Part 3

Vasari says that the art of Mosaic work had been brought to such perfection at Venice in the time of the Bianchini, famous mosaic painters of the 16th century, that “it would not be possible to effect more with colors.” Lanzi observes that “the church and portico of St. Mark remain an invaluable museum of this kind of work; where, commencing with the 11th century, we may trace the gradual progress of design belonging to each age, up to the present, as exhibited in many works in mosaic, beginning from the Greeks, and continued by the Italians. They consist chiefly of histories from the Old and New Testaments, and at the same time, furnish very interesting notices of civic and ecclesiastical history.” There are a multitude of mosaic pictures in the churches, galleries, and public edifices of Italy, especially at Venice, Rome, Florence, Milan; and some of the greatest artists were employed to furnish the designs. In delicate ornamental work, the pieces are multiplied by sawing into thin slabs. Some specimens made of precious stones, are of incredible value.

In working, the different pieces are cemented together, and when dry the surface is highly polished, which brings out the colors in great brilliancy. The ancients usually employed different colored marbles, stones, and shells; the Italians formerly employed brilliant stones, as agate, jaspar, onyx, cornelian, &c., but now they employ glass exclusively.

THE OLYMPIAN JUPITER.

The Greek masters in sculpture have been happily designated as “Magicians in Marble.” The taste which the Grecian people possessed for the beautiful, is well known. It stands among the chief of those characteristics by which they designated persons of great eminence. Their artists considered beauty as the first object of their studies; and by this means they surpassed all other nations, and have become models for all ages.

Of Phidias, the most celebrated sculptor of Greece, the Athenians spoke with rapture which knew no bounds. Lucian says, “We adore Phidias in his works, and he partakes of the incense we offer to the gods he has made.” Pausanias relates, that when this artist had finished his magnificent statue of the Olympian Jupiter, Jupiter himself applauded his labors; for when Phidias urged the god to show by some sign if the work was agreeable to him, the pavement of the Temple was immediately struck with lightning. Such incidents though fabulous, are valuable, inasmuch as they serve to prove the exalted notions the people entertained of the objects to which they relate.

PAINTING FROM NATURE.

Eupompus, the painter, was asked by Lysippus, the sculptor, whom, among his predecessors, he should make the objects of his imitation? “Behold,” said the painter, showing his friend a multitude of people passing by, “behold my models. From nature, not from art, by whomsoever wrought, must the artist labor, who hopes to attain honor, and extend the boundaries of his art.”

APELLES.

Apelles, according to the general testimony of ancient writers, was the most renowned painter of antiquity; hence painting is termed, by some of the Romans, the Apellean art. He flourished in the last half of the fourth century before Christ. Pliny affirms that he contributed more towards perfecting the art than all other painters. He seems to have claimed the palm in elegance and grace, or beauty, the _charis_ of the Greeks, and the _venustas_ of the Romans; a quality for which, among the moderns, perhaps Correggio is the most distinguished; but in the works of Apelles, it was unquestionably connected with a proportionably perfect design; a combination not found among the moderns. Pliny remarks that Apelles allowed that he was equalled by Protogenes in all respects save one, namely, in knowing when to take his hand from the picture. From this we may infer that the deficiency in grace which he remarked in the works of Protogenes, was owing to the excessive finish for which that painter was celebrated. Lucian speaks of Apelles as one of the best colorists among the ancient painters.

Apelles was famed for his industry; he is said never to have allowed a day to pass without exercising his pencil. “_Nulla dies sine linea_,” is a saying that arose from one of his maxims. His principal works appear to have been generally single figures, and rarely of more than a single group. The only large compositions of his execution that are mentioned by the ancient writers are, Diana surrounded by her Nymphs, in which he was allowed to have surpassed the lines of Homer from which he took the subject; and the Procession of the High Priest of Diana at Ephesus.

In portraits, Apelles was unrivalled. He is said to have enjoyed the exclusive privilege of painting Philip and Alexander the Great, both of whom he painted many times. In one of his portraits of Alexander, which was preserved in the temple of Diana at Ephesus, he represented him wielding the thunderbolts of Jupiter: Pliny says the hand and lightning appeared to start from the picture; and, judging from an observation in Plutarch, the figure of the king was lighted solely by the radiance of the lightning. Apelles received for this picture, termed the Alexander Ceraunophorus, twenty talents of gold (about $20,000). The criticism of Lysippus, upon this picture, which has been approved by ancients and moderns, that a lance, as he had himself given the king, would have been a more appropriate weapon in the hands of Alexander, than the lightnings of Jupiter; is the criticism of a sculptor who overlooked the pictorial value of the color, and of light and shade. The lightning would certainly have had little effect in a work of sculpture, but had a lance been substituted in its place in the picture of Apelles, a totally different production would have been the result. This picture gave rise to a saying, that there were two Alexanders, the one of Philip, the invincible, the other of Apelles, the inimitable.

