Part 2

Thomas Banks, the English Sculptor, 295

The Genius of Banks, 297

Banks’ Kindness to Young Sculptors, 298

The Personal Appearance and Character of Banks, 299

Flaxman’s Tribute to Banks, 300

Joseph Nollekens, the English Sculptor, 301

Nollekens’ Visit to Rome, 301

Nollekens and Garrick, 302

Nollekens’ Talent in Bust Sculpture, 303

Nollekens’ Bust of Dr. Johnson, 304

Nollekens’ Liberality to Chantrey, 304

Nollekens and the Widow, 305

Nollekens’ Compliments, 306

An Overplus of Modesty, 307

The Artist Footman, 308

An Architect’s Stratagem, 309

The Freedom of the Times in the Reign of Charles II., 309

Hanneman’s Picture of “Peace,” 310

Weesop, 310

ANECDOTES

OF

PAINTERS, ENGRAVERS, SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS.

EXTRACT FROM TEXT TO PLATE LIII OF THE AMERICAN EDITION OF BOYDELL’S ILLUSTRATIONS OF SHAKSPEARE.

It is deemed appropriate to devote this page to the infelicities which often fall to the lot of men of genius, in hopes to strike a sympathetic chord; since to them the world owes all that is beautiful as well as useful in art. It is well known that men of fine imaginations and delicate taste, are generally distinguished for acute sensibilities, and for being deficient in more practical qualities; they are frequently eccentric, and illy adapted to contend with the coldness and indifference of the world, much less its sarcasm and enmity. The history of Art is full of melancholy examples.

When Torregiano, the cotemporary of Michael Angelo, had finished his exquisite group of the Madonna and Child for the Duke d’Arcos, with the assurance of a rich reward, the nobleman sent two servants, bearing two well-filled bags of money, with orders to bring the work to his palace. The sculptor, upon opening the bags, found nothing but brass maravedi! Filled with just indignation, he seized his mallet, in a moment of uncontrollable rage, and smashed the beautiful group into a thousand pieces, saying to the servants, “Go, take your base metal to your ignoble lord, and tell him he shall never possess a sculpture by my hand!” The infamous nobleman, burning with shame, resolved on a terrible revenge; he arraigned the unhappy artist before the Inquisition, on a charge of sacrilege for destroying the sacred images. Torregiano was imprisoned and condemned to death by torture; but to escape that awful fate, he destroyed himself in the dungeon.

It is not necessary to go back further than the history of this work, to find melancholy examples of the trials of genius. Thomas Banks vainly endeavored to introduce a lofty and heroic style of sculpture into his native country. He could obtain no commissions to execute in marble his most beautiful and sublime compositions, and was compelled to confine himself to monumental sculpture. James Barry, after struggling with poverty and neglect all his days, died in a garret, a raving maniac. A subscription had been started for his relief; but it was all expended in defraying his funeral expenses, and in erecting a monument to his memory in St. Paul’s Cathedral, with this inscription,--“The Great Historical Painter, JAMES BARRY. Died, Feb. 1806, aged 65”! His remains were laid out in state, in the Great Room of the Adelphi--the true and appropriate monument of his genius. The Society had requested the members of the Royal Academy to decorate their Room, and when all others declined, Barry nobly came forward, and offered his services gratuitously, which were gladly accepted. He spent seven long years in decorating this apartment with fresco paintings, which the Society publicly declared was “a national ornament, as well as a monument of the talents and ingenuity of the artist”; and Dr. Johnson said, “They shew a grasp of mind that you will find nowhere else.” Observe the contrast: Cunningham says, that when he began this great work, he had but a shilling in his pocket, and during its execution he lived on the coarsest fare, in a miserable garret, subsisting by the sale of an occasional drawing, when he could find a purchaser!

The life of William Blake presents a picture no less melancholy. An eccentric and extraordinary genius, he seemed, in the flights of his wild imagination, to hold converse with the spirits of the departed; and in some of his works there is a truly wonderful sublimity of conception and grandeur of execution. Although not appreciated during his lifetime, he toiled on in abject poverty with indefatigable industry, reveling in visions of future fame. His Ancient of Days was his greatest favorite; three days before his death, he sat bolstered up in bed, and touched it over and over with the choicest colors, in his happiest style; then held it off at arms’ length, exclaiming, “There! that will do! I cannot mend it.” Observing his wife in tears, he said, “Stay, Kate! keep just as you are; I will draw your portrait, for you have been an angel to me.” She obeyed, and the dying artist made a fine likeness. He was cheerful and contented to the last. “I glory,” said he, “in dying, and have no grief but in leaving you, Katharine; we have lived happy and we have lived long; we have ever been together, but we shall be divided soon. Why should I fear death! Nor do I fear it. I have endeavored to live as Christ commands, and have sought to worship God truly.” On the day of his death, Aug. 12, 1827, he composed and sung hymns to his Maker, so sweetly to the ear of his beloved Katharine, that she stood wrapt to hear him. Observing this, he said to her, with looks of intense affection, “My beloved, they are not mine--no, they are the songs of the angels.”

