain, wife of +Louis XIII of France and mother of Louis XIV. She was Regent +from 1643 to 1661.</p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original engraving, 19¾ × 16¾ inches</p> +</div> + +<p>Nothing more admirable has been done in the realm +of engraving than these quiet prints in which there is +no affectation, no parade of technical brilliance, and +it is a question whether anything more sincere has +been accomplished in the history of portraiture. The +portraits of Nanteuil take their place with perfect +dignity alongside of the subtle crayon portraits of +the courtiers of Henry VIII at Windsor Castle, and +the exquisite drawings of the courtiers of Francis I +and Henry II, which alone would make Chantilly +worthy of a pilgrimage. Nanteuil’s drawing is perfect +and his massing of tones masterly; his expression +of texture has both realism and breadth, and his +indication of skin by means of a system of very close +and delicate short strokes is an admirable solution of +a problem which had been the despair of the entire +school.</p> + +<p>The most superficial study of his modeling of that +side of the face which is in full light, for instance, +will reveal the supreme delicacy, the never-failing +tact, with which he carries out this most difficult part +of the work. His burin is as light as a feather, there +is not a line too many, and he knows the exact value +of each and every tone. It is interesting to note that, +according to one of his pupils, he had made a careful +study of the chiaroscuro of Leonardo, a master for +whom he had an especial admiration.</p> + +<p>The great simplicity of his composition allowed +him to concentrate all the resources of his art on the +expression of character in the head. With an understanding<span class="pagenum" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</span> +of character which was the most sympathetic +of his day, he strove to represent his model +with all the outward calm of nature which was possible +in an age when form reigned supreme and every +one was <i>en parade</i>. To secure this touch of life Nanteuil, +at the last sitting, would do everything in his +power to bring out in his sitter’s face that look of +amused attention which is so characteristic of his portraits, +with the result that, as a brilliant critic has +recently remarked, “instead of one vivid impression +his portrait is the sum of many impressions, a balanced +conclusion rather than a single piece of evidence.” +It is this which makes his work so interesting +as a historical document. Here we see in the +truest light the divine monarch, the arrogant noble, +the worldly prelate, the serious man-of-letters, and +the humble commoner who fill all the French memoirs +of the seventeenth century.</p> + +<p>It is indeed high time that the artist who has been +called “the Louis XIV of engraving” came into his +own again, or that he at least be accorded some of the +immense popularity which he enjoyed during the +palmy days of the <i>grand siècle</i>. For two centuries he +has lain in an obscurity which it is not easy to understand, +in spite of the fact that his style of portraiture +went out of fashion long before the great monarch +died. It remained extremely unpopular throughout +the eighteenth century, for what could those +austere bust portraits against a plain dark background, +in the simplest of settings, have in common +with the decorative compositions of the days of Louis +XV, in which velvet and embroideries, ermine and +rich lace, inlaid armor, canopies and complicated furniture, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</span>played such an important part? In comparison +with these decorative panels they seem cold and +uninteresting, but on the other hand they alone represent +real portraiture; they reflect the earnestness +of Port-Royal.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" id="f49"> +<img src="images/fig49.jpg" alt="" /> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Nanteuil. Jules, Cardinal Mazarin</span></p> +<p class="caption">Engraved in 1656 from Nanteuil’s own drawing from life</p> +<p class="caption">This is one of the most interesting of the many portraits of the great<br /> +minister engraved by Nanteuil.</p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original engraving, 13½ × 10½ inches</p> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter1" id="f50"> +<img src="images/fig50.jpg" alt="" /> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Nanteuil. Bernard de Foix de la Valette, Duc d’Epernon</span></p> +<p class="caption">Engraved in 1650 from Nanteuil’s own drawing from life</p> +<p class="caption1">“This man was the son of the Duc d’Epernon, who was seated in the +carriage with Henry IV at the time when the king was assassinated. +The Duc was suspected of complicity in the plot, but this never was +proved. Both the elder and the younger Espernon were extremely +haughty and arrogant men. Their possessions in Guienne were of an +almost royal character and they governed them practically independent +of the royal authority. Both were associated with the reactionary +party.”<br /> +<span class="pad2">J. B. Perkins, <i>France under Richelieu and Mazarin</i>.</span></p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original engraving, 12⅝ × 10 inches</p> +</div> + +<p>There cannot have been a time when they were not +admired by those who possessed true artistic perception, +but there is no indication that any special value +was attached to them or that they were collected. +Suffice it to say that at the Mariette sale, in 1775, the +complete works of Nanteuil, two hundred and eighty +proofs of two hundred and sixteen plates in choice +impressions, realized only a trifle over one hundred +dollars. More than five times that sum has recently +been paid for one single print. In 1825, at a famous +auction, record prices of twelve dollars and nine dollars +were paid respectively for the portraits of <i>Pompone +de Bellièvre</i> and <i>Richelieu</i>. Half a century later +their value was not much greater, and general interest +in them remained dormant until four years ago +when the collecting world suddenly realized their artistic +worth, and made a raid on the leading markets +of Europe.</p> + +<p>It is said that Nanteuil kept a journal; if so, we +must greatly deplore the fact that it has not been preserved +to us, for we would have been treated to a delightful +account of the habits of painters in that time +and to many anecdotes connected with their sittings. +Who shall ever know the number of Nanteuil’s sitters? +His studio was found full of pastel portraits +many of which had never been engraved, and his pencil +and pen sketches seem to have been innumerable. +In spite of his reputation of <i>bon vivant</i> and his popularity<span class="pagenum" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</span> +with both the <i>bourgeoisie</i> and the nobility, allusions +to Nanteuil in the memoirs of the day are fragmentary +and we know little about the man. We are +told, however, that he was born in Rheims about 1630 +and that he drew so persistently during his school +years that his studies were sadly neglected. It was +only through the excellence of the frontispiece which +he engraved for his thesis that he succeeded in securing +his degree. The conscientious engraver Regnesson +taught him all he knew, gave him his sister in +marriage, and sent him to Paris, not to complete his +apprenticeship, for Nanteuil was already more famous +than his master, but in order to place him under +the influence of the court painters.</p> + +<p>In the great city his wit and conviviality won him +many friends and his talent for securing an excellent +likeness secured him instant fame. It is said that he +received his first order by following some divinity +students to a wine-shop where they were wont to take +their meals. There, having chosen one of the portraits +he had brought from Rheims, he pretended to +look for a sitter whose name and address he had forgotten. +It is superfluous to add that the picture was +not recognized, but it was passed from hand to hand, +the price was asked, the artist was modest in his demands, +and before the end of the repast his career +had begun. He made so many portraits in a week +that he was advised by a famous connoisseur to limit +his production to four. At night he copied them in +pen-and-ink for the sake of familiarizing himself with +that burin work which later was to astonish Europe.</p> + +<p>During many months he catered to the growing demand +for the portrait, with drawings in the style of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</span> +those of the Clouets and the Dumonstiers. One has +but to realize in what favor all portrait-makers were +in those days in order to understand how this peculiarly +gifted artist sprang into such sudden popularity. +The dignity of French portrait-painting was being +upheld by the noble Philippe de Champaigne, under +whose influence the painters of the time produced +a great number of portraits which, if not technically +brilliant, were presented with that serious dignity +which was characteristic of the early seventeenth century +and were drawn with admirable sincerity and +correctness. To him Nanteuil went for advice and +encouragement, and soon after presented the engraved +copy of the painter’s latest portrait; it met with +so much success that it can be said to have started the +tremendous vogue of the engraved portrait and the +formation of the great school which Colbert installed +at the Gobelins.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile the artist, already a perfect draughtsman +and very proficient with pastels, had carefully +studied the technique of all the leading engravers, +and as soon as he had evolved a system of his own +bent all his efforts on revolutionizing the art. Nanteuil +made a picturesque début during that incredible +opera-bouffe, the War of the Fronde. He was +draughted into military service, but although frequently +active with a blunderbuss and wearing a false +beard in imitation of the dreaded Swiss mercenaries, +he succeeded in making a portrait of all the heroes of +the day. For him sat <i>Condé</i> and the <i>Duc d’Epernon</i>, +the last representative of feudalism in France; the +<i>Ducs de Bouillon</i>, <i>de Mercœur</i>, <i>de Nemours</i>, and <i>de +Beaufort</i>, who met in taverns to appoint the generals<span class="pagenum" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</span> +of an army which did not exist; the Archbishop of +Paris, <i>de Retz</i>, who appeared in Parliament armed like +a pirate; that fat poet and peasant <i>Loret</i>, who sold on +street corners his “Muse Historique,” a daily satire +on the intriguing nobles “who were not afraid of +bullets but who were in deadly fear of winter mud,” +and lastly the indomitable prime minister, <i>Cardinal +Mazarin</i>, whom the populace twice drove from Paris +and then so madly welcomed back that many were +trampled to death in the riot. Of that wily Italian he +engraved as many as fourteen portraits.</p> + +<p>During the few years which followed the civil war +he made his most interesting portraits.</p> + +<p>It was then that he assiduously frequented the literary +salons of the capital where, a poetaster of some +renown, he was ever welcome and made that beautiful +pastel portrait of <i>Madame de Sévigné</i> which has been +preserved to us, and another of <i>Mlle. de Scudéry</i>, who +thanked him as follows:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> +<div class="stanza"> +<div class="verse indent0">Nanteuil en faisant mon image</div> +<div class="verse indent0">A de son art divin signalé le pouvoir,</div> +<div class="verse indent0">Je hais mes traits dans mon miroir,</div> +<div class="verse indent0">Je les aime dans son ouvrage.</div> +</div> +</div> +</div> + +<p>At this time he engraved the set of small-size portraits +which represents the high-water mark of his +talent. Can one possibly imagine anything more +exquisitely choice than his heads of <i>Maridat</i> the philosopher +and <i>Hugues de Lionne</i> the secretary for foreign +affairs? With equal excellence he made the portraits +of <i>Chapelain</i>, one of the founders of the French +Academy, who reported himself to the King as a +greater poet than Corneille, <i>Scudéry</i>, who signed the +popular novels written by his sister, the witty <i>Marquis +de St. Brisson</i>, the poets <i>Loret</i> and <i>Sarrazin</i>, the +genial <i>Abbé de Marolles</i>, savant and print-collector, +the learned octogenarian <i>Le Vayer</i>, and the ex-preceptor +of the King, the archbishop of Paris, <i>Péréfixe +de Beaumont</i>.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" id="f51"> +<img src="images/fig51.jpg" alt="" /> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Nanteuil. Jean Loret</span></p> +<p class="caption">Engraved in 1668 from Nanteuil’s own drawing from life</p> +<p class="caption1">Loret is chiefly remembered for his <i>Gazette</i>, written in <i>vers libres</i>, +which he began to issue in 1650, and continued until his death in +1666.</p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original engraving, 10⅛ × 7⅛ inches</p> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter1" id="f52"> +<img src="images/fig52.jpg" alt="" /> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Nanteuil</span>. <span class="smcap">François de la Mothe le Vayer</span></p> +<p class="caption">Engraved in 1661 from Nanteuil’s own drawing from life</p> +<p class="caption1">Few were Le Vayer’s equal either in wit or learning. His writings +were exceedingly numerous. Regarded as the Plutarch of his century +for his boundless erudition and his mode of reasoning. He died at +the age of eighty-six, in 1672, having enjoyed good health to the last +days of his life.</p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original engraving, 10¾ × 7½ inches</p> +</div> + +<p>These portraits owe their size to the fact that they +had been used as frontispieces for the works of those +various personages, but the special care, the <i>con +amore</i> finish with which they are executed, is due to +the fact that the subjects were warm personal friends +of the artist. The portrait of <i>John Evelyn</i> was made +in the same way, although before the artist’s technique +had reached its fullest development.</p> + +<p>Before the year 1660 Nanteuil made, besides +many portraits including those mentioned above +and several of Mazarin, four very remarkable ones +of a larger size. They are those of <i>Cardinal de Coislin</i>, +the young <i>Duc de Bouillon</i>, <i>Marie de Bragelogne</i>, +and the abbé <i>Basile Fouquet</i>. The prelate was a +Jesuit who became chaplain of Versailles; the youth, +as lord chamberlain of France, had the honor of +handing the King his nightshirt, an honor which he +forfeited forever when on two successive nights he +forgot his gloves. The woman was an old love of +Richelieu; the delicate modeling of her careworn face +is worthy of Holbein’s best manner and is executed +with a tact that baffles description. This plate reminds +us of the fact that out of two hundred and sixteen +portraits Nanteuil made only eight of women; +of these only two were made from life,—that of <i>Anne +of Austria</i> and the one mentioned above, but they are +gems of purest ray serene which make us sigh when<span class="pagenum" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</span> +we think of what he could have done with Henrietta +of England and Mesdames de Lavallière, de Montespan, +and de Maintenon! As to the fourth portrait, +it is that of the brother of the great <i>Surintendant des +Finances</i>, Nicolas Fouquet; he was at that time the +head spy of Mazarin as well as the chancellor of the +orders of the King and the most accomplished rascal +who ever fished in troubled waters.</p> + +<p>These four engraved portraits are masterpieces of +characterization, and exhibit in the most eloquent way +the master’s powerful draughtsmanship, his utter +lack of mannerisms, and the sympathetic way in +which he varied his entire technical treatment to suit +different subjects. Here is abundant proof that he was +primarily a portrait-maker, that, in spite of the fact +that he handled the burin with as much ease and sureness +as his pencil and chalks, he never strove after +effect and never allowed his skill to carry him away +and mar the unity of his perfectly balanced composition. +He is a psychologist who consistently strove to +brand his model’s soul on his countenance. Of no +other <i>peintre-graveur</i> can we say as much.</p> + +<p>With the year 1660 came the royal marriage, and +a twelvemonth later the death of the despotic Mazarin +and the emancipation of the young King. Nanteuil’s +fame by this time was thoroughly established, +he was everywhere recognized as a past-master of his +art and was in a position to refuse as many orders as +he pleased. The leading men in the church, the parliament, +and the <i>bourgeoisie</i>, which always followed +the lead of the nobility, did not rest until they had +the artist from Rheims engrave their portraits and +strike off many hundred impressions, which were<span class="pagenum" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</span> +quickly enough distributed among their families and +friends. Among them were the Maître d’Hôtel and +the physician of the King, <i>Guenault</i>, the quack who +looked after the health of the Queen, and <i>Dreux d’Aubray</i>, +who became the first victim of his daughter, the +famous murderess, the Marquise de Brinvilliers. +The two great protectors of Nanteuil at this time +were <i>Michel Le Tellier</i> and <i>Nicolas Fouquet</i>. Of +the former, who was then war minister and who as +chancellor of France died the day after signing the +fatal Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, we have ten +convincing portraits, as well as five of his son <i>Charles +Maurice</i> who became the worldliest of archbishops, +and one of his eldest son who became the dreaded war +minister <i>Louvois</i>. These sixteen portraits of the Le +Tellier family represent some of Nanteuil’s best work. +The portrait of <i>Fouquet</i> is a great historical document, +a piece of most subtle characterization done in +the artist’s best manner, and it is interesting to note +that it was made only a very short time before the +sensational fall of that then most powerful man in +the kingdom. Could we but know what thoughts ran +through the head of the Lord of Vaux as he sat for +his portrait with a quizzical smile! Nanteuil, by the +way, has left us the record of the appearance of practically +all the principal figures of that sensational +trial which lasted three years and the outcome of +which alone assured the complete independence of the +King.</p> + +<p>Nanteuil had now patrons influential enough to insure +him a gracious welcome at court. His greatest +ambition had been to paint the young King and he +felt able to improve greatly on the efforts of both<span class="pagenum" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</span> +Mignard and Lebrun. With this end in view he addressed +to the King a petition for a sitting in such +eloquent verse that the request was readily granted. +The first pastel portrait of the King seems to have +made a small sensation at court; “Come and look at +your husband in this portrait, madame,” said Anne +of Austria to the young Queen; “he fairly speaks.” +Still greater, however, was the King’s delight when +he saw the engraved copy of the portrait which Nanteuil +later presented to him. He rewarded with a +gift of 4000 livres the artist whom he had already +named court painter and engraver with a lodging at +the Gobelins, and at whose bidding he had raised the +status of engraving to a fine art.</p> + +<p>There are in all eleven of these portraits of Louis +XIV and they give us an excellent idea of the haughty +appearance, the conceited expression of the demigod +during the happiest period of his life. What care we +for the old monarch who later was caricatured by the +pomp of Rigaud’s painting and the satire of Thackeray? +This is the young Alexander who has just +seized the reins of government and set up the most +brilliant court in history. In the earliest one he +is twenty-six years old, madly in love with Mlle. de +La Vallière, and building Versailles with feverish +haste; at the last sitting he is thirty-eight and hopelessly +under the sway of Madame de Montespan. +Here he bears our gaze with a contemptuous air, the +man who, “if he was not the greatest of kings, was the +greatest actor of majesty who ever filled a throne.” +These portraits were considered extraordinary in +point of resemblance. The great Bernini himself, who +had come from Italy to make a bust of the King, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</span>warmly congratulated the engraver on “the best +portrait ever made of his Majesty,” and this before +the leading personages of the court.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" id="f53"> +<img src="images/fig53.jpg" alt="" /> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Nanteuil. Nicolas Fouquet</span></p> +<p class="caption">Engraved in 1661 from Nanteuil’s own design from life</p> +<p class="caption1">“Of the three ministers to whom Louis had openly given his confidence, +Lionne, Le Tellier, and Fouquet, the last named was the only +one who possessed the qualities necessary for a prime minister.</p> +<p class="caption1">“‘It was generally believed,’ says Madame de La Fayette, ‘that the +Superintendent would be called upon to take the Government into his +hands.’ There is no doubt whatever that Fouquet himself expected +eventually to succeed Mazarin.” <span class="pad">Arthur Hassall, <i>Louis XIV</i>.</span></p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original engraving, 13 × 10 inches</p> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter1" id="f54"> +<img src="images/fig54.jpg" alt="" /> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Nanteuil. Basile Fouquet</span></p> +<p class="caption">Engraved in 1658 from Nanteuil’s own drawing from life</p> +<p class="caption1">Basile Fouquet, Abbé de Barbeaux and Rigny, Chancelier des +Ordres du Roi, was the brother of Nicolas Fouquet, the famous +Superintendent of Finance.</p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original engraving, 12¾ × 9¾ inches</p> +</div> + +<p>An unusual feature of these royal portraits is that +seven of them are life-size, a feat which had not been +previously attempted.</p> + +<p>It had become the fashion to hang these portraits +in rich frames at the top of the high wainscots used in +those days, and the very large size adopted by Nanteuil +made of them decorative panels which held their +own even in a roomful of paintings. Many of the +nobles must have owned complete sets. They met with +such favor that during the last four years of his life +the artist engraved entirely in that size, about twenty-two +inches by thirty, and had started a gallery of all +the great men of France; he had actually produced +as many as thirty-six before he died in 1678. The list +includes the portraits of the Queen Mother <i>Anne of +Austria</i>, decked out in all her finery a few weeks before +she died, that of the young <i>Dauphin</i>, the effeminate +brother of the King the <i>Duc d’Orléans</i>, <i>Colbert</i>, +<i>Turenne</i>, <i>Louvois</i>, <i>Bossuet</i>, the <i>Duc de Chaulnes</i>, and +several other celebrities. They are admirable plates +in which he secured broad masses and simple effects by +means of the same system he used in his small portraits. +In spite of the very large surface and what +seems like a million lines there is no confusion, not a +flaw in the unity of his composition. They had formed +the special admiration of the last Medici Duke of Tuscany +when, on a visit to France, he had insisted on +meeting Nanteuil. From him he purchased for the +Uffizi Gallery in Florence the portrait of the painter +himself and those of the King and Turenne. He moreover<span class="pagenum" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</span> +obliged him to accept a pupil <i>dans l’intimité</i>, a +thing which Nanteuil had never done for he always +locked himself up when he engraved his plates. It was +that Domenico Tempesti who has left us such an interesting +record of the habits of the engraver and the +ideas he held on the subject of portraiture. It is from +him that we know that the master made all those delightful +pastel portraits in three sittings of exactly +two hours each. Would that we knew how long it took +him to engrave them! we can only form a vague idea +of this from the fact that in his most prolific year he +made fifteen engraved portraits. Robert-Dumesnil +limits to ten the portraits engraved entirely by Nanteuil; +the selection he makes is judicious, but the +number was certainly far greater. Of course the +purely mechanical draughting of the frame and the +filling of the background was the work of assistants, +and it is more than probable that in many of the less +important plates and in the life-size portraits, on account +of the great surface to be covered, the costume +was engraved by such pupils as Pitau and Van +Schuppen, for instance, as their cleverness for such +work almost equaled their master’s. But in all the +small portraits and those of <i>Turenne</i> and the <i>Ducs de +Bouillon</i>, for instance, we recognize everywhere the +vigorous yet tactful touch of Nanteuil himself.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" id="f55"> +<img src="images/fig55.jpg" alt="" /> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Nanteuil. Jean Chapelain</span></p> +<p class="caption">Engraved in 1655 from Nanteuil’s own drawing from life</p> +<p class="caption1">Jean Chapelain, born at Paris, December 4, 1595, died February 22, +1674. His mediocre poem “La Pucelle” brought him much more renown +than the “Iliad” brought to Homer. It was Chapelain who corrected +the first poems of Racine.</p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original engraving, 10⅝ × 7½ inches</p> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter1" id="f56"> +<img src="images/fig56.jpg" alt="" /> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Nanteuil. Pompone de Bellièvre</span></p> +<p class="caption1">Engraved in 1657 (when Nanteuil was twenty-seven years of age) +after the painting by Charles Lebrun. By many authorities it has +been described as the most beautiful of all engraved portraits.</p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original engraving, 12¾ × 9¾ inches</p> +</div> + +<p>Reproductive work was for Nanteuil an exception. +The plates which he engraved from the paintings of +other artists number thirty-eight; to each of them he +affixed the name of the painter with a fairness which +Edelinck, for one, seldom exhibited. It is natural that +these plates should show little of that inspiration and +originality which were distinctive of a born character +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</span>student like the artist from Rheims, but the majority +are supremely interesting and the finest are masterpieces. +It is evident that in the earliest ones, notably +in the head of <i>Chavigny</i>, reputed a son of Richelieu, +he was experimenting with technique and that several +others which were used as frontispieces were merely +potboilers. Even the portrait of Queen <i>Christina of +Sweden</i> and the much overrated one of the Dutch +lawyer <i>van Steenberghen</i> are nothing more than interesting +studies of simple linework and softness of +tone. In those of the two little sons of the Duchesse +de Longueville, the <i>Comte de Dunois</i> and the <i>Comte +de Saint Paul</i>, we see how easy it was for Nanteuil’s +technique to express the soft outline and the tender +complexion of youth with a charming effect.</p> + +<p>After Lebrun he engraved with an admirable chiaroscuro +the head of the Chancellor <i>Seguier</i>, and that +well-known portrait of <i>Pompone de Bellièvre</i>, statesman +and philanthropist, which, if lacking in vigor, +represents the highest point reached by the intelligent +refinement of linework. But it is only with the sober +and precise work of his master Philippe de Champaigne +that Nanteuil had a positive affinity. The two +artists held identical views about portraiture and the +Flemish painter found in the engraver from Rheims +an interpreter who fairly breathed in unison with +him. It is not possible to imagine anything more admirable +than the engraved portraits of <i>de Neufville</i>, +bishop of Chartres, <i>Richelieu</i>, and Marshal <i>Turenne</i>. +They undoubtedly represent the last word on the +subject of line-engraving. The face of the Cardinal +is treated with all the subtlety of Velasquez and the +head of the greatest captain of his time is modeled<span class="pagenum" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</span> +with a strength of coloring which Rembrandt himself +would have admired. This plate shows in the clearest +way Nanteuil’s ability to represent different textures: +the hair, skin, lace, silk, and steel armor are treated +with precision which is wholly satisfying and a +breadth which commands the highest admiration.</p> + +<p>From the inventory made in his house the day after +his death we learn that Nanteuil had for years been +dissipating in extravagant living the large sums he +had earned with his work. His household goods, his +drawings, and the tools of his profession were sold +under the hammer, and it is amusing at the present +day to realize that a lot consisting of 2966 of his +prints, together with many reams of paper and his +printing-press, were valued at only seven hundred +dollars.</p> + +<p>It is also explained why most of his portraits went +through so many different states; it was chiefly on +account of the “theses.” A curious fashion it was +by which wealthy students in law, philosophy, and +the arts formally dedicated their graduating theses +to one or another distinguished personage whose engraved +portrait they ordered from a <i>peintre-graveur</i>. +This, with a lengthy dedication, was then attached to +the printed thesis as a frontispiece and sent to the +patron and to many of his friends. It is thus that the +Chancellor d’Aligre commissioned Nanteuil, who had +the monopoly of such work, to engrave and strike off +twenty-five hundred proofs of a new and extra-large +portrait of the King measuring thirty inches by forty-two +for his son’s thesis; for this and the printing of +the thesis itself the engraver received the sum of +10,400 livres, or about $9000 of our money. The price +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</span>of an ordinary engraved portrait was $2000. Other +less wealthy postulants had to be content with ordering +a reimpression of a plate which had already been +used and which needed only a change of dedication. +In this way the portrait of the Dauphin for instance +went through fifteen states and one of the King went +through eleven; the plates were naturally often retouched +by the artist in order to enable them to withstand +so much use. Not to these theses alone, however, +must the great number of royal portraits which +were printed be attributed, for they had become immensely +popular throughout the kingdom and whoever +could afford it had one hanging in his house. In +1667 Cardinal de Bouillon ordered the portrait of the +King for his thesis, and some years later another student +selected for his patron the Cardinal himself. In +1675 it was the son of d’Artagnan, dear to all lovers +of romance, who was presented by his father with the +finest of the King’s portraits for his thesis.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" id="f57"> +<img src="images/fig57.jpg" alt="" /> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Nanteuil.</span> <span class="smcap">Henri de la Tour d’Auvergne, Vicomte de Turenne,<br /> +Maréchal de France</span></p> +<p class="caption">Engraved from the painting by Philippe de Champaigne</p> +<p class="caption1">“It is not possible to imagine anything more admirable than the engraved +portraits of <i>de Neufville</i>, bishop of Chartres, <i>Richelieu</i>, and +Marshal <i>Turenne</i>. They undoubtedly represent the last word on the +subject of line-engraving.... The head of the greatest captain of +his time is modeled with a strength of coloring which Rembrandt +himself would have admired.” <span class="pad">Louis R. Metcalfe.</span></p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original engraving, 15⅛ × 11⅜ inches</p> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter1" id="f58"> +<img src="images/fig58.jpg" alt="" /> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Nanteuil. Jean-Baptiste Colbert</span></p> +<p class="caption">Engraved in 1668 from Nanteuil’s own drawing from life</p> +<p class="caption1">To Colbert Louis XIV was indebted for much, if not all, of the success +of his enterprises during the twenty-five years succeeding the death of +Cardinal Mazarin.</p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original engraving, 19¾ × 16¾ inches</p> +</div> + +<p>Of course this custom does not account for all the +changes of state. When an archbishop became a cardinal +for instance, the engraver made the necessary +modification in the costume on the copper and provided +his patron with a new set of impressions; similarly +for a change in a title. In the case of Fouquet, +the second of five states of his portrait was made necessary +by a mistake in spelling in the dedication, the +others being undoubtedly due to the touching-up of +the plate on account of the great number of impressions +ordered by a powerful man the circle of whose +friends constituted the real court of that time. In +the case of Cardinal Mazarin, politics undoubtedly<span class="pagenum" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</span> +played a great part in the use which was made of his +portraits.</p> + +<p>It is not generally known that Nanteuil was himself +the author of most of the titles and dedications +both in prose and in verse, in Latin as well as in +French, which form such an attractive feature of his +prints. This was to be expected of the clever versifier +who had written such amusing sonnets to the royal +family and the leaders of the court in connection with +their sittings, and of the cheerful companion who had +known so intimately the <i>beaux-esprits</i> whom the hospitality +of Fouquet had so often convened at his château +of Vaux. To the Queen, who had a complexion +of marvelous whiteness, he wrote a poem thanking her +for the order for her portrait, which ended with this +line: “<i>Mais prenons courage, on a peint le soleil +même avec un charbon!</i>”</p> + +<p>Nanteuil’s original drawings in pencil, crayons, and +pastels are fewer by far than those of the Clouets or +the pastellists of the eighteenth century which have +been preserved to us; probably not more than twenty +are now to be found in public collections. To my knowledge +the Louvre has two, the Museum of Rheims four, +the Chartres Museum one, Florence three, Chantilly +four, and Stafford House, London, six. They are supremely +interesting for that simplicity and sincerity, +that living truth, which make one feel as if he recognized +old acquaintances. As for his engravings, there +are splendid collections of them in Paris, Dresden, +and Chantilly, and there doesn’t exist a private collection +of any importance in the world which does not +contain some of the noble work of the past-master of +engraved portraiture, the painter of the most brilliant +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</span>period in modern history, the genial artist who +had said to his pupil: “<i>Le temps et la peine ne font +pas tant les beaux ouvrages que la bonne humeur et +l’intelligence.</i>”</p> + +<hr class="full x-ebookmaker-drop" /> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</span></p> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="c6">REMBRANDT’S LANDSCAPE ETCHINGS</h2> +</div> + +<p class="c"><span class="smcap">By</span> LAURENCE BINYON</p> + +<p class="c more">Assistant-Keeper of Prints and Drawings in the British Museum<br /> +Author of “Dutch Etchers,” “Painting in the Far East,” etc.</p> + + +<p class="drop-cap">THE pioneers of landscape art, those who have +opened up new possibilities of design in landscape +themes, were, at least until the nineteenth +century, certain great masters of figure-painting. +Titian, Rubens, Velasquez, Rembrandt, each of +these gave a fresh impulse to the painting of landscape, +an impulse which even to-day has not lost its +inspiration; while the conventions established by +Claude, Ruysdael and Salvator Rosa seem by comparison +tame and more or less artificial or demoded.</p> + +<p>Of these masters Rembrandt is the nearest to modern +feeling. The famous <i>Mill</i>, in which a landscape +motive is treated with a richness and depth of humanity +that hitherto had found expression only in figure-subjects, +stands in this respect as a monument in +European art.</p> + +<p>Yet landscapes form a very small proportion of +Rembrandt’s paintings. Rembrandt as a painter +rarely seems to treat landscape for its own sake. He +composes for the most part arbitrarily, using broad +spaces of level and hill-masses with ruined towers as +the material elements of a scene for which some visionary<span class="pagenum" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</span> +play of gleam and cloud seems the real motive in +his mind, the counterpart of the emotions he sought to +communicate and evoke.</p> + +<p>We are now concerned with Rembrandt as an etcher. +Here again the proportion of landscape to figure-subjects +is small. There are seven and twenty out of a +total of some three hundred etchings.</p> + +<p>We note at once that the etched landscapes present +a different aspect from the painted landscapes.</p> + +<p>In his paintings Rembrandt shows none of the characteristics +of the national landscape school of Holland, +of those artists who relied on the features of their native +land,—its wide pastures, its canals, its seaports, its +sand-dunes, its farms, its great skies and immense +horizons,—and made of the plain portraiture of these +familiar scenes their pride and glory. Rather he took +hints from his traveled countrymen and the painters +who had sought the classic South. Landscape, whether +treated simply or as an adjunct to some scene from +Scriptural story, was to him a source of romantic appeal. +And just as Italian masters, like Botticelli, +have sometimes introduced as background foreign +scenes from the Rhineland suggested by the work of +Northern painters, so Rembrandt, to whom mountains +had all the fascination of strangeness and romance, +took from actual drawings of Titian’s school which he +may have possessed or seen, or from pictures by traveled +Dutchmen like Hercules Seghers, the features he +desired, fusing them into a world of his own imagination.</p> + +<p>The etchings, on the contrary, are for the most part +pure Holland. Yet their inspiration is very different +from that of the typical Dutch painter or etcher.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</span> +They are not mere portraits of places. Even when +apparently simple transcripts from the scene before +the artist’s eyes, the composing spirit is at work in +them, rearranging and suppressing. And perhaps +just because of this absence of the literal topographical +spirit, they seem to contain the essential genius +and atmosphere of Dutch landscape.</p> + +<p>Practically all Rembrandt’s landscape work belongs +to the middle period of his life. Some writers have +sought to account for this by supposing that he turned +to such subjects in some rural retreat to soothe his +overwhelming grief at the loss of his wife. The actual +dates hardly support this supposition. Saskia died in +the summer of 1642. But the landscapes begin a few +years before that date. The first ten years of the master’s +life at Amsterdam—the years of his prosperity—were, +we know, crowded with portrait commissions; +and landscape work would only have been a relaxation. +It was hardly more than this at any time, but +for some reason it interested him more during the ten +or twelve years after 1640 than in his youth or old +age.</p> + +<p>The earliest date on a landscape etching is 1641; the +latest, 1652. The undated plates can be placed with +tolerable certainty within a year or so.</p> + +<p>In 1634 Rembrandt had etched the large <i>Annunciation +to the Shepherds</i>, in which the landscape is of the +same visionary kind as appears in the paintings. The +general effect is of white on black, the supernatural +effulgence in the sky, which so startles the shepherds +and their flocks, calling out of the gloom mysterious +waving heights of foliage and obscure gleams of distance.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" id="f59"> +<a href="images/fig59big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig59.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Rembrandt. The Windmill</span></p> +<p class="caption1">“In the <i>Windmill</i> Rembrandt found a perfect subject. There is no adventitious impressiveness +lent by strong effect of light and shadow in this beautiful plate: all is plain and simply rendered.... +We feel the stains of weather, the touch of time, on the structure; we feel the air +about it and the quiet light that rests on the far horizon as the eye travels over dike and +meadow....” <span class="pad">Laurence Binyon.</span></p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original etching, 5¹¹⁄₁₆ × 8³⁄₁₆ inches</p> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter1" id="f60"> +<a href="images/fig60big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig60.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Rembrandt. View of Amsterdam</span></p> +<p class="caption1">“In the little <i>Amsterdam</i>, as in nearly all these etchings, the sky is left absolutely clear and +empty. And how far more truly it suggests to us the brightness of a cloudless day than the +most successful of plein-air painting in vivid color, which stops the imagination instead of +leaving it free and active! This little plate is filled with air and sun.” <span class="pad">Laurence Binyon.</span></p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original etching, 4⅜ × 6 inches</p> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</span></p> + +<p>In none of the etchings of pure landscape does Rembrandt +adopt this method and conception. None of +them has that effect of illuminated gloom which is so +peculiarly associated with the master’s name. Their +effect is of black on white, and the line is given its full +value. One of the earliest, probably, is a small plate +(B. 207), sometimes called <i>A Large Tree and a House</i>. +I believe some critics have cast a doubt on it, but +it is unmistakably Rembrandt’s in conception and +“handwriting.” The little piece might well be called +<i>Twilight</i>. We seem to be near the shores of a lake; +light is fading out of the sky and scarcely permits +us to discern any details; the presence of a few figures +and a human dwelling is felt rather than seen. +All is gray and quiet; nothing stands out saliently. +It is the silvery evenness of tone which is the charm of +this tiny plate, in no way striking, yet indefinably +revealing a master’s hand. Usually Rembrandt would +make such quiet etched work, all of one biting, the +basis of a rich effect produced by dry-point. He may +have intended to have used the dry-point here, but +perhaps thought the scale was too small.</p> + +<p>With the <i>Windmill</i> and the <i>Cottage and Hay-barn</i>, +both dated 1641, we come to a group of plates which +are typical of Rembrandt’s landscape manner in etching. +Close to these in date, presumably, are the little +<i>Amsterdam</i> and the <i>Cottage and Large Tree</i>. Mr. +Hind, in the latest catalogue of the etchings, follows +von Seidlitz in assigning the <i>Amsterdam</i> to 1640, +though Dr. Six maintains that the absence of a tower +not finished till 1638 proves it to be earlier than that +year. Rembrandt, however, was quite capable of +abolishing towers to suit his composition. The simplest<span class="pagenum" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</span> +materials presented by the country-side are used +in these etchings. Though Rembrandt never seems to +have cared to make pictures of such subjects, he made +a great number of drawings of them. A wonderful +series of these sketches, once in the possession of his +pupil, Govert Flinck, is at Chatsworth; and numbers +of course in the great public collections. These summary +small drawings, made with a reed-pen and sepia, +and sometimes with a wash of sepia added, do not appeal +to every one, certainly not to those whose pleasure +is in the external aspect of things, the softness of verdure, +the glitter of trees; to say nothing of the want +of grandeur and impressiveness in the scenes themselves, +the absence of anything scenic, such as makes +the most obvious appeal, whether in nature or art.</p> + +<p>But the more one studies drawings, and the more +one becomes familiar with the qualities which differentiate +the first-rate from the second, the higher one +inclines to rank these sketches. For one thing, they +are almost miraculous in the certainty with which the +reality of things is evoked, and the planes of recession +indicated. Slight as is the means employed, rough +and summary as is the stroke of the blunt pen, sometimes +even with what seems a superficial clumsiness or +carelessness, the things seen are there,—trees, buildings, +bridges and canals, men and women,—and not +only visible but, as it were, tangible. We can walk +in imagination into these little landscapes, and not +only do we breathe an infinite air but we are sure of +every step. And this is the great test of mastery in +such drawings. Take, for instance, the landscape +drawings of Domenico Campagnola, which are also in +reed-pen and sepia. These, with their broken foregrounds,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</span> +upland farms among trees of delicate foliage, +and distant mountain-ranges, are much more attractive +to the eye at first sight than the great Dutchman’s +sketches. But when in imagination we move into +these pleasant landscapes, we are disconcerted by unrealities; +our steps are uncertain, for they are not on +solid ground. And in fact a pleasant pattern of pen-strokes +remains a pattern and nothing else. But +Rembrandt’s rough strokes have somehow molded all +the ground with its saliences and depressions and +filled the whole with light and air.</p> + +<p>It is the same with the etchings. But there is a +difference: the difference of the medium. True artist +as he is, Rembrandt conceives all he does in the terms +of the material used. His etchings are born as etchings +and nothing else; they are not drawings transferred +to copper.</p> + +<p>There is a specific beauty of the etched line which is +quite different from the beauty of a line made by the +pen or chalk, or the line ploughed by a burin on copper. +If it is unsuited to the sweeping rhythms of large +movement in design, such as we associate with Rubens, +for instance, its want of modulation and even character +help a quiet dignity of draughtsmanship; and +the etcher has means of enhancing homeliness of detail +unrivaled in any other medium. Old buildings, +wharves, boats and shipping at a river-side or quay,—such +things as these naturally attract the etcher, for +they are congenial to his medium. And in the <i>Windmill</i> +(B. 233, dated 1641), Rembrandt found a perfect +subject.</p> + +<p>There is no adventitious impressiveness lent by +strong effect of light and shadow in this beautiful<span class="pagenum" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</span> +plate: all is plain and simply rendered. But we have +only to compare this etching with the etchings of some +of Rembrandt’s immediate predecessors, like Jan and +Esaias Van de Velde, to see the difference not only +between a great and an average artist, but between a +great and a commonplace etcher. The picturesque +tracery of a windmill’s sails and timber-work are seen +and enjoyed in the Van de Veldes’ plates, but how +much more than this is in Rembrandt’s <i>Mill</i>! We feel +the stains of weather, the touch of time, on the structure; +we feel the air about it and the quiet light that +rests on the far horizon as the eye travels over dike +and meadow; we are admitted to the subtlety and +sensitiveness of a sight transcending our own; and +even by some intangible means beyond analysis we +partake of something of Rembrandt’s actual mind and +feeling, his sense of what the old mill meant, not +merely as a picturesque object to be drawn, but as a +human element in the landscape, implying the daily +work of human hands and the association of man and +earth. Here is a classic in its kind which many generations +of etchers have found an inspiring model. An +accident in the biting apparently is the cause of an +aquatint-like broken tone of gray in the sky above the +mill; but it comes with congruous effect, and is rather +a beauty than a blemish.</p> + +<p>In the little <i>Amsterdam</i>, as in nearly all these etchings, +the sky is left absolutely clear and empty. And +how far more truly it suggests to us the brightness of +a cloudless day than the most successful of plein-air +painting in vivid color, which stops the imagination +instead of leaving it free and active! This little plate +is filled with air and sun.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</span></p> + +<p>A first state of this etching belongs to my friend +Mr. Gustav Mayer in London, but is absolutely unknown +to all catalogues previous to that of Mr. Hind. +In it there is a hare running over the fields, but it is a +thought too big in scale, and Rembrandt doubtless +suppressed it as a distracting incident.