Competent judges, says Pliny, decided the portrait of Antigonus (king of Asia Minor) on horseback, the master-piece of Apelles. He excelled greatly in painting horses, which he frequently introduced into his pictures. The most celebrated of all his works was the Venus Anadyomene, which was painted for the people of Coös, and was placed in the temple of Æsculapius on that island, where it remained until it was removed by Augustus, who took it in lieu of 100 talents tribute, and dedicated it in the temple of Julius Cæsar. It was unfortunately damaged on the voyage, and was in such a decayed state in the time of Nero, that the Emperor replaced it with a copy by a painter named Dorotheus. This happened about 350 years after it was executed, and what then became of it is not known. This celebrated painting, upon which every writer who has noticed it has bestowed unqualified praise, represented Venus naked, rising out of the ocean, squeezing the water from her hair with her fingers, while her only veil was the silver shower that fell from her shining locks. This picture is said to have been painted from Campaspe, a beautiful slave of Apelles, formerly the favorite of Alexander. The king had ordered Apelles to paint her naked portrait, and perceiving that the painter was smitten with the charms of his beautiful model, he gave her to him, contenting himself with the painting. He commenced a second Venus for the people of Coös, which, according to Pliny, would have surpassed the first, had not its completion been interrupted by the death of the painter: the only parts finished were the head and bust. Two portraits of Alexander painted by Apelles, were dedicated by Augustus, in the most conspicuous part of the forum bearing his name; in one was Alexander, with Castor and Pollux, and a figure of Victory; in the other was Alexander in a triumphal car, accompanied by a figure of War, with her hands pinioned behind her. The Emperor Claudius took out the heads of Alexander, and substituted those of Augustus. The following portraits are also mentioned among the most famous works of this great artist: Clitus preparing for Battle; Antigonus in armor, walking by the side of his Horse; and Archelaus the General, with his wife and daughter. Pausanias mentions a draped figure of one of the Graces by him, which he saw in the Odeon at Smyrna. A famous back view of a Hercules, in the temple of Antonius at Rome, was said to have been by Apelles. He painted many other famous works: Pliny mentions a naked figure by him, which he says challenged Nature herself. The same author says he covered his pictures with a dark transparent liquid or varnish, which had the effect of harmonising the colors, and also of preserving the work from injury.

Pliny says Apelles was the first artist who painted tetrachromes, or paintings executed with four colors, viz.; lamp black, white chalk, ruddle, and yellow ochre; yet, in describing his Venus Anadyomene, he says she was rising from the green or azure ocean under a bright blue sky. Zeuxis painted grapes so naturally as to deceive the birds. Where got he his green and purple? There has been a great deal of useless disquisition about the merits of ancient painters, and the materials they employed. When we take into consideration their thorough system of education; that the sister arts had been brought to such perfection as to render them the models of all succeeding times; that these painters enjoyed the highest honors and admiration of their polished countrymen, who, it must be admitted, were competent to judge of the merits of their works; that the Romans prized and praised them as much as the Greeks themselves; that there were in Rome in the time of Pliny many ancient paintings 600 years old, still retaining all their original freshness and beauty, it can scarcely be doubted that the paintings of the great Greek artists equaled the best of the moderns; that they possessed all the requisite colors and materials; and, if they did not possess all those now known, they had others unknown to us. It is certain that they employed canvass for paintings of a temporary character, as decorations; and that they treated every subject, both such as required those colors suitable to represent the solemnity and dignity of the gods, as well as others of the most delicate tints, with which to depict flowers; for the Venus of Apelles, and the Flower-Girl of Pausias must have glowed with Titian tints to have attracted such admiration. Colonel Leake, in his Topography of Athens, speaking of the temple of Theseus, says that the stucco still bears the marks or stains of the ancient paintings, in which he distinctly recognized the blue sky, vestiges of bronze and gold colored armor, and blue, green, and red draperies. What then becomes of the tetrachromes of Apelles, and the monochromes of previous artists? for Mycon painted the Theseum near 200 years before the time of Apelles.

APELLES AND THE COBBLER.

It was customary with Apelles to expose to public view the works which he had finished, and to hide himself behind the canvass, in order to hear the remarks made by spectators. He once overheard himself blamed by a shoemaker for a fault in the slippers of some figure; having too much good sense to be offended with any objection, however trifling, which came from a competent judge, he corrected the fault which the man had noticed. On the following day, however, the shoemaker began to animadvert upon the leg; on which Apelles, with some anger, looked out from the canvass, and reproved him in these words, which are also become a proverb, “_ne sutor ultra crepidam_”--“let the cobbler keep to his last,” or “every man to his trade.”

