Part 3

Failing, as we have said, and perhaps fortunately for him, in the achievement of the great Prize of Rome, he turned to the line of Art for which he felt himself naturally endowed, the incidents of the camp and field. The "Taking of a Redoubt;" the "Dog of the Regiment;" the "Horse of the Trumpeter;" "Halt of French Soldiers;" the "Battle of Tolosa;" the "Barrier of Clichy, or Defense of Paris in 1814" (both of which last, exhibited in 1817, now hang in the gallery of the Luxembourg), the "Soldier-Laborer;" the "Soldier of Waterloo;" the "Last Cartridge;" the "Death of Poniatowski;" the "Defense of Saragossa," and many more, quickly followed each other, and kept up continually and increasingly the public admiration. The critics of the painted bas-relief school found much to say against, and little in favor of, the new talent that seemed to look them inimically in the face, or rather did not seem to regard them at all. But people in general, of simple enough taste in matter of folds of drapery or classic laws of composition or antique lines of beauty, saw before them with all the varied sentiments of admiration, terror, or dismay, the soldier mounting the breach at the cannon's mouth, or the general, covered with orders, cut short in the midst of his fame. Little of the romantic, little of poetical idealization, little of far-fetched _style_ was there on these canvasses, but the crowd recognized the soldier as they saw him daily, in the midst of the scenes which the bulletin of the army or the page of the historian had just narrated to them. They were content, they were full of admiration, they admired the pictures, they admired the artist; and, the spleen of critics notwithstanding, Horace Vernet was known as one of the favorite painters of the time.

In 1819 appeared the "Massacre of the Mamelukes at Cairo," now in the Luxembourg. We do not know how the public accepted this production. We have no doubt, however, that they were charmed at the gaudy _éclat_ of the bloodthirsty tyrant, with his hookah and lion in the foreground, and dismayed at the base assassinations multiplied in the background. Nor do we doubt that the critics gave unfavorable judgments thereupon, and that most of those who loved Art seriously, said little about the picture. We would at all events express our own regret that the authorities do not find some better works than this and the "Battle of Tolosa," to represent in a public gallery the talent of the most famous battle-painter of France. The Battles of Jemmapes, Valmy, Hanau, and Montmirail, executed at this time, and hung till lately in the gallery of the Palais Royal (now, we fear, much, if not entirely, destroyed by the mob on the 24th February), were much more worthy of such a place. Whether it was by a considerate discernment that the mob attacked these, as the property of the ex-king, or by a mere goth-and-vandalism of revolution, we do not know; but certainly we would rather have delivered up to their wrath these others, the "property of the nation." The same hand would hardly seem to have executed both sets of paintings. It is not only the difference in size of the figures on the canvass, those of the Luxembourg being life-sized, and those of the Palais Royal only a few inches in length, but the whole style of the works is different. The first seem painted as if they had been designed merely to be reproduced in gay silks and worsteds at the Gobelins, where we have seen a copy of the "Massacre of the Mamelukes," in tapestry, which we would, for itself, have preferred to the original. But the latter four battles, notwithstanding the disadvantage of costume and arrangement necessarily imposed by the difference of time and country, produce far more satisfactory works of Art, and come much nearer to historical painting. They are painted without pretension, without exaggeration. The details are faithfully and carefully, though evidently rapidly, executed. The generals and personages in the front are speaking portraits; and the whole scene is full of that sort of life and action which impresses one at once as the very sort of action that must have taken place. Now it is a battery of artillery backed against a wood,--now it is a plain over which dense ranks of infantry march in succession to the front of the fire. Here it is a scene where in the full sunlight shows the whole details of the action; there it is night--and a night of cloud and storm, draws her sombre veil over the dead and wounded covering the field. A historian might find on these canvasses, far better than in stores of manuscript, wherewith to fill many a page of history with accurate and vivid details of these bloody days; or rather, many a page of history would not present so accurate and vivid a conception of what is a field of battle.

In 1822, entry to the exhibition at the Louvre being refused to his works, Horace Vernet made an exhibition-room of his atelier, had a catalogue made out (for what with battles, hunts, landscapes, portraits, he had a numerous collection), and the public were admitted. In 1826 he was admitted a Member of the Institute, and in 1830 was appointed Director of the Academy at Rome, so that the young man who could not so far decline his antiques as to treat the classic subject of the Royal Academy, and thus gain the Academy at Rome, now went there as chief of the school, and as one of the most distinguished artists of his time. This residence for five years among the best works of the great masters of Italy naturally inspired him with ideas and desires which it had not been hitherto in his circumstances to gratify. And once installed in the Villa Medici, which he made to resound with the voices of joy and revelry, splendid fêtes and balls, he set himself to study the Italian school.