Young Proctor, the sculptor, was a student of the rarest promise, in the Royal Academy. After obtaining two silver medals, the president, Benjamin West, had the suggestion conveyed to him, that he had better execute a historical composition. Accordingly, in the next year, Proctor produced his model of “Ixion on the Wheel,” and in the following year, “Pirithous slain by Cerberus,” both of which excited great admiration. In the third year, he conceived a much bolder flight of imagination, “Diomed torn in pieces by Wild Horses,” which was far more successful than his previous efforts, approaching, in the opinion of the best judges, the grandeur of Michael Angelo, and even the Phidian period of Greek design. But this noble emanation of high native talent could not find a purchaser, and at the close of the exhibition it was returned to the studio of the sculptor, who, stung to the heart by this severe disappointment, instantly destroyed his sublime creation. Derided by his more favored but less deserving cotemporaries, Proctor shunned society, and having exhausted all his means of support to produce this last work, he was reduced to the greatest straits. When Mr. West, after some time, succeeded in ascertaining the place of his obscure retreat, he stated the circumstance to the Academy, who unanimously agreed to send Proctor to Italy, with the usual pension, and fifty pounds besides, for necessary preparations. This joyful intelligence was immediately communicated to the despairing artist, but it came too late! his constitution, undermined by want and vexation, was unable to bear the revulsion of his feelings, and he shortly after breathed his last, “a victim,” says his biographer, “to anti-national prejudices.”

The life of Thomas Kirk, termed the “English Raffaelle,” is another melancholy example of unappreciated genius. Chagrin and disappointment of his ambitious hopes, consigned him to an untimely grave. Taylor, in his History of the Fine Arts in Great Britain, says, that a few years ago, one of Hogarth’s pictures brought at public sale in London, more money than the artist ever received for all his paintings together. Nollekens, the sculptor, bought two landscapes of Richard Wilson, for fifteen guineas, to relieve his pressing necessities. At the sale of the effects of the former after his decease, they brought two hundred and fifty guineas each!

Shall instances like these stain the annals of American Art, or will this free people accord to its gifted sons the encouragement they so richly deserve? May the sympathies of those who can perceive in painting and sculpture, most efficient means of mental culture, refinement, and gratification, be enlisted by these sad memories, to render timely encouragement to exalted genius! It adds to national and individual profit, pride, and glory. How much does America owe Robert Fulton and Eli Whitney? Millions, untold millions!

ADVANTAGES OF THE CULTIVATION OF THE FINE ARTS TO A COUNTRY.

The advantages which a country derives from the cultivation of the fine arts, are thus admirably summed up by Sir M. A. Shee, late President of the Royal Academy, London:--

“It should be the policy of a great nation to be liberal and magnificent; to be free of her rewards, splendid in her establishments, and gorgeous in her public works. These are not the expenses that sap and mine the foundations of public prosperity, that break in upon the capital, or lay waste the income of a state; they may be said to arise in her most enlightened views of general advantage; to be amongst her best and most profitable speculations; they produce large sums of respect and consideration from our neighbors and competitors, and of patriotic exultation among ourselves; they make men proud of their country, and from priding it, prompt in its defense; they play upon all the chords of generous feeling, elevate us above the animal and the machine, and make us triumph in the powers and attributes of men.”

Sir George Beaumont, in a letter to Lord Dover, on the subject of the purchase of the Angerstein collection by the government, speaking of the benefit which a country derives from the possession of the best works of art, says, “My belief is that the Apollo, the Venus, the Laocoön, &c., are worth many thousands a year to the country that possesses them.” When Parliament was debating the propriety of buying the Angerstein Collection for £60,000, he advocated the measure with enthusiasm, and exclaimed, “Buy this collection of pictures for the nation, and I will give you mine.” And this he nobly did, not in the form of a bequest, but he transferred them at once as soon as the galleries were prepared for their reception, with the exception of one little gem, with him a household god, which he retained till his death. This picture was a landscape by Claude, with figures representing Hagar and her child, and he was so much attached to it that he took it with him as a constant traveling companion. When he died, it was sent to its place in the Gallery. The value of this collection was 70,000 guineas. Such instances of noble generosity for public benefaction, deserve to be held in grateful remembrance, and should be “written in letters of gold on enduring marble,” for the imitation of mankind.