</p> + +<p>The <i>Cottage and Hay-barn</i> (B. 225) and the <i>Cottage +and Large Tree</i> (B. 226) seem companion plates; +and though the latter is not dated, it is natural to +assume for it the same date as that inscribed on the +former—1641. If the <i>Cottage and Large Tree</i> is the +finer of these two oblong plates in design, the <i>Cottage +and Hay-barn</i> is the more brilliant as an etching. The +cottage and shed which give the plate its name are in +the center of the design, and the dark mass, full of +tender shadows and reflections, emphasizes by contrast +the play of open light on the fields stretching +on either side, the river, the house nestling in a wood, +beyond, and the distant towers of Amsterdam. Though +all is treated in Rembrandt’s broad way, it is surprising +how full, how suggestive of intimate detail the +landscape is. As we look at it there comes over us the +sense of sleepy, bright air and sunshine, the quiet of +the fields, in which, though nothing outwardly is happening, +we are conscious of the stir of natural life, of +growing things, of flowers and grass and insects, and +peaceful human occupations going on unobtrusively; +of “all the live murmur of a summer’s day.” It is +interesting, in view of Rembrandt’s treatment of +topography, to note that Dr. Jan Six has shown that +the master has here combined two different views in a +single composition.</p> + +<p>In the <i>Cottage with White Palings</i> (B. 232, dated<span class="pagenum" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</span> +1642), effective use is made of the broad white planks +of the fence to enforce the pattern of black and white +in the design. Here again the subject is placed in the +center with views on either side, though the horizon is +higher than usual.</p> + +<p>With the <i>Three Trees</i> (B. 212) of 1643, we come to +the most famous of Rembrandt’s etched landscapes. +This plate stands in the same sort of relation to the +rest as the <i>Mill</i> to the rest of his landscape paintings. +It is the grandest and most typical, most expressive +of the master’s temperament. Here the composition +is less accidental, and more (so to speak) architectural. +The group of three trees stands up darkly on +a bank of high ground at the right. At the left one +looks over the level fields to the horizon and a glimmer +of distant sea. A thunderstorm is passing away, with +contorted clouds piled in the upper sky and trailing +over the plain, and rods of violent rain slant across +the corner of the scene. For once Rembrandt builds +up a landscape design out of sky and earth; and the +something elemental which inspires it gives the etching +a pregnancy and significance which are absent +from the other landscapes, in themselves, at their best, +more intimately charming. There are those who object +to the straight, hard lines of the rain; but I do not +find them untrue, and they are of great value in the +design. Then, what beauties lurk in this etching, +wherever one looks into it! The return of the light +after rain, than which there is nothing more beautiful +in nature, gives a wet sparkle to the fields; and again +we notice how the trees in their dark relief give glory +to the space of luminous clearness beyond. The wagon +on the top of the high bank is moving toward the light, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</span>and a painter sits by the roadside, sketching the passing +of the storm. An angler fishes in a pool; lovers, +hardly discerned, sit together, away from the world +in a thicket’s obscurity. All the plain, so solitary at +first sight, is filled with moving life. Of what particular +species the three trees are, it might be difficult, +as often with Rembrandt, to say with confidence; from +their shape and the sturdy growth of their boughs, I +suppose them to be oaks. There is no doubt, however, +about the willow in the <i>Omval</i> (B. 209). The gnarled, +seamed trunk of an old tree, with its rugged wrinkles +and smooth bosses, irresistibly invites the etcher’s +needle; and Rembrandt, like other etchers since, has +evidently found a great enjoyment in this willow-stem, +as in that other old willow to which he added, +not very felicitously, a St. Jerome reading, spectacles +on nose, and a perfunctory lion (B. 232, dated 1648). +The <i>Omval</i> shows a different kind of composition; the +willow at the edge of a thicket, in whose shadow two +lovers are embowered, divides the plate; the right and +larger part is all light and open—a river-bank on which +a man moves down to the ferry, and the broad sunny +stream, and houses, masts, and windmills across the +water—a picturesque river-side such as Whistler and +Haden loved to etch.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" id="f61"> +<a href="images/fig61big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig61.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Rembrandt. The Three Trees</span></p> +<p class="caption1">“With the <i>Three Trees</i> of 1643, we come to the most famous of Rembrandt’s etched +landscapes. This plate stands in the same sort of relation to the rest as the <i>Mill</i> to the +rest of his landscape paintings. It is the grandest and most typical, most expressive +of the master’s temperament.” <span class="pad">Laurence Binyon.</span></p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original etching, 8⁵⁄₁₆ × 11 inches</p> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter1" id="f62"> +<a href="images/fig62big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig62.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Rembrandt. Six’s Bridge</span></p> +<p class="caption1">“To the same year—1645—belongs the well-known <i>Six’s Bridge</i>, a plate in which the pure bitten line, with +no close hatching or shadow-effect, is given full play. Of its kind, this is a perfect etching.” <span class="pad">Laurence Binyon.</span></p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original etching, 5¹⁄₁₆ × 8¹³⁄₁₆ inches</p> +</div> + +<p>To the same year—1645—belongs the well-known +<i>Six’s Bridge</i> (B. 208), a plate in which the pure bitten +line, with no close hatching or shadow-effect, is given +full play. Of its kind, this is a perfect etching. Every +one knows the story of its being done while Six’s servant +went to fetch the mustard. But there is nothing +hasty or incomplete about it: the masterly economy of +lines is perfectly satisfying in its absolute directness<span class="pagenum" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</span> +and simplicity. There is great pleasure in contemplating +a work like this, so clean, so free from any +superfluous element.</p> + +<p>But from this time onward Rembrandt seems to +grow dissatisfied with pure etching. He grows more +and more fond of dry-point, using it very frequently +to enrich an etched plate, and in his later years preferring +often to dispense with the acid altogether.</p> + +<p>Dry-point is employed in the delightful little plate, +the <i>Boat-house</i> (B. 231), to deepen the shadows of the +arch over the water; but in ordinary impressions this +has worn off and only the groundwork of bitten lines +remains. This is the kind of subject which most artists +would have drawn in delicate detail; but Rembrandt +is always rather remarkably indifferent to the +particular beauty and character of vegetation (probably +this was one of the reasons why he made so little +appeal to Ruskin); and it is surprising that with all +the indifference and roughness in the drawing of the +plant-forms on the river-bank, the little plate should +still have so intimate a character and suggest so much +of the beauty of dark, quiet water in which reflections +of flower and herbage are asleep.</p> + +<p>In one or two of the plates of 1650 and thereabouts, +as if tired of level horizons, Rembrandt closes the view +with a mountain or range of hills. Such are the <i>Canal +and Angler</i> and the <i>Boat in the Canal</i> (B. 235 and +236), which, joined together, form one composition; +and one might add the <i>Sportsman with Dogs</i> (B. +211), though Mr. Hind assigns the completion, at any +rate, of this etching to a date of a few years later.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" id="f63"> +<a href="images/fig63big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig63.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Rembrandt. Landscape with a Boat in the Canal</span></p> +<p class="caption1">“In one or two of the plates of 1650 and thereabouts, as if tired of level horizons, Rembrandt +closes the view with a mountain or range of hills. Such are the <i>Canal and +Angler</i> and the <i>Boat in the Canal</i>.” <span class="pad">Laurence Binyon.</span></p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original etching, 3¼ × 4¼ inches</p> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter1" id="f64"> +<a href="images/fig64big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig64.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Rembrandt. Farm with Trees and a Tower<br /> [Landscape with a Ruined Tower and Clear Foreground]</span></p> +<p class="caption1">“... a long, oblong plate, of great beauty for its pattern of light and shade. Part of the sky is shadowed, +and the last light, before a shower pours over the trees, illuminates the foliage on one side.” <span class="pad">Laurence Binyon.</span></p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original etching, 4⅞ × 12⅝ inches</p> +</div> + +<p>The <i>Hay-barn with Flock of Sheep</i> (B. 224) is an +instance of a favorite feature in Rembrandt’s landscape—a +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</span>road seen in perspective at one side of the +design. The <i>Landscape with a Cow Drinking</i> (B. +237) is a beautiful etching in a rather slight manner, +with a suggestion of wind in the branches of trees, and +light coming with the wind. Even in the <i>Three Trees</i>, +though there is storm, there is little impression of +movement in the air; and it is characteristic of the +landscape etchings as a whole that they are serene +and still, and more often suggest a sunny day than +gray skies.</p> + +<p>Dry-point becomes more emphatic in the <i>Obelisk</i> +(B. 227); indeed, in the earliest impressions of this +plate the black of the bur is too pronounced, and only +after it had been printed from till this effect had +merged and blended with the etched lines was the +right effect attained. Here the obelisk gives character +to the design; and in the <i>Landscape with a Square +Tower</i> (B. 218) a building dominates,—an old tower +of rather blunted outlines, such as Rembrandt loved to +crown dark hills with in the visionary landscapes of +his painting.</p> + +<p>Another old tower occurs, less prominently, in the +<i>Farm with Trees and a Tower</i> (B. 223), a long, oblong +plate, of great beauty for its pattern of light and +shade. Part of the sky is shadowed, and the last light, +before a shower pours over the trees, illuminates the +foliage on one side. In the first two states there is a +small cupola on the tower; but Rembrandt, no doubt +rightly, judged that the design would be improved by +lopping it off. The change certainly subdues the local +character of the scene.</p> + +<p>Another long oblong of perhaps greater beauty is +the <i>Gold-weigher’s Field</i> of 1651 (B. 234). This is all<span class="pagenum" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</span> +air and sun and space, the etched lines light and open, +with dry-point adding a kind of gleam and vibration +to the fertile fields. It is a revelation of what a great +artist can do, unaided by tone or color, with a scene +that to the average eye would be tame enough. There +is a sense, too, of the riches of the earth, the farmer’s +pride in broad acres and growing crops, which gives +a human touch, never absent from Rembrandt’s work.</p> + +<p>In contrast with this is another plate of the previous +year—the <i>Three Gabled Cottages</i> (B. 217)—where +the dry-point is freely used to give color and softness +to the thatched roofs, checkered with the shadow of an +old tree. But it is the gratefulness of shadow in the +noonday, not its gloom, which is the motive of the +etching.</p> + +<p>The last group of landscapes are in pure dry-point. +It is interesting to compare one of the earlier bitten +plates with the <i>Road by the Canal</i> (B. 221), delicious +in its freshness and spontaneous effect, or the <i>Clump +of Trees with a Vista</i> (B. 222). Of this last there is +a first state with a mere indication of part of the design; +the trees, with the peep through the thicket, +seem to have been an afterthought.</p> + +<p><i>The Wood over Palings</i> (B. 364), the principal one +of several unfinished studies on one plate, has velvety +dry-point in the foliage. It is a plate that seems to +have served for inspiration to Andrew Geddes, the +Scotch artist who was one of the first to inaugurate +the revival of etching in the nineteenth century and to +realize once again—what had been so unaccountably +forgotten since Rembrandt’s time—the possibilities +and beauty of the dry-point method.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" id="f65"> +<a href="images/fig65big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig65.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Rembrandt. The Gold-weigher’s Field</span></p> +<p class="caption1">“This is all air and sun and space, the etched lines light and open, with dry-point adding a kind of gleam +and vibration to the fertile fields. It is a revelation of what a great artist can do, unaided by tone or color, +with a scene that to the average eye would be tame enough. There is a sense, too, of the riches of the +earth, the farmer’s pride in broad acres and growing crops, which gives a human touch, never absent from +Rembrandt’s work.” <span class="pad">Laurence Binyon.</span></p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original etching, 4¾ × 12⅝ inches</p> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter1" id="f66"> +<a href="images/fig66big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig66.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Rembrandt. Landscape with a Milkman</span></p> +<p class="caption1">This etching, like <i>The Wood over Palings</i>, has velvety dry-point in the foliage, and may have suggested to +Andrew Geddes, the Scotch artist who was one of the first to inaugurate the revival of etching in the nineteenth +century and to realize once again—what had been so unaccountably forgotten since Rembrandt’s time—the +possibilities and beauty of the dry-point method.</p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original etching, 2⁹⁄₁₆ × 6⅞ inches</p> +</div> + +<p>And so the series comes to an end, and landscape +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</span>disappears from the master’s work, save as a background +to figure-compositions. One of these backgrounds +may be noticed for its special interest. About +1653 Rembrandt took up a copperplate already etched +by Hercules Seghers—a <i>Tobias and the Angel</i> (after +a composition of Elsheimer’s)—and transformed it +into a <i>Flight into Egypt</i>. Suppressing the two figures, +which were of very large size in proportion to +the design, he masked the traces of them by a mass of +trees, put in his own figures on a much smaller scale, +and by the most vigorous use of the dry-point wrought +the whole into harmony. The treatment of shadowy +masses of foliage reminds us how little there is of this +element of landscape in the etchings we have been +considering. There is nothing of that feeling for the +majesty and mystery of leafy forest-trees which +Claude expressed so beautifully in the <i>Bouvier</i> etching, +and still more in his sepia drawings. Critics have +also remarked on other limitations of landscape interest +in Rembrandt—the absence of seas and water in +movement, the comparative absence of wind and +weather, in his etchings.</p> + +<p>For all that, when we think of the other Dutch +etchers of landscape, we realize how far he towers over +those who professed no other subject,—over Molyn. +Ruysdael, Everdingen, Waterloo, and Italianizers like +Both.</p> + +<p>Hercules Seghers is the one who showed most variety +and temperament; and his work evidently had +a great interest for Rembrandt. He was a curious experimenter, +and though he rarely seems quite master +of his intentions, he was the antithesis of those landscape +artists, so frequent, who “take out a patent,”<span class="pagenum" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</span> +as has been said, for some particular corner or aspect +of nature, and never do anything else but repeat their +favorite theme with variations.</p> + +<p>With Rembrandt landscape was a kind of interlude +and holiday from more serious design. We feel it in +the sunny temper which pervades the majority of the +etchings. But how far superior he is to all the rest in +his sensitiveness to beauty! As we have seen, he is +not greatly interested in the details of landscape form. +We find scribbles and shapelessness in his foliage and +plants; but his grasp of essential truths overrides all +criticism of this kind, and always and everywhere we +feel his intense joy in expressing light. The etchings +of his contemporaries seem cold and hueless, without +air or sun, beside his.</p> + +<p>I find it hard to express a preference among the +series. The <i>Three Trees</i> stands by itself, but there are +others which touch one with a more vivid charm. +Turning from one to another, I find each arresting the +eye with some particular beauty, though the set of +oblong plates, from the <i>Cottage and Hay-barn</i> to the +<i>Gold-weigher’s Field</i>, contain, I think, the most delight; +they are those in which all Holland seems to lie +before us, with its pastures and its many peaceful +waters.</p> + +<p>The landscape of Holland, with its level distances +and low horizon, has inexhaustible attractions for the +painter of skies and atmosphere. To the born designer +it is less stimulating. One of the things that most +impress in any representative exhibition of Rembrandt’s +etchings is the extraordinary variety and +freshness of his designing. The proportions of the +plate, upright, square, or oblong; the relation of the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</span> +figures to the frame; the proportion of light to dark; +the use of tone and line;—all these show a constant +variety. Those who, when they think of Rembrandt, +call up the image of a dark panel with light concentrated +on a head or group in the middle of it, find a +series of the etchings quite subversive of their preconception.</p> + +<p>Now to an inventive designer like Rembrandt the +resources of the Dutch landscape offered but little. +Where he blends landscape with figure, as in the infinitely +pathetic <i>Burial of Christ</i>, or the <i>Woman of +Samaria</i>, or the <i>Christ Returning with His Parents +from the Temple</i>, though the human types, as always, +are taken from the world around the artist, the landscape +is drawn from his imagination, or borrowed +from others. In the <i>St. Jerome</i> (B. 104) the background +is no doubt taken from a Venetian drawing. +Such methods were, indeed, inevitable, since one cannot +go on weaving designs of human forms and landscape +material where the typical form of this last is +little more than a straight line, or a series of straight +lines, across the field of sight.</p> + +<p>One may wonder, perhaps with regret, why Rembrandt +did not for once etch a landscape of his inner +vision, like those paintings at Cassel and at Brunswick. +It may be that he felt that for such tone-effects +etching was not the appropriate medium. Had he +lived in a later day, he might have used mezzotint, as +Turner did in his <i>Liber Studiorum</i>; and certainly +that process should in his hands have yielded marvelous +results.</p> + +<p>But we may well be content with these landscape<span class="pagenum" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</span> +etchings which he has left us. They express the genius +of the Dutch country, the “virtue” of it, as Pater +would have said, as no other of his countrymen has +expressed it. The series of plates in which Legros has +expressed the genius of the country of Northern +France, with its poplar-bordered streams and sunny +pastures, has something of the same native quality. +Each of these masters seems to have seized an essence +which no one not born of the soil, however enamoured +of a land’s beauty, can quite possess and make his +own.</p> + +<p>What is it that gives these landscapes their enduring +charm, and why do we rank them so high? Many +a later etcher has had equal skill with needle and acid; +some have had even greater. Whistler is more delicate, +perhaps, more exquisite, more unexpected in his +gift of spacing. Yet neither Whistler nor any other +master of etching has the secret power of Rembrandt. +I say “secret,” because we cannot argue about it or +explain it. It lay in what Rembrandt was: in the +depth and greatness of his humanity. When we have +wondered at the sensitive instrument of his eyesight, +when we have exalted his magical draughtsmanship, +when we have admired his instinctive fidelity to the +capacity and limitations of the medium used, when we +have recognized the profound integrity of his art, +there is still something left over, beyond analysis, and +that the rarest thing of all.</p> + +<p>How it is we cannot say, but there has passed into +these little works an intangible presence, of which we +cannot choose but be conscious, though it was not consciously +expressed,—the spirit of one of the fullest,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</span> +deepest natures that ever breathed. Whatever Rembrandt +does, however slight, something of that spirit +escapes him, some tinge of his experience,—of those +thoughts, “too deep for tears,” which things meaner +than the meanest flowers could stir in him.</p> +<hr class="full x-ebookmaker-drop" /> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="c7">GIOVANNI BATTISTA PIRANESI</h2> +</div> + +<p class="c">(1720-1778)</p> + +<p class="c"><span class="smcap">Part I</span></p> + +<p class="c"><span class="smcap">By</span> BENJAMIN BURGES MOORE</p> + + +<p class="drop-cap">THE life of Piranesi was eminently that of a +man of genius, characterized by all the peculiarities +ascribable to genius, perhaps as failures +of human nature, but also distinguished by that +which imparts to its possessor an imperishable renown. +Those peculiarities are worthy of notice, +as they bear so much on the character of his work; +but his works, wonderful as they are in point of +execution, are less to be admired for this than for the +interest of the subjects he chose, <i>and that which he +imparted to them</i>. In an age of frivolities, he boldly +and single-handed dared to strike out for himself a +new road to fame; and in dedicating his talents to the +recording and illustrating from ancient writers the +mouldering records of former times, he met with a +success as great as it was deserved, <i>combining, as he +did, all that was beautiful in art with all that was +interesting in the remains of antiquity</i>.”</p> + +<p>These words were prefixed to an account of Piranesi’s +career published in London during the year +1831 in “The Library of the Fine Arts,” and based +upon a sketch of his life written by his son, Francesco, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</span>but never published, although the manuscript at that +period had passed into the hands of the publishers, +Priestly and Weale, only to be subsequently lost or +destroyed.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" id="f67"> +<img src="images/fig67.jpg" alt="" /> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Portrait of Giovanni Battista Piranesi</span></p> +<p class="caption">From the engraving by F. Polanzani, dated 1750</p> +<p class="caption1">It is impossible to study this little known portrait without being convinced +of its accurate likeness. It certainly conveys an impression of +the man’s dæmonic force, which is not given by the more frequently +reproduced statue executed by Angelini.</p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original etching, 15¼ × 11¼ inches</p> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter1" id="f68"> +<a href="images/fig68big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig68.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Piranesi. Arch of Septimius Severus</span></p> +<p class="caption1">A rendering almost as faithful as an architect’s drawing, which Piranesi’s unfailing genius +has transformed into an enchanting work of art. This arch stands in the Roman Forum. +It was dedicated 203 <span class="allsmcap">A.D.</span> in commemoration of victories over the Parthians.</p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original etching, 18⅜ × 27¾ inches</p> +</div> + +<p>Eighty years, therefore, have passed since this +evaluation of the great Italian etcher was written, yet +to-day he is no more appreciated at his full worth than +he was then. At all times it has been not uncommon for +an artist to attain a kind of wide and enduring renown, +although estimated at his true value and for +his real excellences by only a few; but of such a fate +it would be difficult to select a more striking or illustrious +example than Giovanni Battista Piranesi. Living +and dying in the Eternal City, Rome, to whose +august monuments his fame is inseparably linked, he +was the author of the prodigious number of over thirteen +hundred large plates, combining the arts of etching +and engraving, which, aside from their intrinsic +merit as works of art, are of incalculable value on account +of the inexhaustible supply of classic motives +which they offer to all designers, and to which they, +more than any other influence, have given currency.</p> + +<p>These prints, in early and beautiful proofs, are still +to be bought at relatively low figures, while each year +sees the sale, by thousands, of impressions from the +steeled plates still existing at Rome in the Royal +Calcography;—impressions which, although in themselves +still sufficiently remarkable to be worth possessing, +are yet so debased as to constitute a libel upon +the real powers of Piranesi.</p> + +<p>The wide diffusion of these ignoble prints, and +the fact that Piranesi’s output was so great as to place +his work within the reach of the slenderest purse, are<span class="pagenum" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</span> +largely responsible for the failure of the general public +to apprehend his real greatness; for rarity calls +attention to merit, to which in fact it often gives a +value entirely fictitious, while there is always difficulty +in realizing that things seen frequently and in +quantities may have qualities far outweighing those +of work which has aroused interest by its scarcity. +This is why the fame of Piranesi is widely spread, +although his best and most characteristic work is almost +unknown, and his real genius generally unrecognized.</p> + +<p>Born in Venice, October 4th, 1720, and named after +Saint John the Baptist, Piranesi was the son of a mason, +blind in one eye, and of Laura Lucchesi. His maternal +uncle was an architect and engineer,—for in those +days the same person frequently combined the two +professions,—who had executed various water-works +and at least one church. From his uncle the young +Giovanni Battista received his earliest instruction in +things artistic, for which he appears to have displayed +a conspicuously precocious aptitude. Before he was +seventeen he had attracted sufficient attention to assure +him success in his father’s profession, but Rome +had already fired his imagination, and aroused that +impetuous determination which marked his entire +career. His yearning after Rome report says to have +been first aroused by a young Roman girl whom he +loved, but, however that may be, he overcame the +determined opposition of his parents, and, in 1738, at +the age of eighteen, set out for the papal city to study +architecture, engraving, and in general the fine arts; +for even in those degenerate days there were left some +traces of that multiform talent which distinguished +the artists of the Renaissance. When he reached the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</span>goal of his longing, the impression produced by the +immortal city on so fervid an imagination must have +been so deep, so overwhelming, as to annihilate all +material considerations, although they could not have +been other than harassing, since the allowance received +from his father was only six Spanish piastres a month, +or some six or seven lire of the Italian money of to-day. +By what expedients he managed to live we cannot +even conjecture, but it may be supposed that he +was boarded, apprentice-wise, by the masters under +whom he studied. These teachers were Scalfarotto +and Valeriani, a noted master of perspective and a +pupil of one Ricci of Belluno, who had acquired from +the great French painter and lover of Rome, Claude +Lorrain, the habit of painting highly imaginative pictures +composed of elements drawn from the ruins of +the Roman Campagna. This style was transmitted to +Piranesi by Valeriani, without doubt stimulating that +passionate appreciation of the melancholy grandeur +of ruined Rome already growing in his mind, and +afterward to fill his entire life and work.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" id="f69"> +<a href="images/fig69big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig69.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Piranesi. Arch of Vespasian</span></p> +<p class="caption">In this, as in many of Piranesi’s compositions, the figures are frankly posing, but their<br /> +presence adds such charm to the scene that none could wish them absent.</p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original etching, 19 × 27⅜ inches</p> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter1" id="f70"> +<a href="images/fig70big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig70.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Piranesi. Arch of Trajan at Benevento, in the Kingdom of Naples</span></p> +<p class="caption1">A fine rendering of that air of glory which the most dilapidated fragments of a Roman Arch of +Triumph never lose. The Arch of Trajan, one of the finest of ancient arches, was dedicated +<span class="allsmcap">A.D.</span> 114. It is of white marble, 48 feet high and 30½ wide, with a single arch measuring 27 by +16½ feet. The arch is profusely sculptured with reliefs illustrating Trajan’s life and his Dacian +triumphs.</p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original etching, 18⅜ × 27½ inches</p> +</div> + +<p>At the same time, he acquired a thorough knowledge +of etching and engraving under the Sicilian, Giuseppe +Vasi, whose etchings first aroused the great Goethe’s +longing for Italy. At the age of twenty, thinking, +probably not without foundation, that this master was +concealing from him the secret of the correct use of +acid in etching, Piranesi is reported, in his anger, to +have made an attempt to murder Vasi. Such an act +would not be out of keeping with the character of the +fiery Venetian, for, before leaving Venice, he had +already been described by a fellow-pupil as “<i>stravagante</i>,” +extravagant, or fantastic, a term not restricted<span class="pagenum" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</span> +by Italians to a man’s handling of money, but applied +rather to character as a whole, in which connection it +usually denotes the less fortunate side of that complete +and magnificent surrender to an overwhelming +passion which aroused so lively an admiration of the +Italian nature in the great French writer, Stendhal. +When we, tame moderns, judge the “extravagance” +of such characters, it is only fair to recollect that, +with all their faults and crimes, these same unbridled +Italians were capable of heroic virtues, unknown to +our pale and timid age. Men like Cellini and Piranesi, +who had much in common, are simply incarnate +emotional force, a fact which is, at the same time, the +cause of their follies and the indispensable condition +of their genius.</p> + +<p>After this quarrel Piranesi returned to Venice, +where he attempted to gain a livelihood by the practice +of architecture. There is reason to believe that +at this period he studied under Tiepolo; at any rate +there exist in his published works a few curious, rather +rococo plates entirely different from his usual manner, +and very markedly influenced by the style of Tiepolo’s +etching. He also studied painting with the Polanzani +who is responsible for that portrait of him which +forms the frontispiece to the first edition of “Le Antichità +Romane,” and gives so vivid an impression of +the dæmonic nature of the man. Meeting with little +success in Venice, he went to Naples, after returning +to Rome, attracted principally by archæological interests. +He stayed at Herculaneum, Pompeii, and Pæstum, +where at this time, undoubtedly, he made the +drawings of the temples afterward etched and published +by his son. The drawings for these etchings of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</span>Pæstum, among the best known of the Piranesi plates, +are now in the Soane Museum in London.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" id="f71"> +<a href="images/fig71big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig71.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Piranesi. The Basilica, Pæstum</span></p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original etching, 17¾ × 26⅝ inches</p> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter1" id="f72"> +<a href="images/fig72big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig72.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Piranesi. The Temple of Neptune at Pæstum</span></p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original etching, 19½ × 26⅜ inches</p> +</div> + +<p>Having decided that he had no vocation for painting, +which he definitely abandoned at this time, Piranesi +returned to Rome, and settled there permanently. +His father now wished him to return to Venice, but +he was altogether unwilling to do so, and replied, +characteristically, that Rome being the seat of all his +affections it would be impossible for him to live separated +from her monuments. He intimated that in +preference to leaving, he would give up his allowance, +a suggestion upon which his father acted promptly by +stopping all remittances, so that, estranged from his +relatives, Piranesi was now entirely dependent upon +his own resources for a livelihood.</p> + +<p>His poverty and suffering at this period were undoubtedly +great, but his indomitable nature could be +crippled by no material hardships. He devoted himself +entirely to etching and engraving, and, when +twenty-one, published his first composition. At this +time he was living in the Corso opposite the Doria-Pamphili +Palace, but even if the neighborhood was +illustrious, it is not pleasant to think what wretched +garret must have hidden the misery of his struggling +genius. His first important and dated work, the +“Antichità Romane de’ Tempi della Republica, etc.,” +was published in 1748, with a dedication to the noted +antiquary, Monsignore Bottari, chaplain to Pope +Benedict XIV. This work was received with great +favor, as the first successful attempt to engrave architecture +with taste, and from the day of its appearance +Piranesi may be said to have been famous. However, +he still experienced the utmost difficulty in finding the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</span> +money necessary to subsist and to procure the materials +requisite to his work. Yet, despite his terrible +poverty, his labor was unceasing and tireless to a +degree that we can now scarcely conceive. It must be +borne in mind that, in addition to etching and engraving, +he was engaged in the extensive study of archæology, +which led him to undertake many remarkable +researches. He became a noted archæologist of great +erudition, as is shown by numerous controversies with +famous antiquarians of the day. Some idea of the +copiousness of his knowledge can be gained from the +fact that his argument covers a hundred folio pages +in that controversy in which he upheld the originality +of Roman art against those who claimed it to be a +mere offshoot of Grecian genius. In the preface to one +of his books, he refers to it as the result of “what I +have been able to gather from the course of many +years of indefatigable and most exact observations, +excavations, and researches, things which have never +been undertaken in the past.” This statement is quite +true, and when we realize that the preparation of a +single plate, such as the plan of the Campus Martius, +would, in itself, have taken most men many years of +work, we can only feel uncomprehending amazement +at the capacity for work possessed by this man of +genius.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" id="f73"> +<a href="images/fig73big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig73.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Piranesi. The Temple of Concord</span></p> +<p class="caption">From this plate it is possible to gain an idea of the greater beauty possessed by ruined Rome when<br /> +still shrouded in vegetation. The Arch of Septimius Severus is seen in the middle distance</p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original etching, 18⅛ × 27⅛ inches</p> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter1" id="f74"> +<a href="images/fig74big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig74.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Piranesi. Site of the Ancient Roman Forum</span></p> +<p class="caption">A very interesting historical document which makes it possible to realize an aspect of the Forum<br /> +at present difficult to conceive</p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original, 14⅞ × 23¼ inches</p> +</div> + +<p>The very spirit of imperial Rome would seem to +have filled Piranesi, making him its own, so that the +vanished splendor was to him ever present and added +to the strange melancholy of the vine-grown ruins +which alone remained from the “grandeur that was +Rome.” In every age and in every province most +Italians have been animated by a lively sense of their +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</span>direct descent from classic Rome,—a feeling that its +fame was peculiarly their inheritance in a way true +of no other people, so that this glorious descent was +their greatest pride and claim to leadership. In the +darkest days of oppression and servitude, when Italy +sat neglected and disconsolate among her chains, there +were never lacking nobler souls who kept alive a sense +of what was fitting in the descendants of classic Rome, +and took therein a melancholy pride. But no Italian +was ever more completely an ancient Roman than +Piranesi, who certainly, in despite of his Venetian +birth, considered himself a “Roman citizen.” This +sentiment played an important part in, perhaps, the +most characteristic act of his whole life, namely, his +fantastic marriage, of which he himself left an account +not unworthy of Cellini.</p> + +<p>He was drawing in the Forum one Sunday, when +his attention was attracted by a boy and girl, who +proved to be the children of the gardener to Prince +Corsini. The girl’s type of features instantly convinced +Piranesi that she was a direct descendant of +the ancient Romans, and so aroused his emotions that +on the spot he asked if it were possible for her to +marry him. Her exact reply is not recorded, although +it must have conveyed the fact that she was free, but +it can surprise no one to hear that the girl was thoroughly +frightened by such sudden and overpowering +determination. His hasty resolution was confirmed +when Piranesi afterward learned that she had a +dower of one hundred and fifty piastres, or some three +hundred lire of to-day, a fact certain to arouse a keen +realization both of his poverty and of the value of +money in those days. Without any delay, he proceeded<span class="pagenum" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</span> +to ask the girl’s hand in marriage of her +parents, who, like the girl, appear to have been so terrified +and overwhelmed by the cyclonic nature of the +man as to be incapable of the slightest resistance. +Whatever may have been the motives of all the parties +concerned, the fact is that Piranesi was married to +the descendant of the ancient Romans exactly five +days after he first laid eyes on her classic features! +Immediately after the wedding, having placed side by +side his wife’s dowry and his own finished plates, together +with his unfinished designs, he informed his +presumably astonished bride that their entire fortune +was now before them, but that in three years’ time +her portion should be doubled; which proved to be no +boast but a promise that he actually fulfilled.</p> + +<p>According to report, he told his friends that he +was marrying in order to obtain the money required +for the completion of his great book on Roman Antiquities. +However, even if he did marry for money, +he maintained all his life, to the poor woman’s great +discomfort, as jealous a watch over his wife as could +be expected of the most amorous of husbands; so his +affections as well as his vanity may, perhaps, have +been called into play by his marriage. At any rate, +his ideas as to family life were worthy of the most +severe Roman <i>paterfamilias</i>. His son, Francesco, born +in 1756, relates that, when absorbed in his studies, he +would quite forget the hours for meals, while his five +children, neither daring to interrupt him nor eat +without him, experienced all the miseries of hunger. +His domestic coercion and discipline were doubtless +extreme, but the family would seem to have lived not +too unhappily.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" id="f75"> +<a href="images/fig75big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig75.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Piranesi. View of the “Campo Vaccino”</span></p> +<p class="caption1">The Site of the Ancient Roman Forum showing the Arch of Septimius Severus, Columns +of the Temple of Jupiter Tonans and of the Temple of Concord and, in the distance, +the Arch of Titus, the Colosseum, etc., etc.</p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original etching, 16⅛ × 21½ inches</p> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter1" id="f76"> +<a href="images/fig76big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig76.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Piranesi. The Arch of Titus</span></p> +<p class="caption1">In this plate can be seen a favorite device of Piranesi’s, which is to enhance the size and +stability of massive architecture by placing on some part of the ruin a human figure in active +motion. The Arch of Titus was built in commemoration of the taking of Jerusalem. The +vault is richly coffered and sculptured, and the interior faces of the piers display reliefs of +Titus in triumph, with the plunder of the temple at Jerusalem.</p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original etching, 18⅝ × 27¾ inches</p> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</span></p> +<p>Every two years, if not oftener, a monumental book +would make its appearance, to say nothing of separate +plates, and Piranesi was now a famous man. With +the exception of Winckelmann, he did more than any +one to spread a knowledge and love of classic art, +while his learning and his researches aroused a widespread +appreciation of the nobility of Roman ruins, +thereby largely contributing to their excavation and +protection. His exhaustive acquaintance with antiquity +and his impassioned admiration for its beauty, +combined with his singular and interesting character, +caused him to mingle with all that was most remarkable +in the world of arts and letters in Rome, at the +same time bringing him into relation with whatever +foreigners of distinction might visit the city. He was, +however, then and always a poor man, for his first +important work, “Le Antichità Romane,” sold in the +complete set for the ridiculous pittance of sixteen +paoli, or about seventeen lire, while later the Pope was +wont to pay him only a thousand lire for eighteen +gigantic volumes of etchings. The very fact that his +fertility was so enormous, lowered the price it was +possible to ask for his plates during his lifetime, just +as since his death it has militated against a correct +valuation of his talent. Forty years after he came to +Rome, he wrote to a correspondent that he had made, +on an average, some seven thousand lire of modern +money a year, out of which he had had to support his +family, pay for the materials required in his business, +and gather together that collection of antiquities +which was a part of his stock in trade.</p> + +<p>The rapidity with which Piranesi worked, and the +number of plates, all of unusually large dimensions,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</span> +which he executed, are so extraordinary as to leave +one bewildered by the thought of such incomprehensible +industry. Competent authorities vary in their +statements as to the number of plates produced by +Piranesi, but accepting as correct the lowest figure, +which is thirteen hundred, it will be found that for +thirty-nine years he produced, on a rough average, one +plate every two weeks. Ordinarily, great productiveness +will be found to have damaged the quality of the +work accomplished, but this is not true in the case of +Piranesi. Although his work is of varying merit, like +that of all true artists, and even comprises examples +lacking his usual excellence, there is no plate which +betrays any signs of hurry or careless workmanship, +while in many the meticulous finish is remarkable. +Such an output is in itself phenomenal, yet in preparation +for these works he found the time to pursue +archæological researches and studies, in themselves +sufficiently exhaustive to have occupied the life of an +ordinary man. Moreover, in his capacity of architect, +he executed various important restorations, including +those of the Priorato di Malta, where he is buried, and +of Santa Maria del Popolo. Most of his restorations +were undertaken by command of the Venetian, Pope +Clement XIII, who bestowed on him the title of +Knight, or Cavaliere, a distinction of which he was +proud, as he was of his membership in the “Royal +Society of Antiquaries” in London, of which he was +made an honorary fellow in 1757.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" id="f77"> +<a href="images/fig77big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig77.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Piranesi. The Arch of Titus</span></p> +<p class="caption1">Showing the relief of the Triumph of Titus and the carrying away of the Seven-branched Candle-stick +from Jerusalem. A particularly beautiful and not very well-known plate, which clearly +shows Piranesi’s fine sense of composition, and his keen appreciation of that singularly picturesque +contrast between the ancient ruins and the more modern buildings in which they were +then embedded.</p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original etching, 15⅞ × 24¼ inches</p> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter1" id="f78"> +<a href="images/fig78big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig78.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Piranesi. Façade of St. John Lateran</span></p> +<p class="caption1">Piranesi, almost without exception, placed a written description of the scene on every one of +his plates, using it as a decorative feature. In this case it proves an integral part of a group +which makes an interesting etching out of what otherwise would have been a simple architectural +drawing.</p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original etching, 18⅞ × 27½ inches</p> +</div> + +<p>The question of how much assistance Piranesi received +in the execution of his plates is an interesting +one. In a few prints, the figures were etched by one +Jean Barbault, whose name sometimes appears on the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</span>margins with that of Piranesi. The latter’s son, +Francesco, was taught design and architecture by his +father, whose manner he reproduced exactly, although +none of the numerous etchings which he left behind +him show any signs of those qualities which constitute +the greatness of his parent’s work. The daughter, +Laura, also etched in the manner of her father and +has left some views of Roman monuments. These two +children, together with one of his pupils, Piroli, undoubtedly +aided him, but their moderate skill is a +proof that their assistance could not have been carried +very far. That his pupils never formed a sort of +factory for the production of work passing under their +master’s name, as happened with some famous painters, +is made certain by the fact that he established no +school which caught his manner and produced work +reminiscent or imitative of his. His unparalleled output +must, therefore, be almost entirely a result of his +own unaided labor.</p> + +<p>Piranesi died at Rome, surrounded by his family, +on the ninth of November, 1778, of a slight disorder +rendered serious by neglect. His body was first +buried in the church of St. Andrea della Fratte, but +was soon afterward removed to that Priory of Santa +Maria Aventina which he had himself restored. Here +his family erected a statue of him, carved by one +Angelini after the design of Piranesi’s pupil, Piroli. +Baron Stolberg writes in his “Travels”: “Here is a +fine statue of the architect Piranesi, as large as life, +placed there by his son. It is the work of a living +sculptor, Angelini, and though it certainly cannot be +compared with the best antiquities, it still possesses +real merit.