A series of pictures somewhat new in subject and manner of treatment was the result of this change of circumstances and ideas. To the Paris Exhibition of 1831 he sent a "Judith and Holofernes," which is one of the least successful of his pictures in the Luxembourg, where it hangs still, with another sent two years after, "Raffaelle and Michael Angelo in the Vatican." This is perhaps the best of his works at the Luxembourg, all being inferior; but it has a certain dry gaudiness of color, and a want of seriousness of design, which render it unfit to be considered a master-work. One unquestionably preferable, the "Arresting of the Princes at the Palais Royal by order of Anne of Austria," found its way to the Palais Royal, so that in this, as in the other we have remarked, the king seemed to know how to choose better than the Art-authorities of the "Gallery of Living Painters." A number of other pictures testified to the activity of the artist's pencil at Rome:--"Combat of Brigands against the Pope's Riflemen," "Confession of the Dying Brigand," also at the Palais Royal, but also we fear destroyed by the popular vandalism of the 24th February; a "Chase in the Pontine Marshes," "Pope Leo XII. carried into St. Peter's." The favor of the public, however, still turned to the usual subject of Horace Vernet--the French soldier's life; finding which, on his return from Rome, he recurred to his original study. In 1836 he exhibited four new battle-pieces, "Friedland," "Wagram," "Jena," and "Fontenoy," in which were apparent all his usual excellencies.

The occupation of the Algerine territory by the French troops afforded the artist an opportunity of exhibiting his powers in that department most suited to them. A whole gallery at Versailles was set apart for the battle-painter, called the _Constantine Gallery_, after the most important feat of arms yet performed by the French troops in Africa, the Taking of the town of Constantine. Some of the solitary and extraordinary, we might say accidental, military exploits in Europe of Louis Philippe's reign, are also commemorated there. The "Occupation of Ancona," the "Entry of the Army into Belgium," the "Attack of the Citadel of Antwerp," the "Fleet forcing the Tagus," show that nothing is forgotten of the Continental doings. The African feats are almost too many to enumerate. In a "Sortie of the Arab Garrison of Constantine," the Duke de Nemours is made to figure in person. Then we have the Troops of Assault receiving the Signal to leave the Trenches, and "The Scaling of the Breach." There are the "Occupation of the Defile of Teniah," "Combat of the Habrah, of the Sickak, of Samah, of Afzoum." In fine, there is the largest canvass in existence, it is said, the "Taking of the Smalah," that renowned occasion when the army was so _very near_ taking Abd-el-Kader; and the "Battle of Isly," which gained that splendid trophy, the parasol of command. Besides these great subjects there are decorations of military trophies and allegorical figures, which seem to have been painted by some pupil of Vernet. These battles were first of all exhibited to the admiration of Paris in the various salons after their execution, and were then sent off to decorate Versailles. There are also, in the _Gallery of French History_, at Versailles, several others of his, such as the "Battle of Bouvines;" "Charles X. reviewing the National Guard;" the "Marshal St. Cyr," and some others among those we have already named. In them the qualities of the artist are manifested more fully, we think, than in any others of his works. They are full of that energy, vivacity, and daguerreotypic verity which he so eminently displays. There is none of that pretension after "high Art" which has injured the effect of some of his pictures. The rapidity of their execution too in general was such, that the public had hardly finished reading the last news of the combats, when the artist, returned in many cases from witnessing the scenes, had placed them on the canvass, and offered them to popular gaze. Yet the canvasses are in many cases of great extent, and often, the figures of life-size. But the artist rarely employs the model, painting mostly from memory, a faculty most astonishingly developed in him. He generally also saves himself the trouble of preparing a smaller sketch to paint after, working out his subject at once in the definitive size. Of course with more serious and elevated subjects, worked out in a more serious and elevated spirit, such a system would not do. But for the style of subject and execution required by Horace Vernet's artistic organization, these careful preparations would not answer. They would only tend to diminish the sweeping passion of the fiery _melée_, and freeze the swift impulsive rush of the attack or flight.

Vernet has several times attempted Biblical subjects, but they have never succeeded so well as to add anything to his fame as a battle-painter. "Judah and Tamar," "Agar dismissed by Abraham," "Rebecca at the Fountain," "Judith with the head of Holofernes," "The Good Samaritan," have rather served to illustrate Arab costume and manners, (which he makes out to be the same as, or very similar to, those of old Biblical times,) than to illustrate his own power in the higher range of Art.

In the midst of painting all these, Horace Vernet has found time, which for him is the smallest requisite in painting, to produce an innumerable mass of pictures for private galleries, or at the command of various crowned heads; which, with many of those already mentioned, are well known all over Europe by engravings. "The Post of the Desert," "The Prayer in the Desert," "The Lion Hunt in the Desert," "Council of Arabs," "Episode of the Pest of Barcelona," "The Breach of Constantine," "Mazeppa," and a host of others, together with landscapes, portraits, &c., have served both to multiply his works in the galleries of every country in Europe, and to make him one of the most popular of living artists.

