Chapter 12

Sandrart relates the following anecdote of Christopher Schwarts, a famous German painter, which, if true, redounds more to his ingenuity than to his credit. Having been engaged to paint the ceiling of the Town Hall at Munich by the day, his love of dissipation induced him to neglect his work, so that the magistrates and overseers of the work were frequently obliged to hunt him out at the cabaret. As he could no longer drink in quiet, he stuffed an image of himself, left the legs hanging down between the staging where he was accustomed to work, and sent one of his boon companions to move the image a little two or three times a day, and to take it away at noon and night. By means of this deception, he drank without the least disturbance a whole fortnight together, the inn-keeper being privy to the plot. The officers came in twice a day to look after him, and seeing the well known stockings and shoes which he was accustomed to wear, suspected nothing wrong, and went their way, greatly extolling their own convert, as the most industrious and conscientious painter in the world.

JACQUES CALLOT.

This eminent French engraver was born at Nancy, in Lorraine, in 1593. He was the son of Jean Callot, a gentleman of noble family, who intended him for a very different profession, and endeavored to restrain his natural passion for art; but when he was twelve years old, he left his home without money or resources, joined a company of wandering Bohemians, and found his way to Florence, where some officer of the court, discovering his inclination for drawing, placed him under Cantagallina. After passing some time at Florence, he went to Rome, where he was recognized by some friends of his family, who persuaded him to return to his parents. Meeting with continual opposition, he again absconded, but was followed by his brother to Turin, and taken back to Nancy. His parents, at length finding his love of art too firmly implanted to be eradicated, concluded to allow him to follow the bent of his genius, and they sent him to Rome in the suite of the Envoy from the Duke of Lorraine to the Pope. Here he studied with the greatest assiduity, and soon distinguished himself as a very skillful engraver. From Rome he went to Florence, where his talents recommended him to the patronage of the Grand Duke Cosmo II., on whose death he returned to Nancy, where he was liberally patronized by Henry, Duke of Lorraine. When misfortune overtook that prince, he went to Paris, whither his reputation had preceded him, where he was employed by Louis XIII. to engrave the successes of the French arms, particularly the siege of the Isle de Ré, in sixteen sheets; the siege of Rochelle, do.; and the siege of Breda, in eight sheets. His prints are very numerous, and are highly esteemed; Heineken gives a full list of his prints, amounting to over fifteen hundred! The fertility of his invention and the facility of his hand were wonderful; yet his prints are accurately designed. He frequently made several drawings for the same plate before he was satisfied. Watelet says that he saw four different drawings by him for the celebrated Temptation of St. Anthony. His drawings are also greatly admired and highly prized.

CALLOT'S PATRIOTISM.

When Cardinal Richelieu desired Callot to design and engrave a set of plates descriptive of the siege and fall of his native town, he promptly refused; and when the Cardinal peremptorily insisted that he should do it, he replied, "My Lord, if you continue to urge me, I will cut off the thumb of my right hand before your face, for I never will consent to perpetuate the calamity and disgrace of my sovereign and protector."

INGENUITY OF ARTISTS.

Pliny asserts that an ingenious artist wrote the whole of the Iliad on so small a piece of parchment that it might be enclosed within the compass of a nut-shell. Cicero also records the same thing. This doubtless might be done on a strip of thin parchment, and rolling it compactly.

Heylin, in his life of Charles I., says that in Queen Elizabeth's time, a person wrote the Ten Commandments, the Creed, the Pater Noster, the Queen's name, and the date, within the compass of a penny, which he presented to her Majesty, together with a pair of spectacles of such an artificial make, that by their help she plainly discerned every letter. One Francis Almonus wrote the Creed, and the first fourteen verses of the Gospel of St. John, on a piece of parchment no larger than a penny. In the library of St. John's College, Oxford, is a picture of Charles I. done with a pen, the lines of which contain all the psalms, written in a legible hand.