After the peace of Amiens, Benjamin West visited Paris, for the purpose of viewing the world’s gems of art, which Bonaparte had collected together in the Louvre. He had already conceived a project for establishing in England a national institution for the encouragement of art, similar to that of the Louvre, and he took occasion one day, while strolling about the galleries in company with Mr. Fox, the British minister, and Sir Francis Baring, to point out to them the advantages of such an institution, not only in promoting the Fine Arts, by furnishing models of study for artists, but he showed the propriety, in a commercial point of view, of encouraging to a seven fold extent, the higher department of art in England. Cunningham relates that Fox was so forcibly struck with his remarks that he said, “I have been rocked in the cradle of politics, but never before was so much struck with the advantages, even in a political bearing, of the Fine Arts, to the prosperity, as well as the renown of a kingdom; and I do assure you, Mr. West, if I ever have it in my power to influence our government to promote the Arts, the conversation which we have had to-day shall not be forgotten.” Sir Francis Baring also promised his hearty coöperation. West was mainly instrumental in establishing the Royal British Institution. Taylor, in his History of the Fine Arts in Great Britain, says, he battled for years against coldly calculating politicians for its accomplishment; at length, his plan was adopted with scarcely an alteration.

“The commercial states of the classic ages of antiquity held the arts in very high estimation. The Rhodians were deeply engaged in commerce, yet their cultivation of the arts, more especially that of sculpture, was most surprising. The people of Ægina were equally engaged in commercial pursuits, but they were also admired for the correctness and elegance of their taste and manners, as well as their sculpture. A more ancient people still, the Phœnicians, Tyrians, Tyrrhenians, Etruscans, or Carthagenians, who were all colonies from one race of men, long before the foundation of Rome, understood and taught others the working in metals, one instance of which is remarkable: Hiram, king of Tyre, cast the brazen sea, and other immense objects in metal, for Solomon’s temple. Let us cast our eyes on Argos, Athens, Corinth, and Sicyon, those ancient abodes of good taste and transcendent genius; each of them were commercial states and cities. The remains of their beautifully-sculptured marbles, which once were in profusion, and of which we now strive to possess even the fragments, at almost any cost, show evidently that their commercial pursuits and relations with other countries had not narrowed, if it had not rather developed, the powers, and given that elastic vigor to the human mind that can, under due encouragement, overcome the greatest difficulties, and produce the grandest or the most enchanting works of utility or imagination. The marble quarries of Paros and Pentelicus were by such encouragements transformed into the noblest temples and most exquisitely beautiful statues of deities, heroes, and men, that it is possible to conceive. Such was the case throughout all the cities on the coast of the Ægean sea and of the Cyclades. Their arts increased their commerce; this was the source of their wealth; and fully aware of these advantages, their wealth reacted again on their arts, and thus there was kept alive that healthful movement of the whole popular mind, directed to the useful and elegant purposes of life.

“Let us come down to much later times, and to states far less remote, and ask what it was that gave such wealth and consequence to Venice, Genoa, Holland, and Flanders, to Pisa, Florence, and Lucca, not one of which states possessed much extent of territory, nor any large amount of population? The answer is, ‘their commercial enterprise and industry did it for them.’ True; but it is equally remarkable, that in all these states and cities the fine arts gave their powerful aid to those pursuits, as the splendid manufactures of these people testify. And where have the arts been fostered with more parental solicitude, or in what region have they shed more glory upon mankind, than they have done in these comparatively small territories? But it was the same principle that produced such splendid works in Greece: the cause and effect were precisely the same, the mode only was changed. But the principles are universal and eternal, and they may be brought to operate in other countries, to the fullest extent, and with as much grandeur, grace, and beauty, as they ever did attain, even in their most prosperous periods, under the guidance of Pericles, when they reached the highest splendor of Chryselephantine art, under the master minds of Phidias and Praxiteles, Callicrates and Ictinus, and at a later period displayed the equally resplendent genius of Apelles, Zeuxis, and Parrhasius, in the time of Alexander--those splendid epochs of painting, sculpture, and architecture, which shed an imperishable lustre upon the most enlightened states of the Hellenodic confederacy, and on the throne of the greatest conqueror of ancient times. We must not omit mentioning their palmy state in the Augustan age of Rome, and their still more glorious elevation there during the memorable _cinque cento_.