THE COLOSSEUM.

The Colosseum, or Coliseum, was commenced by Vespasian, and completed by Titus, (A. D. 79.) This enormous building occupied only three years in its erection. Cassiodorus affirms that this magnificent monument of folly cost as much as would have been required to build a capital city. We have the means of distinctly ascertaining its dimensions and its accommodations from the great mass of wall that still remains entire; and although the very clamps of iron and brass that held together the ponderous stones of this wonderful edifice were removed by Gothic plunderers, and succeeding generations have resorted to it as to a quarry for their temples and their palaces--yet the "enormous skeleton" still stands to show what prodigious works may be raised by the skill and perseverance of man, and how vain are the mightiest displays of his physical power when compared with those intellectual efforts which have extended the empire of virtue and of science.

The Colosseum, which is of an oval form, occupies the space of nearly six acres. It may justly be said to have been the most imposing building, from its apparent magnitude, in the world; the Pyramids of Egypt can only be compared with it in the extent of their plan, as they each cover nearly the same surface. The greatest length, or major axis, is 620 feet; the greatest breadth, or minor axis, is 513 feet. The outer wall is 157 feet high in its whole extent. The exterior wall is divided into four stories, each ornamented with one of the orders of architecture. The cornice of the upper story is perforated for the purpose of inserting wooden masts, which passed also through the architrave and frieze, and descended to a row of corbels immediately above the upper range of windows, on which are holes to receive the masts. These masts were for the purpose of attaching cords to, for sustaining the awning which defended the spectators from the sun or rain. Two corridors ran all round the building, leading to staircases which ascended to the several stories; and the seats which descended towards the arena, supported throughout upon eighty arches, occupied so much of the space that the clear opening of the present inner wall next the arena is only 287 feet by 180 feet. Immediately above and around the arena was the podium, elevated about twelve or fifteen feet, on which were seated the emperor, senators, ambassadors of foreign nations, and other distinguished personages in that city of distinctions. From the podium to the top of the second story were seats of marble for the equestrian order; above the second story the seats appear to have been constructed of wood. In these various seats eighty thousand spectators might be arranged according to their respective ranks; and indeed it appears from inscriptions, as well as from expressions in Roman writers, that many of the places in this immense theatre were assigned to particular individuals, and that each might find his seat without confusion. On extraordinary occasions, 110,000 persons could crowd into it.

Gibbon has given a splendid description, in his twelfth book, of the exhibitions in the Colosseum; but he acknowledges his obligations to Montaigne, who, says the historian, "gives a very just and lively view of Roman magnificence in these spectacles." Our readers will, we doubt not, be gratified by the quaint but most appropriate sketch of the old philosopher of France:--

"It was doubtless a fine thing to bring and plant within the theatre a great number of vast trees, with all their branches in their full verdure, representing a great shady forest, disposed in excellent order, and the first day to throw into it a thousand ostriches, a thousand stags, a thousand boars, and a thousand fallow deer, to be killed and disposed of by the people: the next day to cause an hundred great lions, an hundred leopards and three hundred bears to be killed in his presence: and for the third day, to make three hundred pair of fencers to fight it out to the last,--as the Emperor Probus did. It was also very fine to see those vast amphitheatres, all faced with marble without, curiously wrought with figures and statues, and the inside sparkling with rare decorations and enrichments; all the sides of this vast space filled and environed from the bottom to the top, with three or four score ranks of seats, all of marble also, and covered with cushions, where an hundred thousand men might sit placed at their ease; and the place below, where the plays were played, to make it by art first open and cleave into chinks, representing caves that vomited out the beasts designed for the spectacle; and then secondly, to be overflowed with a profound sea, full of sea-monsters, and loaded with ships of war, to represent a naval battle: and thirdly, to make it dry and even again for the combats of the gladiators; and for the fourth scene, to have it strewed with vermilion and storax, instead of sand, there to make a solemn feast for all that infinite number of people--the last act of only one day.

"Sometimes they have made a high mountain advance itself, full of fruit-trees and other flourishing sorts of woods, sending down rivulets of water from the top, as from the mouth of a fountain: other whiles, a great ship was seen to come rolling in, which opened and divided itself; and after having disgorged from the hold four or five hundred beasts for fight, closed again, and vanished without help. At other times, from the floor of this place, they made spouts of perfumed water dart their streams upward, and so high as to besprinkle all that infinite multitude. To defend themselves from the injuries of the weather, they had that vast place one while covered over with purple curtains of needle-work, and by-and-by with silk of another color, which they could draw off or on in a moment, as they had a mind. The net-work also that was set before the people to defend them from the violence of these turned-out beasts, was also woven of gold."