"At Halston, in Shropshire, the seat of the Myttons, is preserved a carving much resembling that mentioned by Walpole in his Anecdotes of Painting, vol. ii., p. 42. It is the portrait of Charles I., full-faced, cut on a peach-stone; above, is a crown; his face, and clothes which are of a Vandyck dress are painted; on the reverse is an eagle transfixed with an arrow, and round it is this motto: _I feathered this arrow._ The whole is most admirably executed, and is set in gold, with a crystal on each side. It probably was the work of Nicholas Bryot, a great graver of the mint in the time of Charles I."--_Pennant's Wales._

In the Royal Museum at Copenhagen is a common cherry-stone, on the surface of which are cut two hundred and twenty heads!

A HINT TO JEWELERS.

"When the haughty and able Pope Innocent III. caused Cardinal Langton to be elected Archbishop of Canterbury in despite of King John, and compelled him to submit, to appease the latter and to admonish him, his Holiness presented him with four golden rings, set with precious stones, at the same time taking care to inform him of the many mysteries implied in them. His Holiness begged of him (King John)," says Hume, "to consider seriously the _form_ of the rings, their _number_, their _matter_, and their _color_. Their _form_, he said, shadowed out eternity, which had neither beginning nor end; and he ought thence to learn his duty of aspiring from earthly objects to heavenly, from things temporal to things eternal. The _number_, from being a square, denoted steadiness of mind, not to be subverted either by adversity or prosperity, fixed forever on the firm base of the four cardinal virtues. _Gold_, which is the matter, being the most precious of the metals, signified wisdom, which is the most precious of all the accomplishments, and justly preferred by Solomon to riches, power, and all exterior attainments. The _blue color_ of the sapphire represented Faith; the _verdure_ of the emerald, Hope; the _redness_ of the ruby, Charity; and the _splendor_ of the topaz, good works." Jewelers, who usually deal so little in sentiment in their works, may learn from this ingenious allegory the advantage of calling up the wonder-working aid of fancy, in forming their combinations of precious things.

CURIOUS PAINTINGS.

In the Cathedral at Worms, over the altar, is a very old painting, in which the Virgin is represented throwing the infant Jesus into the hopper of a mill; while from the other side he issues, changed into wafers or little morsels of bread, which the priests are administering to the people.

Mathison, in his letters, thus describes a picture in a church at Constance, called the Conception of the Holy Virgin. "An old man lies on a cloud, whence he darts a vast beam, which passes through a dove hovering just below; at the end of the beam appears a large transparent egg, in which egg is seen a child in swaddling clothes, with a glory round it; Mary sits leaning in an arm-chair and opens her mouth to receive the egg!" Which are the most profane--these pictures, or the Venus Anadyomene of Apelles, the Venus of Titian, and the Leda of Correggio?

THE OLDEST OIL PAINTING EXTANT.

"The oldest oil painting now in existence, is believed to be one of the Madonna and infant Jesus in her arms, with an Eastern style of countenance. It is marked DCCCLXXXVI. (886). This singular and valuable painting formed part of the treasures of art in the old palace of the Florentine Republic, and was purchased by the Director Bencivenni from a broker in the street, for a few livres."

The above is found quoted in many books, in proof that oil painting was known long before the time of the Van Eycks; but all these old _supposed_ oil paintings have been proved by chemical analysis to have been painted in distemper. See vol. ii., p. 141, of this work.

CURIOUS REPRESENTATIONS OF THE HARPIES.

Homer represents the Harpies as the rapacious goddesses of the storms, residing near the Erinnyes, or the Ocean, before the jaws of hell. If any person was so long absent from home that it was not known what had become of him, and he was supposed to be dead, it was commonly said, "The Harpies have carried him off." Hesiod represents them as young virgins of great beauty. The later poets and artists vied with each other in depicting them under the most hideous forms; they commonly represented them as winged monsters, having the face of a woman and the body of a vulture, with their feet and fingers armed with sharp claws. Spanheim, in his work, gives three representations of the harpies, taken from ancient coins and works of art; they have female heads, with the bodies and claws of birds of prey; the first has a coarse female face, the second a beautiful feminine head, and two breasts, and the third a visage ornamented with wreaths and a head-dress. There are various other representations of them, one of the most remarkable of which is a monster with a human head and the body of a vampire bat.