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</span></p> + +<p>The singular figure of Giovanni Battista Piranesi, +with his power, his fire, and his passionate love of +Roman grandeur, not unworthy of some great period +of rebirth, appears all the more phenomenal when +viewed in relation to his times and his surroundings. +The corruption of the pontifical city had been flagrant +since the days when it filled with scorn and loathing +the wonderful “Regrets” penned by the exiled +French poet, Joachim du Bellay, whose homesick +heart took less pleasure in the hard marble and audacious +fronts of Roman palaces than in the delicate +slate of the distant dwelling built by his Angevin ancestors,—but +its depravity had at least been replete +with virility and splendor. After the Council of +Trent, however, the Counter-Reformation spread over +the Roman prelacy a wave of external reform, which +left the inner rottenness untouched, but veiled it decently +with all the stifling and petty vices of hypocrisy, +until Roman life gradually grew to be that +curious androgynous existence which we see reflected +so clearly in Casanova’s memoirs. During the eighteenth +century, when Piranesi lived, the whole of +Italy had sunk to depths of degradation such as few +great races have ever known, not because the people +were hopelessly decayed, for their great spirit never +died, but lived to flame forth in 1848 and create that +marvelous present-day regeneration of Italy, which is +perhaps the most astonishing example of the rebirth +of a once great but apparently dead nation that the +world has yet seen. The debased condition of Italy at +that time was caused, rather, by centuries of priestly +and foreign oppression, which had stifled the entire +country until it had fallen into a state of torpor little +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</span>different to death. Any sign of intellectual or +political activity, however slight or innocent, had +long been ruthlessly repressed by Austria and the +petty tyrants who ruled the states of Italy. Since +men must find some occupation to fill their lives, or +else go mad, in a land where every noble and even +normal employment was forbidden, the Italian of the +day was forced to confine himself within the limits of +an idle inanity, concerned only with petty questions +and petty interests. It is difficult for people of to-day +to conceive the abject futility to which such oppression +and enforced inactivity can reduce an entire +nation. In France the comparative freedom enjoyed +under the old régime gave to the eighteenth century, +in its most frivolous and futile moments, a charming +grace utterly denied to enslaved and priest-ridden +Italy. To realize the situation, it is only necessary +to consider for a moment the institution of the cicisbeo, +and to read Parini’s “Il Giorno.” In this world +of little loveless lovers, of sonneteers and collector +academicians, the figure of Piranesi looms gigantic, +like a creature of another world. He had a purity +of taste in artistic matters quite unknown to his contemporaries, +while his originality, his passion, and his +vigor seem indeed those of some antique Roman suddenly +come to life to serve as pattern for a people +fallen on dire days.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" id="f79"> +<a href="images/fig79big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig79.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Piranesi. View of the Ruins of the Golden House of Nero<br /> +Commonly Called the Temple of Peace</span></p> +<p class="caption">A striking image of the romantic desolation in Roman ruins long since removed<br /> +by modern research</p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original etching, 19¼ × 28 inches</p> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter1" id="f80"> +<a href="images/fig80big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig80.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Piranesi. Interior of the Pantheon, Rome</span></p> +<p class="caption">A good illustration of Piranesi’s originality in choosing a point of view<br /> +so curious as to give a novel air to the best known subjects</p> +<p class="caption1">The Pantheon, completed by Agrippa <span class="allsmcap">B.C.</span> 27, consecrated to the divine +ancestors of the Julian family, and now dedicated as the Church of Santa +Maria Rotonda, is 142½ feet in diameter and its height, to the apex of +the great hemispherical coffered dome, is the same. The lighting of the +interior is solely from an opening, 28 feet in diameter, at the summit of +the dome. The dome is practically solid concrete.</p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original etching, 18⅞ × 22¼ inches</p> +</div> + +<p>Francesco Piranesi, after the death of his father, +sold the collection formed by him to Gustavus III of +Sweden in return for an annuity. He continued the +publication of etchings, many, although unacknowledged, +from drawings by his father, and was assisted +in his archæological research by Pope Pius VI. After<span class="pagenum" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</span> +various rather dishonorable transactions, as spy to +the court of Sweden, he started for Paris by sea in +1798, having with him the plates of his father’s etchings, +and accompanied in all probability by his sister +Laura. The ship on which he traveled was captured +and all it contained taken as a prize by a British man-of-war, +England and France being then engaged in +hostilities. By some curious chance, the English admiral +knew the worth of Piranesi’s work, and persuaded +the officers who had made the capture to +restore the plates to his son, and in addition obtained, +by some still more curious chance, both the admission +of the plates into French territory free of duty, and +government protection of Francesco’s ownership. At +Paris, Francesco Piranesi and his brother, Pietro, +tried to found both an academy and a manufactory of +terra-cotta. He also republished his father’s etchings +and his own, thus creating the first French edition, +already inferior in quality to the original Roman impressions. +He died in Paris, in 1810, in straitened +circumstances. The plates of both the father’s and +the son’s work passed into the hands of the publishers +Firmin-Didot, who republished them once more. The +original plates, which at one time were rented for +almost nothing to any one who wished them for a +day’s printing, finally found a refuge, as before said, +in the Royal Calcography at Rome, where they have +been coated with steel and rebitten, so that it is now +possible to print as many copies every year as tourists +and architects may desire. It can, therefore, be seen +that, most unfortunately, the world is flooded with +countless impressions which, even if they have value +for an architect as documents, or still retain enough +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</span>character to give them some merit as pictures, are yet +so utterly changed and debased as to do the gravest +and most irreparable injustice to the reputation of +the genius who created them.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" id="f81"> +<a href="images/fig81big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig81.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Piranesi. Piazza Navona, Rome</span></p> +<p class="caption">This plate shows how Piranesi could render a complicated view without confusion and, at<br /> +the same time, give an air of novelty to a well-known place</p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original etching, 18⅜ × 27⅝ inches</p> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter1" id="f82"> +<a href="images/fig82big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig82.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Piranesi. Interior of the Villa of Mæcenas, at Tivoli</span></p> +<p class="caption">An example of Piranesi’s skill in making a rather ordinary scene appear dramatic, and arousing<br /> +a sense of vastness greater than that imparted by the actual building</p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original etching, 16⅝ × 23⅝ inches</p> +</div> + +<p class="c large p2"><span class="smcap">Part II</span></p> + +<p class="c">“LE CARCERI D’INVENZIONE” (THE PRISONS)</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Any</span> one who bestows even a passing inspection on +the etchings of Piranesi will be struck by the intensity +of imagination which they display, a quality +whose precise nature it will perhaps be useful to +analyze, since, despite the fact that we use the word +constantly, the thousand differing values which we +attach to it render our ideas of its true meaning in +general of the vaguest. Reduced to its ultimate essence, +imagination would appear to be the faculty of +picture-making; that is to say, the power of bringing +images before the mental eye with absolute exactitude, +and of clothing ideas with a definite form, so that +they have a reality quite as great as that which characterizes +the objects of the external world. So long +as ideas remain in the mind in the form of abstract +conceptions, they are food for reason, but have no +power to move us. It is only when, by means of the +imaginative faculty, the concept has presented itself +as a definite image, that it arouses our emotions and +becomes a motive of conduct. When, for example, +the idea of an injury to some one we love comes into +our sphere of consciousness, a concrete picture of that +injury presents itself in some form or other to our +inner vision, and is the cause of the emotion which +we experience. Our sympathy and understanding will +be proportionate to the varying distinctness with +which our imaginative power offers such images for +our contemplation. Imagination therefore connotes +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</span>the ability to conceive the emotions and experiences +of others, and is thus indissolubly connected with +sympathy and all the nobler qualities of human +nature.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" id="f83"> +<a href="images/fig83big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig83.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Piranesi. The Temple of Apollo, near Tivoli</span></p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original etching, 18¾ × 24⅝ inches</p> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter1" id="f84"> +<a href="images/fig84big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig84.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Piranesi. The Falls at Tivoli</span></p> +<p class="caption">This etching illustrates a little known side of Piranesi’s talent, namely, his ability<br /> +to etch pure landscape</p> +<p class="caption1">The Falls of the Teverone (the ancient Anio) at Tivoli are fifteen miles east-northeast of Rome. +Tivoli was the favorite place of residence of many Romans—Mæcenas, Augustus, Hadrian—and the +ruins of both Hadrian’s Villa and the Villa of Mæcenas are still to be seen.</p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original etching, 18⅞ × 28⅛ inches</p> +</div> + +<p>The fact that our conduct is determined not by +concepts, but by mental images which motive emotion, +although at first it appear paradoxical, will certainly +be recognized by any one who is willing to study, if +only for a short time, his own mental experiences. +This truth was realized with such force as to be made +the base of their entire spiritual discipline by that +notable Spaniard, Ignatius Loyola, and his followers, +the Jesuit fathers, who have understood the complex +and subtle mechanism of the human soul more +profoundly and exhaustively than any other body of +men which has ever existed. In classic times Horace +was cognizant of this peculiarity of man’s mind when +he wrote that the emotions are aroused more slowly +by objects which are presented to consciousness by +hearing than by those made known by sight. Burke, +it is true, disputes this dictum of the Latin poet, on +the ground that, among the arts, poetry certainly +arouses emotions more intense than those derived from +painting. Although this is probably true, for reasons +which he details and which it would be wearisome +to reiterate here, it is certain that poetry moves +us exactly in ratio to the power it possesses of creating +vivid images for our contemplation, while it is certainly +doubtful whether any emotion excited through +hearing surpasses in vivacity that experienced on +suddenly seeing certain objects or situations.</p> + +<p>All artists at all worthy of the name are, therefore, +possessed to a certain degree of imagination. It is<span class="pagenum" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</span> +the gift which makes visible to them whatever they +embody in words, pictures, sounds, or sculpture. If +totally deprived of it, they could create nothing, for +no man can express what does not appear to him as +having a real existence for at least the moment of +creation. In the domain of art, imagination, in its +lower forms, is merely the power of recollecting and +reproducing things endowed with material existence; +but in its highest development, when handling the +conceptions and emotions of an original mind, it acquires +the power of actual creation, and is inseparably +attached to the loftiest acts of which man is capable.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" id="f85"> +<a href="images/fig85big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig85.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Piranesi. The Falls at Tivoli</span></p> +<p class="caption1">Among later works there are few better expressions of that feeling for nature in its wildest +aspects, which, practically unknown until the time of Rousseau, is now considered the speciality +of modern artists. That Piranesi appreciated this side of nature, and was able to express its +poetry and power, could be proved by this plate alone.</p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original etching, 18¾ × 28⅛ inches</p> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter1" id="f86"> +<a href="images/fig86big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig86.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Piranesi. St. Peter’s and the Vatican</span></p> +<p class="caption1">This is perhaps the best example of Piranesi’s exaggerated perspective. It is quite justified, +in this case at least, by the success with which it creates an impression of vastness and of +grandeur which was certainly aimed at by the architects of St. Peter’s, but which the exterior +of the actual building, quite as certainly, fails to arouse.</p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original etching, 18 × 27¾ inches</p> +</div> + +<p>Every plate etched by Piranesi betrays to even a +careless glance the presence of imagination in some +form, while in one series this noble faculty is revealed +with an amplitude almost unparalleled. If it be only +the presentment of fragments of Roman epitaphs, he +finds a way by some play of light or shade, or by +some trick of picturesque arrangement, to throw a +certain interest about them, relieving the dryness of +barren facts; if it be the etching of some sepulchral +vault, in itself devoid of any but antiquarian interest, +he introduces some human figure or some suggestive +implement to give a flash of imagination to the scene. +In those very plates where he depicts the actually +existing monuments of classic Rome, and in which it +was his expressed intention to save these august ruins +from further injury and preserve them forever in his +engravings, he created what he saw anew, and voiced +his own distinctive sentiment of the melancholy +grandeur of ruined Rome. To-day the word <i>impressionism</i> +has come to have a rather restricted meaning +in connection with a recent school of art, but Piranesi’s +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</span>work, like that of all really great artists, is in +the true sense of the word <i>impressionistic</i>. In passing, +it may be remarked that he was one of the rare +artists in earlier times who worked directly from +nature, a habit distinctive of our modern impressionism. +Piranesi is concerned with the expression of his +own peculiar impression of what he sees; for the +benefit of others and for his own delight he gives +form to his own particular vision of whatever he +treats. He certainly was desirous of, and successful +in, recording the existing forms of the buildings he +loved so well; it is also true that his etchings and engravings +are in many ways faithful renderings which +have immense historical and antiquarian value, since +they preserve an aspect of Rome none shall ever see +again, but together with the actual facts, and transcending +them, he offers the imaginative presentment +of his own creative emotion. What he draws is based +on nature, and is full of verisimilitude, but it is not +realistic in the base way that a photograph would be. +It contains while it surpasses reality, and is faithful +to the <i>idea</i> of what he sees, using that word in its +Platonic sense.</p> + +<p>Taine, in what is probably the most lucid and exhaustive +definition of the nature of a work of art ever +given, starts from the statement that all great art is +based on an exact imitation of nature; then proceeds +to demonstrate how this imitation of nature must not +extend to every detail, but should, instead, confine +itself to the relations and mutual dependencies of the +parts; and finally states, as the condition essential to +creating a work of art, that the artist shall succeed, by +intentional and systematic variation of these relations,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</span> +in setting free, in expressing more clearly and completely +than in the real object, some essential characteristic +or predominating idea. This is wherein art +transcends nature, and a work of art is, therefore, +constituted by the fact that it expresses the essential +idea of some series of subjects, freed from the accidents +of individuality, in a form more harmoniously +entire than that attained by any object in nature. +Now this is precisely what Piranesi did. He is often +taken to task for his departure from a literal statement +of fact in his renderings of architectural subjects, +but, in so departing, he is varying the interrelation +of parts so as to disengage the characteristic +essence of what he depicts, and thus create a work of +art, not a historical document. If he lengthens Bernini’s +colonnade in front of St. Peter’s, he is only +composing with the same liberty accorded to Turner, +when, in one picture of St. Germain, he introduces +elements gathered from three separate parts of the +river Seine; and by so doing he expresses the idea of +limitless grandeur, latent in St. Peter’s, with a fullness +it does not possess in the actual building. In his +“Antiquities of Rome,” he disengages a sense of +devastation and of desolate majesty which is the +fundamental characteristic of Roman ruin, and one +that could have presented itself with such directness +and force only to the mind of an artist of genius. His +own vision of the inner truth of what he saw, stripped +of everything accidental, is what he gives to posterity, +and what lifts his work out of the field of simple +archæology into the proud realm of true art.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" id="f87"> +<a href="images/fig87big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig87.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Piranesi. The Villa d’Este at Tivoli</span></p> +<p class="caption1">It is interesting to note that at the time Piranesi etched this fine plate the avenue of Cypress +trees, which now adds so much to the picturesqueness of the Villa d’Este, was not even planted.</p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original etching, 18½ × 27⅝ inches</p> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter1" id="f88"> +<a href="images/fig88big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig88.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Piranesi. Title-page of “The Prisons”</span></p> +<p class="caption1">From “Opere Varie di Architettura Prospettive Grotteschi Antichita +sul Gusto Degli Antichi Romani Inventate, ed Incise da Gio. Batista +Piranesi. Architetto Veneziano.” <span class="pad">(Rome, 1750.)</span></p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original etching, 21¼ × 16¼ inches</p> +</div> + +<p>Even in those plates where he etches actual scenes +with loving care, Piranesi passes nature, as it were, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</span>through the alembic of his own personality, doing this +moreover in a way peculiar to him and to him alone. +His originality consists in this,—that his mind, when +considering an object, seized instinctively on certain +distinguishing features peculiar to that object, qualities +which his mind, and only his, was capable of extracting +from the rough ore of ordinary perception; +and that for the powerful impression which he thus +experienced, he was able to find an adequate and distinctive +expression. It was his good fortune to behold +Rome in a moment of pathetic and singular beauty, +irrevocably vanished, as one of the penalties to be +paid for the knowledge gained by modern excavation. +In those days the Roman ruins did not have that trim +air, as of skeletons ranged in a museum, which they +have taken on under our tireless cleansing and research. +For centuries the barbarians of Rome had +observed the precept: “Go ye upon her walls and +destroy; but make not a full end,” so that only the +uppermost fragments of temple columns protruded +through the earth where the cattle browsed straggling +shrubbery above the buried Forum, while goats and +swine herded among cabins in the filth and century-high +dirt which covered the streets that had been trod +by the pride of emperors. But that which, more than +anything else, helped to create an atmosphere of romantic +beauty none shall see again, was the indescribable +tangle of vine, shrub, and flower, which in those +days draped and hid under a mass of verdure the +mighty ruins of baths and halls that still stupefy by +their vastness when we see them now, devoid of their +ancient marble dressing, stripped clean like polished +bones. Shelley tells how even in his day the Baths of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</span> +Caracalla were covered with “flowery glades, and +thickets of odoriferous blossoming trees, which are +extended in ever-winding labyrinths.”</p> + +<p>The sentiment of august grandeur inspired by the +indestructible mass of Roman ruins was, therefore, in +those days curiously complicated by the contrast between +them and the fantastic growth of ever-passing, +ever-renewed vegetation which wrapped them as in +a mantle. The poignancy of this beauty Piranesi +seized with a felicity and expressed with a plenitude +given to no one but to him. He was, both by nature +and by volition, profoundly classical, yet he enveloped +all that he handled, however classic it might be +in subject, with a sense of mysterious strangeness so +strong as to arouse the sensation called in later times +<i>romantic</i>. This contrast is one of the distinctive +phases of his originality.</p> + +<p>It would be pleasant to think that Edmund Burke was +familiar with the creations of Giambattista Piranesi +when he wrote so searchingly of “The Sublime and +Beautiful”; but, if this be perhaps an idle fancy, it is certainly +true that it would not be easy to find concrete +examples demonstrating more clearly than the etchings +of Piranesi the truth of large parts of his +enquiry, and in particular of the following definition +of the sublime: “Whatever is fitted in any sort to +excite the ideas of pain and danger, that is to say, +whatever is in any sort terrible, or is conversant +about terrible objects, or operates in a manner analogous +to terror, is a source of the <i>sublime</i>; that is, it +is productive of the strongest emotion which the mind +is capable of feeling. When danger or pain press +too nearly, they are incapable of giving any delight, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</span>and are simply terrible, but at certain distances, and +with certain modifications, they may be, and they are, +delightful, as we every day experience.”</p> + +<div class="figcenter" id="f89"> +<a href="images/fig89big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig89.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Piranesi. The Prisons. Plate III</span></p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original etching, 21¼ × 16¼ inches</p> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter1" id="f90"> +<a href="images/fig90big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig90.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Piranesi. The Prisons. Plate IV</span></p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original etching, 21½ × 16¼ inches</p> +</div> + +<p>The application of these words to the work of Piranesi +will probably surprise those persons acquainted +only with his etchings of classic ruins. However, even +these plates exemplify this definition in many ways +which it would be tedious to enumerate, while to +feel its full appositeness it is only necessary to study +Piranesi’s least-known and greatest achievement, commonly +called “The Prisons,” and known in Italian as +“Le Carceri d’Invenzione.” These sixteen fantasies, +executed at the age of twenty-two and published at +thirty, form a set of prints in which it is no exaggeration +to say that imagination is displayed with a power +and amplitude that have elsewhere never been surpassed +in etching or engraving, and only rarely in +other forms of pictorial art. Although scarcely known +to the public at large, they have always formed the +delight of those who feel the appeal of imaginative +fantasy, and notably of Coleridge and of De Quincey, +who has recorded his impression in golden words. +They are reputed to represent scenes which burned +themselves into the artist’s consciousness while delirious +with fever, and it is certain that they do possess +that terrible, vivid reality, so enormously amplified +as to lose the proportions of ordinary existence, +which characterizes all oppressive dreams and particularly +those induced by narcotics. They represent +interiors of vast and fantastic architecture, complete +yet unfinished, composed of an inexplicable complexity +of enormous arches springing from massive piers +built, like the arches they carry, of gigantic blocks<span class="pagenum" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</span> +left rough-hewn. By a contrast that could only have +been conceived by genius these monstrous spaces are +traversed in every direction by frail scaffoldings, +together with ladders, bridges, and all manner of +works in wood; and are filled, at the same time, with +an inexhaustible succession of ropes, pulleys, and +engines, finely described by De Quincey as “expressive +of enormous power put forth or of resistance overcome.” +They are distinguished by one of Piranesi’s +greatest qualities, the power to express immensity as, +perhaps, no one else has ever done, and are flooded +with light which seems intense in its opposition to the +brilliant shadows, so that altogether it would be difficult +to understand their title of “Prisons,” were it +not for the presence of engines of torment, and of +mighty chains that twine over and depend from huge +beams, or sometimes bind fast the little bodies of +human beings. The unusual and inexplicable nature +of these “Prisons” gives to the beholder’s imagination +a mighty stimulus productive of strange excitement.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" id="f91"> +<a href="images/fig91big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig91.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Piranesi. The Prisons. Plate V</span></p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original etching, 21¼ × 16¼ inches</p> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter1" id="f92"> +<a href="images/fig92big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig92.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Piranesi. The Prisons. Plate VI</span></p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original etching, 21¼ × 15¾ inches</p> +</div> + + +<p>The “English Opium-Eater” in likening his visions +to these pictures,—and what higher praise of their +imaginative force could there be?—speaks of their +“power of endless growth and self-reproduction.” +One of their distinguishing peculiarities is this repetition +of parts, as of things which grow out of themselves +unceasingly, reproducing their parts until the +brain reels at the idea of their endlessness. This +characteristic, together with that curious opposition +between their air of open immensity and their suggestion +of prison-horror, gives them that particular +appearance of absolute reality in the midst of impossibility, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</span>which is a distinctive feature of dreams. In +this way they arouse a sense of infinitude in the mind +of the beholder; now, although size is in itself of no +importance, it is nevertheless true that, when combined +with other qualities of value, “greatness of +dimension is a powerful cause of the sublime.” This +greatness, both in conception and in material execution, +they possess, together with that opposition of +light to obscurity which “seems in general to be +necessary to make anything very terrible.” Indeed, +that these etchings reveal a more imaginative vigor +arouse a kind of awe in any one who gives them more +than a passing glance, while the horror which they +suggest is never physical so as to nauseate or “press +too nearly” and cause pain, but imparts, on the contrary, +a sense of danger and of terror that causes a +delightful excitement, certainly fulfilling the definition +of the sublime as given by Burke.</p> + +<p>Although it does not follow that Piranesi is a +greater etcher than Rembrandt, it may still be true +that these etchings reveal a more imaginative vigor +than is shown in those of the great Dutchman. They +do not possess that subtle imagination which envelops +everything that Rembrandt ever touched in an air of +exquisite mystery, and gives to his least sketch an inexhaustible +fund of suggestion, nor can they be compared +to his etchings as consummate works of art; +yet they do have a titanic, irresistible force of sheer +imagination, which neither Rembrandt nor any other +etcher, however superior in other ways, possessed to +the same extent. Their preëminence in this one point +is certainly admissible, and as it has been shown, +presumably, that they are imaginative, original, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</span> +sublime, is it too much to say that, at least in the expression +of certain intellectual qualities, Piranesi in +these plates carried the art of etching to the highest +point yet attained, so that no one who does not know +these plates can know quite all that etching is capable +of expressing?</p> + +<p>“The Prisons” are also the most notable example +of that principle of opposition, or contrast, of which +Piranesi made so masterful a use in whatever he did. +The application of this law in the handling, and at +times in the abuse, of blacks and whites, is, of course, +apparent to even the most casual observer in all that +came from his hand. In the present series, however, +this law may be seen carried to its utmost limit. From +every stupendous vault there hangs a long, thin rope, +while up gigantic pillars of rough masonry climb +frail ladders of wood, and great voids between immense +piers are spanned by light bridges, also of +wood, bearing the slightest and most open of iron +railings. In his plates of Roman ruins, Piranesi introduces +the human figure dressed in the lovely costume +of the eighteenth century, in order to contrast +grace with force, and to oppose the living and the +fugitive to the inanimate and the enduring; but here +his use of the human figure rises to the truly dramatic. +In the midst of these vast and awful halls with their +air of stillness and of power, of “resistance overcome,” +he places men who seem the smallest and the +frailest among creatures. Grouped by twos or threes, +whether depicted in violent motion or standing with +significant gesture, they are always enigmatic in their +attitudes, so that their presence and obvious emotion +amid this immense and silent grandeur arouse a sense +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</span>of tragic action, a feeling of mysterious wonder and +curiosity that gives to all lovers of intellectual excitement +a pleasure as keen as unusual. Particularly in +one vision of a monstrous wheel of wood revolving in +space, no one knows how, above a fragment of rocky +architecture, while three human beings engaged in +animated converse are obviously unconscious of the +gigantic revolutions, the limits of fantasy are reached, +and the mind turns instinctively to those images of +the spheres rolling eternally in infinite space which +are found in Milton and all mystic poets.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" id="f93"> +<a href="images/fig93big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig93.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Piranesi. The Prisons. Plate IX</span></p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original etching, 21½ × 16 inches</p> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter1" id="f94"> +<a href="images/fig94big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig94.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Piranesi. The Prisons. Plate VII</span></p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original etching, 21⅝ × 16⅛ inches</p> +</div> + +<p>These plates are also interesting as a striking and +curious proof of Piranesi’s conscious mastery of his +art. They are filled with such a fury of imagination, +and are etched with such dash and boldness of execution +that it seems as though they must be, if not, as +was once said, the sane work of a madman, at least +burned directly on the plate by the force of a fever-stricken +mind. But not so; they are, however fevered +their original inspiration may have been, the result of +careful elaboration, and are but one more proof of +the saying of that other and still greater etcher, +Whistler, that a work of art is complete, and only +complete, when all traces have disappeared of the +means by which it was created. There exists in +the British Museum a unique, and until recently +unknown, series of first states of “The Prisons.” +Now, although these first states have the main +outline and, as it were, the germ of the published +states, these latter are so elaborated and, on the whole, +improved, as to make it at first incredible that they +could ever have grown out of, or had any relation to, +the earlier states. The idea of vast masses of masonry<span class="pagenum" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</span> +is there, thrown on the paper with a simplicity +of decorative effect and a directness of touch which +have been lessened in the later work; but, on the +other hand, all those scaffolds, engines of torment, +and groups of men above described, are lacking, so +that the power of contrast and the sense of terror, +productive of the sublime, are entirely wanting, and +are, therefore, shown to be the result of conscious art +used by Piranesi in elaboration of an original inspiration.</p> + +<p>Piranesi possessed a style so intensely individual +that every print he produced is recognizable as his by +any person who has ever looked at two or three of his +plates with moderate attention, yet this style never +degenerated into <i>manner</i>; that is to say, into an +imitation not of nature, but of the peculiarities of +other men or of one’s own earlier work. It became +a manner or process in the hands of his son, Francesco, +but with Giovanni Battista it always remained <i>style</i>, +which is the expression of an original intellect observing +nature before consciously varying the relations of +elements drawn by it from nature, to the end of producing +a work of art. This style, whose faults lie in +excessive contrasts of black and white, in inadequate +handling of skies, and, at times, in a certain general +hardness of aspect, is marked by great boldness, +breadth, and power, both in conception and in actual +execution, but it is never marred by crudity or roughness. +It is a remarkable fact that the immense force, +which first of all impresses one in Piranesi’s work, +does not exclude, but is, on the contrary, often combined +or contrasted with extreme elegance and fineness +of touch. To cite but one instance: in that +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</span>wonderful print which forms the title-page of “The +Prisons,”—the figure of the chained man, who imparts +such a sense of terror to the whole scene, is handled +with a grace and delicacy worthy of Moreau or any +of those French contemporaries who filled the land +with their exquisite creations for the endless delight +of later generations. It is this contrast, together with +his dramatic introduction and grouping of the human +figure, which gives to Piranesi’s style a character that +has been aptly qualified as <i>scenic</i>. An etching by +Piranesi produces very much the same curious effect +that a person experiences on entering a theater after +the curtain has risen, so that he receives from the stage +a sudden, sharp impression, not of a passing moment +of the play, but of one distinct, dramatic picture. His +etchings are never theatrical in the sense of something +factitious and exaggerated beyond likeness to nature, +but are always truly dramatic.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" id="f95"> +<a href="images/fig95big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig95.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Piranesi. The Prisons. Plate VIII</span></p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original etching, 21½ × 15¾ inches</p> +<p class="caption"></p> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter1" id="f96"> +<a href="images/fig96big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig96.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Piranesi. The Prisons. Plate XI</span></p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original etching, 16 × 21½ inches</p> +</div> + +<p>It will have been noticed that plates by Piranesi +have been referred to both as etchings and engravings; +this is because he used both etching and engraving +in the same plate, a proceeding which, if +decried by theoretical writers, has none the less been +habitually employed by many of the greatest masters +of both means of expression. Despite his faults and +his Latin exuberance, Piranesi is technically one of +the great etchers, in whose hands, particularly in certain +plates in “The Prisons,” the etching-needle attained +a breadth of vigorous execution that no one +has surpassed. In judging an artist, the obvious precept, +to consider what he was aiming to do, is unfortunately +too often neglected. To expect of Piranesi +either the incomparable delicacy of Whistler, or the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</span> +unsurpassed crispness of Meryon would be futile, but +he does possess certain forceful qualities which are not +theirs. When he used the burin, he could handle it +with the greatest precision and skill. In such a plate +as the one known as <i>The French Academy</i>, the building +is engraved with a skill not at all unworthy of the +engravers who were at that time doing such wonderful +work in France, while the plate, as a whole, gains +a delightful quality,—that neither pure etching nor +pure engraving could have given,—from the contrast +which the sharp and delicately engraved lines make +with the figures that are etched with a consummate +freedom and dash worthy of Callot, who, one cannot +but think, must have influenced Piranesi.</p> + +<p>In his valuable monograph on Piranesi, Mr. Arthur +Samuel makes the statement that “architectural etching +has culminated with him”; and it is certain that +in this field his work surpasses, both in architectural +correctness and in artistic merit, any that has been +done either before or since his day.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" id="f97"> +<a href="images/fig97big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig97.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Piranesi. The Prisons. Plate XIII</span></p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original etching, 16 × 21¾ inches</p> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter1" id="f98"> +<a href="images/fig98big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig98.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Piranesi. The Prisons. Plate XIV</span></p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original etching, 16⅜ × 21½ inches</p> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</span></p> + + +<p class="c large p2"><span class="smcap">Part III</span></p> + +<p class="c">THE INFLUENCE OF PIRANESI ON DECORATION<br /> +IN THE XVIII CENTURY</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">There</span> is still another side of Piranesi’s originality, +public ignorance of which may be said to be complete—namely, +his relation to architecture, and the very +great debt owed him by that art. That he was an +architect who signed himself as such on many plates +during his entire life is a fact ignored even by many +of those architects who are most indebted to him; but +this fact is negligible, together with the work which +he actually executed as an architect. The benefits +which he conferred were rendered in other ways.</p> + +<p>His first, and perhaps greatest, service consisted in +the collection of materials. The classic motives which +he gathered and etched form an inexhaustible store of +ornament on which generation after generation of +architects has drawn, and will continue to draw. The +enormous quantity and variety of classic fragments of +the best quality that Piranesi brought together is in +itself astounding, but a fact of still greater importance +is that it was he who, more than any one else, +gave these motives currency. In his day no one, except +Winckelmann—now known chiefly by his influence +on Goethe, and by his tragic death—did as much +as Piranesi to foster appreciation and spread knowledge +of classic antiquity; while his plates, both by +their greater currency and higher artistic merit, did +wider and more enduring good than could ever be +accomplished by the work of a critic and connoisseur,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</span> +even of Winckelmann’s talent and prestige. His boundless +enthusiasm and his real learning aroused more +people than we shall ever know, at the same time that +his labors, so indefatigable as to be incredible, spread +abroad in prodigal profusion the reproductions of the +remains of classic buildings, statues, and ornament. +The greater part of these relics would have continued, +but for him, to be known to only a few collectors and +frequenters of museums; and it is certain that more +classic motives have come into use, directly or indirectly, +from the works of Piranesi than from any +other one source, with the possible exception of modern +photography.</p> + +<p>In this connection it is impossible to insist too much +on his exquisite taste, which, although it had its +lapses, as in his designs for chimney-pieces, was on the +whole of the highest. This fact seems quite incredible +if the time and place of his life be considered. The +intellectual degradation of all Italy at this period has +already been alluded to, and, art being always a reflection +and expression of contemporary life, it follows +that the artistic degradation of Piranesi’s Italian contemporaries +was complete. It is difficult to conceive +the rococo horrors of eighteenth-century Italy. In +France the most contorted productions of the Louis +XV style, or the most far-fetched symbolic lucubrations +under Louis XVI, never reached such depths of +bad taste; for the French, in their most unfortunate +moments, can never divest themselves entirely of an +innate taste and a sense of measure which give some +redeeming grace to their worst follies. The lack of +tact, of a sense of limitations, which often characterizes +Spanish and Italian art, and at times makes<span class="pagenum" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</span> +possible splendid flights never attempted by the +French, also permits them, when misguided, to sink +to abysmal depths. It would be hard to find much +good in the heavy contortions of the rococo work of +eighteenth-century Italy, which, starting from Bernini, +exaggerated all his faults and kept none of even +his perverted genius. Amid this riot of bad taste, +Piranesi, with his love of classic simplicity, his sense of +the noble, and his feeling for balance and distance, +stands out an inexplicable phenomenon.</p> + +<p>In certain plates, Piranesi, while using elements +taken from antiquity, created a style of ornamental +composition which inspired or was copied in work +praised for its originality, and passing under the name +of other styles. No one dreams of speaking of a Piranesi +style, yet there is many a piece of decoration that +calls itself Louis XVI, or Adam, or anything else, +which comes directly from the work of this much-pilfered +Italian. He stands in relation to a great deal +of architectural decoration much as do, in science, +those profound and creative minds who discover a +great principle, but neglect its detailed application, +only to have it taken up by lesser inventors of a practical +trend, who put it to actual uses, the tangible +value of which excites so great an admiration that no +thought is taken of the man who discovered the very +principle at the base of it all. In such plates as those +dedicated to Robert Adam and Pope Clement XIII +there can be found, fully developed, the style we call +currently Louis XVI, although the greater part of it +was produced under Louis XV contemporaneously +with the work which goes by that name. The style in +question is there, with its exquisite detail copied from<span class="pagenum" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</span> +the antique; we can see its inspiration taken from the +classic which it wished to reproduce, together with its +fortunate inability to do so, and its consequently successful +creation of something entirely original but yet +filled with classic spirit. That interruption of ornament, +that alternation of the decorated and the plain, +that sense of balance and of contrast, distinctive of +the Louis XVI style—all are here. To think that these +qualities came to Piranesi through French influence +would be ridiculous, for the style under discussion +obviously took for its model classic art, to which it was +an attempted return; and as Piranesi was all his life +in direct contact with the source of this inspiration, +he could scarcely have been formed by a derivation of +that which he knew directly.</p> + +<p>If this be true, it may be asked why Piranesi’s work +did not create in Italy at least sporadic attempts at a +style analogous to that of Louis XVI. The reason for +this lies in the already mentioned condition of the +Italy of that day, for a work of art is absolutely conditioned +by, and a result of, the environment in which +it occurs. Here and there a work of art may, by some +phenomenon, occur in opposition, or without apparent +relation, to its surroundings; but in such circumstances +it will have no successors, just as an unusually +hardy orange-tree may thrive far to the north, but +will not bear fruit and propagate itself. A great critic +has said: “There is a reigning direction, which is that +of the century; those talents who try to grow in an +opposite direction find the issue closed; the pressure +of public spirit and of surrounding manners compresses +or turns them aside by imposing on them a +fixed flowering.” The torpor and bad taste engendered +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</span>in Italy by political and intellectual oppression +precluded the work of Piranesi from bearing any fruit +in his own country.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" id="f99"> +<img src="images/fig99.jpg" alt="" /> +<p class="caption1">Statue of Piranesi, by Angelini, assisted by Piranesi’s son, and +erected in the Church of Santa Maria in Aventino (Rome). It faces +the great candelabra which Piranesi had designed to illuminate his +statue. This plate was engraved by Piranesi’s son, Francesco, in 1790.</p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original engraving, 19⅞ × 12¾ inches</p> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter1" id="f100"> +<img src="images/fig100.jpg" alt="" /> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Piranesi. Antique Marble Vase</span></p> +<p class="caption">From “Vasi. Candelabri. Cippi. Sarcofagi. Tripodi. Lucerne ed Ornamenti +Antichi Disegn. ed inc. dal Cav. Gio. Batta. Piranesi.” (1778) +Vol. II, plate No. 73. Piranesi’s dedication of this plate reads: “Al +Suo Carissimo Amico Il. Sig. Riccardo Hayward Scuttore Inglese.”