APELLES’ FOAMING CHARGER.

In finishing a drawing of a horse, in the portraiture of which he much excelled, a very remarkable circumstance is related of him. He had painted a war horse returning from battle, and had succeeded to his wishes in describing nearly every mark that could indicate a high-mettled steed impatient of restraint; there was wanting nothing but a foam of bloody hue issuing from the mouth. He again and again endeavored to express this, but his attempts were unsuccessful. At last in vexation, he threw against the mouth of the horse a sponge filled with different colors, which produced the very effect desired by the painter. A similar story is related of Protogenes, in painting his picture of Jalysus and his Dog.

APELLES AND ALEXANDER.

Apelles was held in great esteem by Alexander the Great, and was admitted into the most intimate familiarity with him. He executed a portrait of this prince in the character of a thundering Jove; a piece which was finished with such skill and dexterity, that it used to be said there were “two Alexanders, the one invincible, the son of Philip, and the other inimitable, the production of Apelles.” Alexander appears to have been a patron of the fine arts more from vanity than taste; and it is related, as an instance of those freedoms which Apelles was permitted to use with him, that when on one occasion he was talking in this artist’s painting room very ignorantly of the art of painting, Apelles requested him to be silent lest the boys who ground his colors should laugh at him. On another occasion, when he had painted a picture of his famous war-horse, Alexander did not seem to appreciate its excellence; but Bucephalus, on seeing his own portrait, began to prance and neigh, when the painter observed that the horse was a better judge of painting than his master.

APELLES AND PROTOGENES.

Apelles, being highly delighted with a picture of Jalysus, painted by Protogenes of Rhodes, sailed thither to pay him a visit. Protogenes was gone from home, but an old woman was left watching a large piece of canvass which was fitted in a frame for painting. She told Apelles that Protogenes was gone out, and asked him his name, that she might inform her master who had inquired for him. “Tell him,” said Apelles, “he was inquired for by this person,” at the same time taking up a pencil, and drawing on the canvass a line of great delicacy. When Protogenes returned, the old woman acquainted him with what had happened. The artist, upon contemplating the fine stroke of the pencil, immediately proclaimed that Apelles must have been there, for so finished a work could be produced by no other person. Protogenes, however, drew a finer line of another color; and as he was going away ordered the old woman to show that line to Apelles if he came again, and to say, “This is the person for whom you were inquiring.” When Apelles returned and saw the line, he resolved not to be overcome, and in a color different from either of the former, he drew some lines so exquisitely delicate, that it was impossible for finer strokes to be made. Having done so, he departed. Protogenes now confessed the superiority of Apelles; flew to the harbor in search of him; and resolved to leave the canvass as it was, with the lines on it, for the astonishment of future artists. It was in after years taken to Rome, and was there seen by Pliny, who speaks of it as having the appearance of a large black surface, the extreme delicacy of the lines rendering them invisible, except on close inspection. They were drawn with different colors, the one upon or rather within, the other. This picture (continues Pliny), was handed down, a wonder for posterity, but especially for artists; and, notwithstanding it contained only those three scarcely visible lines (_tres lineas_), still it was the most noble work in the Gallery, though surrounded by many finished paintings by renowned masters.

This celebrated contest of lines between Apelles and Protogenes, is a subject which has greatly perplexed painters and critics; and in fact, Carducci asserts that Michael Angelo and other great artists treated the idea with contempt. The picture was preserved in the gallery of the Imperial palace on the Palatine, and was destroyed by the first fire that consumed that palace, in the time of Augustus; therefore it could not have been seen by Pliny, and the account must have been related by him from some other work. In regard to its vagueness, one of the principal causes, undoubtedly, is a mutilation of the text; but the whole thing is told with obscurity. Suffice it to say, that in the opinion of Professor Tölken of Berlin, and the best modern critics, this wonderful piece could not have contained only _three simple lines_, as stated by Pliny, else how could it have been termed “the most noble work in the gallery, and the wonder of posterity.”

At the time this occurrence took place, Protogenes lived in a state of poverty and neglect; but the generous notice of Apelles soon caused him to be valued as he deserved by the Rhodians. Apelles acknowledged that Protogenes was even in some respects his superior; the chief fault he found with him was, that “he did not know when to take his hand from his work;” a phrase which has become proverbial among artists. He volunteered to purchase all the works he had by him, at any price he should name, and when Protogenes estimated them far below their real value, he offered him fifty talents, and spread the report that he intended to sell them as his own. He thus opened the eyes of the Rhodians to the merit of their painter, and they accordingly secured his works at a still higher price.