ADRIAN BROWER.

This extraordinary painter was born at Haerlem, in 1608. His parents were extremely poor, and his mother sold to the peasants bonnets and handkerchiefs, which the young Adrian painted with flowers and birds. These attempts were noticed by Francis Hals, a distinguished painter of Haerlem, who offered to take the young artist into his school--which proposal was gladly accepted. Hals, on discovering his superior genius, separated him from all his companions, and locked him up in a garret, that he might profit by his talents. The pictures of Brower sold readily at high prices, but the avaricious Hals treated him with increased severity, lest he should become acquainted with the value of his talents, and leave him. This cruelty excited the pity of Adrian van Ostade, then a pupil of Hals; and he found an opportunity of advising Brower to make his escape, which the latter effected, and fled to Amsterdam. Soon after arriving in that city, he painted a picture of Boors Fighting, which he gave to the landlord of the inn where he lodged, and requested him to sell it. The host soon returned with one hundred ducats, which he had received for the work. The artist was amazed at such a result of his labors, but instead of exerting his wonderful talents, he plunged into a course of dissipation. This natural propensity to alternate work and indulgence marked his whole life, and involved him in many extraordinary adventures.

BROWER, THE DUKE D'AREMBERG, AND RUBENS.

When the States-General were at war with Spain, Brower started on a visit to Antwerp, whither his reputation had already proceeded him. Omitting to provide himself with a passport, he was arrested as a spy, and confined in the citadel, where the Duke d'Aremberg was imprisoned. That nobleman lived in friendship with Rubens, who often visited him in his confinement; and the Duke, having observed the genius of Brower, desired Rubens to bring a palette and pencils, which he gave to Brower, and the latter soon produced a representation of Soldiers playing at Cards, which he designed from a group he had seen from his prison window. The Duke showed the picture to Rubens, who immediately exclaimed that it was by the celebrated Brower, whose pictures he often admired; and he offered the Duke six hundred guilders for the work, but the latter refused to part with it, and presented the artist with a much larger sum. Rubens lost no time in procuring his liberty, which he did by becoming his surety, took him into his own house, and treated him with the greatest kindness.

DEATH OF BROWER.

Brower did not continue long in the hospitable mansion of Rubens, whose refined and elegant manners, love of literature, and domestic happiness were less congenial to this erratic genius than the revels of his pot-companions. Brower soon became weary of his situation, and returned to his vicious habits, to which he soon fell a victim in 1640, at the early age of 32 years. He died in the public hospital at Antwerp, and was buried in an obscure manner; but when Rubens knew it, he had the body reinterred, with funeral pomp, in the church of the Carmelites; and he intended also to have erected a superb monument to his memory, had he lived to see it executed; though Sandrart says there was a magnificent one over his tomb, with an epitaph to perpetuate his honor.

BROWER'S WORKS.

The subjects of Brower were of the lowest order, representing the frolics of his pot companions; but his expression is so lively and characteristic, his coloring so transparent and brilliant, and the passions and movements of his figures are so admirably expressed, that his works have justly elicited the applause of the world. They are highly valued, and in consequence of his irregular life, are exceedingly scarce. Brower also etched a few plates in a very spirited style.

ROSA DA TIVOLI.

The name of this artist was Philip Roos, and he was born at Frankfort in 1655. He early showed a passion for painting, and exhibited such extraordinary talents that the Landgrave of Hesse took him under his protection, and sent him to Italy with a pension sufficient for his support. To facilitate his studies, he established himself at Tivoli (whence his name), where he kept a kind of menagerie, and on account of the number and variety of the animals, his house was called _Noah's Ark_.

ROSA DA TIVOLI'S WORKS.