“But to reach these proud eminences of intellectual grandeur and extensive usefulness, the arts must be solicited, ample protection must be afforded to them; similar inducements to those which produced these great results must not only be offered, but substantially and permanently provided for their use. This garden of the human intellect must be regularly and assiduously cultivated with great care, and kept clear of the noxious weeds that would deform its beauties. Under genial treatment, all its charms develop themselves, and an endless variety of interesting and charming creations are called into existence, illustrating the high principles of religion, the noblest traits of moral and heroic conduct, and the sweetest dreams of the poetic muse: but the turmoils of war and high political contention are to them most injurious, blasting their fairest bloom, as the poisonous simoon of the desert withers the gardens of Palestine; and to these two causes, and these only, aided by anti-English prejudice, can we attribute the very slow advances which the arts had made among the natives of Britain until the auspicious period of which we are now treating”--time of George III.--_Taylor’s History of the Fine Arts in Great Britain_, vol. ii, p. 150.

ANTIQUITY OF THE FINE ARTS.

Homer, who flourished about B. C. 900, gives a striking proof of the antiquity of the fine arts, in his description of that admirable piece of chased and inlaid work--the shield of Achilles. Its rich design could not have been imagined, unless the arts necessary to produce it had arrived to a high degree of perfection in his country at the time he wrote, though we may doubt whether, at the period of the Trojan war, three hundred years before Homer, there existed artificers capable of executing it.

Within a century after the taking of Troy, the Greeks had founded many new colonies in Asia Minor, and the Heraclidæ finally regained their ancient seats in the Peloponnesus. It is worthy of remark that about that period, David built his house of cedars, and Solomon adorned Jerusalem with her magnificent first temple, and that Hiram, king of Tyre, sent to Solomon “a cunning man, endued with understanding,” to assist him in the building of the temple, but more especially to superintend the execution of the ornaments. (1st Kings, vii, 13, and 2d Chron., ii, 14.)

THE PŒCILE AT ATHENS.

The stoa or celebrated Portico at Athens, called the Pœcile on account of its paintings, was the pride of the Athenians. Polygnotus, Mycon, and Pantænus adorned it with pictures of gods, heroes, benefactors, and the most memorable acts of the Athenians, as the incidents of the siege and sacking of Troy, the battle of Theseus against the Amazons, the battle between the Athenians and Lacedæmonians at Œnoe in Argolis, the battle of Marathon, and other memorable actions. The most celebrated of these were a series of the Siege of Troy, and the Battle of Marathon by Polygnotus, more especially the latter, which eclipsed all the others, and gained the painter so much reputation that the Athenians offered him any sum he should ask, and when he refused all compensation, the Amphictyonic council decreed that wherever he might travel in Greece, he should be received with public honors, and provided for at the public expense.

According to Pausanias, Polygnotus represented the hero Marathon, after whom the plain was named, in the act of receiving Minerva, the patroness of Athens, accompanied by Hercules, about to be joined by Theseus, whose shade is seen rising out of the earth--thus claiming Attica as his native soil. In the foreground, the Greeks and Persians are combating with equal valor, but in extending the view to the middle of the composition, the barbarians were seen routed and flying to the Phœnician ships, which were visible in the distance, and to the marshes, while the Greeks were in hot pursuit, slaying their foes in their flight. The principal commanders of both parties were distinguished, particularly Mardonius, the Persian general, the insertion of whose portrait gratified the Athenians little less than that of their own commander, Miltiades, along with whom were Callimachus, Echetlus, and the poet Æschylus, who was in the battle that day. It is evident that the painter did not strictly follow history, but treated his subject in a grand poetic and heroic style, and that too, we may rest assured, with consummate skill, to have elicited such applause from a people too refined to be deceived by any meretricious trickery of art.

MOSAICS.

Mosaics are ornamented works, made in ancient times, of cubes of variously colored stones, and in modern, more frequently of glass of different colors. The art originated in the East, and seems first to have been introduced among the Romans in the time of Sylla. It was an ornament in great request by the luxurious Romans, especially in the time of the Emperors, for the decoration of every species of edifice, and to this day they continue to discover, in the ruins of the Imperial Baths, and elsewhere, many magnificent specimens in the finest preservation. In Pompeii, mosaic floors and pavements may be said to have been universal among the wealthy.

In modern times, great attention has been bestowed to revive and improve the art, with a view to perpetuate the works of the great masters. In this way, Guercino’s Martyrdom of St. Petronilla, and Domenichino’s Communion of the dying St. Jerome, in St. Peter’s Church, which were falling into decay, have been rendered eternal. Also, the Transfiguration of Raffaelle, and other great works. Pope Clement VIII. had the whole interior dome of St. Peter’s ornamented with this work. A grand Mosaic, covering the whole side of a wall, representing, as some suppose, the Battle of Platea; as others, with more probability, one of the Victories of Alexander, was discovered in Pompeii. This work, now in the Academy of Naples, is the admiration of connoisseurs and the learned, not only from its antiquity, but from the beauty of its execution. The most probable supposition is, that it is a copy of the celebrated Victory of Arbela, by Philoxenes.