</p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original etching, 24 × 16⅜ inches</p> +</div> + +<p>To think, on the other hand, that Piranesi exerted +an influence on French art of his day is not so fanciful +as might at first be supposed. If it be true, as just +stated, that it is impossible for the work of an artist +to produce any result when his environment is hostile, +it is equally true that an artist, or a body of artists, +can exert an enormous influence when their surroundings +favor and the ground is ready to receive the seed +they sow. France was ripe for such seed as Piranesi +cast abroad vainly in Italy, and in the former country +an incalculable influence in the creation of the Louis +XVI style was exerted by those men who accompanied +Mme. de Pompadour’s brother, Abel Poisson, Marquis +de Marigny, on his travels in Italy. Three years previously +this great patron of art had caused her brother +to be appointed to the succession of the “Surintendance +des Beaux-Arts,” and after three years of apprenticeship, +in order to make himself worthy of this +important and exalted position, she sent him, in the +company of a numerous suite, to Italy in December, +1749, to complete his education by remaining there +until September, 1751. In his following were Soufflot, +the architect, and Charles Nicholas Cochin <i>fils</i>, the +celebrated engraver. On his return from Italy, M. de +Marigny directed all the works of art undertaken by +the government throughout France, while Soufflot +built the church of Ste. Geneviève, now known as the +Panthéon, and was one of the most conspicuous and +influential men in the world of art in his day. Cochin, +aside from being a great engraver, was intellectually<span class="pagenum" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</span> +one of the most interesting artists of the day, and, as +M. de Marigny’s right-hand man, wielded an influence +almost incomprehensible to us of to-day. The latter +part of his life, he really ruled in M. de Marigny’s +stead, and his absolute dictatorship in all matters of +art in France can only be compared to that of Le +Brun under Louis XIV.</p> + +<p>That his Italian travels were the decisive influence +of Cochin’s career is clearly shown in his own work, +and is expressly stated by Diderot, who says of him +that, “judge everywhere else, he was a scholar at +Rome.” Soufflot was only seven years older than Piranesi, +and Cochin but five. Now, when these distinguished +Frenchmen were in Rome, Piranesi was already +famous and frequented the most interesting +artistic circles. His talents and his remarkably impetuous +personality made him one of the curiosities +of Rome, so that it is scarcely credible that these visiting +foreigners should not have seen much of him. As +their express object was the study of antiquity, and +as no one in Rome knew more of the ruins or had so +lively an enthusiasm for them as Piranesi, it is certainly +probable that he influenced them deeply.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" id="f101"> +<a href="images/fig101big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig101.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Section of one of the Sides of the Great Room, or Library,<br /> of Earl Mansfield’s Villa at Kenwood</span></p> +<p class="caption">Robert Adam, Architect, 1767. Engraved by J. Zucchi in 1774<br /> +From “The Works in Architecture of Robert and James Adam.”<br /> +(London, 1778)</p> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter1" id="f102"> +<a href="images/fig102big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig102.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Ionic Order of the Anteroom, with the rest of the Detail of that Room<br /> +at Sion House, the Seat of the Duke of Northumberland<br /> +in the County of Middlesex</span></p> +<p class="caption">Robert Adam, Architect, 1761. Engraved by Piranesi<br /> +From “The Works in Architecture of Robert and James Adam.”<br /> +(London, 1778)</p> +</div> + +<p>Aside from these men, the list is long of famous +Frenchmen who studied in Rome during the height +of Piranesi’s artistic production, and must certainly +have felt his influence. It includes Augustin Pajou, +the sculptor, who went to the Villa Médicis as Prix +de Rome in 1748, at eighteen, and who afterward +decorated the opera built at Versailles by Ange Gabriel, +architect of the faultless buildings which ennoble +the Place de la Concorde; Jean Jacques Caffieri, +the sculptor, who was in Rome from 1749 to 1753; +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</span>Chalgrin, Prix de Rome in 1758, successor to Soufflot +as architect of the city of Paris, and architect of St. +Philippe du Roule and of the Arc de Triomphe; Jean +Antoine Houdon, the sculptor, Prix de Rome in 1761, +at twenty, who came to America with Franklin to execute +the statue of Washington now in Richmond; and +finally Claude François Michel, known as Clodion, +who gained the Prix de Rome for sculpture in 1763 +and filled whatever he touched with unrivaled grace, +raising the art of terra-cotta figurines to a degree of +loveliness no one else ever attained. It must be remembered +that these architects and sculptors did not +confine themselves to architecture pure and simple, +as do our prouder and less talented contemporaries. +With the spirit which animates all periods of great +art, they considered no object too insignificant to be +made lovely by their talent. They decorated theaters +and houses, designing furniture, clocks, vases, and +every article of daily life; filling them all with the +consummate, delicate art that remains the despair of +all who have followed. If, therefore, as is to be supposed, +they underwent Piranesi’s influence while in +Rome, it would have made itself felt, through them, +in all the decorative arts of France.</p> + +<p>If Piranesi’s influence in France be a subject for +hypothesis, in England it can be decisively proved in +the case of the so-called Adam style, a vulgar caricature +of which is at present so prevalent in New York. +Robert Adam, a Scotchman who studied in Rome, was +so delightfully original and adventurous as to fit out +an expedition to explore the then totally unknown +Palace of Diocletian at Spalato in Dalmatia. He was +also a friend of Piranesi, who dedicated his views of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</span> +the Campus Martius to “Robert Adam, a British +cultivator of architecture, as a proof of his affection.” +Now Adam, a man of unusually alert mind +and delicate taste, was a poor architect, with a +most defective sense of proportion in the composition +of a building as a whole, who nevertheless +possessed unusual and distinctive talent as a decorator. +His fine taste led him to cover his work with +detail executed and often conceived by remarkable +persons, so that much of the credit for originality and +delicacy given to him is due, as with so many an +architect, to the artists whom he had the cleverness +and good fortune to employ and the ability to direct. +In the preparation of his monumental book he was +assisted by “Eques J. B. Piranesi,” as he there signs +himself, who actually engraved three plates with his +own hand, while the rendering of every design in the +book shows his influence. Knowing this, it is impossible +to doubt that Adam’s taste and style were profoundly +influenced by, and indebted to, so original +and masterly a mind as that of Piranesi.</p> + +<p>A comparison of Adam’s book with certain plates +by Piranesi will clearly show the debt, while a careful +study of only three of his compositions—namely, the +title-page before mentioned as dedicated to Adam and +the two plates inscribed with the name of Pope Clement +XIII—will in itself make clear that much decorative +work called either Louis XVI or Adam takes its +forms as well as its inspiration directly from the creations +of Giambattista Piranesi. Piranesi’s influence +can also be proved in the case of George Dance, architect +of old Newgate Prison; of Robert Mylne, architect +of old Blackfriars Bridge; of Sir John Soane, architect +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</span>of the Bank of England; and of many more. The +subject of Piranesi’s influence in England has been so +exhaustively treated by Mr. Arthur Samuels in his +monograph as to make useless any attempt to rehandle +the subject here.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" id="f103"> +<img src="images/fig103.jpg" alt="" /> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Piranesi.</span> <span class="smcap">Title-page to “Il Campo Marzio dell’ Antica Roma”</span><br /> +(Rome, 1762)</p> +<p class="caption">The dedication to Robert Adam is upon the column to the left<br /> +Size of the original etching, 19⅞ × 13¼ inches</p> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter1" id="f104"> +<a href="images/fig104big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig104.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Piranesi.</span> <span class="smcap">Upper left-hand Portion, bearing a Dedication to Robert Adam, of Piranesi’s<br /> +etched plan of the Campus Martius</span></p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original etching (of which the above is a part only), 53 × 45½ inches</p> +</div> + +<p>Still another example of Piranesi’s influence is to +be found in the sketches of the present-day German, +Otto Rieth, the originality of whose drawings is so +vaunted. Very talented and individual they certainly +are, but to any one thoroughly familiar with the architectural +fantasies of Piranesi, the source of inspiration +is so obvious as to make it impossible that Rieth should +not have known the work of his great Italian predecessor.</p> + +<p>The influence which Piranesi exerts on the École des +Beaux-Arts, and consequently on the leading contemporary +architects of both France and the United +States, is enormous, if hard to define. The use of +detail which he furnishes is never-ceasing, but more +important than this is the constant inspiration sought +in a study of those architectural fantasies which he +has filled with the qualities of grandeur and immensity +so much valued by the French to-day. The buildings +of New York are covered with motives either inspired +by Piranesi or taken directly from his work—ornament +much of which would never have come into +vogue but for him; while a recent number of a leading +architectural periodical, without acknowledgment, +printed a design of his for its cover.</p> + +<p>It is ardently to be hoped that a wider and more +just appreciation of Piranesi’s unique work may +gradually gain currency. Mere productiveness is, of +course, of no intrinsic value; but that any human<span class="pagenum" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</span> +being should be capable of so vast a labor as Piranesi +must in itself excite in us a lively sense of wonder +and admiration. When, moreover, it is found that +his work, in addition to putting the art of architecture +under an enormous debt, is distinguished by +imagination, originality, sublimity, and immense skill +of execution,—a certain portion of it at least possessing +these qualities to a degree unsurpassed by any +artist using the particular medium employed,—it is +surely not unreasonable to attribute to their creator +the rare quality of original genius.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p><span class="smcap">Note</span>: I desire to acknowledge my indebtedness to Mr. Arthur +Samuel of London, both for material contained in his book and +for personal courtesy.</p> +</div> +<hr class="full x-ebookmaker-drop" /> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="c8">FRANCISCO GOYA Y LUCIENTES</h2> +</div> + +<p class="c"><span class="smcap">By</span> CHARLES H. CAFFIN</p> + +<p class="c more">Author of “The Story of Spanish Painting,” “Old Spanish<br /> +Masters, Engraved by Timothy Cole,” etc., etc.</p> + + +<p class="drop-cap">THE phenomenon of Goya is among the curiosities +of the history of art. For in the latter +half of the eighteenth century, when, under +the feeble Bourbon dynasty, Spain had reached the +lowest ebb of her national and artistic life, an artist +arose who represented more than any other her racial +characteristics and was destined to exert a world-wide +influence on the art of the succeeding century.</p> + +<p>While the rest of Europe was seething with the +spirit of revolution, Goya, the man, was already +in revolt, and at the same time had discovered for +himself a revolutionary form of art, which anticipated +by half a century the consciousness elsewhere of the +need of a new method to fit the new point of view. +In a word, he drove an entering wedge into the contemporary +classicalism that was based upon a dry +imitation of Roman marbles and Raphaelesque compositions, +restored nature to art, and adapted his +vision of nature to the spirit of inquiry, observation, +and research that was in process of fermentation. +Finally, he adjusted to his vision of life a method of +composition, freer and more flexible than the older +ones: that was preoccupied less with the representation<span class="pagenum" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</span> +of form than with the expression of movement +and character; its aim, in fact, being primarily expressional. +Thus he anticipated the motive of modern +impressionism and determined in advance the methods +of rendering it.</p> + +<p>No less remarkable is the degree in which he was an +avatar of the mingled traits of his race. For ethnologically +the Spaniard is a Celt, who first was disciplined +by Roman civilization, then merged in the flood +of a Germanic wave, and later infused with the blood +and culture of the Arab and the Moor. A truly wonderful +amalgam—the ironic humor of the Celt; the +mysticism, vigor, and grotesque imagination of the +forest-bred Goth; the subtle inventiveness, sensuousness, +and abstraction of the Orient, and the uncouth +strain of the Black Man, whom to-day we are discovering +to be the flotsam of a far-off submerged civilization +in Darkest Africa. All these traits are recognizable +in the work of Goya that he did to please +himself: namely, in his painted figure-subjects, other +than portraits, and in his drawings and etchings.</p> + +<p class="gtb">* * * * *</p> + +<div class="figcenter" id="f105"> +<img src="images/fig105.jpg" alt="" /> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Goya. Portrait of Goya, drawn and etched by himself</span></p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original etching, 5⁵⁄₁₆ × 4⅞ inches</p> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter1" id="f106"> +<a href="images/fig106big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig106.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Goya. The Dead Branch</span></p> +<p class="caption">From “<i>The Proverbs</i>” (Lefort No. 126)<br /> +A reference to the Spanish court, which rests on a dead branch over an abyss</p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original etching, 8⅜ × 12⁹⁄₁₆ inches</p> +</div> + +<p>In the modern craze for making over biographies of +past worthies, so as to bring their lives into conformity +with the standards of respectability in the +present, there is a tendency to suggest that many of +the records of Goya’s career may be apocryphal. This +would rob the story of art of a very picturesque personality; +one, moreover, which seems to be quite convincingly +represented in his art. He was born in +1746, in the little town of Fuendetodos near Zaragoza +in the province of Aragón, his father being a small +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</span>farmer. Reared among the hills, he breathed independence, +throve mightily in bodily vigor, and proved +precociously disposed to art. Accordingly, at the age +of fourteen he was put under a teacher, Luzan, in +Zaragoza. But it was never Goya’s way to take instruction +from a spoon, and at this period he distinguished +himself less as a student than as a roistering +young fellow, apt for gallantry and brawls and ready +with his rapier. Having drawn on himself the attention +of the authorities of the Inquisition, he found it +convenient to proceed to Madrid. Here again his +escapades aroused notoriety, so that he abandoned the +capital and set forth for Rome, working his way to +the sea-board by practising as a bull-fighter. In Rome +he mainly nourished his artistic development by observation +of the old masterpieces, meanwhile indulging +in gallantries, which culminated in a plot to rescue +a young lady from a convent. This time he found +himself actually in the grip of the Inquisition and +was only released from it by the Spanish ambassador, +who undertook to ship him back to Spain. Arrived +the second time in Madrid he found a friend in the +painter Francisco Bayeu, who gave him his daughter, +Josefa, in marriage and introduced him to Mengs, the +arbiter of art at Court. Josefa bore him twenty children, +none of whom survived him, and patiently put +up with his infidelities. Mengs had been urged by the +king, Charles III, to revive the Tapestry Works of +Santa Barbara, and intrusted Goya with a series of +designs, which to-day may be seen in the basement +galleries of the Prado, while some of them, executed in +the weave, adorn the walls of a room in the Escoriál. +The vogue at the time was for Boucher’s pretty pastoral<span class="pagenum" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</span> +ineptitudes, but Goya took a hint from Teniers +and represented the actual pastimes of the Spanish +people. He, however, far outstripped the Flemish artist +in the variety, naturalness, and vivacity of his subjects, +while in the matter of composition he showed +himself already a student of the harmonies of nature +rather than a perpetuator of studio traditions.</p> + +<p>These designs secured his general popularity and +paved the way for his <i>entrée</i> into royal favor at the +accession of Charles IV in 1788. Goya, turned forty, +was already the darling of the populace and now +became the cynosure of the Court. He would pit his +prowess against the professional strong man in the +streets of Madrid and plunged with equal aplomb +and assurance into the gallantries of the royal circle, +which was a hotbed of intrigue under the lax +régime of Queen Maria Luisa, whose amours were +notorious. Foremost among her lovers was Manuel +Godoy, whom she raised from the rank of a guardsman +eventually to be prime minister. He embroiled +his country in a war with England, and finally ratted +to Napoleon, conniving at the invasion of the French +troops and the placing of Joseph Bonaparte on the +throne of Spain. Meanwhile, in the interval before +this <i>débâcle</i>, Goya, while dipping into intrigue, notably +with the beautiful Countess of Alba, and establishing +his position as an artist to whom every one who +would be anybody must sit for a portrait, maintained +an attitude of haughty mental exclusiveness. He was +the rebel, the insurgent, the nihilist; lashing with the +impartial whip of his satire the rottenness of the +Court and the shams and hypocrisies of the Middle +Class, the Church, Law, Medicine, and even Painting. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</span>Also, like many devotees of sensual pleasures, he was +hot in his denunciation of lust, a terrible exponent of +its consequences in satiety and sapped vitality.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" id="f107"> +<img src="images/fig107.jpg" alt="" /> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Goya. Back to His Ancestors!</span></p> +<p class="caption1">“Poor animal! The genealogists and the kings of heraldry have +muddled his brain, and he is not the only one.”<br /> +Manuel Godoy, satirized in this print, had a long and fictitious +genealogy made for himself, according to which he was a +direct descendant of the ancient Gothic kings of Spain.</p> +<p class="caption"><span class="pad2">From “<i>The Caprices</i>” (Lefort No. 39).</span></p> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter1" id="f108"> +<img src="images/fig108.jpg" alt="" /> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Goya.</span> “<span class="smcap">Birds of a Feather Flock Together</span>”</p> +<p class="caption1">“The question is often raised whether men or women are superior. +The vices of either proceed from bad upbringing; where +the men are depraved the women likewise are depraved.”<br /> <span class="pad1">From “<i>The Caprices</i>” (Lefort No. 5).</span></p> +</div> + +<p>This last is the theme of one of his most horribly +arresting subjects in oils, an allegory of the Fates, +wherein lust and its accompanying exhaustion represent +the futility of man’s existence. It is painted in +colors of extreme neutrality that almost amount to +monochrome. Thus it illustrates a dictum of Goya’s +that color no more than line exists in nature; there +are only differences of light and shade. It accordingly +prepares one for an appreciation of his etchings, in +which aquatint plays so intrinsically important a rôle. +As a painter he had begun with positive hues—to +abandon them, as soon as he reached his maturity, for +a sparing use of color and a liberal differentiation of +color values. In this he was following Velasquez, +whom he admitted to be one of his teachers, the others +being Rembrandt and nature. It was Rembrandt, +unquestionably, who helped him to a vision of nature +that reduced itself to the principle of light and +dark; but from nature herself he gained corroboration +of the essential truth of such a vision. How true it is +the artist of the present day has learned from Goya. +Like the latter, he sees color in nature not as positive +hues, but as a complex weave of varying intensities of +light and shade that play over and transform the +hues. It is by the correlation of these varying values +that he builds up the structure and secures the planes +of his composition, and realizes a unity and harmony +of <i>ensemble</i>. And it is in Goya’s etchings that he finds +these principles of color in relation to composition +represented with most adequate reliance on simplification,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</span> +organization, and expression—the three watchwords +of contemporary artists who are working in the +latest modern spirit.</p> + +<p>Expression is the keynote of Goya’s etchings, as it +is of his paintings. It is the quality of feeling rather +than of seeing that is interpreted. Thus, in the oil +painting of the <i>Maja</i>, <i>Nude</i>, it was Goya’s intent not +so much to represent the young form as to interpret +the expression of its youth through the play of light +and shadow on the supple torso and limbs; an expression +so exquisitely subtle and tender that it defies the +copyist’s attempted imitation and eludes the resources +of photographic reproduction. Similarly, in the splendid +impressionism of the group-portrait of Charles IV +and his family it is not the appearance of the jewels, +clustered on the breasts of the royal pair, but the +effect of their luster that he designed to render. And +so throughout his drawings and etchings the prime +purpose is not to represent the thing seen but to suggest +its effect upon the feelings.</p> + +<p class="gtb">* * * * *</p> + +<p>Goya’s etched work, as catalogued in 1907 by Julius +Hofmann, comprises 268 pieces. These include 22 +Various Subjects; 16 Studies after Velasquez; 83 +Caprices; 21 Proverbs; 82 Disasters of War and 44 +Tauromachies, or Scenes from the Bull-Fight. To this +list of engraved work are to be added 20 lithographs.</p> + +<p>The best known of these groups is <i>Los Caprichos</i>, +etched in 1794-1798 but not published until 1803. +These <i>Caprices</i> represent the most spontaneous expression +of Goya’s temperament and of his attitude +toward the life and the society of his day. At the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</span>same time, the designs, as in the case of all his +etchings and lithographs, were executed with due +deliberation, worked out previously in drawings in +which every effect was carefully calculated and assured. +With corresponding fidelity the drawings were +copied on the plate.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" id="f109"> +<img src="images/fig109.jpg" alt="" /> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Goya. They have Kidnapped Her</span></p> +<p class="caption1">“The woman who does not know how to guard herself is the +first to be attacked. And it is only when there is no longer time +to protect herself that she is astonished that she was carried off.”<br /> +<span class="pad1">From “<i>The Caprices</i>” (Lefort No. 8).</span></p> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter1" id="f110"> +<img src="images/fig110.jpg" alt="" /> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Goya.</span> “<span class="smcap">Bon Voyage!</span>”</p> +<p class="caption1">“Where go they across the shadows, this infernal cohort which +makes the air ring with their cries? If only there were daylight— ... Then +it would be another thing: because with a +gun we could bring them down.... But it is night and nobody +can see them.” <span class="pad">From “<i>The Caprices</i>” (Lefort No. 64).</span></p> +</div> + +<p>It is in this set that the creative quality of Goya’s +imagination is most demonstrated. He could not only +summon visions from the void, but clothe them in +convincing shape. Whether he stretched some human +type to the limit of caricature or invested it with +attributes of bird, beast, or reptile, or used some +familiar form of animal, or created a hybrid monster, +he had the faculty of giving it an actuality that makes +it seem reasonable. As to the meaning of the subjects, +the titles which he himself gave them furnish, except +in a few instances, an intelligible clue. Prints of this +set were brought to England by officers engaged in the +Peninsular War and later found their way to Paris +and exercised a very conscious influence upon Delacroix. +For they not only echoed the turbulence of his +own spirit, but helped him to give expression to his +own visions of the horrible and fantastic. The best +proofs are those of the first edition, many of which +were pulled by the artist himself.</p> + +<p><i>The Proverbs</i>, although engraved between 1800 and +1810, were not published until 1850. While their subjects +are often difficult to comprehend, they show generally +a marked technical advance over the previous +work. This is apparent not only in the character of +the drawing, but also in the increased simplification +and more highly organized arrangement of the composition. +Some of the latter, as for example in the case<span class="pagenum" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</span> +of <i>The Infuriated Stallion</i> and <i>The Bird-Men</i>, present +designs of extraordinary distinction.</p> + +<p>The last prints of <i>La Tauromachie</i> are dated 1815. +This series falls short of the others in esthetic interest, +being more conspicuously illustrative. It was, +indeed, designed to represent the various phases +through which the baiting of bulls in Spain had +passed. Beginning with the early hunting of the bull +in the open country, both on horseback and on foot, +it proceeds to the methods introduced by the Moors, +who are represented in the attire of Turks. Thence +it gradually traces the development of a precise +science and technique in the management of the sport +and incidentally commemorates the prowess of individual +bull-fighters, beginning with the Emperor +Charles V, and passing to well-known professional +toreadors. Contemporary proofs of Goya are very +rare; and it was not until 1855 that a complete set +was published in Madrid. A later issue, including +seven extra prints, was published by Loizelet in Paris.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" id="f111"> +<a href="images/fig111big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig111.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Goya. The Infuriated Stallion</span></p> +<p class="caption">“<i>The Proverbs</i>” (Lefort No. 133)<br /> +Size of the original etching, 8⅜ × 12½ inches</p> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter1" id="f112"> +<a href="images/fig112big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig112.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Goya. The Bird-Men</span></p> +<p class="caption">From “<i>The Proverbs</i>” (Lefort No. 136)<br /> +Size of the original etching, 8⅝ × 12⅞ inches</p> +</div> + +<p>Of the <i>Disasters of War</i> no prints exist prior to +those of the set published by the Academy of San +Fernando in 1863. Etched during 1810 and the succeeding +years of the Peninsular War, the <i>Disasters</i> +are regarded as the finest products of Goya’s needle. +Yet he was sixty-four years old when he commenced +them. Though he had subscribed to the Bonaparte +régime and still held the position of Court painter, he +lived apart from active affairs in the seclusion of his +country home. The prints are inspired by his country’s +sufferings, but he did not publish them. To do +so would have been to raise a protest against the crime +of the French invasion and to stir his countrymen to +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</span>increased patriotism. Under the circumstances of his +equivocal position Goya may have thought such a +course impolitic. Perhaps he felt the national condition +to be hopeless. At any rate, he closed himself +around in an atmosphere of profound pessimism. +“Was it for this they were born?” is the legend beneath +one of the prints which shows a heap of mangled +corpses. It is the note of the whole series—the criminal +horror of war, and its futility. Nowhere else is +the element of the <i>macabre</i> in his genius more fully +revealed. The designs are in no sense illustrative; +they are visions of his own brooding, projected against +darkness and emptiness. Yet, just as in the <i>Caprices</i> +he gave bone and flesh to the eery fabrics of his imagination, +so by the magic of his needle his abstract +imaginings of the enormity of war became visualized +into concrete actuality.</p> + +<p>Of Goya’s lithographs it must suffice here to mention +the set of four prints, <i>The Bulls of Bordeaux</i>. +They were executed in that city in 1825. For after +the expulsion of the French by Wellington and the +restoration of the Bourbon dynasty in the person of +Ferdinand VII, Goya again turned his coat. “For +your treason you deserve to be hanged,” remarked +the new king, “but you are a great artist and I overlook +the past.” He was reappointed Court painter; +but, broken in health and spirits, so deaf that he could +no longer indulge his musical taste in playing, he +obtained the king’s permission to retire to Bordeaux, +where he was cared for by a Madame Weiss and her +daughter. It was during this time that he visited +Paris and was enthusiastically welcomed by Delacroix +and the other Romanticists. When he drew <i>The Bulls</i><span class="pagenum" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</span> +<i>of Bordeaux</i> he was in his seventy-ninth year and able +to work only with the aid of a powerful magnifying-glass. +Yet the prints in their intense and vigorous +movement show no slackening of artistic power. He +died three years later, in 1828, and was buried in the +cemetery of Bordeaux. After lying there for seventy-one +years, his body was claimed by his country and +interred with honors in Madrid. For by this time +the modern world of art had recognized Goya’s greatness +and its own indebtedness to his genius.</p> + +<p class="gtb">* * * * *</p> + +<p>Goya’s etchings reveal him a great master of design. +The versatility of his invention suggests the exuberance +of nature, yet calculated art determines each +composition. It is architectonic, organic, functional; +possessing the quality of a built-up structure, with +perfect correlation of its parts and absolute adjustment +of means to end. Moreover, it carries the final +mark of distinction in that it appears to have grown: +it has the vitality, movement, and character of a living +organism. It is discovered to be the product of a new +mating of nature and geometry, inspired by a wider +and more penetrating observation of the former and a +more extended and imaginative use of the latter. +Hence, at times it strangely anticipates what we are +now familiar with in Oriental composition.</p> + +<p>Most remarkable also is the plastic quality, which is +realized not only in the <i>ensemble</i> but also in the component +parts. Goya’s compositions are no mere patterning +of surfaces, but an example of actual space-filling, +in the true sense that they occupy the third +dimension. The substance of his forms and their +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</span>position in space are so concretely realized that they +most actively excite the tactile sense. And yet, for all +their concreteness, they are permeated with a quality +of abstraction. Thus they fascinate alike by their +actuality and their suggestion of a vision. They are +frequently hideous, but in their capacity of sense-enhancement +and in their stimulus to the esthetic +intellectuality they are beautiful.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" id="f113"> +<img src="images/fig113.jpg" alt="" /> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Goya. Good Advice</span></p> +<p class="caption1">“And this advice is worthy of her who gives it. Worse yet is +the damsel who follows it to the letter, and misfortune to the first +one who accosts her!” <span class="pad">From “<i>The Caprices</i>” (Lefort No. 15).</span></p> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter1" id="f114"> +<img src="images/fig114.jpg" alt="" /> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Goya. God Forgive Her—It’s Her Own Mother!</span></p> +<p class="caption1">“The damsel while young left her native land, served her apprenticeship +in Cadiz, and is now returned to Madrid. She has +drawn a prize in the lottery, goes one day to the Prado, and is +accosted by an old and decrepit beggar—she repulses her; the +beggar woman insists. The beauty turns and recognizes her—this +poor old woman is her mother.”<br /> +<span class="pad1">From “<i>The Caprices</i>” (Lefort No. 16).</span></p> +</div> + +<p>And the beauty of these compositions is materially +increased by the sense of color which they suggest. In +consequence of Goya’s influence aquatint is coming +largely into vogue with modern etchers; but he with +this process, and his contemporary, Turner, with +mezzotint, were the first to explore fully the resources +of tint in combination with line. The English artist, +however, used it mainly as a convenient method of +representation. In Goya’s hand it became a medium +of intellectual and emotional expression, comparable +to tone in music. Goya, in fact, by his study of nature, +advanced the circle of his art, so that, on the one +hand, it embraced more of the universal geometry +and, on the other, intersected more freely the circles +of the other arts. Thus he anticipated the latest modern +thought, in its consciousness of the essential unity +of the arts and of the essential unity of art with life.</p> +<hr class="full x-ebookmaker-drop" /> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="c9">A NOTE ON GOYA</h2> +</div> + +<p class="c"><span class="smcap">By</span> WILLIAM M. IVINS, JR.</p> + + +<p class="drop-cap">NO other artist in black and white has ever +exhibited such tremendous vitality as Goya. +Look back along the line, and there is no +maker of prints who has put into them the same +exuberant, full-blooded delight in life. For sheer +physical strength Mantegna only may be compared +with him. And, strangely, with this often almost +delirious overflow of animal spirits there is the most +remarkable sensitiveness to the significance of gesture. +Who, except Hokusai, has ever expressed, in black and +white, <i>weight</i>—the heaviness of tired bodies, the leaden +fall of an unconscious woman’s arm, or the buoyancy +of excitement—as this Spaniard? Who has ever made +motion so moving—made young limbs so supple, elastic, +and graceful? His every line is kinetic—he does +not relate motion, he exhibits it—and in art as elsewhere +deeds are worth more than words.</p> + +<p>For sensitiveness to the beauty of the human body, +for curious research in the esthetic inversion, the +beauty of the hideous, Goya stands alone. No one, not +even Leonardo, has plumbed so deep in the hidden +shadowy parts. No one has so pictured <i>fear</i>—theatricalities +a plenty—but only here real terror.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" id="f115"> +<img src="images/fig115.jpg" alt="" /> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Goya. Love and Death</span></p> +<p class="caption1">“Here is a lover who, like those in Calderon, because he could +not refrain from mocking his rival, is dying in the arms of his +beloved, and by his temerity has lost all. It is not well to draw +the sword too often.” <span class="pad">From “<i>The Caprices</i>” (Lefort No. 10).</span></p> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter1" id="f116"> +<img src="images/fig116.jpg" alt="" /> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Goya. Hunting for Teeth</span></p> +<p class="caption1">“The teeth of those who have been hanged are very efficacious +in bringing luck. Without this ingredient nothing worth while +can be done. Is it not pitiful that the common folk believe such +foolishness?” <span class="pad">From “<i>The Caprices</i>” (Lefort No. 12).</span></p> +</div> + +<p>On the purely technical side—the broad massing of +sharply contrasted light and shade, the ability to tell +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</span>a tale with the simplest means, the instinctive choice +of the pictorially dramatic detail—Rembrandt and +Goya stand alone.</p> + +<p>On another side that is purely technical, it should +be borne in mind that Goya is the only one who has +availed himself of all the possibilities of aquatint—the +only one who has used the medium with audacity and +resolution and success; the only one who has dared +use it to express powerful and fundamental things.</p> + +<p>Goya, both in himself and for his influence, is one of +the greatest artists that the world has seen these last +hundred and fifty years—and his greatest work is his +black and white.</p> +<hr class="full x-ebookmaker-drop" /> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="c10">THE ETCHINGS OF FORTUNY</h2> +</div> + +<p class="c"><span class="smcap">By</span> ROYAL CORTISSOZ</p> + +<p class="c more">Literary and Art Editor of the New York <i>Tribune</i></p> + + +<p class="drop-cap">THE etchings of Fortuny make an inviting +theme, inviting in itself and doubly sympathetic +because it provokes talk about Fortuny. +I have always had a weakness for that endearing personality +and I cannot, for the life of me, go with foot-rule +and a spirit of cold analysis through the twenty-five +or thirty plates—twenty-nine, to be exact—recorded +in the useful compendium of Beraldi. You +cannot be pedantic about an artist whose work has +meant to you an early enthusiasm and a lifelong sense +of gaiety and brilliance. The first work of art I ever +yearned to possess was a drawing by Fortuny. I did +not get it into my hands. The spell faded, but it was +revived, and long afterward it involved me in an +enchanting task. In Paris, one summer, the late +Philip Gilbert Hamerton asked me to write a memoir +of Fortuny and for two years I spent a good deal of +my leisure going hither and yon, collecting material. +The book never got itself written, for reasons which I +found both pathetic and comic. Too much of the +“material” aforesaid proved too heart-breakingly expensive. +Mr. Hamerton and I and his London publisher, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</span>the late Mr. Seeley, ruefully concluded as we +counted up the figures, that, humorously speaking, +ruin stared us in the face. We turned to other things.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" id="f117"> +<a href="images/fig117big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig117.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Fortuny. Arab watching beside the Dead Body of his Friend</span></p> +<p class="caption">(Beraldi No. 1)<br /> +Size of the original etching, 7½ × 15¼ inches</p> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter1" id="f118"> +<img src="images/fig118.jpg" alt="" /> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Fortuny. Idyll</span></p> +<p class="caption">(Beraldi No. 4)<br /> +Size of the original etching, 7⅝ × 5½ inches</p> +</div> + +<p>That, as I have said, was years ago, but every now +and then I go back to Fortuny, for old sake’s sake if +for no other reason, though he was, of course, a remarkable +artist to whom one would be bound, anyway, +frequently to return. As a matter of fact, his genius +has needed, of late, to be restored to the public consciousness. +When the Impressionists came in, Fortuny, +or perhaps I should more specifically say, the +hypothesis for which he stood, went out. One of the +results of my understanding with Mr. Hamerton was +a series of visits to the <i>palazzo</i> in Venice which is still +the home of Fortuny’s family, and there you found a +contrast that was full of meaning. On the <i>piano +nobile</i> Fortuny’s art held its own in numerous unfinished +pictures, sketches, and the like. But, up-stairs, +in his son’s studio, all was changed. When young +Marianito sought inspiration as a painter, he did not +follow in his father’s footsteps, but went to Munich, +and on his walls I saw huge canvases illustrating +Wagnerian motives in a huge and splashy manner, +strongly suggestive of Franz Stuck and his followers. +I confess that at this distance of time I do not recall +very accurately just what they were all about; but I +can remember as though it were yesterday how extremely +different they were from the paintings down-stairs. +Of course no one could blame Marianito. An +artist must seek salvation in his own way. But it is +impossible not to feel a certain indignation over the +ignorance of those who have tried to wave Fortuny +aside as a painter of bric-a-brac.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</span></p> + +<p>We saw too much of that sort of thing when the +works of Sorolla and Zuloaga were shown at the Hispanic +Museum and people went into hysterics over +them, talking especially about how the first of these +painters was rejuvenating Spanish art. I used to +hear such talk in Madrid, some fifteen years ago, +amongst the younger men who were even then hailing +Sorolla as a pioneer. They were right, and it is right, +as I have argued elsewhere, to recognize in this painter’s +work an influence of the highest value to the +modern Spanish school. But there were great men +before Agamemnon, and it is stupid to ignore what +was done for Spanish painting by Fortuny long before +any one ever heard of Sorolla. I have great +respect and plenty of admiration for that accomplished +technician, and yet I think that he himself, if +pressed in the matter, would cheerfully admit that +nothing he ever painted could quite touch the portrait +in the Metropolitan Museum, <i>A Spanish Lady</i>, +which Fortuny painted in 1865. Outside of France +that was not a particularly good year amongst painters, +but Fortuny, then twenty-seven years old, was +proving himself not unworthy of Velasquez. He was +drawing with mastery and he was painting blacks +with amazing skill and taste, with amazing sensitiveness +to the beauties lying entangled in one of the most +difficult of a colorist’s problems. Indeed, I may note +in passing that this picture alone would show Fortuny +to have enforced lessons in tone which no Spaniard +since his time, not even the prodigiously clever Sorolla, +has begun to commence to prepare to equal.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" id="f119"> +<img src="images/fig119.jpg" alt="" /> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Fortuny. The Serenade</span></p> +<p class="caption">(Beraldi No. 10)<br /> +Size of the original etching, 15½ × 12¼ inches</p> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter1" id="f120"> +<img src="images/fig120.jpg" alt="" /> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Fortuny. A Moroccan Seated</span></p> +<p class="caption">(Beraldi No. 19)<br /> +Size of the original etching, 5½ × 4 inches</p> +</div> + +<p>There are many other paintings of his over which +it would be pleasant to linger, but, having the etchings +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</span>in view, I forbear. At the same time I have driven at +nothing irrelevant in speaking of Fortuny’s command +over the brush, for that is very closely related +to his command over the needle. It is important to +remember, in the first place, that he was a born +draughtsman. The fact was brought home to me +when I made a pilgrimage to Barcelona, to see the big +Moroccan battle-piece which he painted for the municipality +not long after he had won the Prix de +Rome. I saw in the spirited picture the Fortuny we +all know, but I saw also, in some earlier pieces, the +kind of academic work that he did under the influence +of old Soberano, his master at Reus, where he was +born in 1838. Yes, it was academic work, but it was +the work of a youngster of genius who had a <i>flair</i> for +form and drew it with astonishing adroitness. There, +to be sure, you have the essence of Fortuny, more +even than in the glitter of light and color conventionally +associated with his name. The artists and +critics who think that the history of painting began +with Manet are wont to damn Fortuny with faint +praise, talking about his dexterity as though that were +a very ordinary and perhaps specious gift. Well, +there is a dexterity, there is a sleight of hand, as +honest as anything that you will find in Manet, and +Fortuny had it. There are moments, no doubt, in +which it takes your breath away as though by some +deceptive stroke of conjuror’s work. But at bottom +there is a sterling sincerity about it, and this, I think, +is sharply perceptible in the etchings.</p> + +<p>Paradoxically, these do not proclaim Fortuny what +the master of etching is wont to be—a lover of line for +its own sake, a user of it as a language possessing its<span class="pagenum" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</span> +own special character and charm. Rembrandt’s +strength and Whistler’s exquisiteness were alike unknown +to him. The truth is that Fortuny employed +the needle somewhat as he employed the pen, simply +for purposes of swift and free expression. There are +some bewitching drawings of his, reproduced by the +Amand-Durand process in the memoir by Baron Davillier, +and there are others in the catalogue of the +great sale of his studio effects in 1875, which, for the +impression they leave, might almost be regarded as +etchings. The impression in either category is very +much one of “black-and-white.” Has not Fortuny +been the master of a generation of illustrators? +Nevertheless his drawings and his etchings are not +absolutely interchangeable. In the latter there is too +much of the painter for that; his figures are too +closely modeled and his backgrounds are too transparent. +Some of his plates, such as <i>The Serenade</i>, +<i>The Anchorite</i>, the <i>Kabyle Mort</i>, and <i>The Farrier</i>, +are wonderfully rich in color such as no pen draughtsman +could secure. He knew how to fill his backgrounds +with deep warm tone, and he could use the same +vivifying touch in his treatment of the figure. It is +worth while to go carefully through the little collection +of etchings that he left, looking more particularly +for those rather thin staccato effects which his imitators +affect—one is so delightfully disappointed. I +have spoken of his sincerity, his honesty. Amongst +all the plates there is only one, <i>La Victoire</i>, which +hints a contradiction. There is something factitious +about the composition, recalling the Sicilian nudities +hawked about by the photographers in Southern +Italy. But even this etching has undeniable brilliance +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</span>as a piece of technique, and, for the rest, Fortuny is +the quite artless connoisseur of picturesqueness, etching +his Moorish types and his portraits in the mood of +the serious observer of nature aiming at the truth. +On two or three occasions he appears to have let his +fancy rove. His <i>Amateur de Jardin</i> and his <i>Méditation</i> +both belong amongst those graceful studies of +costume and pseudo-romantic sentiment with which +his paintings have made us so familiar. And once he +turned poet in a small way, etching that charming +<i>Idylle</i> which may reflect no emotion whatever, but +has, at all events, a certain dainty elegance; but do not +think that Fortuny was really a poet. It was not in +his temperament. He was sensuous, mundane, in the +soul of him; the very man to enjoy just the career that +fell to his lot.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" id="f121"> +<a href="images/fig121big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig121.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Fortuny. A Horse of Morocco</span></p> +<p class="caption">(Beraldi No. 20)<br /> +Size of the original etching, 4¼ × 6¼ inches</p> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter" id="f122"> +<a href="images/fig122big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig122.