Rosa da Tivoli's pictures usually represent pastoral subjects, with herdsmen and cattle, or shepherds with sheep and goats, which he frequently painted as large as life. He designed everything from nature, not only his animals, but the sites of his landscapes, ruins, buildings, rocks, precipices, rivers, etc. His groups are composed with great judgment and taste, and his landscapes, backgrounds, skies, and distances are treated in a masterly style. His cattle and animals, in particular, are designed with wonderful truth and spirit; his coloring is full of force, his lights and shadows are distributed with judgment and his touch is remarkably firm and spirited.

ROSA DA TIVOLI'S FACILITY OF EXECUTION.

Rosa da Tivoli acquired a wonderful facility in design and execution, for which reason he was named _Mercurius_ by the Bentvogel Society. A remarkable instance of his powers is recorded by C. le Blond, then a student at Rome. "It happened one day," says he, "that several young artists and myself were occupied in designing from the bassi-relievi of the Arch of Titus, when Roos passing by, was particularly struck with some picturesque object which caught his attention, and he requested one of the students to accommodate him with a crayon and paper. What was our surprise, when in half an hour he produced an admirable drawing, finished with accuracy and spirit."

It is also related that the Imperial Ambassador, Count Martinez, laid a wager with a Swedish general that Roos would paint a picture of three-quarters' size, while they were playing a game at cards; and in less than half an hour the picture was well finished, though it consisted of a landscape, a shepherd, and several sheep and goats.

ROSA DA TIVOLI'S HABITS.

Rosa da Tivoli unfortunately fell into extravagant and dissipated habits, which frequently caused him great inconvenience. From his facility, he multiplied his pictures to such an extent as greatly to depreciate their value. It is related that he would sit down, when pressed for money, dispatch a large picture in a few hours, and send it directly to be sold at any price. His servant, possessing more discretion than his master, usually paid him the highest price offered by the dealers, and kept the pictures himself, till he could dispose of them to more advantage.

LUCA CAMBIASO'S FACILITY IN PAINTING.

The most remarkable quality of this distinguished Genoese painter was his rapidity of operation. He began to paint when ten years old, under the eye of his father, Giovanni Cambiaso, who evinced good taste in setting him to copy some works by the correct and noble Mantegna. His progress was so rapid that at the age of seventeen he was entrusted to decorate some façades and chambers of the Doria palace at Genoa, where he displayed his rash facility of hand by painting the story of Niobe on a space of wall fifty palms long and of proportionate height, without cartoons or any drawing larger than his first hasty sketch on a single sheet of paper! While he was engaged on this work, there came one morning some Florentine artists to look at it. Seeing a lad enter soon after, and commence painting with prodigious fury, they called out to him to desist; but his mode of handling the brushes and colors, which they had imagined it was his business merely to clean or pound, soon convinced them that this daring youngster was no other than Luca himself; whereupon they crossed themselves, and declared he would one day eclipse Michael Angelo.

CAMBIASO'S WORKS IN SPAIN.

After attaining a high reputation in Italy, Cambiaso was invited to Madrid by Philip II. of Spain. He executed there a great number of works, among which the most important was the vault of the choir of the Escurial church, where he painted in fresco the "Glory of the Blessed in Heaven." Instead of allowing the artist to paint from his own conceptions, the king listened to the counsels of the monks, who "recommended that the heavenly host should be drawn up in due theological order." A design "more pious than picturesque" being at last agreed upon, the painter fell to work with his wonted fury, and so speedily covered vast spaces with a multitude of figures, that the king, according to the expressive Italian phrase, "remained stupid," not being able to believe that the master, with only one assistant, could have accomplished so much. Philip often visited Cambiaso while at work, and one day remarking that the head of St. Anne among the blessed was too youthful, the painter replied by seizing his pencil, and with four strokes so seamed the face with wrinkles, and so entirely altered its air, that the royal critic once more "remained stupid," hardly knowing whether he had judged amiss, or the change had been effected by magic. By means of thus painting at full speed, frequently without sketches, and sometimes with both hands at once, Cambiaso clothed the vault with its immense fresco in about fifteen months. The coloring is still fresh, and many of the forms are fine and the figures noble; but the composition cannot be called pleasing. The failure must be mainly attributed to the unlucky meddling of the friars, who have marshalled

"The helmed Cherubim, And sworded Seraphim,"

with exact military precision, ranged the celestial choir in rows like the fiddlers of a sublunary orchestra, and accommodated the congregation of the righteous with long benches, like those of a Methodist meeting-house! However, the king was so well pleased with the work, that he rewarded Cambiaso with 12,000 ducats.