"If there be anything excusable in such excesses as these," continues Montaigne, "it is where the novelty and invention creates more wonder than expense." Fortunately for the real enjoyments of mankind, even under the sway of a Roman despot, "the novelty and invention" had very narrow limits when applied to matters so utterly unworthy and unintellectual as the cruel sports of the amphitheatre. Probus indeed, transplanted trees to the arena, so that it had the appearance of a verdant grove; and Severus introduced four hundred ferocious animals in one ship sailing in the little lake which the arena formed. But on ordinary occasions, profusion,--tasteless, haughty, and uninventive profusion,--the gorgeousness of brute power, the pomp of satiated luxury--these constituted the only claim to the popular admiration. If Titus exhibited five thousand wild beasts at the dedication of the amphitheatre, Trajan bestowed ten thousand on the people at the conclusion of the Dacian war. If the younger Gordian collected together bears, elks, zebras, ostriches, boars, and wild horses, he was an imitator only of the spectacles of Carus, in which the rarity of the animals was as much considered as their fierceness.

NINEVEH AND ITS REMAINS.

"For very many centuries, the hoary monuments of Egypt--its temples, its obelisks, and its tombs--have presented to the eye of the beholder strange forms of sculpture and of language; the import of which none could tell. The wild valleys of Sinai, too, exhibited upon their rocky sides the unknown writings of a former people; whose name and existence none could trace. Among the ruined halls of Persepolis, and on the rock-hewn tablets of the surrounding regions, long inscriptions in forgotten characters seemed to enrol the deeds and conquests of mighty sovereigns; but none could read the record. Thanks to the skill and persevering zeal of scholars of the 19th century, the key of these locked up treasures has been found; and the records have mostly been read. The monuments of Egypt, her paintings and her hieroglyphics, mute for so many ages, have at length spoken out; and now our knowledge of this ancient people is scarcely less accurate and extensive than our acquaintance with the classic lands of Greece and Rome. The unknown characters upon the rocks of Sinai have been deciphered, but the meagre contents still leave us in darkness as to their origin and purpose. The cuneiform or arrow-headed inscriptions of the Persian monuments and tablets, have yielded up their mysteries, unfolding historical data of high importance; thus illustrating and confirming the few and sometimes isolated facts preserved to us in the Scriptures and other ancient writings. Of all the works, in which the progress and results of these discoveries have been made known, not one has been reproduced or made generally accessible in this country. The scholar who would become acquainted with them, and make them his own, must still have recourse to the Old World.

"The work of Mr. Layard brings before us still another step of progress. Here we have not to do, with the hoary ruins that have borne the brunt of centuries in the presence of the world, but with a resurrection of the monuments themselves. It is the disentombing of temple-palaces from the sepulchre of ages; the recovery of the metropolis of a powerful nation from the long night of oblivion. Nineveh, the great city 'of three days' journey,' that was 'laid waste, and there was none to bemoan her,' whose greatness sank when that of Rome had just begun to rise, now stands forth again to testify to her own splendor, and to the civilization, and power, and magnificence of the Assyrian Empire. This may be said, thus far, to be the crowning historical discovery of the nineteenth century. But the century as yet, is only half elapsed.

"Nineveh was destroyed in the year 606 before Christ; less than 150 years after Rome was founded. Her latest monuments, therefore, date back not less than five-and-twenty centuries; while the foundation of her earliest is lost in an unknown antiquity. When the ten thousand Greeks marched over this plain in their celebrated retreat, (404 B.C.) they found in one part, a ruined city called Larissa; and in connection with it, Xenophon, their leader and historian, describes what is now the pyramid of Nimroud. But he heard not the name of Nineveh; it was already forgotten in its site; though it appears again in the later Greek and Roman writers. Even at that time, the widely extended walls and ramparts of Nineveh had perished, and mounds, covering magnificent palaces, alone remained at the extremities of the ancient city, or in its vicinity, much as at the present day.

"Of the site of Nineveh, there is scarcely a further mention, beyond the brief notices by Benjamin of Tudela and Abulfeda, until Niebuhr saw it and described its mounds nearly a century ago. In 1820, Mr. Rich visited the spot; he obtained a few square sun-dried bricks with inscriptions, and some other slight remains; and we can all remember the profound impression made upon the public mind, even by these cursory memorials of Nineveh and Babylon."

DESCRIPTION OF A PALACE EXHUMED AT NIMROUD.

"During the winter, Mr. Longworth, and two other English travelers, visited me at Nimroud. As they were the only Europeans, (except Mr. Ross) who saw the palace when uncovered, it may be interesting to the reader to learn the impression which the ruins were calculated to make upon those who beheld them for the first time, and to whom the scene was consequently new. Mr. Longworth, in a letter, thus graphically describes his visit:--