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Fortuny. Interior of the Church of Saint Joseph, Madrid</span></p> +<p class="caption">(Beraldi No. 21)<br /> +Size of the original etching, 5⅜ × 9¼ inches</p> +</div> + +<p>New Yorkers will recall the sale here of the collection +formed by the late W. H. Stewart in Paris, the +“Cher Monsieur Guillermo” of more than one of the +artist’s letters printed by Davillier. It was full of +Fortunys, which made a dazzling array when they +were put up at auction. But it was better to see them +scattered about in Mr. Stewart’s home by the Seine, +and there they breathed the atmosphere of a clearly +defined character. You did not think of Fortuny in +Spain, quietly painting at Granada; you did not think +of him on the more adventurous soil of Morocco, nor +did you dwell on thoughts of his days in Rome and +on the beach at Portici. You thought, instead, of the +Fortuny who took the collectors of Paris by storm, +who moved Théophile Gautier to jeweled eloquence, +who was young, successful, and happy, who had a +great gift and used it truly with a <i>gaillard</i> grace. He<span class="pagenum" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</span> +was not the specious entertainer, bemusing his audience +with incredible tricks. All his wizardry, all +his diabolical cleverness, was quite natural to him, +springing from his heart and in no wise diminishing +his weight and seriousness as a student of nature. +Beraldi applauds his etchings for their originality. +Let us honor them too for their fidelity to life, for +their simple strength, as well as for their light, +vivacious charm.</p> +<hr class="full x-ebookmaker-drop" /> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="c11">PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS OF<br /> +SIR SEYMOUR HADEN, P.R.E.</h2> +</div> + +<p class="c"><span class="smcap">Part I</span></p> + +<p class="c"><span class="smcap">By</span> FREDERICK KEPPEL</p> + + +<p class="drop-cap">MANY treatises have been published on Seymour +Haden the artist, but not one, as yet, +on Seymour Haden the man. This is as it +should be; because no one can write freely and +frankly on the personality of a famous man while +that man is still living, and Sir Seymour lived until +the year 1910, when he died at the great age of ninety-three.</p> + +<p>I met him often every year for about thirty years, +and I first made his acquaintance when he lived in his +very handsome house in the aristocratic region known +as Mayfair, in the west end of London. His house +adjoined the residence of the Lord Chief Justice of +England.</p> + +<p>The doctrine held by the ancients that the Goddess +of Fortune was stone-blind has much to warrant it. +Let us take the case of three contemporary nineteenth-century +etchers, all three being men of genius. I +mean the two French masters, Charles Meryon and +Jean-François Millet, and the Englishman Seymour +Haden. The two French etchers lived in dire poverty +and often had to go hungry because they had not the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</span> +means to pay for a meal; while, to their English +contemporary, “the lines were fallen in pleasant +places” and he never knew the wants that pinch the +poor.</p> + +<p>Born in 1818, in his father’s fine house in Sloane +Street, London West, Francis Seymour Haden had +the advantage of coming of a good and well-known +family, in easy circumstances, and the further advantage +of having received an excellent university +education, so that he found himself, from the first, +the social equal of many of the best in the land, and +he never had to invade and overcome that formidable +social barrier which in England so sternly divides +the “somebodies” from the “nobodies”; and during +his long and active life he certainly did nothing to +diminish or discredit the high social standing to which +he was born and bred.</p> + +<p>This being so, he remained to the end of his life +an ideal Tory aristocrat, a condition which might be +compared to that of the Bourbon kings, who “never +forgot anything and never learned anything.” In +maintaining any opinion which he had formed, or +inherited, he was as immovable as the rock of Gibraltar, +and it made no difference to him if later evidence +showed that his earlier opinions were wrong.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" id="f123"> +<img src="images/fig123.jpg" alt="" /> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Portrait of Seymour Haden at the age of Sixty-Two</span></p> +<p class="caption">From the engraving by C. W. Sherborn<br /> +Size of the original engraving, 6 × 3½ inches</p> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter1" id="f124"> +<a href="images/fig124big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig124.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Portrait of Seymour Haden at the Age of Forty-four</span></p> +<p class="caption">From his etching from life, done in 1862<br /> +Size of the original print, 7¾ × 10⅝ inches</p> +</div> + + +<p>I well remember hearing that man of genius, Henry +Ward Beecher, say in a sermon: “Talk of the sin +of Pride—we haven’t half enough of it!” Be that +as it may, Seymour Haden was always a proud man, +and this innate pride sometimes rendered him intolerant +of the opinions of other good men whose ideas +were also entitled to due respect. Indeed, I have +never known a man who set a higher value on himself. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</span>Nothing was too good for him—whether it might be +his collection of the best prints by older masters, his +house and its appointments great and small, or the +instruments which he used when he practised surgery,—everything +must be of the very best. This determination +of his was, within limits, a noble one, although +it sometimes made him intolerant of other +men who were unable to rise to his high ideals.</p> + +<p>In this ingrained pride and self-esteem of Seymour +Haden’s he was far too proud to be vain. I do not +think he had any vanity at all. In this respect he +differed, “as far as the east is from the west,” from +his illustrious brother-in-law, Whistler. The latter’s +lifelong habit was to pose and to perform like an +actor on the stage—whether his audience consisted +of many auditors or of only one; while Haden, though +an eminently well-bred gentleman, cared nothing +whatever about the impression he might be making +on his auditors—so long as his actions were approved +by himself. On such occasions all went charmingly +until some other person uttered a heterodox opinion +on art, or politics, or any other subject; but when that +happened Sir Seymour’s indignation would burst +forth like a raging volcano.</p> + +<p>On one such occasion, while I was a guest in his +country house, I infuriated him—though with no evil +intention. It was at the time when the patriot Charles +Stewart Parnell was making such a brave struggle in +the House of Commons on behalf of Home Rule for +Ireland, I expressed my admiration for Parnell, when +Sir Seymour got very angry and so made all the company +uncomfortable. Thus far I did not blame myself; +but a year later I certainly was ashamed of my<span class="pagenum" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</span> +own indiscretion. I had quite forgotten about the +outbreak of the former year and I again expressed my +warm sympathy with the cause of Irish Home Rule. +It was just at the beginning of dinner at Sir Seymour’s +hospitable table, but no sooner had I mentioned +the subject than he flung down knife and fork, +marched out of the dining-room, banged the door behind +him, and tramped up-stairs to his bedroom. That +sweet woman, Lady Haden, said to me very quietly, +“We shall see no more of Sir Seymour to-night,” and +next morning, before my host appeared at breakfast, +his very tactful wife, laying her hand gently on my +arm, said to me, “Mr. Keppel, in conversing with my +husband, pray avoid the subject of Home Rule in +Ireland.” Most readers would think that the little +incident ended here; but it didn’t. Presently Sir +Seymour came down to breakfast and carried in his +hand a large and handsome book which he presented +to me. On the fly-leaf I read a long and most kindly +dedication written by himself; and so <i>that</i> was the +end of the incident. I remember that when I received +this <i>amende honorable</i> my first impulse was to recall +a characteristic Irish adage which says: “First cut my +head, an’ then give me a plasther!”</p> + +<div class="figcenter" id="f125"> +<img src="images/fig125.jpg" alt="" /> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Sir Seymour Haden</span></p> +<p class="caption">From the drawing by Alphonse Legros, done in 1895</p> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter1" id="f126"> +<a href="images/fig126big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig126.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Woodcote Manor</span> (the Home of Sir Seymour Haden)</p> +<p class="caption">From the etching by Percy Thomas<br /> +Size of the original etching, 6⅝ × 10½ inches</p> +</div> + +<p>Lady Haden was, in a very quiet and refined way, +a remarkable woman. She was daughter of an American +army officer, Major Whistler, and she bore the +Puritan Christian names of Deborah Delano. In more +than one of Sir Seymour’s etchings her first name +is quieted down to “Dasha.” She was half-sister to +the great Whistler, who was the issue of her father’s +second marriage, and she clung to her “brother Jimmie” +to the end of her life. All the art which was +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</span>inherent in the Whistler family manifested itself in +Lady Haden’s music. She was a marvelous reader +of piano music, and when Sir Seymour got possession +of the fine old Elizabethan mansion of Woodcote +Manor in Hampshire, Lady Haden, perceiving that +there was no musical skill among the young men of +the neighboring village of Bramdean, organized a +band or orchestra for these rustics. To one she taught +the violin, to another the flute, to another the trombone, +etc. After about two years of drilling I had +the opportunity of hearing her band performing in +the school-house at Bramdean, and they played respectably +well, while the sweet old lady conducted +the music with her baton. Toward the end of her +life she became totally blind, and after that I never +was more affected in my life than when, at Woodcote +Manor, I saw her grope her way to her piano and +heard her play, superbly, some great compositions by +Beethoven and Chopin.</p> + +<p>At Woodcote Manor Sir Seymour enjoyed his life +thoroughly (except when something went wrong and +made him angry). The mansion stood in its own +park and there was a beautiful old garden inclosed +with high stone walls. One summer when his long +hedge of sweet pea was in full bloom he took me to +see it and told me that he had thought out a new +and interesting botanical fact, on which he had written +a paper for the learned Royal Society, and that +he intended to send it to them in London and to invite +some eminent botanists of the Society to come to +Woodcote and see the phenomenon for themselves. +His theory was that garden flowers always had a tendency +to return to the original color of the same<span class="pagenum" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</span> +blossoms in the wild plant, especially when the garden +plant grew tall, and then he showed me that, in his +hedge of sweet pea, the purple blossoms at the top were +much more numerous than the flowers of pink or +blue or white which were lower down, thus proving +that when a garden sweet pea grew tall the blossoms +returned to the original purple color of the wild pea.</p> + +<p>I had always been somewhat of a horticulturist myself +and so I said to him: “It is evident that the +plants here bearing purple flowers grow taller than +the others; but you must remember that any single +plant of sweet pea can give you nothing but one and +the same color in its blossoms.” Sir Seymour sent +for his pig-headed old Hampshire gardener, put the +question to him, and although the old man was greatly +in awe of his master he gave his decision on my side +and against Sir Seymour. “You are a pair of fools,” +was the old gentleman’s angry answer, and he started +to leave us. But I overtook him and said: “Now, Sir +Seymour, it is not fair to me to leave this little scientific +question undecided. Pray come back for a few +minutes and let me cut two or three of your plants +at the roots, disentangle them from the hedge, and +show you that although they mingle when growing +close together yet you never get more than one colored +bloom from one plant.” To this he consented, and +of course my demonstration showed that his theory +was wrong; but his anger against me lasted till bedtime, +and it was only next morning that he said to +me: “Keppel, you made me angry yesterday about +those sweet peas,—but, all the same, I am glad you +saved me from making a damned fool of myself before +the Royal Society.”</p> + +<div class="figcenter" id="f127"> +<img src="images/fig127.jpg" alt="" /> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Reproduction, in reduced size, of a page of Manuscript in the Handwriting<br /> +of Sir Seymour Haden</span></p> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter1" id="f128"> +<img src="images/fig128.jpg" alt="" /> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Facsimile, in reduced size, of the Certificate of Seymour Haden’s<br /> +Candidacy for Membership in the Athenæum Club</span></p> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</span></p> +<p>Sir Seymour’s anger on this occasion was mild +compared with the rage he flew into with his gardener +when, after the master had been absent for a day in +London, he returned and found that his man had +spent a laborious day in scraping off the beautiful +green moss which adorned the trunks and larger +branches of the old apple-trees in the garden. I was +with Sir Seymour when he made the distressing discovery +and I heard the furious sound of the vials of +wrath which he poured on the stupid old man’s head. +After Sir Seymour had gone the poor gardener said +to me: “And that’s my thanks for having worked +hard to make his old apple-trees look neat and tidy!”</p> + +<p>Besides being a fellow of the Royal College of +Surgeons, Sir Seymour Haden was a member of the +most exclusive club in London—if not in the world—the +Athenæum. It generally took from fifteen to +twenty years for any candidate to be elected. Sir +Seymour had to wait eighteen years. The usage of +this club is to hang on the wall a large sheet of paper +setting forth the name and the qualities of the candidate, +and any member who approved of this candidate +would sign this paper. Whether many of these +eminent persons had much idea of the quality of a +fine etching is quite another matter, but Sir Seymour’s +nomination sheet at the club was crammed +with signatures of eminent men advocating his election. +Among these signatures are those of Robert +Browning, Anthony Trollope, Matthew Arnold, Dr. +Tait, Archbishop of Canterbury; Huxley, the great +scientist; Lord Chief Justice Coleridge, and Sir E. J. +Poynter, now President of the Royal Academy of +Arts. Besides the signatures of these famous men<span class="pagenum" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</span> +who had “achieved greatness” other signers of this +Athenæum document had been “born great,” including +several hereditary peers; and—to finish Shakespeare’s +sentence—the gentleman chiefly concerned +never waited to have “greatness thrust upon him,” for +he was always quite willing to meet greatness half-way.</p> + +<p>The Athenæum Club is so desperately exclusive +that no member can bring in an outsider except to +a little sentry-box inside the main portal, which room +is only large enough to accommodate two persons. +On one occasion when I was visiting Sir Seymour I +did one of the few deliberately wicked things that +ever I did in my life. As I stood in the little sentry-box +I perceived His Grace the Archbishop of York +entering with a friend at the front door of the club. +The two walked straight to the glass door of the little +sentry-box where I was, and the eminent prelate said +to his friend, in a loud authoritative voice: “We can +sign the documents here in a moment.” Then it was +that “Satan entered into me.” I knew that this was +my only chance ever to make a British archbishop +wait till I was “good and ready,” and so, although +I had finished my business with Sir Seymour, I began +talking and talking about his friends in Paris and +what they were doing, until I kept the very impatient +archbishop striding up and down before the little +door for more than ten minutes, and twice when I +caught his eye he looked at his watch, glared at me, +and exclaimed, “Dear me, how tiresome!” (It will +be remembered that in genteel English parlance the +word “tiresome” means “annoying” or “provoking.”) +At last, when I could talk no more, Sir Seymour +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</span>rose from his chair, opened the door, and met +the raging Dr. Maclagan outside. “Oh, Archbishop,” +said he, “I do hope we have not kept you waiting,” +and His Grace made answer in a very fretful voice, +“Well, in point of fact, Sir Seymour, <i>you have!</i>” I +cannot claim that this prank of mine did me any +credit, but in my boyhood days in England my family +and I had suffered from the pomposity of English +prelates.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" id="f129"> +<a href="images/fig129big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig129.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Haden. Whistler’s House, Old Chelsea</span></p> +<p class="caption">Etched in 1863. On the left is Lindsay Row, in which Whistler’s house is indicated by a small stellated<br /> +mark above the chimney. To the right is old Chelsea Church and Battersea Bridge</p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original etching, 6⅞ × 13 inches</p> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter1" id="f130"> +<a href="images/fig130big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig130.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Haden. Battersea Reach</span></p> +<p class="caption">A view of the Thames at Battersea, etched in 1863, looking out of Whistler’s window</p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original etching, 5⅞ × 8⅞ inches</p> +</div> + +<p>The feud between Seymour Haden and Whistler +was known throughout Europe. Whistler loathed +Haden and Haden detested Whistler. But Sir Seymour +drew a distinction between the man whom he +abominated and the artist whom he greatly admired. +This admiration led him to make a notable collection +of Whistler’s prints. On one occasion Sir Seymour +said to me that if he were forced to part with his +Rembrandt etchings or with his Whistlers he would +find it hard to determine which master’s works he +must let go. Later on I repeated this saying to +Whistler and that modest gentleman calmly remarked: +“Why, Haden should first part with his Rembrandts, +of course.”</p> + +<p>Among the historic questions which can never be +definitely determined is the one—whether Seymour +Haden was the man who kicked Whistler down-stairs +or whether it was Whistler who administered this +violent treatment to Haden. I have heard the story +from both, and each of these eminent men stoutly +maintained that <i>he</i> had been the kicker and his adversary +the kicked one.</p> + +<p>As president of the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers +Sir Seymour did a great work in maintaining<span class="pagenum" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</span> +sound doctrine in etching. Nothing was admitted +which was “commercial” in character, and etchings +which were done after paintings by other hands were +rigorously ruled out.</p> + +<p>The membership comprised foreign as well as British +artists, and membership was eagerly sought for,—so +much so that many famous etchers never were +elected, although they tried hard to be.</p> + +<p>The members often had to complain of the masterful +ways of their president; he ruled them with a rod +of iron, but still the malcontents were forced to endure +it,—well knowing that no other man could give +to the Society the prestige and authority that Seymour +Haden gave to it.</p> + +<p>In all other art exhibitions a good thing, done by an +outsider, is accepted and welcomed, but the Royal +Society of Painter-Etchers exhibits nothing except the +work of its own members.</p> + +<p>We have seen that Sir Seymour Haden, in spite of +his good qualities—and his great qualities—was a man +of a domineering and disputatious nature. I know +of no figure in dramatic literature whom he resembled +so closely as Sheridan’s <i>Sir Anthony Absolute</i>. Both +of these <i>Sirs</i> were of a violent and masterful temper, +and yet both of them were good men.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" id="f131"> +<a href="images/fig131big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig131.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Haden. Out of Study Window</span></p> +<p class="caption">Etched from an upper window in Mr. Haden’s house in Sloane Street. In the mid-distance is the suburb<br /> +of Brompton</p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original etching, 4¼ × 10¼ inches</p> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter1" id="f132"> +<img src="images/fig132.jpg" alt="" /> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Haden. Thomas Haden of Derby</span></p> +<p class="caption1">“Thomas Haden of Derby, my grandfather, was, under a polished +exterior, one of the most determined men I have ever known, and one +of the bravest. He would have made a hero of romance if he had had +the chance. At the age of eighty-five he defended his home against +the whole mob of Derby, keeping them at bay all night.” <span class="pad3">Seymour Haden.</span></p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original etching, 13⅞ × 9⅜ inches</p> +</div> + +<p>Besides Seymour Haden’s signal achievements as +etcher and as surgeon, and his zeal as an angler, he, +like some other good men, had a special hobby which +he rode for years, and which he often ventilated in +the London <i>Times</i>. His theory was that no corpse +should be buried in a solid wooden coffin, but that it +should be inclosed in a loose wicker case, where the +earth could come in direct contact with the dead body. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</span>He contended that such contact would very quickly +turn “earth to earth.” One of his demonstrations +was practised on the dead body of a large old sow that +died in his farm-yard. (The animal’s name, I remember, +was Mary Jane.) Sir Seymour had Mary Jane +buried in the garden, in a shallow grave, and he had a +covering of not more than three inches of earth laid +over her. Then every visitor to Woodcote Manor had +to visit the grave and to use his olfactory organs over +it. I myself had to do this on two occasions and I +must say that I detected no foul odor whatever.</p> + +<p>For more than twenty years I enjoyed a peculiar +privilege in connection with Woodcote Manor. The +old couple, used to the stir and bustle of London, +where they had “troops of friends,” sometimes found +themselves somewhat lonely in the solitude of Hampshire, +and so it happened that for more than twenty +years I was given <i>carte blanche</i> to invite to Woodcote +any person I pleased. I was very particular as to the +persons whom I thus invited; but the people so invited +were charmed with their visit, whether it lasted for +three days or for two weeks, and the English know +very well how to make a guest comfortable.</p> + +<p>In the park at Woodcote Manor there is an etched +tablet, nailed to the trunk of an ancient hawthorn-tree. +It reads:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> +<div class="stanza"> +<div class="verse indent0">A loyal friend through weal and woe,</div> +<div class="verse indent2">At last, stern death o’ertakes him:</div> +<div class="verse indent0">Here sleeps my loving, wise old crow,</div> +<div class="verse indent2">Till Gabriel’s trumpet wakes him.</div> +</div> +</div> +</div> + +<p>I wrote this epitaph at Lady Seymour Haden’s request. +She gave to my dear old pet crow a resting-place +when he died. That crow was more like a friend<span class="pagenum" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</span> +than a pet. On Atlantic steamers he would fly about +among the sea-gulls, and in London I used to open the +windows and he flew where he pleased, but I was +always sure that he would come back to me.</p> + +<p class="gtb">* * * * *</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">The</span> present article is already so long that I must not +prolong it further; but in a later number of <span class="smcap">The +Print-Collector’s Quarterly</span> I intend to give an account +of Sir Seymour Haden’s visit to the United +States.</p> + + +<p class="c large p2"><span class="smcap">Part II</span></p> + +<p class="c">SEYMOUR HADEN IN AMERICA</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">The</span> former chapter of my article on Sir Seymour +Haden referred entirely to my experiences with him +in Europe; this second and concluding portion will +contain nothing except an account of his sayings and +doings during his visit to the United States in the year +1882. The purpose of his American visit was to expound +and vindicate the importance of original etching +as a fine art. This he did by delivering a series of +lectures on the subject, and these lectures, in the main, +were very well received.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" id="f133"> +<img src="images/fig133.jpg" alt="" /> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Portrait of Seymour Haden</span></p> +<p class="caption">From a photograph from life: taken in New York in 1882</p> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter" id="f134"> +<img src="images/fig134.jpg" alt="" /> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Champney. Portrait of Sir Seymour Haden</span></p> +<p class="caption1">Sketched (unknown to him) in the Print Room of the British Museum +by J. Wells Champney of New York. Sir Seymour afterward +wrote on this sketch. “Excellent! S. H. 1899.”</p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original drawing, 9 × 8 inches</p> +</div> + +<p>Being a born and case-hardened controversialist he +soon found out that in America no man’s unproved +<i>ipse dixit</i>, however eminent he might be, was dutifully +accepted as it would have been in one of the +older civilizations of Europe, and so it came about +that several unprofitable controversies were hotly +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</span>waged on both sides. Seymour Haden was by nature +pugnacious and “toplofty,” and such an attitude +went down badly in America. But, all the same, the +man himself was treated with distinguished consideration +here, and his lectures did genuine good to the +cause of true art. He lectured in all our principal +cities from New York to Chicago, and although when +he landed here I think he had very few personal +acquaintances (except myself), yet when he sailed +back to England he took with him the cordial friendship +and good will of many Americans of the right +sort.</p> + +<p>His first lecture was delivered before a distinguished +audience in Chickering Hall, Fifth Avenue, +New York. He had plenty of voice to make his auditors +hear him; but his lecture dragged considerably—for +a peculiarly British reason: it is known to some +of us that in an Englishman’s public oration he is +not genteel or distinguished if he speaks freely and +fluently. No, no; he must befog and entangle his +words with all sorts of hesitations and amendments. +It is the same in the British House of Commons. I +do not mean such master orators as Gladstone was, +but the public speech of the average British member,—let +us call him Sir Huddleston Fuddleston—sounds +like this: “The honorable, hum—the honorable and +gallant member from—ha—hum—from Hull, has +been good enough to—a—um—to <i>say</i>—etc.”</p> + +<p>Well, Seymour Haden modeled his oratory on this +preposterous but genteel British usage; and yet, in +private conversation, I have never known a man +who used more elegant and appropriate language than +he. On the day following that of the lecture, I received<span class="pagenum" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</span> +a visit from my kind and valued friend the +Right Reverend Monsignor Doane, who was a genuine +lover of fine prints, and he said to me: “Well, I +heard your English friend last evening humming and +hawing through his lecture.” Soon afterward I had +the opportunity of bringing these two distinguished +men together, and after that, during his yearly visit +to England, the monsignor used to be a welcome and +honored guest of Sir Seymour and Lady Haden. The +artist’s lectures in Boston were listened to with +earnest attention and he was the guest of honor at +a reception given at the St. Botolph Club; but even +there storms and tempests arose. He quarreled with +the one eminent American whom, the rest of us would +think, nobody could quarrel with,—namely, Oliver +Wendell Holmes. It was all about a “fool” difference +of opinion on some question of medical ethics and +usages in America as compared with England.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" id="f135"> +<a href="images/fig135big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig135.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Haden. Mytton Hall</span></p> +<p class="caption1">“Mytton Hall is an old Henry the Seventh house which Mr. Haden was in the habit of staying at for the +purpose of his salmon fishing in the river Ribble (the Lancashire River) which runs past it.” <span class="pad">Seymour Haden.</span></p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original dry-point, 4¾ × 10⅜ inches</p> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter1" id="f136"> +<a href="images/fig136big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig136.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Haden. On the Test</span></p> +<p class="caption1">“This plate and <i>A Water Meadow</i> were done on the same day, one at noon, the other very +late in the evening. The Test (in Hampshire) is a famous trout stream.” <span class="pad">Seymour Haden.</span></p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original dry-point, 6 × 8⅞ inches</p> +</div> + +<p>Before the evening of his reception at the St. +Botolph Club, Seymour Haden procured a list of the +principal personages whom he was to meet there. He +brought it to me, and said: “Now, what should I <i>know</i> +about these people?” I wrote down for him as many +notes as I could, and when he met the Bostonians, I +was astonished to see how well he had coached himself +about them. On his return to New York, he received +a great number of letters. He was staying at the old +Hotel Brunswick, Fifth Avenue, and every morning +I had to go there and tell him “who was who” among +the writers of the letters. One day he was called +down to the parlor by a message that a lady wished to +see him. He went down and when he came back to +his room carrying a card in his hand, he said to me, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</span>“Well, I certainly am in an extraordinary country. +That visitor, whom I never knew, is evidently a lady, +and she has invited me to come and spend a week +with her husband and herself at Yonkers.” Glancing +at the card, I read the name of Mrs. James B. Colgate, +and said to Seymour Haden, “I should certainly advise +you to accept,” and I went on to say that it was +easy enough for a stranger from England to see our +public show places, big hotels, etc., but not so easy to +get an entrée to the home of a really nice American +family. Seymour Haden accepted the invitation and +spent a week with Mr. and Mrs. Colgate. In those +years, I myself lived in Yonkers, and I called on him +at the Colgate house the day after his arrival there. +The eminent banker showed us into his library, and +leaving us alone he closed the door. The English +visitor, first looking around to see that there was no +other person present, said to me in a sort of whisper: +“I am very comfortable here, with but one serious +drawback. I have been in the habit, all my life, of +taking wine with my dinner; but last evening, what +do you suppose they gave me in the place of wine?—<i>milk!</i>” +This was about nine o’clock at night, and +when I got home I stated the case to my dear old +mother. She laughed a little wickedly, and said, “I +think I can help your friend in this case.” We happened +to have some very good sherry. The old lady +got a large flat bottle, filled it with the wine, corked it +and put it into an innocent-looking pasteboard box, telling +me to take it to him. Before leaving my home, I +wrote a brief note to Seymour Haden saying that the +package which I had to deliver to him must be opened +only in the privacy of his own chamber. The Colgates<span class="pagenum" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</span> +were total abstainers of so pronounced a kind that when +Mr. Colgate rented any house of his in Yonkers, he +made a condition in the lease that no intoxicants of +any kind were ever to be received in that house. +Further than that, one of his principles was, not only +never to drink wine or spirits, but never to touch or +carry them. When I got back to Mr. Colgate’s house, +it was ten o’clock at night, and all the lights in the +big house were extinguished and the doors locked. I +rang and rang at the bell, and at last Mr. Colgate +himself, wearing trousers and slippers, opened the +door. I had to manufacture a small fiction, which +recalls Sir Walter Scott’s couplet:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> +<div class="stanza"> +<div class="verse indent0">Oh, what a tangled web we weave,</div> +<div class="verse indent0">When first we practise to deceive.</div> +</div> +</div> +</div> + +<p>Mr. Colgate said to me rather fretfully that all the +household had retired, and that Mr. Seymour Haden +must wait until the morning. I said to him in reply, +that he would do me a great favor, if when he was +passing his guest’s chamber door, he would knock at +it and deliver the package, and this Mr. Colgate consented +to do. Some days later a reception was given +to Seymour Haden at the Lotos Club, Fifth Avenue, +and I accompanied him from Yonkers to New York +on that occasion. When Mr. Haden found himself +safe in the train, he said to me: “I couldn’t have +slept a wink except for that excellent sherry that your +mother sent me, but I took deucéd good care to +carry away the empty bottle in my bag.” I remember +that from the train we saw the gorgeous sight of +the sun setting behind the Palisades, and mirrored in +the Hudson River, and Mr. Haden said to me, with +something like reproach in his voice: “Now, why have +I never been told of the beauty of all this?” Later +on, he said to me, looking about in the crowded train: +“Now, isn’t it melancholy to think that nobody among +all these people, except myself (and perhaps you), +has the slightest sense of the beauty of this magnificent +sunset!” I was tempted to say to him that he +had no right to assume such callous insensibility on +the part of the Americans, but though I thought it, I +did not say it. Seymour Haden’s reception at the +Lotos Club was a notable function. I remember that +the President, the Hon. Whitelaw Reid, made a very +graceful speech in honor of his guest, and I recall +vividly the marvelous cleverness of a very young man +who had been invited to entertain the company. One +of this young man’s monologues represented an intimate +talk between three Italian opera singers, the +soprano, the tenor, and the basso; the three continually +interrupting one another. The speaking of the +young man was in “fake” Italian, and the three +speaking voices were admirably differentiated. I inquired +who this young man was, and was told that he +was the son of the famous oratorio singer, Madame +Rudersdorf of Boston, that his name was Richard +Mansfield, and that he was studying for the stage. I +then uttered a prophecy that that young man would +be a great actor later on; and so he was.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" id="f137"> +<a href="images/fig137big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig137.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Haden. A By-road in Tipperary</span></p> +<p class="caption">This magnificent plate was etched in 1860, in the park of Viscount Hawarden. All<br /> +things considered, it is the artist’s finest rendering of tree-forms</p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original etching, 7½ × 11¼ inches</p> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter1" id="f138"> +<a href="images/fig138big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig138.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Haden. A Sunset in Ireland</span></p> +<p class="caption1">“This plate, and also <i>A By-road in Tipperary</i>, were done in the park of Viscount Hawarden, +in the most beautiful part of Tipperary.” <span class="pad">Seymour Haden.</span></p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original dry-point, 5½ × 8½ inches</p> +</div> + +<p>After his return from Boston, the artist spent +several weeks in New York, and while he was there, +I arranged for him the first public exhibition of his +etchings which was ever made in America. The New +York press took up the subject with enthusiasm, +and every important newspaper printed a long<span class="pagenum" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</span> +review of the artist and his work. I collected all of +these very laudatory articles, and took them to Mr. +Haden at the Hotel Brunswick. Next day he said to +me, “Do you know that these reviews of the New +York press are distinctly abler and more intelligent +than if they had been written in London?” He +added, “I wish you would pay my particular compliments +to the gentleman who wrote the review in the +New York <i>World</i>; that article in particular I found +to be admirable.” He was surprised when he saw me +begin to laugh, but I explained to him that the “gentleman” +in question was a lady, and the article which +he so greatly admired was from the pen of Mrs. +Schuyler van Rensselaer.</p> + +<p>One very seldom finds that the imaginative and +creative artist is also endowed with a logical and +judicial cast of mind. It was so with Seymour Haden. +He had brought from England a large collection of +excellent lantern-slides to illustrate these lectures by +means of a stereopticon, and in the lecturer’s zeal to +glorify original etching at the expense of prints done +by any other method, he had procured one lantern +slide of the beautiful little portrait which Rembrandt +had etched of himself, the complete print of which is +hardly bigger than a postage stamp. It was the +<i>Rembrandt à trois moustaches</i>. Alongside of this, Mr. +Haden had printed a morsel of the same size, taken +from a crude and unimportant part of the foreground +of William Sharp’s famous line-engraving of the <i>Holy +Family</i>, after the painting by Sir Joshua Reynolds. +Thus this special pleader, Haden, displayed an etching +in its entirety, and less than one-hundredth part +of a line-engraving of very large size. Wherever, during +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</span>his lectures, this illustration was exhibited by a +stereopticon, there was a universal outcry against the +unfairness of it. People all, with one accord, declared +that if the artist wanted to confront and contrast +etching with line-engraving, fairness would require +the lecturer to have chosen two prints of the same +size; but there was no “budging” Seymour Haden, +when he had formed an opinion.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" id="f139"> +<a href="images/fig139big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig139.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Haden. A Lancashire River.</span></p> +<p class="caption1">A well-known salmon pool on the Ribble. In Sir Seymour’s opinion this is one of his +very finest plates. It was awarded the Medal of Honor at the Paris Exposition of +1889.</p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original etching, 11 × 16 inches</p> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter1" id="f140"> +<a href="images/fig140big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig140.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Haden. Sawley Abbey</span></p> +<p class="caption">Sawley Abbey stands by a salmon river, the Ribble, which here is enlarged into a wide<br /> +pool. Seymour Haden often came here for his salmon fishing.</p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original etching, 10 × 14⅞ inches</p> +</div> + +<p>While in New York, he visited the exhibition of +paintings at the National Academy of Design, and +was escorted through the galleries by the late James +D. Smillie, N.A. When his eye fell upon a certain +painting, he suddenly stopped as if he were paralyzed. +“Who did that picture?” “It is the work of one of +our New York artists, Miss So-and-So.” “Why do +you allow such dreadful things on your walls?” +“Well,” said Mr. Smillie, “we like to exemplify various +phases in art.” “Hum,” rejoined Seymour +Haden, while glaring at the picture; “she ought to +be <i>disemboweled</i>!”</p> + +<p>Of at least one of our well-known American artists, +Seymour Haden expressed the strongest admiration. +This was the late John Lafarge, N.A., and he also +spoke with enthusiasm of the original American etchings +of thirty years ago, the work of such men as +Stephen Parrish, Charles A. Platt, Peter Moran, and +Joseph Pennell. On seeing a very large, intricate +plate by Mr. Parrish, Mr. Haden made the remark to +me, “That young man does not know what the sense +of fatigue in making a picture is.” Even at this +period, Seymour Haden was known throughout +Europe as being the judge <i>par excellence</i> of a fine +print, and he was also recognized as an admirable +judge of paintings.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</span></p> + +<p>While on this subject of Haden’s learned judgment +of pictures, I will record what he remarked to me after +he had visited Niagara for the first time. What he +said was: “No artist, except Turner, should have ever +dared to attempt making a picture of the Falls of +Niagara.”</p> + +<p>One of Seymour Haden’s exceptionally good days +was the Sunday which he spent in visiting that famous +art collector and admirable man, James L. +Claghorn, of Philadelphia. On that occasion, I myself +was included as a sort of “make-weight.” The Englishman, +with genuine zeal, went through Mr. Claghorn’s +collection of prints, and he wrote with pencil +on several of them that they were exceptionally fine.</p> + +<p>On another side Mr. Haden excelled as a judge, and +that was in the matter of first-class food and first-class +cooking. At lunch, our host treated us to a +delicious dish of terrapin. Seymour Haden found it +wonderfully good and declared that not only had he +never tasted terrapin before, but he had never heard +of the dish. “Oh, yes,” said I to him; “you certainly +have heard of terrapin; don’t you remember at +church on Sundays, when they sing the ‘Te Deum,’ +they sing, ‘Terrapin and Seraphim.’” “Oh, tut, +tut,” said he, “I want to hear no irreverence.”</p> + +<p>Seymour Haden had ranked as a very able physician. +An incident occurred while we were at Mr. +Claghorn’s house which shows how wise he was in +this respect: Mr. Claghorn was a huge and corpulent +man of about sixty, but he was full of force and +energy. While we were in his library he got up and +bustled out on some errand, and Seymour Haden said +to me: “Your friend will not live long, and when he +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</span>dies he will go off very suddenly.” I was shocked +on hearing such an unexpected prophecy, and I asked +Mr. Haden how long Mr. Claghorn was likely to live. +In answer he said, “Just about two years.” Two +years later, within ten days of the time Haden had +designated, Mr. Claghorn suddenly fell dead.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" id="f141"> +<a href="images/fig141big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig141.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Haden. The breaking-up of the Agamemnon</span></p> +<p class="caption1">Perhaps, all things considered, the artist’s masterpiece. Collectors differ as to the relative merits of the +various etchings by Seymour Haden, but all are agreed in ranking this as a masterpiece, Moreover, it was +the first etching to be treated in this particular manner, and it has become the model for many imitators. +This fine plate was etched on the Thames, at Greenwich, in 1870. Sir Seymour devoted the money obtained +from the sale of the proofs to the aid of the London Hospital for Incurables.</p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original etching, 7¾ × 16¼ inches</p> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter1" id="f142"> +<a href="images/fig142big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig142.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Haden. Calais Pier</span></p> +<p class="caption1">Etched by Seymour Haden after the painting by J. M. W. Turner in the National +Gallery, London. This superb etching stands alone in the history of the art. The +scene could not be more strongly felt nor more vividly presented had the etcher been +working from nature instead of from a painting by another hand. When this etching +appeared, Seymour Haden received an enthusiastic letter from John Ruskin, in which +the latter exhorted him to devote the remainder of his life to etching the paintings of +Turner.</p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original print, 23½ × 33 inches</p> +</div> + +<p>Still continuing the subject of Mr. Haden’s critical +judgment in dining. I may mention that wherever he +went, he would never partake, at a hotel, of a <i>table +d’hôte</i> meal. He insisted on selecting particular dishes +which he wished for, and he had them specially cooked +for him. On his return from Cincinnati, he told me +that while there he met my own dear friend, the late +Herman Goepper, and he had given him, at a club, the +very best, and best-served, dinner that he had ever +partaken of.</p> + +<p>Seymour Haden’s course of lectures at Chicago was +a great success, and a very notable reception was +tendered to him. During the course of that reception, +a very influential Chicago lady marched up and said +in a loud voice: “Why don’t you <i>educate</i> your +women in England?” “I know what you mean,” +said the Englishman, “but we don’t like to have our +English women crammed with a lot of abstruse <i>isms</i> +and <i>ologies</i>.” Another lady, who thought the English +guest had been rather unfairly attacked, said to +him, “Now, Mr. Haden, can’t you attack her in return?” +“Well, yes,” said he: “in America, you +don’t know how to make tea, and your table knives +will not cut anything.” Another little dispute arose +in Detroit. Haden had arrived late at night, very +much fatigued, at the Russell House. At about eight +o’clock in the morning he was awakened from a much-needed<span class="pagenum" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</span> +sleep by a sound of hammering and grinding +in the wall outside his window. He got up, raised the +window, and saw two men boring a hole into the +front wall of the hotel, for the purpose of inserting an +iron bar from which a sign was to be swung. Mr. +Haden remonstrated at being disturbed. The two +mechanics answered that they were “on that job” and +that they were going to do it. Then, as the <i>Detroit +Free Press</i> related the incident, the elderly gentleman, +dressed in night-clothes and a nightcap, had +pushed out both his arms, seized the offending and +disturbing crowbar, hauled it into his room and shut +down the window. Very soon after, the proprietor of +the hotel came, knocked at his guest’s door, and said +that the crowbar which had been seized was not his +property and that he would get into trouble if it +were not given up at once, but Seymour Haden before +giving it up stipulated that he was not to be disturbed +with any more noise until such time as he was +ready to leave his bed.</p> + +<p>It will be noticed that, while in my former article +I called him Sir Seymour Haden, in the present one I +call him plain Mister. This was because it was after +his return from America to England that Queen Victoria +gave him his title, and although in London he +had a large medical practice he never was even Doctor +Haden. In England a surgeon, however eminent, is +never addressed as Doctor.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" id="f143"> +<a href="images/fig143big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig143.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Haden. An Early Riser</span></p> +<p class="caption1">Engraved in pure mezzotint in 1897. To this plate and Sir Seymour’s mezzotint +<i>Grayling Fishing</i> was awarded the Medal of Honor at the Paris Exposition +of 1900.</p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original mezzotint, 8⅞ × 11⅞ inches</p> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter1" id="f144"> +<a href="images/fig144big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig144.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Haden. Harlech</span></p> +<p class="caption1">In <i>Harlech</i> the artist has first mezzotinted his composition and has then strengthened and +defined the outlines with etched lines. This is the reverse of the method employed by +Turner in the “Liber Studiorum.” Turner first etched the main lines of his composition +and then finished the plate in mezzotint.</p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original engraving, 8⅞ × 12½ inches</p> +</div> + +<p>This change to a title of nobility reminds me of a +couplet in Thackeray’s fine Irish ballad, “Mr. +Molony’s Account of the Ball”:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> +<div class="stanza"> +<div class="verse indent0">There was Lord Crowhurst, I knew him first</div> +<div class="verse indent0">When only Misther Pips he was.