CAMBIASO'S ARTISTIC MERITS.

In the earlier part of his career, the impetuosity of his genius led him astray; he usually painted his pictures in oil or fresco without preparing either drawing or cartoon; and his first style was gigantic and unnatural. Subsequently, however, he checked this impetuosity, and it was in the middle of his life that he produced his best works. His fertility of invention was wonderful; his genius grappled with and conquered the most arduous difficulties of the art, and he shows his powers in foreshortening in the most daring variety. He was rapid and bold in design, yet was selected by Boschini as a model of correctness; hence his drawings, though numerous, are highly esteemed. His Rape of the Sabines, in the Palazzo Imperiali at Terralba, near Genoa, has been highly extolled. It is a large work full of life and motion, passionate ravishers and reluctant damsels, fine horses and glimpses of noble architecture, with several episodes heightening the effect of the main story. Mengs declared he had seen nothing out of Rome that so vividly reminded him of the chambers of the Vatican.

RARITY OF FEMALE PORTRAITS IN SPAIN.

Very few female portraits are found in the Spanish collections. Their painters were seldom brought in professional contact with the beauty of high-born women--the finest touchstone of professional skill--and their great portrait painters lived in an age of jealous husbands, who cared not to set off to public admiration the charms of their spouses. Velasquez came to reside at court about the same time that Madrid was visited by Sir Kenelm Digby, who had like to have been slain the first night of his arrival, for merely looking at a lady. Returning with two friends from supper at Lord Bristol's, the adventurous knight relates in his Private Memoirs, how they came beneath a balcony where a love-lorn fair one stood touching her lute, and how they loitered awhile to admire her beauty, and listen to her "soul-ravishing harmony." Their delightful contemplations, however, were soon arrested by a sudden attack from several armed men, who precipitated themselves upon the three Britons. Their swords were instantly drawn, and a fierce combat ensued; but the valiant Digby slew the leader of the band, and finally succeeded in escaping with his companions.

Of the sixty-two works by Velasquez in the Royal Gallery at Madrid, there are only four female portraits; and of these, two represent children, another an ancient matron, and a fourth his own wife! The Duke of Abuquerque, who at the door of his own palace waylaid and horsewhipped Philip IV., and his minister Olivarez, feigning ignorance of their persons, as the monarch came to pay a nocturnal visit to the Duchess, was not very likely to call in the court painter to take her Grace's portrait. Ladies lived for the most part in a sort of Oriental seclusion, amongst duennas, waiting-women, and dwarfs; and going abroad only to mass, or to take the air in curtained carriages on the Prado. In such a state of things, the rarity of female portraits in the Spanish collections was a natural consequence.

MURILLO'S PICTURES IN SPANISH AMERICA.

It is related that this great Spanish painter visited America in early life, and painted there many works; but the later Spanish historians have shown that he never quitted his native country; and the circumstance of his pictures being found in America, is best accounted for by the following narrative. After acquiring considerable knowledge of the art under Juan del Castillo at Seville, he determined to travel for improvement; but how to raise the necessary funds was a matter of difficulty, for his parents had died leaving little behind them, and his genius had not yet recommended him to the good offices of any wealthy or powerful patron. But Murillo was not to be balked of his cherished desires. Buying a large quantity of canvas, he divided it into squares of various sizes, which he primed and prepared with his own hands for the pencil, and then converted into pictures of the more popular saints, landscapes, and flower-pieces. These he sold to the American traders for exportation, and thus obtained a sum of money sufficient for his purpose.

MURILLO'S "VIRGIN OF THE NAPKIN."