In Protogenes, the able rival of Apelles, the arts received one of the highest tokens of regard they were ever favored with; for when Demetrius Poliorcetes was besieging the city of Rhodes, and might have taken it by assaulting it on the side where Protogenes resided, he forbore, lest he should do an injury to his works; and when the Rhodians delivered the place to him, requesting him to spare the pictures of this admired artist, he replied, “that he would sooner destroy the images of his forefathers, than the productions of Protogenes.”

ANECDOTES OF BENJAMIN WEST.

HIS ANCESTRY.

Cunningham says, “John West, the father of Benjamin, was of that family settled at Long-Crendon, in Buckinghamshire, which produced Colonel James West, the friend and companion in arms of John Hampden. Upon one occasion, in the course of a conversation in Buckingham palace, respecting his picture of the Institution of the Garter, West happened to make some allusion to his English descent, when the Marquis of Buckingham, to the manifest pleasure of the king, declared that the Wests of Long-Crendon were undoubted descendants of the Lord Delaware, renowned in the wars of Edward the Third and the Black Prince, and that the artist’s likeness had therefore a right to a place amongst those of the nobles and warriors, in his historical picture.”

WEST’S BIRTH.

Galt says Benjamin’s birth was brought on prematurely by a vehement sermon, preached in the fields, by Edward Peckover, on the corrupt state of the Old World, which he prophesied was about to be visited with the tempest of God’s judgments, the wicked to be swallowed up, and the terrified remnant compelled to seek refuge in happy America. Mrs. West was so affected that she swooned away, was carried home severely ill, and the pains of labor came upon her; she was, however, safely delivered, and the preacher consoled the parents by predicting that “a child sent into the world under such remarkable circumstances, would assuredly prove a wonderful man,” and admonished them to watch over their son with more than ordinary care.

HIS FIRST REMARKABLE FEAT.

The first remarkable incident recorded of the infant prodigy, occurred in his seventh year; when, being placed to watch the sleeping infant of his eldest sister, he drew a sort of likeness of the child, with a pen, in red and black ink. His mother returned, and snatching the paper which he sought to conceal, exclaimed to her daughter, “I declare, he has made a likeness of little Sally!” She took him in her arms, and kissed him fondly. This feat appeared so wonderful in the eyes of his parents that they recalled to mind the prediction of Peckover.

LITTLE BENJAMIN AND THE INDIANS.

When he was about eight years old, a party of Indians, who were always kindly treated by the followers of George Fox, paid their summer visit to Springfield, and struck with the rude sketches which the boy had made of birds, fruit, and flowers, they taught him to prepare the red and yellow colors with which they stained their weapons and ornamented their skins; his mother added indigo, and thus he was possessed of three primary colors. The Indians also instructed him in archery.

HIS CAT’S TAIL PENCILS.

The wants of the child increased with his knowledge; he could draw, and had colors, but how to lay them on skillfully, he could not conceive; a pen would not answer, and he tried feathers with no better success; a neighbor informed him that it was done with a camel’s hair pencil, but as such a thing was not to be had, he bethought himself of the cat, and supplied himself from her back and tail. The cat was a favorite, and the altered condition of her fur was attributed to disease, till the boy’s confession explained the cause, much to the amusement of his parents and friends. His cat’s tail pencils enabled him to make more satisfactory efforts than he had before done.

WEST’S FIRST PICTURE.

When he was only eight years old, a merchant of Philadelphia, named Pennington, and a cousin of the Wests, was so much pleased with the sketches of little Benjamin, that he sent him a box of paints and pencils, with canvass prepared for the easel, and six engravings by Gribelin. The child was perfectly enraptured with his treasure; he carried the box about in his arms, and took it to his bedside, but could not sleep. He rose with the dawn, carried his canvass and colors to the garret, hung up the engravings, prepared a palette, and commenced work. So completely was he under this species of enchantment, that he absented himself from school, labored secretly and incessantly, and without interruption, for several days, when the anxious inquiries of his schoolmaster introduced his mother into his _studio_, with no pleasure in her looks. He had avoided copyism, and made a picture, composed from two of the engravings, telling a new story, and colored with a skill and effect which, to her eyes, appeared wonderful. Galt, who wrote West’s life, and had the story from the artist’s own lips, says, “She kissed him with transports of affection, and assured him that she would not only intercede with his father to pardon him for having absented himself from school, but would go herself to the master, and beg that he might not be punished. Sixty-seven years afterwards the writer of these memoirs had the gratification to see this piece, in the same room with the sublime painting of Christ Rejected (West’s brother had sent it to him from Springfield), on which occasion the painter declared to him that there were inventive touches of art in his first and juvenile essay, which, with all his subsequent knowledge and experience, he had not been able to surpass.” A similar story is told of Canova, who visited his native place towards the close of his brilliant career, and looking earnestly at his youthful performances, sorrowfully said, “I have been walking, but not climbing.”

WEST’S FIRST VISIT TO PHILADELPHIA.