</div> +</div> +</div> +</div> + +<p>During his stay in America he learned to like our +people greatly, and it was his intention to make us a +second visit and to bring his charming American wife +along with him; but this purpose of his was never +carried out.</p> + +<p>Shortly before leaving our shores, he said to me: +“One thing alone would render it impossible for +me ever to reside permanently in the United States, +and that is the intolerable and brutal insolence of the +lower classes.” To this I made answer: “But, Mr. +Haden, in America we have no ‘lower classes.’ What +you suffered from these people was really your own +fault. It is all very well in England for a fine gentleman +to bully and denounce the cabman, the railway-porter, +and the servants at hotels, but it will not do +here, and no American, however eminent, ever +does it.”</p> + +<p>When Seymour Haden returned to England he took +with him the genuine good will of many Americans, +and the lasting friendship of not a few.</p> +<hr class="full x-ebookmaker-drop" /> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="c12">THE WATER-COLORS AND DRAWINGS OF<br /> +SIR SEYMOUR HADEN, P.R.E.</h2> +</div> + +<p class="c"><span class="smcap">By</span> H. NAZEBY HARRINGTON</p> + +<p class="c more">Author of “The Engraved Work of Sir Francis<br /> +Seymour Haden, P.R.E.”</p> + + +<p class="drop-cap2">AS an etcher the work of Sir Seymour Haden +is known to all lovers of art the wide world +over, and not least in the United States, but +his general capacity as an artist in other forms of expression +is less well known, partly from lack of opportunity +and partly from the very limited amount +of material.</p> + +<p>It must never be forgotten that art was not the +main business of his life; it was but an occasional and +fitful relaxation in a life devoted to another profession +and full of other and varied interests. The +wonder is, not that his artistic work was so limited, +but that it was so great and so successful.</p> + +<p>When a medical student in Paris, instead of spending +his evenings in the usual frivolities of the Quartier +Latin, he attended the classes of the Government +School of Art, which were held in the same building +as the School of Medicine. This was done, not from +any positive love for art, but rather with the fixed idea +that such study would train his powers of observation +and make the hands more alert to obey the impulses +of the will, and in this way help him in his surgical +work. What he dissected he drew, what he drew he<span class="pagenum" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</span> +modeled, and in this way obtained a remarkable knowledge +of anatomy and some facility in the technique +of graphic art.</p> + +<p>In this way he got into the habit of using drawing +as a sort of shorthand, and so, when in 1844 he traveled +in Italy, his diaries were filled with sketches +rather than verbal descriptions—sketches that unfortunately +have been too generously scattered.</p> + +<p>While in Italy he met, and spent some time in the +company of, Duval le Camus, a capable French artist +who painted a good deal in water-color, and from him +no doubt he picked up some knowledge of that medium. +In Naples and its neighborhood they spent +many happy days sketching together.</p> + +<p>During the next fourteen or fifteen years Seymour +Haden had not much time for the practice of art. +His professional work took up all his time and vigor, +but he always took a great interest in art and artists +and counted many artists among his friends. He was +appointed Surgeon to the Department of Science and +Art at South Kensington, and became a collector of +etchings by the old masters, not merely for the sake +of acquisition but rather for the purpose of study and +comparison. He also became the possessor of many +pictures and water-color drawings, amongst others +of several by Turner; and so, when in 1858 his young +brother-in-law J. M. Whistler returned from France +with his recently etched plates and his inciting tales +of work in the Paris studios, Haden became readily infected +and took up etching again, with the result we +all know. Thenceforward, whenever a rare afternoon’s +holiday could be stolen, or a few moments +spared between the casts of the line during the annual<span class="pagenum" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</span> +vacation devoted to fishing, or on the rarer +occasions of a continental holiday, the copper plate +or the sketching block was brought into use. And so +we find sketches done on the Thames and the Ribble, +the Teivy, the Test and the Spey; in Holland and in +Germany, in Spain and Madeira; at Chatsworth, in +the old towns of Rye and Winchelsea, and above all +in the fascinating Isle of Purbeck—sketches done for +his own pleasure or for his friends, with never a +thought of placing them before either the critic or the +purchaser.</p> + +<p>The earliest sketch that I have seen is one dated +1841. It is in pen and sepia and represents an early +morning execution outside the Old Bailey. At a first +glance it might be mistaken for an etching by Cruikshank. +It measures only three and one half by two +and one fourth inches, but is masterly in its drawing, +and marvelous in its suggestiveness of a large crowd.</p> + +<p>The drawings done in 1844 in France and Italy +vary from mere thumb-nail sketches to comparatively +finished drawings. Some of them in their carefulness +and decision resemble the early drawings of Turner. +Two or three figure sketches, notably portraits of +Duval le Camus and the Marquis de Belluno (two of +his companions), are very expressive and full of +character.</p> + +<p>While in Rome, through the introduction of the +Marquis de Belluno, Haden had many interviews +with Pope Gregory XVI, and during two or three of +them he took the opportunity of sketching, on one of +his shirt cuffs, a somewhat elaborate portrait of His +Holiness. The Pope very kindly professed not to +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</span>notice what the artist was doing until the portrait +was finished. He then quietly remarked that he “now +understood why M. Haden had attended at three +audiences without a change of linen.” One would +give much to see this portrait (which Sir Seymour +always said was an excellent one), but it has disappeared, +having been lent to a friend and never returned.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" id="f145"> +<a href="images/fig145big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig145.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Haden. Salmon Pool on the Spey</span></p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original charcoal drawing, 14 × 20 inches</p> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter1" id="f146"> +<a href="images/fig146big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig146.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Haden. Old Oaks, Chatsworth</span></p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original charcoal drawing, 14 × 20 inches</p> +</div> + +<p>The drawings done after 1858 were much broader +in style than the early sketches, and vary in method, +being in lead pencil, pen and ink, chalk, charcoal, and +water-color. Thrown off in a moment of inspiration, +as a poet would throw off a lyric, he chose the material +which chanced to be at hand. Some are on +sheets of writing paper, and many valuable ones are +on perishable blotting paper. Here and there among +these “slight” sketches are specimens that in their +economy of line, their stamp of decision, and their +interpretative insight, suggest the work of his great +master Rembrandt. What strikes one above all is +their vigor and “bigness.” There is no dainty indecision +about them; they go straight for the heart of +the subject, giving the vigorous impression of a +vigorous mind. They do not give all that could be +said on the subject, but they give all that he feels is +best worth saying. They make an intellectual appeal +to the mind and do not tire with unnecessary platitudes.</p> + +<p>The water-color drawings show a good but scarcely +a great colorist. They are in the “grand” manner +and the best of them have a fine atmospheric quality, +as in the <i>Dinkley Ferry</i> here, which reminds one of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</span> +a good De Wint. The <i>Course of the Ribble</i> is probably +one of the most finished drawings he ever did, +and shows to the highest degree of what he was +capable in this medium when time allowed and when +loving care was exercised. It is wonderfully mellow, +good in color, and true in drawing, but has less of the +white heat of inspiration:—I envy the fortunate possessor! +The <i>Lancashire River</i>, a drawing of the same +subject as the etching with the same title, is perhaps +his finest piece of color.</p> + +<p>But it is in his large charcoal drawings of the end +of the seventies that he rises to his greatest heights,—in +the sketches done around Swanage in the south of +Dorsetshire, and at Chatsworth, and two or three +drawn from the stores of his memory. What a revelation +it was to me when—I scarcely like to count how +many years ago—I first passed into that peaceful +little “garden room” that looked out upon the old-time +bowling green at Woodcote Manor and saw +around its walls some four and twenty of these large +charcoal drawings! It was as though some new planet +swam into my ken! I had never seen so much suggested +with such simple means. Two or three hours’ +work with a sheet of rough paper, a piece of charcoal, +and a mezzotint scraper! Heath and woodland, sea +cliff and river glen, radiant light and quivering mist, +houses sleeping in the sun and mysterious shadows +lurking in the corners of the quaint old kitchen or +the romantic ruin, or lying full length before the +giant boles of centuries-old oaks; all suggested with +equal ease and magic mastery! Many and many an +hour did I afterward spend in that little treasure-house, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</span>ever finding fresh beauties revealed to me, and +learning through them to see in Nature much that had +previously been hidden from me. Haden’s etchings +had proved him to be a great master in line, these +drawings proved him to be almost equally great in +tone. What particularly strikes one is the variety +and transparency of his shadows. They are not black +patches, but receding planes of varying densities. +And what atmospheric quality they have! Driving +mist and slanting rain, and sun rays penetrating the +moisture-laden air, as though by a magician, are fixed +for us on paper.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" id="f147"> +<a href="images/fig147big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig147.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Haden. Course of the Ribble below Preston</span></p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original water-color, 12½ × 19 inches</p> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter1" id="f148"> +<a href="images/fig148big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig148.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Haden. Dinkley Ferry</span></p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original water-color, 10¼ × 16½ inches</p> +</div> + +<p>The origin of many of these drawings has been described +by Sir Seymour himself in an article written +some years ago in <i>Harper’s Magazine</i>, “On the Revival +of Mezzotint as a Painter’s Art.” With the +idea that he could use mezzotint as he had done etching, +face to face with Nature, he had taken a previously +grounded plate to the bank of the River Test +and attempted to scrape upon it what he saw before +him. The result was the plate numbered 234 in my +catalogue (<i>The Test at Longparish No. 3</i>), interesting, +but not wholly satisfactory and incomplete in +intention. This proved that, unlike etching, mezzotint +was too slow a process with which to work from +nature at a single sitting, and a return on a later day +only proved that the natural effect had changed, or +that the artist was in a different phase of mind or not +in the humor to complete the original impression. So +instead of taking a grounded plate out with him he +took a sheet of rough paper which had been rubbed +all over with charcoal, this black surface corresponding +to the mezzotint ground upon the copper plate, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</span> +on this prepared surface he scraped away the lights. +As will be readily understood, this softer material +could be much more rapidly manipulated than the +harder copper, and so he found that in two or three +hours the desired effect could be obtained. His intention +was to reproduce in the studio and at his +leisure the effects of these studies upon the copper +plate. And so, with modifications, in several instances +he did—I say <i>with modifications</i>, for it was +almost impossible for him to closely copy even his +own work. The <i>Salmon Pool on the Spey</i> provided +the <i>motif</i> for the mezzotint plate with the same title +(H. 250), and more closely of the little <i>Salmon River</i>, +which served as a frontispiece to Dr. Hamilton’s book +on “Fly Fishing.” The <i>Encombe Woods</i> supplied +the subject for the two plates H. 218 and 219, which +were intended to be a combination of etching and +mezzotint, but the latter part of the project was never +carried out. This too was the case with <i>Early Morning</i> +(H. 244) and <i>By the Waters of Babylon</i> (H. 245), +<i>Ars Longa, Vita Brevis</i> (H. 210) and <i>A Study of +Rocks</i> (H. 211), all of which were etched or dry-pointed +from charcoal drawings. The only important +plates inspired by these drawings that were fully +completed, were <i>Evening Fishing, Longparish</i> (H. +239), <i>An Early Riser</i> (H. 240), <i>Grayling Fishing</i> +(H. 241), and <i>The Pillar of Salt</i> (H. 246); but they +are sufficient to prove what a series of masterpieces +we have lost through the dimming of the eye and +the numbing of the hand by relentless Age.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" id="f149"> +<a href="images/fig149big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig149.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Haden. Encombe Woods</span></p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original charcoal drawing, 14 × 20 inches</p> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter1" id="f150"> +<a href="images/fig150big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig150.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Haden. An Elderly Couple, Chatsworth Park</span></p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original charcoal drawing, 13½ × 19½ inches</p> +</div> + +<p>However, we must be thankful for what we have, +and the regret one has that these drawings should be +scattered in different directions, is tempered by the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</span>hope that by one of the marvelous photographic processes +of to-day this wonderful series of visions may +be reproduced, and so again brought together for all +of us who love beautiful things, and who reverence +the master who produced them.</p> +<hr class="full x-ebookmaker-drop" /> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="c13">MERYON AND BAUDELAIRE</h2> +</div> + +<p class="c"><span class="smcap">By</span> WILLIAM ASPENWALL BRADLEY</p> + + +<p class="drop-cap2">ALL French poets of the middle part of the nineteenth +century were interested, theoretically +at least, in painting and the graphic arts, +which afforded them an ideal and an example of +objectivity for their own verbal representations of +reality. From Théophile Gautier, godfather of Parnassianism, +who reserved for his prose the full resources +of his superb Turneresque palate, to Verlaine, +creator of decadence, with his limpid and lovely <i>aquarelles</i>, +pictorial preoccupations were, on the whole, +paramount. Charles Baudelaire almost alone appears, +in part, an exception to this rule; but if, in his +work, the purely visual element is less pronounced +than in that of most of his contemporaries—if the +images of sight yield there in number and in clear +evocative power to those of sound and of scent, +thereby preluding the way for a new poetic dispensation—he +nevertheless fits into the late romantic tradition, +if only by reason of his keen æsthetic appreciation +of the arts of design, and of his association, +as a disinterested friend or sympathetic critic, with +many of the most illustrious artists of the age. Himself +a rebel and an outlaw in the domain of orthodox +taste, though with a distinct tinge of the traditional, +he was especially drawn to the insurgent leader, like<span class="pagenum" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</span> +Delacroix, his championship of whom is as famous as +his espousal of the cause of Wagner’s music in Paris, +or to the solitary <i>attardé</i> of romanticism who, like +Constantin Guys, worked out his own salvation in his +own way. It is not that he did not welcome new +movements in all their collectivity of talents and temperaments; +but these, to find favor with him, must be +vouched for by unmistakable evidences of creative +vigor and originality in the individual artists, not +merely by plausible theories or pretentious dogmas +professed scholastically. Intellectual distinctions +counted but little with him in matters of art, and a +new way of rendering what was actually seen or felt +seemed to him of infinitely more importance than any +merely academic discussion as to what an artist +should or should not look for, deliberately, in order to +put it into or leave it out of his pictures.</p> + +<p>Thus it was that while he shrugged his shoulders +at the realists who were not really observers, he +turned an attentive eye to the work of the group of +young painter-etchers who, about 1859, were beginning +to attract attention in the salons. Baudelaire +thought highly of etching because it afforded an opportunity +for “the most clean-cut possible translation +of the character of the artist,” and he was attracted +to those who were engaged in reviving this almost obsolete +medium, because they gave clear proof in their +work of that personal force and distinction which he +valued above all else, and which he was always on the +alert to discover in the productions of the new and +the unknown.</p> + +<p>In his article, <i>Peintres et Aqua-fortistes</i>, included +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</span>in the volume of his collected works entitled +<i>L’Art Romantique</i>, Baudelaire mentions the following +etchers as among those through whose efforts +the medium was to recover its ancient vitality: Seymour +Haden, Manet, Legros, Bracquemond, Jongkind, +Meryon, Millet, Daubigny, Saint-Marcel, Jacquemart, +and Whistler. With at least two of these, on the evidence +of his published correspondence,<a id="FNanchor_2" href="#Footnote_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> he had personal +relations: Bracquemond and Meryon. The name +of the former occurs frequently in the letters with reference +to a device which Baudelaire wished to adopt +as a frontispiece to the second edition of <i>Fleurs du +Mal</i>. The idea of this device came to him, as he writes +to Félix Nadar (May 16, 1859), while turning the +leaves of the <i>Histoire des Danses Macabres</i>, by Hyacinthe +Langlois. It was to be “an arborescent skeleton, +the legs and the ribs forming the trunk, the arms +extended in the form of a cross breaking into leaf and +shoot, and protecting several rows of poisonous plants +arranged in rising tiers of pots, as in a greenhouse.” +In casting about for an artist to execute this design, +Baudelaire mentions and dismisses Doré, Penguilly—whom +he afterward wished he had taken—and Célestin +Nanteuil. Finally, perhaps at the instance of his +publisher, Poulet-Malassis, he chose Bracquemond,—a +most unhappy selection as it turned out, for that +artist was either unable or unwilling to grasp the +poet’s conception, and the plate which he etched for +this purpose was not used. A few proofs were pulled, +however, and impressions in both the first and second +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</span>states of the plate are now in the Samuel P. Avery +collection in the New York Public Library.</p> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_2" href="#FNanchor_2" class="label">[2]</a> Charles Baudelaire: Lettres, 1841-1866. Paris, 1907.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="figcenter" id="f151"> +<img src="images/fig151.jpg" alt="" /> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Bracquemond. Frontispiece for “Les Fleurs du Mal” of Baudelaire</span></p> +<p class="caption1">The seven plants symbolize the Seven Deadly Sins, and the outstretched +arms of the skeleton will support, later, the Fruits of Evil. This romantic +and remarkable frontispiece was never used. Baudelaire criticized +the drawing of the skeleton severely, as well as the spirit and +arrangement of the whole design.</p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original etching, 6¾ × 4⁵⁄₁₆ inches</p> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter1" id="f152"> +<img src="images/fig152.jpg" alt="" /> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Portrait of Charles Baudelaire</span></p> +<p class="caption1">From the etching by Félix Bracquemond. Of the same +size as the original etching. Evidently an excellent likeness, +since it exactly renders that ecclesiastical aspect of +the poet which made one of his friends compare him to +a cardinal.</p> +</div> + +<p>Baudelaire’s negotiations with the “terrible Bracquemond,” +as he came to call him, were carried on +for the most part through Poulet-Malassis, which perhaps +affords a partial explanation of the misunderstanding +concerning the <i>macabre</i> frontispiece. And, +although he speaks in one letter of having met the +artist and repeated verbally the instructions which he +had already given, with characteristically minute attention +to detail, in writing, no such special interest +attaches to this meeting, by no means unique, as to +that between Baudelaire and Meryon which occurred +about the same time, and to which we owe one of the +most vivid and fantastic presentments we possess of +that mad genius. In his <i>Salon of 1859</i>, Baudelaire +had written of Meryon with an enthusiasm which +awoke a responsive reverberation in the breast of +Victor Hugo.</p> + +<p>“Since you know M. Meryon,” the latter wrote to +Baudelaire (April 29, 1860), “tell him that his splendid +etchings have dazzled me. Without color, with +nothing save shadow and light, chiaroscuro pure and +simple and left to itself: that is the problem of etching. +M. Meryon solves it magisterially. What he +does is superb. His plates live, radiate, and think. +He is worthy of the profound and luminous page with +which he has inspired you.”</p> + +<p>This page, which Baudelaire afterward incorporated +in his <i>Peintres et Aqua-fortistes</i>, where he +speaks further of Meryon as “the true type of the +accomplished <i>aqua-fortiste</i>,” and praises the famous<span class="pagenum" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</span> +perspective of San Francisco as his masterpiece, does, +indeed, betray the subtle penetration of the poet into +the very spirit of his fellow-artist: “By the severity, +the delicacy, and the certitude of his design, M. Meryon +recalls what is best in the old <i>aqua-fortistes</i>. I +have rarely seen represented with more poetry the +natural solemnity of a great capital. The majesties +of accumulated stone, <i>the spires pointing a finger to +the skies</i>, the obelisks of industry vomiting their thick +clouds of smoke heavenward, the prodigious scaffoldings +of monuments under repair, relieved against the +solid mass of architecture, their tracery of a filmy and +paradoxical beauty, the misty sky, charged with +wrath and with rancor, the depths of the perspectives +augmented by the thought of the dramas contained +therein,—none of the complex elements of which the +dolorous and glorious setting of civilization is composed +is here forgotten.”</p> + +<p>Grateful for such recognition on the part of a distinguished +man of letters who was also accepted as +one of the leading art critics of the day in Paris, Meryon +evidently wrote to Baudelaire, thanking him, +and asking permission to call; for in his letter of +January 8, 1860, to Poulet-Malassis, the poet writes +as follows:</p> + +<p>“What I write to-night,” he begins, “is worth the +trouble of writing: M. Meryon has sent me his card, +and we have met. He said to me: <i>You live in a hotel +whose name must have attracted you, because of the +relation it bears, I presume, to your tastes.</i>—Then I +looked at the envelope of his letter. On it was ‘Hôtel +de <i>Thèbes</i>,’ and yet his letter reached me.”</p> + +<div class="figcenter" id="f153"> +<img src="images/fig153.jpg" alt="" /> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Portrait of Charles Meryon</span></p> +<p class="caption">From the etching by Félix Bracquemond, done in 1853</p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original etching, 8⁷/₁₆ × 6⅛ inches</p> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter1" id="f154"> +<a href="images/fig154big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig154.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Meryon. Le Pont au Change</span></p> +<p class="caption1">“In one of his great plates, he has substituted for a little balloon a flight of birds of prey, and, when I +remarked to him that it was lacking in verisimilitude to put so many eagles into a Parisian sky, he replied +that what he had done was not devoid of foundation in fact, since <i>ces gens-là</i> [the imperial government] +had often released eagles so as to study the presages, according to the rite,—and that this had been printed +in the newspapers, even in <i>Le Moniteur</i>.”<br /> <span class="pad">Charles Baudelaire in a letter to Poulet-Malassis (January 8, 1860).</span></p> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</span></p> +<p>It is necessary to interrupt the letter at this point +to explain what is obscure in the foregoing allusion +for one not familiar with Baudelaire’s haunts and +homes in Paris. He was living at this time, not in +the Hôtel Pimodan where he dwelt so long, and where +he held those famous meetings described by Gautier +in his introductory essay to <i>Fleurs du Mal</i>, but in +modest quarters in the Hotel de Dieppe, 22, rue +d’Amsterdam, whose principal advantage was its +proximity to the Gare de l’Ouest whence he took the +train for Honfleur on his frequent visits to his +mother. Thus, through a bizarre confusion between +the two words, <i>Dieppe</i> and <i>Thèbes</i>, is explained +Meryon’s curious mistake in addressing his letter to +Baudelaire.</p> + +<p>The poet proceeds with the following report of +their conversation: “In one of his great plates,<a id="FNanchor_3" href="#Footnote_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> he +[Meryon] has substituted for a little balloon a flight +of birds of prey, and, when I remarked to him that it +was lacking in verisimilitude to put so many eagles +into a Parisian sky, he replied that what he had done +was not devoid of foundation in fact, since <i>ces gens-là</i> +[the imperial government] had often released eagles +so as to study the presages, according to the rite,—and +that this had been printed in the newspapers, +even in <i>Le Moniteur</i>.</p> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_3" href="#FNanchor_3" class="label">[3]</a> The <i>Pont-au-Change</i>.</p> + +</div> + +<p>“I must tell you that he makes no attempt to conceal +his respect for all superstitions, but he explains +them badly, and he sees cabal everywhere.</p> + +<p>“He drew my attention to the fact, in another of +his plates, that the shadows cast by one of the masonry +constructions of the <i>Pont-Neuf</i><a id="FNanchor_4" href="#Footnote_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> on the lateral<span class="pagenum" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</span> +wall of the quay represented exactly the profile of a +sphinx; that this had been, on his part, quite involuntary, +and that he had only remarked this singularity +later, on recalling that this design had been made a +short time before the <i>coup d’état</i>. But the Prince is +the real person who, by his acts and his visage, bears +the closest resemblance to a <i>sphinx</i>.</p> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_4" href="#FNanchor_4" class="label">[4]</a> An error of Baudelaire’s. The plate is the <i>Petit-Pont</i>.</p> + +</div> + +<p>“He asked me if I had read the tales of a certain +Edgar Poe. I answered that I knew them better than +any one else, and for a good reason. He then asked +me in a very emphatic manner, if I believed in the +reality of this Edgar Poe. I naturally asked him to +whom he attributed all his tales. He replied: ‘<i>To a +society of men of letters who are very clever, very +powerful, and who are in touch with everything.</i>’ +And here is one of his reasons: ‘The <i>Rue</i> Morgue. <i>I +have made a design of the</i> Morgue.—<i>An</i> Orang-ou-tang. +<i>I have often been compared to</i> a monkey.—<i>This +monkey murders</i> two women, a mother and her +daughter. <i>I also have morally assassinated</i> two women, +a mother and her daughter.—<i>I have always +taken the story as an allusion to my misfortunes. You +would be doing me a great favor if you could find out +for me the date when Edgar Poe, supposing that he +was not helped by any one, composed this story, so +that I could see if the date coincided with my adventures.</i>’</p> + +<p>“He spoke to me, with admiration, of Michelet’s +book on <i>Jeanne d’Arc</i>, but he is convinced that this +book is not by Michelet.</p> + +<p>“One of his great preoccupations is cabalistical +science, but he interprets it in a strange fashion that +would make a cabalist laugh.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" id="f155"> +<a href="images/fig155big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig155.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Meryon. Le Petit Pont</span></p> +<p class="caption1">“He drew my attention to the fact, in another of his plates, that the +shadows cast by one of the masonry constructions of the Pont-Neuf +on the lateral wall of the quay represented exactly the profile of a +sphinx; that this had been, on his part, quite involuntary, and that +he had only remarked this singularity later, on recalling that this +design had been made a short time before the <i>coup d’état</i>.”<br /> <span class="pad">Charles Baudelaire in a letter to Poulet-Malassis (January 8, 1860).</span></p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original etching, 9⅝ × 7¼ inches</p> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter1" id="f156"> +<a href="images/fig156big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig156.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Portrait of Charles Meryon</span></p> +<p class="caption1">From the drawing by Léopold Flameng, made in May, 1858, in Meryon’s room in the +rue des Fossés-Saint-Jacques, the night before Meryon became dangerously mad and +was taken by his friends, in a cab, to Charenton for the first time. Later he was discharged, +and took up his lodging in the rue Duperré, and in October, 1866, returned +to Charenton, where he died in February, 1868.</p> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</span></p> + +<p>“Do not laugh at all this with <i>méchants bougres</i>. +For nothing in the world would I wish to injure a man +of talent....</p> + +<p>“After he left me, I asked myself how it happened +that I, who have always had, in my mind and in my +nerves, all that was needed to make me mad, had not +become so. Seriously, I addressed to heaven the +thanksgivings of the Pharisee.”</p> + +<p class="gtb">* * * * *</p> + +<p>It is not surprising that Baudelaire should have +been somewhat disconcerted by this interview which +confirmed so strikingly the reports of the mental +malady of his visitor to which he had alluded in his +<i>Salon of 1859</i>, and that he should soon have sought, +after some brief intercourse, to avoid personal and +private encounters which might have proved embarrassing. +He gave notice in ways the artist could not +long mistake, that he did not wish to continue the acquaintance +on a footing of intimacy, though, as Crépet, +in his <i>Charles Baudelaire</i><a id="FNanchor_5" href="#Footnote_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> points out, he by +no means ceased to interest himself in the artist, several +sets of whose <i>Eaux-Fortes sur Paris</i> he was +instrumental, with one or two other admirers of Meryon, +in having purchased by the Ministry. Poor +Meryon! With an incomplete realization of his own +condition which rendered him incapable of divining +the real truth, he felt he had offended Baudelaire in +some way, and finally addressed him the following +appeal, tragic in its note of noble and unconscious +pathos:</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>“<i>Dear Sir</i>: I called on you yesterday evening at the +Hôtel de Dieppe. I was informed that you had +changed your domicile. I wished, above all, to see +you, in order to learn from your own lips that you +were not angry with me, for I do not think I have +ever done anything to you which could serve as a motive +for your change of manner toward me. Only, as +the last letter which I wrote you has remained unanswered, +and as three times I have left my name at +your dwelling without my having had the slightest +word from you, I am entitled to believe that you have +some reason for breaking with me. I did not remind +you of your promise to write a newspaper article +about my work, because, quite frankly, I was sure that +you could make much better employment of your time +and of your literary skill. My etchings are known to +nearly all whom they could interest and rather too +much good has been said of them. As to the interruption +of our relations, which have been but of brief +duration and of slight importance, I agree to this +without a word if such is your desire, and I shall conserve, +none the less, the recollection of the eminent +services you have rendered me in coming to see me, +and in occupying yourself with me at a time when I +was utterly destitute.</p> + +<p>“I have forwarded to M. Lavielle, whom I had the +advantage of meeting once with you, the set of my +views, reworked and a trifle modified; he has, perhaps, +shown them to you. I have had difficulty in +procuring the ten sets of them (the printer being very +busy at that time) that I have disposed of with sufficient +rapidity. I have no longer any left and I have +destroyed the <i>Petit-Pont</i>, which I propose to engrave<span class="pagenum" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</span> +anew, after I have made in it some rather important +corrections.</p> + +<p class="c">“Adieu, dear sir, with all possible good wishes.<br /> +“I am your sincere and devoted friend,</p> + +<p class="r">“<span class="smcap">C. Meryon</span>.</p> + +<p class="l2">“20, rue Duperré.”</p> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_5" href="#FNanchor_5" class="label">[5]</a> Charles Baudelaire: Étude biographique d’Eugène Crépet +revue et mise au jour par Jacques Crépet. Paris, 1907.</p> + +</div> + +<p>The letter to which Meryon refers in the opening +paragraph of the foregoing as having remained unanswered +by Baudelaire is doubtless that bearing the +date of February 23, 1860, which is the only other one +given by Crépet in the appendix to his volume. This +is it:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>“<i>Dear Sir</i>: I send you a set of my ‘Views of Paris.’<a id="FNanchor_6" href="#Footnote_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> +As you can see, they are well printed, on Chinese tissue +mounted on laid paper, and consequently <i>de +bonne tenue</i>. It is on my part a feeble means of recognizing +the devotion you have shown on my behalf. +However, I dare hope that they will serve sometimes +to fix your imagination, curious of the things of the +past. I myself, who made them at an epoch, it is true, +when my naïve heart was still seized with sudden +aspirations toward a happiness which I believed I +could attain, look over some of these pieces with a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</span> +veritable pleasure. They may, then, be able to produce +nearly the same effect upon you who also love to +dream.</p> + +<p>“I have not yet terminated the notes that I promised +to make in order to aid you in your work; at all +events, I shall go to see you soon to discuss the matter +with you further. As the publisher recoils before the +steps which would still have to be taken, he says, for +the placing of these prints, there is nothing pressing +about the affair. Thus, do not let this disturb you.</p> + +<p>“Adieu, monsieur; I hope that before your departure, +I shall be able to profit by the kindly reception +that I have received from you.</p> + +<p>“I am your very humble and very devoted servant.</p> + +<p>“I am going to try to place sets with those persons +who have been so good, on your recommendation, as +to interest themselves in this work.</p> + +<p class="r">“<span class="smcap">Meryon.</span></p> + +<p class="l2">“20, rue Duperré.”</p> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_6" href="#FNanchor_6" class="label">[6]</a> Baudelaire had already tried to obtain a set of these prints. +In writing to Charles Asselineau (February 20, 1859) he commissions +his friend to get from Édouard Houssaye “all the engravings +of Meryon (views of Paris), good proofs on Chinese +paper. <i>Pour parer notre chambre</i>, as Dorine says.” He was not +successful, however, at that time. In quoting Molière, Baudelaire +refers to Toinette’s speech in <i>Le Malade Imaginaire</i> (Act II +slc· v).</p> + +</div> + +<p>This letter renders sufficiently clear the kind of service +Baudelaire had rendered Meryon over and above +the public praise contained in his writings. What, +at the first glance, is less certain is the work on which +the poet was engaged at this time and for which Meryon, +on his own testimony, had promised to assist him +with notes. In a foot-note to this letter, M. Jacques +Crépet states that it was “doubtless <i>L’eau-forte est à +la mode</i>, an anonymous article published by the <i>Revue +anecdotique</i> in the latter half of April, 1862.” +Personally, I doubt the correctness of this conjecture. +One has but to turn to Baudelaire’s letters of the period +to see that there was then under discussion another +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</span>piece of work for which Meryon would have +been much more likely to give assistance in the form +of notes, since it directly concerned himself. Indeed, +the matter almost amounted to a project of collaboration +between Meryon and Baudelaire. The publisher +Delâtre had promised to bring out an album of the +“Vues de Paris,” and had asked the poet to prepare +some text for the plates. The first reference to this +tentative undertaking occurs in Baudelaire’s letter of +February 16, 1860 (just a week before Meryon’s), to +Poulet-Malassis:</p> + +<p>“And then Meryon!”—he broaches the matter abruptly, +after having expressed his impatience at the +attitude of two other artists, Champfleury and Duranty, +friends of his, toward Constantin Guys, and at +a certain note of pedantry and dogmatism that was +stealing into art under the influence and sanction of +“realism”—“And then Meryon! Oh, as for him, it +is intolerable. Delâtre asks me to write some text for +the album. Good! there is an occasion to write some +reveries—ten lines, twenty or thirty lines—on beautiful +engravings, the philosophical reveries of a Parisian +<i>flaneur</i>. But Meryon, whose idea is different, objects. +I am to say: on the right you see this; on the left you +see that. I must say: here originally there were twelve +windows, reduced to six by the artist, and finally I +must go to the Hôtel de Ville to find out the exact +epoch of the demolitions. M. Meryon talks, his eyes +fixed on the ceiling, and without listening to any observation.”</p> + +<p>Thus it was historical and antiquarian notes that, +in all probability, Meryon had promised to jot down +to facilitate the composition of a running commentary<span class="pagenum" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</span> +on the etchings. Meryon’s reference to the reluctance +of the publisher in the very same paragraph in which +he speaks of these notes, serves to remove the least +doubt as to what is meant. When he tells Baudelaire +not to be disturbed, it is clearly as to the time at his +disposal for the preparation of his text. Baudelaire, +however, seems to have been less concerned about his +own share in the work than about the fate of the +project as a whole. Evidently he was not satisfied +at the prospects of the work with Delâtre, for, on +March 9, 1860, he wrote in a postscript to Poulet-Malassis:</p> + +<p>“I turn my letter, to ask you, very seriously, if it +would not be advisable for you to be the publisher of +Meryon’s album (which will be augmented) and for +which I am to write the text. You know that, unfortunately, +this text will not be in accordance with my +wishes.</p> + +<p>“I warn you that I have made overtures to the +house of Gide....</p> + +<p>“This Meryon does not know how to go about +things; he knows nothing of life. He does not know +how to sell; he does not know how to find a publisher. +His work is readily salable.”</p> + +<p>And again, on March 13, he writes, in response to +some proposition from his friend:</p> + +<p>“Relative to Meryon, do you mean by <i>buying the +plates</i> to buy the metal plates, or rather the right of +selling an indefinite number of proofs from them? I +can conceive that you fear the conversations with +Meryon. You should carry on the negotiations by letter +(20, rue Duperré). I warn you that Meryon’s +great fear is lest the publisher should change the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</span> +format and the paper.... What you say to me of +Meryon does not affect what I write to you concerning +him.”</p> + +<p>The excellent business sense, the note of prudence +and painstaking, that comes out in all this correspondence +on the part of Baudelaire, and which is scarcely +less notable than his unwearied devotion to the interests +of his friends, ought to go far toward discountenancing +the theory that a poet cannot be a good +man of affairs. Still again he writes on the same +subject, with recapitulations of what he had said before, +to the same correspondent:</p> + +<p>“I am very much embarrassed, <i>mon cher</i>, to reply +to you relatively to the Meryon affair. I have no rights +in the matter whatsoever; M. Meryon has repulsed, +with a species of horror, the idea of a text composed +of a dozen little poems or sonnets; he has refused the +idea of poetic meditations in prose. So as not to +wound him, I have promised to write for him, in return +for three copies with the good proofs, a text in +the style of a guide or manual, unsigned. It is, therefore, +with him alone that you will have to treat.... +The thing has presented itself to my mind very simply. +On one side, an unfortunate madman, who +does not know how to conduct his affairs, and who has +executed a beautiful work; on the other, you, on +whose list I want to see the best books possible. As +the journalists say, I have considered for you the +double pleasure of a good bit of business and of a good +act.” And he compares Meryon’s case with that of +Daumier, then without a publisher, to wind whom up, +“like a clock,” would also, he tells Poulet-Malassis, be +“a great and good bit of business.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</span></p> + +<p>This is the last reference in any of the letters to +Meryon, or to the album, for which Baudelaire never +wrote his text, since no publisher was willing to publish +the work. Had Poulet-Malassis not failed in 1861, +it might have appeared, and then, in spite of the restrictions +imposed upon the restive spirit of the poet, +we might have had in Baudelaire’s text some literary +equivalent of Meryon’s etchings. How sympathetic +this would have been, is shown by the descriptive and +interpretative passage from the <i>Salon de 1859</i> already +quoted, which, in a few sentences, completely defines +the form of Meryon’s imaginative genius, and reveals +the inmost source of its power to stir the emotions.</p> + +<p>There was, indeed, much that was common to the +genius of Meryon and of Baudelaire. The work of +both was profoundly personal, and in both a powerful +and somber imagination was tinged with a subtle +fantasy supplied by a morbid exaggeration in the +senses, which did not, however, preclude an intense +and ardent preoccupation with formal perfection.</p> + +<p>On the contrary, these two modern <i>détraqués</i> present +in their work a solidity of construction and an +absolute rectitude in the rendering of their moods +and dreams, that is scarcely to be found in the work +of even their best-balanced and sanest contemporaries. +The art of Baudelaire has been compared to +that of Racine, and, in the same way, Meryon’s design +has the complete economy and control of Robert +Nanteuil or of Callot. Men like these make us doubt +and reconsider our stock distinctions of “romantic” +and “classic.” The work of Meryon and of Baudelaire +answers equally to both descriptions, and assures +them a place apart in their generation. Thus,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</span> +while their paths crossed but for a moment, and while +they never shared with each other their secret +thoughts and aspirations, there is, nevertheless, no +small interest for the student in these slight and +fragmentary records of what, had it not been for a +cruel freak of fate, might have proved an enduring +and fruitful friendship.</p> +<hr class="full x-ebookmaker-drop" /> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="c14">FÉLIX BRACQUEMOND: AN ETCHER<br /> +OF BIRDS</h2> +</div> + +<p class="c"><span class="smcap">By</span> FRANK WEITENKAMPF</p> + +<p class="c more">Chief of the Department of Prints, New York Public Library</p> + + +<p class="drop-cap">EVEN the artist of various interests actively +expressed,—the versatile artist, if that adjective +be used without the suspicion of superficiality +which is often its aftertaste—is very apt to +become associated in the public mind with some one +specialty.</p> + +<p>Félix Bracquemond is known particularly well as +an etcher of birds. Yet he has done many things, +more than one well enough to have established a reputation. +At twenty he painted, and exhibited at the +Salon of 1853, a portrait of himself, in a manner +that carries you back to Holbein, that even faintly +suggests the spirit of Van Eyck in its precise and +detailed utterance. The portrait clearly indicates +his future activity, for he holds in his hand a bottle +of acid, while etching tools lie on a table near him. +His etched portraits are numerous, and include such +comparatively free productions as the ones of Legros +and of Meryon, and the large, minutely finished one +of Edmond de Goncourt. The last named is a characteristic +and typical example of Bracquemond’s art, +which, even when most painstaking, somehow or +other never seems labored. Bracquemond appears +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</span>as a peculiar and interesting mingling of Teutonic +thoroughness and Gallic <i>esprit</i>.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" id="f157"> +<img src="images/fig157.jpg" alt="" /> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Bracquemond. Ducks at Play</span></p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original etching, 12¾ × 9⅜ inches</p> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter1" id="f158"> +<img src="images/fig158.jpg" alt="" /> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Bracquemond. A Flock of Teal Alighting</span></p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original etching, 12 × 9⅝ inches</p> +</div> + +<p>The characteristic elements in his portraits—“robustness, +versatility and a resourceful mastery of +technique”—are peculiar to all his work. The same +artist who carefully and with honest and sympathetic +adaptation translated such different products +of painter’s personality as Millet’s <i>Man with the Hoe</i> +and Meissonier’s <i>La Rixe</i>, as well as canvases and +drawings by Holbein (the magisterial portrait of +Erasmus), Corot, Gustave Moreau, Gavarni and +Delacroix, also, under Japanese influence, etched +numerous designs for ceramic ware (he was for a +time a sort of artist director at the Haviland factory +at Limoges), fishes and birds in swirling, decorative +outline. In contrast to these last named are his numerous +well-finished pictures of birds and mammals. +His hares, moles and mice done with loving emphasis +on the texture of their furry pelts. (The vision of +happy days, seen by poor bunny suspended by one leg, +was reproduced as far afield as Poland, in <i>Tygódnik +Illustrowány</i>.) The birds, with the delightful and +strong modeling of their bodies felt under the sleek +surface of their feathery coverings.</p> + +<p>A master craftsman, he has found delight, like +Buhot, Guérard and Mielatz, in technical experiments, +and his interest and skill in reproductive +methods are illustrated in etchings, dry-points, aquatints, +lithographs, photogravures retouched with +etching, engravings in color, and plates showing +combinations of processes. Burty once wrote: “He +contrives by repeated use of the acid on certain parts +of the plate to get a black which for depth and intensity +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</span>has never been equaled.” And Meryon +avowed of him: “I cannot etch. That one, there, he +is the true etcher.”</p> + +<p>His active interests, and his all-embracing outlook +on the life about him, found expression in such occasional +productions as the etchings of figures modeled +in snow by French sculptors in Paris during the +Commune; the symbolical lithograph of France defending +himself against the Prussian eagle, while +strangling his own imperial bird; the ceramic +compliment to Uncle Sam: <i>The Old World and +Young America</i>, or the very large plate done as a +memorial tablet for Meryon’s coffin. His hand recorded +the placid, rural beauties of Bas Meudon and the +quick impression of a steamboat, amusingly described +by Beraldi (see No. 185). And a bit of woodland, +possibly in the Bois de Boulogne, in winter snows, in +combination with a gaunt wolf probably studied at +the Jardin d’Acclimatation (the Paris “Zoo”), gave +him opportunity for his effective <i>Wolf in the Snow</i>, +also known as <i>Winter</i> (Beraldi No. 180), which in +its spirit of desolation might be many hundred miles +from Paris.</p> + +<p>And with all this, his etchings only have been +spoken of here,—and they are about 800 in number. +But the catalogue (issued in an edition of 220 +copies) of his work exhibited at the Société Nationale +des Beaux-Arts (Salon) in 1907, includes not only +etchings, but paintings, water-colors, pastels and +designs executed in embroidered silk, ceramics, iron, +cloisonné enamel, jade, wood and bookbindings.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" id="f159"> +<a href="images/fig159big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig159.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Bracquemond. Pheasants at Dawn: Morning Mists</span></p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original etching, 9 × 13⅜ inches</p> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter1" id="f160"> +<img src="images/fig160.jpg" alt="" /> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Bracquemond. The Bather (Canards Surpris</span>)</p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original etching, 14 × 10½ inches</p> +</div> + +<p>Yet the late Walter S. Carter of Brooklyn, a most +catholic print-collector, ventured fearlessly on the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</span>inviting but not always safe sliding pond of analogy, +and proclaimed Bracquemond the “Michelangelo of +ducks.” Without regard to the manner of the statement, +we may accept the classification. For had +Bracquemond never etched anything but his bird +plates, he would have won his place in the annals +of the fascinating art of needle and acid. Perhaps +he realized that when he furnished a title-page design +for the third volume, devoted to himself, of +Beraldi’s “Graveurs du XIXᵉ Siècle,” consisting +solely of a duck and a portfolio of prints. Much +slighter in execution, but more significantly allegorical, +was his frontispiece (Beraldi No. 480) for +the catalogue of the second portion of the Burty collection. +It represented a stand holding an open +portfolio from which prints flying upward are +gradually evolved into cranes. Ducks, however, have +apparently been his special delight. He has pictured +them in action, as in the delightful oblong picture of +two ducks swimming (Beraldi No. 185) and in the +equally, and amusingly, lifelike one of five ducks +swimming hurriedly to a central point of common +interest. Or in allegorical attitude, as in the <i>Canard</i> +(Beraldi No. 116), the herald of “fake” news. He +has observed the teal along the riverside and the +<i>Gambols</i> of ducks (Beraldi No. 221), done with a +simple and sympathetic delight in the doings of these +water-fowl. Hardly ever, perhaps, has he better +characterized the useful bird whose call, onomatopoetically +imitated, has long served to characterize +medical charlatanry, than in the plate known as <i>The +Bather</i> or <i>Canards surpris</i>. The three birds, who +have come down to their accustomed swimming hole<span class="pagenum" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</span> +only to find it already occupied by a comely young +woman, are alive and moving. The beholder can +fairly see and hear their wonder at the unwarranted +intrusion on their rights, and regards their wagging +tails with much of the fascination that Septimus and +Wiggleswick (in W. J. Locke’s “Septimus”) felt in +the same diversion.</p> + +<p>While the duck apparently appealed most to him, +Bracquemond was attracted also by other members +of the family of <i>Aves</i>. The goose, cousin to the <i>Anas</i>, +he showed collectively in <i>Geese in a Storm</i> (<i>The +Storm Cloud.</i> Beraldi No. 219), which may be +studied in the Avery collection at the New York Public +Library, in a series of touched proofs in which the +fortuitous effect of gradually added work in the sky +gives somewhat the impression of a storm rising as +you look at the consecutive proofs. <i>Ducks in a Marsh</i> +also move under a lowering sky, and in <i>It’s Raining +Pitchforks</i> (Beraldi No. 212) the flood-gates of heaven +are fully opened, so that the water-fowl appear to +find themselves doubly in their element.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" id="f161"> +<a href="images/fig161big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig161.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Bracquemond. Geese in a Storm</span></p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original etching, 9½ × 13⅜ inches</p> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter1" id="f162"> +<a href="images/fig162big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig162.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Bracquemond. Sea-gulls</span></p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original etching, 10¾ × 18 inches</p> +</div> + +<p>Bracquemond sometimes labored through a number +of states on a plate. The large portrait of Edmond +de Goncourt was patiently carried through a +number of progressive proofs. And in the process +of thus searching for ultimate satisfactoriness he may +give us such pleasant surprises as the fourth state +of <i>Morning Mists</i> (Beraldi No. 779), a pheasant piece, +with its delightful background addition of trees—an +airy, light impression of early morning. He has done +several landscapes of a lightness which approaches +a Legros-like delicacy, so that it is perplexing to +compare them with such a faithfully studied but +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</span>somewhat hard plate as that of the duck perplexed +at sight of a turtle (<i>L’Inconnu</i>, Beraldi No. 174), +and to realize that the same hand did both. Venturing +still farther into the field of ornithology, he +depicted golden pheasants, partridges, swallows, with +sympathy for his subject and an open eye for its +artistic possibilities. The human element enters into +these pictures very rarely, and then only when absolutely +in place. So in <i>At the Jardin d’Acclimatation</i> +(Beraldi No. 214), in which two stylishly dressed +young ladies are looking at golden pheasants in an inclosure. +Once, at least, in <i>Sea-gulls</i> (Beraldi No. 782), +he felt and rendered the beautiful effect of a circling, +gliding flight of gulls over rolling waves, in a graceful +swirl of lines combining into a harmonious pattern.</p> + +<p>The peculiar effect of this last named plate, with +its mingling of Japanese and other influences, is in +striking contrast to his early and most remarkable +<i>Haut d’un battant de Porte</i> (Beraldi No. 110, done +at the age of nineteen), in which the dead bodies of +three birds of prey and a bat are shown nailed to a +barn door, held up as a warning example in a not +too smoothly flowing quatrain. To his plates of +moralizing or emblematic intention, such as the one +just referred to, or the <i>Canard</i> (Beraldi No. 116), +he delighted in adding such inscriptions, generally in +rhyme. His verses in such cases partake a little of +the halting metre of those which poor Meryon attached +to certain of his plates. Such etched letterpress +additions appear also in <i>Margot la Critique</i> +(Beraldi No. 113) and in <i>Le Corbeau</i>. The last +named delineation of an old bow-legged crow presents +a creature so weird, so uncanny, that without adventitious +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</span>effects it appears as a symbol of some sinister +power, felt though not realized. But a still more +famous plate, because most strongly characteristic, is +<i>The Old Cock</i> (the original drawing for which is +owned by Samuel P. Avery), a masterly portrait of +chanticleer, in all the dignity and pomp of his mature +vigor and serene self-sufficiency. Here is the poem +for this:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> +<div class="stanza"> +<div class="verse indent0">Hé, vieux coq,</div> +<div class="verse indent0">Vieux Don Juan,</div> +<div class="verse indent0">Vieille voix, tu t’érailles,</div> +<div class="verse indent0">Toi-même tu seras</div> +<div class="verse indent0">La pierre du festin fait à tes funerailles</div> +<div class="verse indent0">Et les convives, las</div> +<div class="verse indent0">De livrer à ta chair de trop rudes batailles</div> +<div class="verse indent0">Se reposeront des dents et des bras</div> +<div class="verse indent0">Racontant à l’envie, tes amours, tes combats.</div> +</div> +</div> +</div> + +<p>He japonized this magnificent fowl in a purely decorative +spirit, without the psychological element. And +on the occasion of the visit of the Russian fleet to +Toulon in 1893, he repeated and emphasized the theme +to the verge almost of the grotesque, in a representation +of the Gallic cock, a Hercules of his kind, with +the aggressiveness of conscious strength, trumpeting +forth his <i>Vive le Tsar!</i> with triumphant enthusiasm. +This emblematic use of ornithological specimens has +been already referred to in the case of the <i>Canard</i>. It +appears notably also in <i>Margot la Critique</i>. The critic +may note that <i>Margot</i> happens to be particularly unctuous +in the state before the verses, but will not be +otherwise adversely influenced by this etched philippic +against his brethren.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" id="f163"> +<img src="images/fig163.jpg" alt="" /> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Bracquemond. The Old Cock</span></p> +<p class="caption1">“But a still more famous plate, because most strongly characteristic, +is <i>The Old Cock</i>, a masterly portrait of chanticleer, in all the dignity +and pomp of his mature vigor and serene self-sufficiency.”<br /> <span class="pad">Frank Weitenkampf, <i>Félix Bracquemond: An Etcher of Birds</i>.</span></p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original etching, 11¼ × 9⅞ inches</p> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter1" id="f164"> +<img src="images/fig164.jpg" alt="" /> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Bracquemond. Swallows in Flight</span></p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original etching, 12½ × 10½ inches</p> +</div> + +<p>But besides these many realistic studies of bird +life there are just about as many of purely decorative +interest, showing strong Japanese influence, and +mostly executed for ceramic decoration. There are +also decorative combinations of <i>Reeds and Teal</i>, +<i>Swallows</i> flying in graceful curves and swirls, <i>Lapwing +and Teal</i> swimming and flying. Here again we +have an entirely different point of view. The loving +study of nature, sometimes expressed in an uncompromising +hardness in the reproduction of form or detail, +or elsewhere in an almost playful lightness of +touch in obedience to a passing mood, appears here +with quite different results. Seemingly endless changes +on the same theme of swirling, undulating curves of +flying, running, strutting, swimming bodies of birds +and fishes delight the eye with the rhythmic flow of +ever recurrent accent on the pure beauty of line.</p> + +<p>And at the end, when you have gone through the +many portfolios of Bracquemond’s work, there occurs +to you his own statement quoted by Clement +Janin. It is to the effect that a work of graphic art +must bear on its face, undisguised, the characteristics +of the technique by which it was produced. A +lithograph must be a lithograph; a wood-engraving +a wood-engraving and not the imitation of an engraving +on copper or of a photograph. A review of +the arts of reproduction proves that this is not the +truism it may seem. It is a basic principle in all art, +and will bear earnest and repeated emphasis. And +the notable recognition of this fact by Bracquemond +is a prime factor in his success in the art that has +meant so much to him.</p> +<hr class="full x-ebookmaker-drop" /> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="c15">AUGUSTE LEPÈRE</h2> +</div> + +<p class="c"><span class="smcap">By</span> ELISABETH LUTHER CARY</p> + +<p class="c more">Art Editor of the New York Times</p> + + +<p class="drop-cap">IT is the fashion of the moment to specialize in art +as in other professions, and we no longer expect +to find the multiple tendencies and ambitions of +a Leonardo or a Dürer, or even of the self-contained +Rembrandt, in the modern artist. He is a painter or +a sculptor or a wood-engraver or an etcher. He is even +more closely classified as a portrait- or a landscape-painter, +an animalier or a decorator, a dry-point +engraver or a disciple of pure etching. If, as sometimes +happens, he escapes from the threads of the +Lilliputians and swings his arms in a wider sweep, it +is in the mood of deprecation or excuse, as a writer +may choose to whittle wood or hammer metal in order +to clear his word-fogged brain.</p> + +<p>There is, however, a wholesome and growing impression +among thoughtful observers that extreme +limitation and restriction produce weakness rather +than strength, and when we find an artist who has +something of the ancient flexibility of mind and hand +it is worth our while to acclaim him.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" id="f165"> +<a href="images/fig165big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig165.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Lepère. Rheims Cathedral</span></p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original etching, 14⅛ × 10¾ inches</p> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter1" id="f166"> +<a href="images/fig166big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig166.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Lepère. Belle Matinée. Automne</span></p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original etching, 7½ × 11¼ inches</p> +</div> + +<p>Auguste Lepère has pursued a free course of development, +rounding his capacities, and forming himself +with balanced and reasonable attention to diversified +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</span>interests. He was born in Paris in 1849. His father +was the talented sculptor François Lepère, and he +got, no doubt, from his father something of the latter’s +taste for suggesting passion, even frenzy, in +small but monumental figures. While quite young he +studied with the English engraver Smeeon, and spent +his first professional years in the service of illustration +for <i>Le Monde Illustré</i>, <i>L’Illustration</i>, <i>Le Magasin +Pittoresque</i>, and <i>La Revue Illustrée</i> in Paris, +the <i>Graphic</i> and <i>Black and White</i> in London, and +<i>Scribner’s</i> and <i>Harper’s</i> in America.</p> + +<p>Tiring of this field, he tried all things. He became +in turn a metal-chaser, a decorator of leathers, a ceramist, +an etcher, a wood-engraver and a painter. If +we consider him chiefly as an etcher, it must be with +the full appreciation that any craft mastered by him +is made subsidiary to the larger principles upon +which all works of art are based, whatever the medium +or process. He has consistently declined to +fritter away his admirable technique upon technicalities +undertaken for their own sake, and his work in +etching as in painting is the work of an intellect concerned +with the problems of rhythm and harmony, +color, tone and form, which assail artists in every field.</p> + +<p>As an etcher he received his initiation from +Bracquemond, the most robust of temperaments and +at the same time the most fastidious of technicians. +Lepère has been worthy of his teaching. From the +first he has sought to render his impression, recorded +by a vision singularly prompt and synthetic, with +precise care, patiently assembling all the complex +virtues of his method to the task. To his slightest +plate he has brought conscience and sincerity, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</span> +also a quality without which all the moral gifts with +which human nature may be endowed would have +availed him nothing as an artist: the rare capacity, +that is, for retaining the freshness of his vision +throughout a slow process of translation.</p> + +<p>Before examining a few of his plates to discern +their significant qualities, it will be interesting to +consider his own words on the aim of the engraver: +notes written with reference to the change in methods +of reproduction from interpretation by means of the +engraver’s art to the use of photography and the +resultant processes. Even his notes on engraving for +the purpose of reproduction, though less closely allied +to the work of his riper years than the notes on engraving +from nature as an original art, are excellent +reading, since they throw a clear light upon his ideals +and definite convictions:</p> + +<p>“Formerly,” he says, “when an engraver had a +work to reproduce, it was <i>absolutely necessary for +him to see it</i>. He could then study it, comprehend it, +and consequently extract its essential principle, simplify +it, adapt it to his mode of expression, engrave +it.</p> + +<p>“If he had not the gift of composition, that of design +was necessary in order to make his transposition; +that of interpretation, in order to gather the idea of +the creator of his model. His work was almost the +equal of the work of an original engraver who usually +interprets a composition or a model given by nature.</p> + +<p>“His art was that of transposition. He took color +or mass and made a song in a different key, keeping +only the relative values of the shadows and lights and +the contours of the objects.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" id="f167"> +<a href="images/fig167big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig167.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Lepère. Vue du Port de la Meule</span></p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original etching, 8⅝ × 12½ inches</p> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter1" id="f168"> +<a href="images/fig168big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig168.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Lepère. Peupliers Tétards</span></p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original etching, 7⅞ × 9¾ inches</p> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</span></p> +<p>“Photography has come to change all that. It has +facilitated the task of the engraver, who, for the most +part, has not even seen the works he reproduces. The +science of design is almost reduced to knowing how +to trace; as for simplifying a photograph, it can only +make matters worse. Such as it is, a photograph +forms a perfect gamut in which nothing can be +changed without losing everything; to extract a line +from it is impossible, so indiscernible is the passage +from one object to another, a figure in the background, +etc., etc.</p> + +<p>“Photography is a reproduction; it becomes a betrayal. +What is the copy interpreted by this betrayal? +How can one extract the character of anything if the +true model is not there?</p> + +<p>“Here, then, is our engraver obliged to copy with +his precise art from something quite vague. Photography +sees the globs of color, the accidents of a picture, +with as much interest as the most beautiful +design. What will he put in the place of these accidents? +He traces, he copies; and as the photograph +is stupid, he copies a stupidity.</p> + +<p>“He does this so thoroughly that he can be dispensed +with, the means of printing a photograph +having been discovered. What imitates a photograph +most completely if not a photogravure? This attains +to a degree of impersonality so great that the poor +engraver can no longer battle against it.</p> + +<p>“For the engraver who possesses no faculty of composition +to do artistic work it is necessary that he be +an interpreter, a simplifier, with a very well-defined +idea of the necessities of his craft, and that he know +how to draw directly! He must renounce all attempts<span class="pagenum" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</span> +to overstep the boundaries of his craft; he must not +try to express colors. One may, in an engraving, +express cold and heat; that is, indeed, the main thing. +But it is impossible to engrave red, yellow, or green. +These are researches that encroach upon the domain +of the painter and spoil everything.”</p> + +<p>Of the original engraver more is exacted. As a +true artist he must respect both his craft and the +quality of his vision. He must synthetize, simplify, +express, avoid photographic vision and trivialities of +style; he must employ only the means forbidden to +photography: those well-affirmed indications of the +movements of the point which are the very foundation +of the beautiful technique of engraving.</p> + +<p>And in one phrase is summed up the essential aim +of the engraver who treats his art with respect, +whether he uses it for purposes of reproduction or +for original work: “Not to imitate. To express.”</p> + +<p>Lepère has followed his own doctrine to its logical +conclusion. Never servile, even in his most faithful +portraiture of a nature that enchants him, he works +with a plenitude of science, but also with unwearied +freshness of inspiration and a sympathetic feeling for +the character of his subject, whether it is a curve of +the river near Nôtre Dame where horses come down +to drink, or a poor man’s hut with climbing vines in +bloom, or the wide marshes of the Vendée. With the +passage of time his vision has grown larger and +calmer, his interpretations magisterial; but in his +most classic moments he does not forget to infuse into +his composition a strong feeling for this intimate +characterization. He is a true creator, living not only +above but in his conception. He is at once serene and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</span> +moved, in command of his intellectual instrument and +impelled by his personal interest.</p> + +<p>The <i>Journée d’Inventaire</i> is a plate that shows +clearly this double action of the artist’s mind. The +composition is stately in both line and mass. In the +background rises the lofty architecture of the Amiens +Cathedral; in the foreground, in deep shadow, is a +group of figures diversely occupied. The upraised +arms of these figures lead naturally to the pointed +arches and ascending spires. In a similar fashion, the +strong darks of the foreground mount in diminishing +quantity through the heavy shadows in the recesses +of the doorways to the luminous blacks that mark the +slender openings in the towers. It is a beautiful upward +movement that repeats the song of the Gothic +spirit.</p> + +<p>These wonderful darks have also another function. +Echoed as they are, in the small, sharp shadows of +the multitudinous detail, they send the light quivering +all through the picture. It pours down from a +sky empty of clouds, and causes the web of decorative +imagery with which the structure is draped to shimmer +like a fabric set with precious stones. Only a +true master of the subtleties possible to interwoven +dark and light could thus command his atmospheric +effect, and evoke from his slight and restricted materials +the grandeur of the immense pile of stone raised +by the hands of man, and the contrasting evanescence +of the passing sunshine caressing every boss and hollow +in the richly manipulated surfaces. It is perhaps +not too much to say that nothing more remarkable in +its kind has been done in the present century. The +element of drama is added by the turmoil of little<span class="pagenum" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</span> +figures in shadow at the base of the cathedral, seen in +minute detail through the translucent darkness and +agitated by their human accidents and emotions. The +whole spirit of France, its imperishable monuments, +its sparkle of sunshine, its reasonable architecture, its +vivid life, may be inferred from this remarkable plate.</p> + +<p>Very different in sentiment and less close to perfection +in the relation of the parts of the design to the +whole, is <i>La Chûte de Ballon</i>; yet this also is a beautiful +plate. As in the <i>Journée d’Inventaire</i>, the eye +is led upward by the gestures of the crowd in the +foreground to the point of interest, the balloon hung +poised above the trees and houses. There is the same +contrast of movement, too, in the agitated figures of +the foreground with the calm lines and clear light of +the distance. In this plate, however, is greater piquancy +of light and shade. The abrupt lines and +minor episodes are carried so far into the composition +as to dominate the general impression, leaving the +open distance to play a secondary instead of primary +part. Figures are hurrying in excitement toward the +scene of the aërial drama; tree branches are tossing, +there are little restless clouds passing rapidly +across the sky; the air is brisk, it is a bright day, +there is much to see and do, and interest is keen—that +is the story one carries away from the handsome, +stirring print, and also a subtle poetic suggestion that +beyond the town, as one follows the slow length of a +white cliff, to where it meets the horizon, is a very +great world that turns from night to day, from day to +night, interminably, unchecked and unspeeded by the +passing storms of human glee and human woe.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" id="f169"> +<img src="images/fig169.jpg" alt="" /> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Lepère. Le Moulin des Chapelles</span></p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original etching, 4¾ × 5¾ inches</p> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter1" id="f170"> +<img src="images/fig170.jpg" alt="" /> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Lepère. A Gentilly</span></p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original etching, 7⅝ × 9¾ inches</p> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter1" id="f171"> +<a href="images/fig171big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig171.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Lepère. La Chaumière du Vieux Pecheur</span></p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original etching, 8½ × 15¼ inches</p> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter1" id="f172"> +<img src="images/fig172.jpg" alt="" /> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Lepère. Le Nid</span></p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original etching, 6¼ × 6⅜ inches</p> +</div> + +<p><i>La Seine à l’Embouchure du Canal Saint-Martin</i> +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</span>is more commonplace in subject, the river and its +barges having entered into the artistic life of nearly +all French etchers; but how few could pass with such +sureness of plan, such precision of execution, from +the dark bulk of the vessel in the lower left corner to +the snapping black of the tree-top in the upper right +corner, along a perfect diagonal, without a suspicion +of stiffness or formalism in the fluent arrangement of +innumerable details of pattern! This strong sense of +appropriate and austere design, supported by such +an easy grace of handling, is unusual in any age, and +especially in our own, when grace and austerity find +it almost impossible to live together in one man’s +work.</p> + +<p>Turning away from these subjects, in which nature +presents a wide range to the artist and inspires him +to breadth and dignity of treatment, to the quaint +and touching subjects drawn from peasant life in the +Vendean homes, we find beneath the admirable form +of Lepère’s expression thoughts tender and merry +and filled with sympathy for common experience. His +work becomes picturesque and living, the mood of the +observer changes in response, and the pleasure given +is that inspired by simple things, although the treatment +of the given scene is often far from simple.</p> + +<p>While all these plates are admirably expressive, one +in particular, <i>Le Nid</i>, seems to me filled with melody, +color and charm as well as with the efficient intelligence +always to be found in Lepère’s work. A little +solid house with thick walls stands in greenery. Children, +natural, happy, unconcerned, are playing in the +foreground. Beyond is a curve of low hill and a +glimpse of flat plain; and still beyond, a little town<span class="pagenum" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</span> +with its spire. It is all very naïve and fresh; the outdoor +setting has much beauty; the types of the children +are unhackneyed; the gestures and positions unconventional +and spontaneous. A mere glance reveals +the felicity of the subject-matter, but longer acquaintance +is necessary before all the resources of the design +are appreciated. Even in this playful note of pleasant +summer pastime we get something of the gravity +and serious purpose indispensable to great etchers as +to great painters. It was this characteristic that led +Lepère to pull down all the detail of the middle distance +below the noble swinging line of the hillock, in +order to keep the severity of that magnificent curve. +It was this which led him to follow a repeating curve +in the arrangement and environment of the children, +apparently so carelessly disposed among their shrubs +and flowers. “Let all things play and bloom and +make holiday,” he seems to exclaim in this rare +plate, “so long as the power of my design is not +weakened by them.” The artist whose work says that +to us is sure of long life in our memories.</p> + +<p>There are several of these subjects in which children +at play near their homes are the principal feature, +and it would be easy to find in each some special +note of gaiety and charm and quick Gallic wit. In +<i>Les deux Bourrines</i>, for example, the groups of little +ugly creatures, who form again a curved line of +beauty, are characterized with a frank acceptance of +their unclassic physiognomies that would have delighted +the heart of Daumier. <i>Le Nid de Pauvres</i> is +not less romantic in its Gothic avoidance of the ideal +type.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" id="f173"> +<a href="images/fig173big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig173.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Lepère. Provins</span></p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original etching, 6 × 11¾ inches</p> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter1" id="f174"> +<img src="images/fig174.jpg" alt="" /> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Lepère. L’Eglise de Jouy le Moutier</span></p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original etching, 6⅜ × 6⅜ inches</p> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter1" id="f175"> +<a href="images/fig175big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig175.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Lepère. L’Enfant Prodigue</span></p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original etching, 9½ × 12⅝ inches</p> +<p class="caption"></p> +</div> + +<p>Classic Lepère can be, however, with a curiously +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</span>vital appreciation of what the living classic must have +been. He has an etching of a swineherd entering the +yard in which the beasts are penned. They move, +grunting, toward him. Outside is a cluster of great +trees with bushy foliage. The light is clear and warm. +The folds of the swineherd’s mantle and his gesture +are Greek. His figure might have passed across the +Athenian stage, one fancies, at the time of Sophoclean +drama. And the landscape has the deep repose immortalized +in classic verse—such songs as in his extreme +old age Sophocles made to do honor to his native +village:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> +<div class="stanza"> +<div class="verse indent0">Our home, Colonus, gleaming fair and white:</div> +<div class="verse indent0">The nightingale still haunteth all our woods,</div> +<div class="verse indent4">Green with the flush of spring;</div> +<div class="verse indent4">And sweet, melodious floods</div> +<div class="verse indent0">Of softest song through grove and thicket ring.</div> +</div> +</div> +</div> + +<p>Lepère is not often found in this mood, however, +and the swineherd plate cannot be considered wholly +characteristic of his temper of mind. It seems to have +been one of those rare happenings when the mind is +lifted above its habitual plane, occasion serves, and +the trained hand obediently records a moment of peculiar +exaltation. He is perhaps most of all his daily +self in the little plate called <i>Le Moulin des Chapelles</i>. +Here he shows us the machinery of the mill and the +round white column of the structure as others have +done, but he also shows us what others seldom do—the +use of the mill. A patient horse is standing near, a +man is shifting the bags of flour to his back. It is not +a mere accident of landscape; it has a social and +utilitarian function; it is connected with human life.</p> + +<p>This is the most characteristic attitude of mind for<span class="pagenum" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</span> +an artist so alert to the significance of visible things; +and it is immensely to his credit as an artist that he +almost never permits this keen and throbbing interest +in the world about him to trespass upon his logical +use of his great instrument.</p> + +<p>If organization of line and space, ability to establish +in each of his compositions a decorative scheme adequate +to support easily all the delightful episodes and +figures which he chooses to introduce, is the most +important element in Lepère’s artistic equipment, the +next in significance is the clarity and precision of his +utterance. There is no vapor in his imagination; he is +a poet as well as an artist, with a poet’s sensitiveness +to definition of form. All that he lacks is the intensity +of emotion that sweeps away interest in everything +but the personal feeling. We suspect that the world +for him will always be “full of a number of things,” +and that he will not be able to forget any of them in +the exaltation of profound self-absorption. But he +has a genius for infusing a rich suggestiveness into all +that he observes, and for giving his narrative an epic +character.</p> +<hr class="full x-ebookmaker-drop" /> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="c16">HERMAN A. WEBSTER</h2> +</div> + +<p class="c"><span class="smcap">By</span> MARTIN HARDIE</p> + + +<p class="drop-cap">“DID you ever see a barber sharpen his razor? +That’s what it wants—the decision and the +smacks.” That is one of the many quaint +remarks that old John Varley used to hurl at the +pupils who came to him for lessons in the complete +art of painting in water-color. It is a remark very +appropriate to the vast quantity of etchings, mechanically +correct, but unimpassioned and uninteresting, +which are produced to-day. There are wonderfully +few etchers whose work strikes a note of imagination +and individuality, and appeals by its force and directness, +its decisions and its smacks. One of that small +company is Mr. Herman A. Webster.</p> + +<p>An artist’s life is written in his work, and the cold +facts of his biography are of little real importance. +To some extent, however, they act as a commentary +upon his productions, and at the worst they serve to +satisfy the not unpardonable curiosity which impels +all of us to inquire into the age and life-history of any +man whose pictures or prints awaken our instant sympathy. +So I put here a few outlines of Mr. Webster’s +career, merely the mile-stones that mark the route +along which he has proceeded. It has been a career of +strenuous activity, for the artist who now prints his +finely-wrought plates in his studio in the Rue de Furstenberg +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</span>at Paris (the street of which Whistler made a +lithograph in 1894) has graduated at a famous university, +traveled round the world, spent two years in commercial +life, toiled as general reporter to a big daily +paper, worked in a coal-mine, and acted as assistant +cashier in a bank. And the tale of his years is only +just over thirty, for he was born in 1878. Need I add—for +an English reader it would be quite superfluous—that +Mr. Webster is an American, with New York +as his native city?</p> + +<p>Mr. Webster came into the world with an innate +love of art. In his school-days, before he had received +any instruction in drawing, he made posters, that were +perhaps crude but not ineffective, for the school +games; and at Yale he was one of the editors and a +valued illustrator of the <i>Yale Record</i>. This love of +art was fostered by a visit to the 1900 Exposition at +Paris, where the <i>genius loci</i> has a stronger spell for +the young artist than anywhere else upon earth. +Studios and restaurants of the Quartier Latin are +fragrant with great memories, still haunted by the +mighty spirits of the past: Louvre and Luxembourg +are filled with the living realities that abide. Amid +the enchantment of this artistic atmosphere, with all +its traditions and associations, Mr. Webster lingered +for some months, and then set out on a trans-Siberian +tour to the Orient, staying long enough in Japan and +China for his natural instinct to be quickened by the +marvelous art which has exerted so strong an influence +on the Western world. On returning home his +desire to adopt art as his life-calling was checked by +family opposition. Here in England—for I write as +one of Mr. Webster’s English admirers—many a boy +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</span>artist has been thwarted by a foolish antipathy in the +home circle to art in the abstract, but for a parent in +the New World the conviction must be even more sincere +that business is the only lucrative profession, +while art is at least something precarious, if not a +downward road to poverty and starvation. And so, +at his father’s wish, Mr. Webster, in the office of the +<i>Chicago Record-Herald</i> and elsewhere, served two +years of bondage to commerce. Determination, however, +won its way at last, and in February, 1904, he +set out to Paris with the family consent to “try it for +a year.” That year is still continuing.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" id="f176"> +<a href="images/fig176big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig176.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Webster. St. Ouen, Rouen</span></p> +<p class="caption1">“His chief delight is in the nooks and corners of old-world thoroughfares +and culs-de-sac, where deep shadows lurk in the angles of +time-worn buildings, and sunlight ripples over crumbling walls, +seamy gables, and irregular tiled roofs.” <span class="pad">Martin Hardie.</span></p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original etching, 5½ × 3⅞ inches</p> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter1" id="f177"> +<a href="images/fig177big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig177.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Webster. La Rue Grenier sur l’Eau, Paris</span></p> +<p class="caption1">“A fourth plate, perhaps even finer than any of these in its +force, directness, and concentrated simplicity, is the <i>Rue +Grenier sur l’Eau</i>. There is much of Meryon in its clear, +crisp line-work.” <span class="pad">Martin Hardie.</span></p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original etching, 8¾ × 4⅞ inches</p> +</div> + +<p>Seven months during 1904 were spent at the Académie +Julien under Jean Paul Laurens, in study from +the nude; and that is the only academic instruction +which Mr. Webster has received. A few months after +his arrival in Paris, chance led him to the Bibliothèque +Nationale, where he saw some of Meryon’s etchings, +and fell instantly under the spell of the great artist +whose sinister needle first revealed the mysterious and +somber poetry of Paris and the Seine. From Meryon +and from books he forthwith taught himself to etch, +receiving no outside instruction, but evolving his own +methods till he attained mastery of the “teasing, temper-trying, +yet fascinating art”—a mastery the more +valuable and complete in that it was based on his own +experience. A first attempt was made from his studio +window in the Rue de Furstenberg, and some copperplates +went with him on his autumn holiday at Grez, +that “pretty and very melancholy village” in the +Forest of Fontainebleau, where Robert Louis Stevenson +met the romance of his life. As the first-fruits of +this holiday three little etchings won their way into<span class="pagenum" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</span> +the next summer’s Salon—the <i>Rue de l’Abbaye</i>, +<i>The Loing at Grez</i>, and <i>The Court, Bourron</i>, the last +being the forerunner of several subjects of similar +type. At the Salon also was hung a large oil-painting +of still life, a study of fabrics and porcelain; but +though color will no doubt claim allegiance again, +Mr. Webster has been too closely held in thrall by +etching to essay further experiments in the painter’s +craft.</p> + +<p>A pilgrimage to Spain in the spring of 1905 was the +source of several spontaneous and effective plates, +among them <i>St. Martin’s Bridge, Toledo</i>, and <i>Mirada +de las Reinas, Alhambra</i>. Up to this point Mr. +Webster’s work may be considered, in a large measure, +tentative and experimental, but from 1906 onward he +has found in Normandy—at Pont de l’Arche and +Rouen—at Bruges, and above all in Paris, the inspiration +for a series of plates noteworthy for their fine +craftsmanship and their expression of individuality. +They have won him the recognition of connoisseurs +and public without his passing through any period of +undeserved obscurity. At the Paris Salon, at the +Royal Academy, and in his native land, his etchings +have constantly been exhibited and admired. Nor +must I forget to add that in 1908 he was elected an +Associate of the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers, +which, under the presidency of its veteran founder, +Sir Francis Seymour Haden, has done so much to +foster the revived art of etching.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" id="f178"> +<a href="images/fig178big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig178.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Webster. Quai Montebello</span></p> +<p class="caption1">“Few etchers have ever preached the gospel of light with more truth +and earnestness than Webster himself in the <i>Quai Montebello</i> and +many other plates.” <span class="pad">Martin Hardie.</span></p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original etching, 7⅞ × 5⅛ inches</p> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter1" id="f179"> +<a href="images/fig179big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig179.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Webster. Le Pont Neuf, Paris</span></p> +<p class="caption1">“A fitting companion to this vision of Notre Dame is <i>Le Pont Neuf</i>, another of the etcher’s +largest and most distinguished plates. The stern solidity of the bridge, with its massive +masonry, its corbeled turrets, and its deeply shadowed arches, makes pleasing contrast with +the irregular sky-line of the sunlit houses that rise beyond.” <span class="pad">Martin Hardie.</span></p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original etching, 8⅛ × 11¾ inches</p> +</div> + +<p>It is of some of the chief works produced and exhibited +during the last three years that I have now to +speak, and in doing so may perhaps indicate a few +leading characteristics of the etcher’s work. His chief +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</span>delight is in the nooks and corners of old-world thoroughfares +and culs-de-sac, where deep shadows lurk +in the angles of time-worn buildings, and sunlight ripples +over crumbling walls, seamy gables, and irregular +tiled roofs. Of such is a series of subjects found in old +Rouen—the <i>St. Ouen</i>; the <i>Rue du Hallage</i>, where the +cathedral spire towers high above old timbered houses; +and that charming plate with the title <i>Old Houses, +Rouen</i>, a quaint corner of tenements whose high-pitched +roofs stand propped against one another for +all the world like a castle of cards. The etcher of this +and of the <i>St. Ouen</i> was welcomed with warm sympathy +by the <i>Gazette des Beaux-Arts</i>, which said that +“never before has there been so fervent and skilled an +interpreter of the bowed timber and crumbling plaster +of the old houses of Rouen, which line the street ending +in the cathedral with its pointed spire against the +open sky.” And so we pass to two courtyard scenes—belonging, +like the Rouen subjects, to the year 1906—the +<i>Cour, Normandie</i>, and <i>Les Blanchisseuses</i>. In +both we find the artist becoming more adept in using +broad and balanced disposition of light and shade to +give not merely chiaroscuro but the suggestion of actual +color, and more skilled in adding exquisiteness of +detail to refined truth of visual impression. <i>Les Blanchisseuses</i>, +in particular, with its rich mystery of +shadow, with its sunshine falling on white walls and +lighting the seamed interstices of plaster and timber, +has an indefinable charm that, for myself at any rate, +makes it a high-water mark in Mr. Webster’s art. Of +similar type is the <i>Old Butter Market, Bruges</i>, where +a cobbled street curves beneath a shadowed archway; +and then for variety you step from <i>Bruges la Morte</i>,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</span> +from the silent cobbles that centuries ago were a busy +thoroughfare for ringing feet, to the Bruges of to-day. +It is Bruges in a very different aspect, this free and +spirited study made on July 27, 1907, on the day of +the Fête de l’Arbre d’Or, giving a quick impression +of gay holiday crowds, of banners fluttering against +the open sky, and of the “belfry old and brown” +whose carillon inspired America’s poet, as its tall +form and fretted outline have inspired the American +etcher of whom I write. This <i>Bruges en Fête</i>, and +<i>Paysanne</i>, a clever and direct figure-study of an old +peasant at Marlotte, come as an episode of pleasing +variety in Mr. Webster’s work, and tend to show that, +though he has his preferences, he is not really fettered +by any limitation of subject or treatment.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" id="f180"> +<a href="images/fig180big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig180.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Webster. La Rue Cardinale</span></p> +<p class="caption1">“<i>La Rue Cardinale</i> has affinity of general treatment with <i>Rue de la +Parcheminerie</i>, and is not the less interesting for an amazing <i>tour +de force</i> in the rendering of color and texture in the striped blind +over a shop-front.” <span class="pad">Martin Hardie.</span></p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original etching, 10⅞ × 7⅝ inches</p> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter1" id="f181"> +<a href="images/fig181big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig181.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Webster. La Rue de la Parcheminerie, Paris</span></p> +<p class="caption1">“Closely akin to <i>Rue Brise Miche</i> in restful balance of composition +and in fine shadow effect is the <i>Rue de la Parcheminerie</i>—of special +value now, for the old street has disappeared largely since the +making of the plate.” <span class="pad">Martin Hardie.</span></p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original etching, 11⅛ × 7 inches</p> +</div> + +<p>It is but natural that an artist of Mr. Webster’s +temperament, a devoted admirer of Meryon, should +become absorbed in Paris herself and endeavor to put +upon copperplate the “poésie profonde et compliqué +d’une vaste capitale.” The Bruges and Rouen plates +showed Mr. Webster to be keenly susceptible to the +magnetism and charm of medieval tradition, but Paris, +steeped in sentiment even more than Rouen or Bruges, +was to rouse a still greater warmth and feeling. He +began by searching out those picturesque streets in +the old quarters that have survived the wholesale demolishment +of Baron Haussmann, a name hated by +artists as that of Granger by lovers of books. The +<i>Rue Brise Miche</i> found its way to the Royal Academy, +and was also honored by publication in the <i>Gazette des +Beaux-Arts</i> (July, 1907). Closely akin to it in restful +balance of composition and in fine shadow effect is the +<i>Rue de la Parcheminerie</i>—of special value now, for +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</span>the old street has disappeared largely since the making +of the plate. <i>La Rue Cardinale</i> has affinity of general +treatment, and is not the less interesting for an +amazing <i>tour de force</i> in the rendering of color and +texture in the striped blind over a shop-front. A +fourth plate, perhaps even finer than any of these in +its force, directness, and concentrated simplicity, is +the <i>Rue Grenier sur l’Eau</i>. There is much of Meryon +in its clear, crisp line-work. Some day perhaps these +loving studies of the old Paris of Balzac may be gathered +in a series illustrating the “Quartier Marais,” and +published in an <i>édition de luxe</i> with descriptive text +by the etcher. Let us hope that this may come to pass, +for the buildings that Mr. Webster depicts are far +more than a prosaic record of architectural features. +There is a spiritual and human suggestiveness behind +the mortar and bricks of his pictures: as a poet of his +own nation has it, they are “latent with unseen existences.” +He has appreciated the fact that etching—an +art hedged in by limitations and depending upon +power of suggestion—is the one art that can give at +once those delicate lines, those broad shadows, those +crumbling bits of texture. The lover of etching can +regard his subject with indifference, and take full joy +in the soft play of sunlight, the fine choice of line, the +effective massing of light and shade.</p> + +<p>Another plate of this “Quartier Marais” series is a +noble representation of Notre Dame seen from an +unusual aspect. It is a drawing from near the +Hôtel de Ville and shows the splendid mass of the +cathedral rising above the irregular houses that face +the Quartier Marais and the Quai aux Fleurs. There +is freedom and charm in the treatment of the foreground, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</span>where a little tug puffs along the river and +the big barges move cumbrously under the lee of the +near bank, and in the middle distance where the light +plays pleasantly over the old houses; but the roof of +the cathedral itself, put in with unpleasing rigidity of +line, comes like cold fact in the middle of romance. +It is as though Meryon here had imposed his weakness +as well as his strength upon Mr. Webster, for in the +<i>Morgue</i>, for instance, the one small blemish is the +ruled precision of the lines upon a roof. A fitting +companion to this vision of Notre Dame is <i>Le Pont +Neuf</i>, another of the etcher’s largest and most distinguished +plates. The stern solidity of the bridge, with +its massive masonry, its corbeled turrets, and its +deeply shadowed arches, makes pleasing contrast with +the irregular sky-line of the sunlit houses that rise +beyond.</p> + +<p>It may be said of all Mr. Webster’s etchings—and +perhaps there could be no higher praise—that each +possesses the faculty of provoking fresh interest. +That is certainly the case with four of his most recent +plates. One is an interior of <i>St. Saturnin, Toulouse</i>, +majestic and stately, full of suggestive mystery in the +religious light that falls with soft touch upon the +pillars, throws into relief the dark masses of the choir-stalls, +and strives to penetrate the dim recesses of the +vaulted roof. <i>St. Saturnin</i> will be among the rariora +of the collector, for the plate unfortunately broke +when twelve proofs only had been printed.</p> + +<p>The artist’s subtle perception of light and his refined +draughtsmanship have been used to singular advantage +in the <i>Ancienne Faculté de Médecine, 1608</i>. +One is grateful to him for his fine record of this +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</span>domed building that was a little gem of Renaissance +art, though there is a note of sadness in the substructure +of balks and struts set at its base by the ruthless +hand of the destroyer.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" id="f182"> +<a href="images/fig182big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig182.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Webster.</span> “<span class="smcap">St. Saturnin, Toulouse</span>”</p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original etching, 10⅛ × 4¾ inches</p> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter1" id="f183"> +<a href="images/fig183big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig183.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Webster. Ancienne Faculté de Médecine, Paris</span></p> +<p class="caption1">“The artist’s subtle perception of light and his refined draftsmanship +have been used to singular advantage in the <i>Ancienne Faculté +de Médecine, 1608</i>. One is grateful to him for his fine record of +this domed building that was a little gem of Renaissance art, +though there is a note of sadness in the substructure of balks and +struts set at its base by the ruthless hand of the destroyer.” <span class="pad">Martin Hardie.</span></p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original etching, 11⅞ × 7⅞ inches</p> +</div> + +<p>Gothic canopies and tracery are drawn with loving +care in the <i>Porte des Marmousets, St. Ouen, Rouen</i>, +but here again it is the mystery of shadow in the deep +porch that supplies the true theme. A church porch +has also supplied the subject of one of Mr. Webster’s +latest works, <i>Notre Dame des Andelys</i>. The ordinary +observer will delight in the print for its beautiful rendering +of a noble fragment of architecture. Those +who have real knowledge of etching will appreciate it +still more for its clever biting and for its subtle delicacy +of line so cunningly used for the indication of +stone, glass, and woodwork with their different surfaces +and textures.</p> + +<p>That plate of <i>Notre Dame des Andelys</i>, though not +the most instantly engaging, is perhaps the most accomplished +which the artist has produced. It is in +this accomplishment that from the coldly critical point +of view I see an indication—a hint only—of possible +danger. Here, and to some extent in the <i>Pont Neuf</i> +and the <i>Rue Grenier</i>, the careful, tense, concentrated +work shows almost too disciplined a self-control. +Close study of these prints gives just a touch of the +irritation that comes from watching the monotonous +perfection of a first-class game-shot or golfer, bringing +a malicious desire for some mistake or piece of recklessness. +The true etching always appeals in some +degree by its spice of adventure, by some happiness of +accident, and so while the <i>Pont Neuf</i> and the <i>Notre +Dame des Andelys</i> rouse full admiration and respect<span class="pagenum" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</span> +for their splendid artistry, the more haphazard methods +of the <i>Rue Brise Miche</i> and <i>Les Blanchisseuses</i> +touch a far deeper note of sympathy. They have in +them the breezy, natural oratory that is often so much +more stirring than the fluent, polished periods of the +accomplished speaker. But even where Mr. Webster +is most precise in his articulation, most resolute in his +adherence to familiar truths, he always combines with +this a personal aspect and a power of selection that, +disregarding the commonplace and petty, lends poetry +to the interpretation. His “careful” work is very far +removed from the cold and careful work of the ordinary +uninspired craftsman.</p> + +<p>In studying the work of a young etcher—and Mr. +Webster is still young as an etcher—it is almost always +possible to trace certain influences which, quite +legitimately, have acted upon his choice of subject and +his technique. In one of his first etchings, <i>The Court, +Bourron</i>, the Whistler influence is frankly apparent. +<i>Les Blanchisseuses</i> is in no sense an imitative plate, +but I should have said it was the work of a man who +knew Whistler’s <i>Unsafe Tenement</i> by heart. And +there comes in the critic’s danger of leaping to rash +conclusions, for Mr. Webster tells me he never saw +that print by Whistler till long after his etching was +made. For the Meryon influence, which is clearly apparent +in much of his work, Mr. Webster makes no +apology. Nor need he do so; for if he reminds us, +here a little of Whistler, there a little of Meryon, there +is always a large measure of himself besides. The true +artist lights his torch from that of his predecessors: it +is his business to carry on great traditions. “I have +done my best simply to learn from him, not to steal” +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</span>—that is Mr. Webster’s own expressive way of putting +it.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" id="f184"> +<a href="images/fig184big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig184.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Webster. Notre Dame des Andelys</span></p> +<p class="caption1">“The ordinary observer will delight in <i>Notre Dame des Andelys</i> for its +beautiful rendering of a noble fragment of architecture. Those who +have real knowledge of etching will appreciate it still more for its +clever biting and for its subtle delicacy of line so cunningly used for +the indication of stone, glass, and woodwork with their different surfaces +and textures.” <span class="pad">Martin Hardie.</span></p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original etching, 11 × 7⅛ inches</p> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter1" id="f185"> +<a href="images/fig185big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig185.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Webster. Porte des Marmousets, St. Ouen, Rouen</span></p> +<p class="caption1">“Gothic canopies and tracery are drawn with loving care in the +<i>Porte des Marmousets, St. Ouen, Rouen</i>, but here again it is the +mystery of shadow in the deep porch that supplies the true theme.” <span class="pad">Martin Hardie.</span></p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original etching, 10⅛ × 7 inches</p> +</div> + +<p>Mr. Webster has not learned from Meryon at the +cost of his own individuality, and one reason for the +freshness that characterizes his work is that he is one +of those who like to transfer their first impressions of +nature direct to the plate in the open air. With very +few exceptions, that is how his etchings have been +made. A certain amount of work is necessarily done +afterward in the retirement of the studio, but the +straightforward method of rendering nature gives a +vividness and spontaneity that careful work from intermediate +studies in pencil or color can rarely produce. +This spontaneity is the very essence of good +etching, for with etching, as with water-color, its +highest charm is inevitably troubled by mechanical +labor; it is essentially a method of which one feels that +“if ’twere done, ’twere well done quickly.” The +etcher should no more be able to stay the quick gliding +of his needle in the middle of a line than the skater +to stand still upon the outside edge. And I think that +the etcher who works straight from nature is more apt +to search out the notes and accents of character and to +seize upon those structural lines which are a fundamental +necessity to his work.</p> + +<p>Another chief excellence in Mr. Webster’s work lies +in the fact that from the first he has been his own +printer. He is no believer in the principle followed +by many other etchers of biting their plate and leaving +it to some one “with the palm of a duchess” to do the +rest. Patient acquisition of craftsmanship is bound +to tell, for the paid printer, be he never so skilled, cannot +hope to understand an artist’s intentions quite so<span class="pagenum" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</span> +well as the artist himself. Mr. Webster, however, has +no need of any artifice; there is no trace in his etchings +of the meretricious printing which Whistler condemned +as “treacly.” Light and shade enter into +charming alliance in his prints, but line is always of +the confederacy, and it is to purity of line that the +shadows which tell so strongly owe their strength. In +the very depths of them there is always a luminous +gloom, never a trace of the harshness and opacity that +come from slurred workmanship and reliance upon +printer’s ink.</p> + +<p>Perhaps I have said too much already, for Mr. Webster’s +work is well able to speak for itself. But there +is one noteworthy feature, common to all his plates, +that claims attention, and that is his power of rendering +sunlight. If he loves dark and dingy thoroughfares +with dilapidated roofs and moldering plaster, it +is for the sake of those quaint shadows that peep from +their recesses and climb the high walls, and still more +for the patches of brilliant, quivering sunlight to +which the shadows give so full a value. He seems to +hear, like Corot, the actual crash of the sun upon the +wall—“l’éclat du soleil qui frappe.”</p> + + +<p class="c large p2"><span class="smcap">Part II</span></p> + +<p>It is difficult to clothe one’s speech in the detached +terms of a catalogue when writing of an artist whose +work always kindles fresh enthusiasm. And so I may +perhaps be pardoned if, in adding something to a +previous essay upon the etchings of Herman A. +Webster, I venture to strike a more personal note.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" id="f186"> +<a href="images/fig186big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig186.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Webster. Vieilles Maisons, Rue Hautefeuille, Paris</span></p> +<p class="caption1">“He loves dark and dingy thoroughfares with dilapidated +roofs and moldering plaster, ... for the +patches of brilliant, quivering sunlight to which the +shadows give so full a value.” <span class="pad">Martin Hardie.</span></p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original etching, 11¼ × 5⅞ inches</p> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter1" id="f187"> +<a href="images/fig187big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig187.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Webster. La Route de Louviers</span></p> +<p class="caption1">“In landscape, as in his architectural work, Webster sets his theme upon the plate with +fine skill of arrangement and with exquisite draughtsmanship.” <span class="pad">Martin Hardie.</span></p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original etching, 6 × 8¼ inches</p> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</span></p> + +<p>There can be few men to whom art is more of a +religion than to Webster. On two occasions when I +saw him during his hurried visits to London in the +spring of 1910, he spoke of his art with all the zeal of +a missionary and the fervor of a convert. He seemed +to be laboring in a slough of despond, beset with a +feeling that his past work was something worthless, +to be thrown aside like Christian’s bundle. He appeared +to be torn in sunder by divers doctrines, telling +me of the constant ebb and flow of argument in the +Paris cafés and studios between the <i>parti métier</i> and +the <i>parti âme</i>—those who maintained that finished +technique, the “<i>cuisine</i>” of the French student, was +the final aim, and those who held that the artist’s +own emotion, howsoever it might find expression, was +the greatest thing of all. Webster felt—and it was a +fact, indeed, at which I hinted in writing of his work +before—that he was sacrificing something of the <i>âme</i> +to the <i>métier</i>; and his own realization of that is already +becoming apparent in his outlook and his style. +Then, too, his talk was all of the attainment and suggestion +of light as the supreme quality in an etching; +and here I could reassure him, for few have ever +preached the gospel of light with more truth and +earnestness than Webster himself in the <i>Quai Montebello</i> +and many other plates.</p> + +<p>Still, there matters stood more than a year ago, and +the plates that Webster had etched at Marseilles and +elsewhere lay rejected and unbitten in his studio. +Then he set out to America, where he spent the summer +of 1910, and, like Mr. Pennell, fell a victim to +the sky-scrapers of New York. “They are the most +marvelous things,” he wrote, “on the face of Mother<span class="pagenum" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</span> +Earth to-day. It took me two months to begin to see +them, but then they began to glow, to take shape, and +to grow. Perhaps no work of human hands in all the +world offers such a stupendous picture as New York +seen from almost anywhere within the down-town district, +or from the river or the bay. There are cliffs +and cañons where sun and shadow work the weirdest +miracles, and soaring above them, between forty and +fifty stories from the ground, rise arched roofs and +pointed ones, gray and gold and brown, that one must +see with one’s own eyes to have the faintest conception +of. From across the Hudson in the afternoon +when the sun goes down you can watch the shadows +creep up the sides of these mountains of brick and +stone until you’d swear you were looking out on some +gigantic fairyland.”</p> + +<p>His admiration of those sky-scrapers found expression +in a series of drawings made on behalf of <i>The +Century Magazine</i>, and in, at any rate, one etching—the +<i>Cortlandt Street, New York</i>. The subject will appeal +most, perhaps, to those who live beneath the +familiar shade of these monstrous habitations, with +their hundreds of staring eyes; but the ordinary man, +though he may find it strangely uninspiring and unromantic, +will at any rate admire the firm decision of +the drawing and welcome the slender filaments and +trembling gray spirals of smoke—so difficult to express +in line with a point of steel—that cast a veil +over the sordid reality of the scene. Though Webster +carried that one plate to a finish, he was still obsessed +by all sorts of doubts. Many drawings were torn up, +and many plates that he etched were wilfully destroyed. +Just as the golfer falls victim to too much +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</span>reading of theoretical works, so for Webster his eager +indulgence in theory and science put him “off his +game.” I say all this to account for what must seem +a small output during two years for a man whose sole +work is etching. It is all to the artist’s credit; but, +none the less, we have suffered, <i>nous autres</i>, for his +convictions. Now, however, Richard is himself again. +A month or more spent in Frankfort this summer +has produced a series of pencil-drawings and etchings +which should bring satisfaction and content both to +the artist and to all who admire his work.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" id="f188"> +<a href="images/fig188big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig188.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Webster. Bendergasse, Frankfort</span></p> +<p class="caption1">“Then there are the <i>Street of the Three Kings</i>, the <i>Bendergasse</i>, +and <i>Sixteenth Century Houses</i>, all of them felicitous in charm of +theme, in play of light and shade, and in the suggestion of life given +by the animated figures.” <span class="pad">Martin Hardie.</span></p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original etching, 8 × 5¼ inches</p> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter" id="f189"> +<a href="images/fig189big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig189.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Webster. Cortlandt Street</span></p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original etching, 12⅞ × 7½ inches</p> +</div> + +<p>Before speaking of the Frankfort series of etchings, +a word may be said about Webster’s pencil-drawings. +I know of no other artist, save perhaps Mr. +Muirhead Bone, who can use the pencil-point with such +exquisite fineness and precision in the production of an +architectural drawing that, with all its accuracy, still +retains the freshness of a sketch. Finding in a portfolio +a drawing of <i>Cortlandt Street</i> and several others +that repeated the subjects of the Frankfort etchings, +I felt curious as to the exact relationship between +these drawings and the work on the copperplate. +This interest was largely, perhaps, that of a fellow-etcher, +keen to see “how the wheels go round,” but +Webster’s reply to a question on this subject may interest +others as well. “I determine my composition,” +he wrote, “in outline first. This outline I transfer to +the plate. Then I go out and carefully study in +pencil, on the original outline sketch, the subject I +want to do, so as to ‘get acquainted’ with it before beginning +the more exacting work upon the copperplate. +I never use a drawing to work from except +sometimes as an extra guide in the biting, where a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</span> +careful study can be very useful.” They are beautiful +things, these pencil-drawings of New York and +Frankfort, but there can be only one of each. The +etchings, fortunately, can be shared and enjoyed by +many possessors.</p> + +<p>Frankfort has grown to be a large and very modern +town with broad thoroughfares and palatial buildings; +but it has its old quarter as well, and among the +houses that nestle in narrow streets round the cathedral, +Webster has found the same kind of subject that +fascinated him before in Bruges and Marseilles and +Paris. A brilliant draughtsman, he never seems to +hesitate or lose his way among the manifold intricacies +of the old-world buildings that he depicts. He aims +always at knitting his subjects into fine unity of composition +by broad massing of light and shade. “In the +last few months,” he writes, “I have grown never to +make an etching for etching’s sake, but for the means +it gives of studying closely the play of light across +my subject.” That is his main theme: the light that +travels now with cold curiosity as it did centuries +ago, glancing into open windows, throwing into relief +a corbel or a crocket, casting a shadow under +eave or window ledge, revealing, like a patch in some +tattered garment, the cracks and seams in moldering +plaster or time-worn timber. In depicting these storehouses +of human joys and aspirations, hopes and +despairs, he has none of Meryon’s gloom and morbidness. +It is true that behind many of the windows in +these poor homes of his pictures some Marie Claire +may be toiling in sad-eyed poverty; yet for Webster +the outside shall be sunny, little white curtains shall +veil the gloom, and flowers shall blossom on the window +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</span>ledge, though the sad worker may have watered +them with her tears. And if sunshine is still potent +in these new plates, there is also a fresh and joyous +note of life and movement in the streets. The introduction +of figures, well placed and full of character, +is a new development in Webster’s art. Bustling +workers, or happy groups of gossiping women, or the +dark mass of a distant crowd, are introduced with +consummate skill, and the picturesqueness of the old +streets gains new value from the suggestion of this +living stream of human traffic. The presence of modern +life enhances the gray and wrinkled age of the +buildings which have watched so many generations +come and go.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" id="f190"> +<a href="images/fig190big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig190.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Webster. Lowenplätzchen, Frankfort</span></p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original etching, 8 × 6⁵⁄₁₆ inches</p> +<p class="caption"></p> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter1" id="f191"> +<a href="images/fig191big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig191.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Webster. Der Langer Franz, Frankfort</span></p> +<p class="caption1">“<i>Der Langer Franz</i>, a view of the Rathaus tower that took its +nickname from a tall burgomaster of the town, is a little gem, brilliant +with light and rich in the mystery of shadow.” <span class="pad">Martin Hardie.</span></p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original etching. 4⅞ × 3⅜ inches</p> +</div> + +<p>Among the new plates are four that deal with street +scenes in the Alt Stadt of Frankfort. <i>Der Langer +Franz</i>, a view of the Rathaus tower that took its nickname +from a tall burgomaster of the town, is the +smallest of all, but a little gem, brilliant with light +and rich in the mystery of shadow. Then there are +the <i>Street of the Three Kings</i>, the <i>Bendergasse</i>, and +<i>Sixteenth-century Houses</i>, all of them felicitous in +charm of theme, in play of light and shade, and in the +suggestion of life given by the animated figures. +There are admirable figures again in <i>An Old Court</i>, +one of the plates that the collector of future days will +most desire to possess. There is less in it of obvious +labor than in the street scenes; the etcher has overcome +a natural fear of blank spaces; and his reticence +and more summary execution have lent to this plate +much of the unconscious and unpremeditated charm +that is one of the finest qualities which an etching can +possess.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</span></p> + +<p>Two etchings of old bridges over the Main at Frankfort +must rank among the best work that Webster has +yet produced. One is a small and spirited plate showing +the tower of the cathedral and a row of houses, +most delicately drawn, rising with a beautiful sky-line +above the solid mass of the shadowed bridge with +its heavy buttresses. The other shows the old bridge +that spans the Main between Frankfort and Sachsenhausen. +Legend tells that in compensation for finishing +the building within a certain time the architect +made a vow to sacrifice to the devil the first living +being that crossed the bridge. Then, when the fatal +day arrived, he drove a cock across, and so cheated the +devil of his due. Much the same story of outwitting +the devil is told about the building of the cathedral at +Aix-la-Chapelle. Whether Webster ventured upon +any compact I do not know; but this plate, in its +building, in its well-constructed composition, in its +splendid effect of brilliant sunshine, is one of the +most successful tasks he has ever accomplished. The +group of figures on the near bank, happily placed like +those in Vermeer’s famous <i>View of Delft</i>, adds no +little to the charm of the scene. I would set this plate +beside <i>Les Blanchisseuses</i> and the <i>Quai Montebello</i>, +which Mr. Wedmore has found “modestly perfect,” +as representing the very summit of Webster’s art.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" id="f192"> +<a href="images/fig192big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig192.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Webster. The Old Bridge, Frankfort</span></p> +<p class="caption">This old bridge spans the river Main between Frankfort and Sachsenhausen</p> +<p class="caption1">“I would set this plate beside <i>Les Blanchisseuses</i> and <i>Quai Montebello</i>, which Mr. Wedmore has +found ‘modestly perfect,’ as representing the very summit of Webster’s art.” <span class="pad">Martin Hardie.</span></p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original etching, 5½ × 8½ inches</p> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter1" id="f193"> +<a href="images/fig193big.jpg"> +<img src="images/fig193.jpg" alt="" /> +</a> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Webster. La Rue St. Jacques, Paris</span></p> +<p class="caption1">“... One of the best etchings he has ever made.... It is not merely +fine in its pattern of light and shade, but it has a direct force and +simplification that are rich with promise for the future.” <span class="pad">Martin Hardie.</span></p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original etching, 8⅝ × 5⅞ inches</p> +</div> + +<p>While he has surrendered for the time being to the +charm of Frankfort, Webster has not been unfaithful +to the Paris of his early love. Of Paris he might say, +like Montaigne, “That city has ever had my heart; +and it has fallen out to me, as of excellent things, that +the more of other fine cities I have seen since, the +more the beauty of this gains on my affections. I love +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</span>it tenderly, even with all its warts and blemishes.” +All the more for the warts and blemishes of its old +buildings Webster loves it, too; and while working on +his Frankfort plates he has completed another of <i>La +Rue St. Jacques, Paris</i>, which, I think, is one of the +best etchings he has ever made. At times, even in his +Frankfort plates, one still feels that his superb +draughtsmanship and his love of detail—<i>ce superflu, +si nécessaire</i>—have led him to a uniformity of finish +that is almost too “icily regular.” I do not mean +that Webster’s elaboration is the cold, almost meaningless, +elaboration of the line-engraver; nor do I forget +that the technique of Meryon, one of the greatest +masters of etchings, was, in Mr. Wedmore’s happy +phrasing, “one of unfaltering firmness and regularity, +one of undeterred deliberation.” All the same, +one wishes that Meryon had done a few more things +like the <i>Rue des Mauvais Garçons</i>, and wishes that +Webster also, in a similar way, were now and then +less sure of himself, were held sometimes by a trembling +hesitancy, or driven sometimes by the passion of +the moment to allow room for fortunate accident and +rapid suggestion. For that reason I welcome his <i>Rue +St. Jacques</i>. It is not merely fine in its pattern of +light and shade, but it has a direct force and simplification +that are rich with promise for the future.</p> + +<p>Since writing the above, I have seen working-proofs +of two new etchings of landscape. And here, too, +there is high promise. They show, at least, that Webster +is not going to remain a man of one subject; that +he is opening his heart to the beauty and romance of +simple nature. He has sought his first themes in that +pleasant countryside where, between tall poplars, you<span class="pagenum" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</span> +get peeps of Château Gaillard, nobly set upon its hill. +In landscape, as in his architectural work, Webster +sets his theme upon the plate with fine skill of arrangement +and with exquisite draughtsmanship. +These two plates, <i>Château Gaillard</i> and <i>La Route de +Louviers</i>, are exhilarating in their feeling of sunshine, +and they please by their absolute simplicity of statement. +They are honest, and without artifice. Printed +“as clean as a whistle,” without any of the doubtful +expedients that give a meretricious attractiveness to +so much modern etching, they appeal by their rightness +of pattern and precision of line. Those who see +high promise as well as present fulfilment in Webster’s +art, will not regret that he has left the town and +set out where</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> +<div class="stanza"> +<div class="verse indent5">thro’ the green land,</div> +<div class="verse indent0">Vistas of change and adventure,</div> +<div class="verse indent0">The gray roads go beckoning and winding.</div> +</div> +</div> +</div> + +<hr class="full x-ebookmaker-drop" /> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="c17">ANDERS ZORN—PAINTER-ETCHER</h2> +</div> + +<p class="c"><span class="smcap">By</span> J. NILSEN LAURVIK</p> + + +<p class="drop-cap">BROADLY speaking there are but two kinds of +artists—innovators and imitators. The first +may be known by the opposition they arouse +in the sacred sanctums of mediocrity and by their +final but reluctant acceptance by the self-appointed +custodians of the Hall of Fame whose business it is to +exclude genius until Time shall have tempered all its +buoyant, youthful enthusiasms, which are the very +signs and tokens of those starry creatures whom the +gods have blessed. Youth and all its amazing prodigality +are of the very essence of genius, and it is by +virtue of this exuberant overflowing of the spirit that +the works of Anders Zorn make their vital appeal.</p> + +<p>He celebrates with fervent, dramatic strokes the +pageant of the visible world, and all that his alert +eyes can see his nimble fingers depict with an unfailing +sense of the pictorial possibilities inherent in the +passing procession of contemporary life. There is +in his work something of childlike spontaneity,—a +healthy, natural enjoyment in the mere practice of his +art that is infectious. He has the same impartial love +for nature as it is as had Velasquez and Frans Hals, +and the same incomparable interdependence of head +and hand. His art is, in the best sense of the word, +purely objective, dedicated to a specific transcription<span class="pagenum" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</span> +of the outward semblance of things. These bright, +vivacious plates are not evolved by any painful process +of mental cogitation, nor are they the result of +imaginative vagaries.</p> + +<p>Zorn is concerned but little with abstract form or +involved compositions. But he cannot be accused of +evading difficulties through any fear of failure, as he +has so convincingly demonstrated in his vivid, sun-flecked +<i>Interior of a Parisian Omnibus</i> with its +sharply characterized passengers, and in his dramatically +effective <i>Waltz</i> with its assemblage of swaying +figures moving rhythmically through the spacious +ball-room, both marvels of discerning observation +recorded with an almost clairvoyant magic of line +that evoke the kaleidoscopic shimmer and brilliancy +of the scenes depicted. The difficulties presented by +these complex subjects are surmounted with the same +nonchalant ease and certainty that distinguish his +long series of individual portraits and figure pieces. +That the latter predominate in the hierarchy of his +etched work is a matter of choice rather than of +chance and may, I think, be taken as an indication of +his keen appreciation of the limitations as well as the +possibilities of this medium. No one, not even Whistler, +has realized more clearly than he that etching at +its best is essentially an impressionistic art, to be +practised only in the happiest moods, and his finest +plates are marvels of swift, stenographic notations +that have been scratched upon the copper direct from +nature in a white heat of enthusiasm.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" id="f194"> +<img src="images/fig194.jpg" alt="" /> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Zorn. Portrait of the Artist and his Wife</span></p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original etching, 12½ × 8⅜ inches</p> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter1" id="f195"> +<img src="images/fig195.jpg" alt="" /> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Zorn. The Waltz</span></p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original etching, 13¼ × 9 inches</p> +</div> + +<p>He calls etching his diversion, which accounts for +the uniformly high quality of this side of his art. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</span>Done for the sheer love of it, as other men would ride +horseback or play golf, these plates are the product of +a joyousness that is the mother of all great art. It is +typical of him that he should have taken up the practice +of this exacting though elusive art merely as an +amusement, as he himself says, “with which to while +away odd hours, instead of sitting at home or going +about for entertainment.” This is characteristic of +his whole life and harks back to the genesis of his +artistic career when, as a mere lad, he carved in +birch-wood with his clasp-knife images of the flocks +he tended in the Dalecarlian forests. Even in those +early days this son of humble peasant folk revealed a +power of lifelike characterization that did not pass +unnoticed by these shrewd, clear-eyed peasantry +whose sole criterion in matters of art was whether or +not the counterfeit presentment looked like the original. +And in these small carved images of cows and +sheep they found a striking resemblance to their +models that aroused their keenest admiration. His +first patron was one of these peasant folk, a shepherd +friend of his, who bought from him a carved statuette +of an enraged cow for which Zorn received in payment +a sou and a little white loaf. To make his sculpture +more lifelike he used to imitate antique statuary +by tinting his work. His palette was the palm of his +hand, in which he mixed a composite of bilberry juice +and certain coloring substances obtained from little +forest flowers.</p> + +<p>That was the beginning of a sturdy naturalism that +no subsequent academic training has been able to +nullify. Even in these first tentative attempts at personal<span class="pagenum" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</span> +expression he revealed the essential qualities of +his genius,—his very powerful color sense and his +acute observation of natural phenomena. His work +betrays an almost savage delight in the truth of nature, +and if to be truthful is to be cruel, then Zorn +is often cruel. He employs no gentle gloss, and, +whether it be friend or casual sitter, each is treated +with unblushing frankness. A full-blooded art, somewhat +primitive and exulting in its crude strength, it +gives one a pulsating sense of reality. His work has +the natural daring of one who is on familiar terms +with all the secrets of his art. Conveying an appearance +of brilliant, almost reckless improvisation, it is +none the less the result of astute and penetrating observation +that has in each case recorded the face of +actuality as well as its deeper and abiding spirit.</p> + +<p>Strongly opposed to all the conventionalities of the +studio, he abhors posing as much as he dislikes monogamy, +preferring to study his subjects under natural +conditions when they are off their guard and then to +transcribe his impressions very largely from memory, +after the essential lines have been noted. Thus have +come into being some of his most memorable plates, +such as the <i>Renan</i>, and the portrait of himself and his +wife, each executed in a few hours of concentrated +effort. The very swiftness with which these impressions +have been recorded has no doubt contributed +much toward giving them that convincing finality +which, paradoxically enough, are theirs in a preëminent +degree no matter how casual may appear the +means by which this effect has been achieved. That is +the impression left upon one by his illuminating portrait +of the pontifical-looking Renan, for example.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" id="f196"> +<img src="images/fig196.jpg" alt="" /> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Zorn. Madame Simon</span></p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original etching, 9 × 6¼ inches</p> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter1" id="f197"> +<img src="images/fig197.jpg" alt="" /> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Zorn. Ernest Renan</span></p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original etching, 9⅜ × 13½ inches</p> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</span></p> +<p>Here is set down for all time in a few unerring lines +the soul and body of the man—the casuist and the +voluptuary of thought, the Balzacian bulk of him +physically and the bigness of him mentally. The +massive and apparently grotesque exterior of this +speculative dreamer, immersed in his own meditations, +conveys something of the same sense of aloofness with +which Rodin has invested his statue of Balzac. They +both appear to be dreaming of life and its mysteries +until the immense torso seems but an Olympian +pedestal supporting the domelike head. It is more +than a pocket-edition biography, this portrait. Executed +in one sitting in Renan’s study in April of +1892, nine years after his initiation into the mysteries +of etching, this plate may be said to epitomize the +whole art of Zorn,—his vigorous truthfulness, his +synthetic treatment of salient points of character, and +his love of dramatic contrasts of sharply juxtaposed +masses of black and white. Moreover, it furnishes a +striking exposition of the purely technical side of his +art in which he has created for himself a highly +original and personal method. No one has eschewed +more rigorously than he the “happy accidents” employed +as a convenient cloak by masquerading incompetents, +foisting their meaningless scrawls on a +bewildered public, to whom etching has become +synonymous with a pretty dilettantism that is within +the easy reach of every aspiring fledgling of art. +These parallel, slanting strokes that seem to cut and +divide the form into unrelated sections are really the +expression of an accurate and well-defined intention +that manifests itself in the extraordinary verisimilitude +of the figure and its adroitly suggested accessories. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</span>It is like a fleeting glimpse in a mirror in +which the impalpable spirit of reality is reflected, +evoking by some mysterious incantation the most +fugitive nuances of expression and gesture with the +slightest inflection of his modeling.</p> + +<p>It is the extreme refinement and subtility in this +seeming brutality that give to these plates their +unique value and interest. Seldom has a man suggested +his predecessors less than does Zorn in these +epigrammatic etchings. They are according to no +established formula. If he has looked upon Rembrandt, +as what practitioner of aqua fortis has not, +there is but slight evidence of it in these straightforward +vibrant plates. To be sure, he has the same love +of bold contrasts of light and shade as had the master +of Amsterdam, without the romantic glamour of the +dreamy Dutchman. This modern Swede is more direct, +more incisive, his line has something of the +penetrating and biting analysis of a page from Strindberg, +and not infrequently, as in the case of his +haunting portrait of the besotted poet Paul Verlaine, +there is discernible a sort of ironic humor that throws +a revealing light upon his sitter. With what discerning +and subtle insight he has portrayed that gentle +flavor of intellectual skepticism which is the chief +characteristic of Anatole France; while the head of +Rodin, laughing in his foaming beard, is highly indicative +of the immense creative energy of the author +of <i>Le Penseur</i>. In every instance he has successfully +summarized the essential and abiding characteristics +of his sitter, no less effectually accomplished in the +twenty-minute impromptu of Marcelin Berthelot than +in the more deliberately studied portrait of Marquand, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</span>or the very succinctly realized version of +August Strindberg, the Swedish author. These portraits +of contemporary men and women are fascinating +records of repeated excursions into the realm +of <i>character</i>, which holds for Zorn the strongest appeal, +as it has ever for all men of the North, whose +supreme happiness is the realization of a clearly defined +individualism.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" id="f198"> +<img src="images/fig198.jpg" alt="" /> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Zorn. August Strindberg</span></p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original etching, 11⅜ × 7⅝ inches</p> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter1" id="f199"> +<img src="images/fig199.jpg" alt="" /> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Zorn. Sunday Morning in Dalecarlia</span></p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original etching, 10¾ × 7¾ inches</p> +</div> + +<p>While Zorn to-day occupies a position of unchallenged +supremacy in the difficult and exacting field of +portraiture—his portrait etchings would alone make +a notable Pantheon of contemporary worthies—it is +in his frank, unabashed nudes and in his delineations +of Swedish peasant types that we find the most personal +expression of his peculiar genius. Nowhere has +his faculty of instantaneous perception, his ability to +grasp at a glance and in its entirety either an isolated +individual or a group of figures, been employed to +greater advantage than in these brilliant, dazzling +nudes and in these veracious records of his beloved +Dalecarlian peasants. With a few swift, sure strokes +he gives us the soft contour, the undulating curves of +the fresh, firm flesh, of these strong-limbed Junos, as +well as the wrinkled, time-worn visages of the aged +tillers of the soil.</p> + +<p>His interest in this type is not episodic, it is persistent. +They were his first subjects as well as his +first patrons, and throughout his career it is to them +that he has turned for rest and refreshment from the +social banalities of the mundane life in the great +capitals of the world where he is in constant demand +as a painter of exclusive society. At heart he remains +a peasant, retaining a strong love for the scenes of his<span class="pagenum" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</span> +boyhood with all their simple associations. Here he +is at home, and here he has given untrammeled expression +to that paganism which is the dominant trait of +his character. He delights in portraying these sturdy, +flaxen-haired peasants in all the unconscious abandon +of their naïve natures, and the series of plates celebrating +the intimate life of these people are the most +authentic expressions of his art because the most +closely related to the mainsprings of his personality.</p> + +<p>His love of the unstudied, unposed naturalness of +life has found its culminating expression in these +nudes of women and children as seen in the open air +in the free solitude of the shores of Dalecarlia. Zorn +regards nature with the eagerness of the primitive, +and these ruddy women are virile protests against the +anemic, hyperæsthetic refinements of the school-room +conventions. Stripped of all regard for the accepted +ideals of feminine beauty these women of Zorn repel +or appeal by the unfeigned candor of every look and +gesture. These big, blonde women, whose naked bodies +move with unrestrained freedom through the tonic, +balsam air are imbued with a superb, healthy animalism +such as has never been depicted in the whole +history of art. They spring from a strong artistic impulse +that has its roots in the subsoil of nature. To +see these frankly realistic versions of unsophisticated, +throbbing femininity is to feel that the nude has never +before been adequately portrayed—all other nudes +seem mere means toward some elaborately preconceived +end while those of Zorn are gloriously self-sufficing, +an end in themselves.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" id="f200"> +<img src="images/fig200.jpg" alt="" /> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Zorn. The Bather, Seated</span></p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original etching, 6¼ × 4¾ inches</p> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter1" id="f201"> +<img src="images/fig201.jpg" alt="" /> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Zorn. Edo</span></p> +<p class="caption">“Edo” is the name of the Swedish island where Zorn etched<br /> +this beautiful plate</p> +<p class="caption">Size of the original etching, 7 × 4⅝ inches</p> +</div> + +<p>An ardent sensuousness marks all these things, but +it is sane and wholesome, with no trace of doubtful submeaning. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</span>That is strikingly exemplified in <i>My Model +and my Boat</i>, in which the exuberant, re-creating force +of life is presented in all its tantalizing seductiveness +of ample, quivering curves. The beauty of vigorous +symmetry, of inherent strength, overcome the somewhat +obvious coarseness of the type of woman depicted +here, and one can have nothing but admiration +for the underlying sincerity as well as the consummate +mastery revealed in every stroke of these plates. +But the purely physical allure of his nudes is by no +means always as insistent as in the foregoing. The +elusive and half-reticent feminine charm has not +escaped him, and there are some nudes out of doors, +in the lambent light of dawn and twilight, more delicate, +more subtly suggestive, than anything hitherto +accomplished in etching.</p> + +<p>The nudes of Rembrandt would look singularly +coarse and heavy by comparison with these silvery, +exquisitely modeled Brunhildas of Zorn, who disport +themselves on the sunlit beach or emerge from the +enveloping shadow of some protruding cliff with a +childlike unconsciousness and a pagan naïveté that +disarms prudish prejudices. In its supple grace and +vibrant vitality the delicately modulated back of the +bending figure of <i>The Bather—Evening</i> is a pantheistic +hymn to the eternal efflorescence of life. She +pauses in the silvery twilight, before breaking the +surface of the mirror-like lake into a thousand jewels +of refracted light, and she is as much a part of the +enshrouding stillness as the aged rocks on which she +stands. Whistler never did anything more evanescent +than the landscape of this plate, which is printed +in a key as light and airy as the magically executed<span class="pagenum" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</span> +lines, that give the softness of the figure’s contours as +well as the hardness of the rocks and the veiled +serenity of distant lake and woodland. It is a splendid +affirmation of the extremely delicate sensibilities +possessed by this most vigorous and brilliant of contemporary +etchers, whose art is one of the most +powerful and significant manifestations of the re-awakened +æsthetic impulse of the twentieth century.</p> + +<div class="transnote"> + +<p class="c">Transcriber’s Notes:</p> + +<p>Larger images of most plates can be obtained by clicking on them.</p> + +<p>Variations in spelling and hyphenation are retained.</p> + +<p>Perceived typographical errors have been changed.</p> + +</div> + +<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 68720 ***</div> +</body> +</html> |