ART.

There are persons to whom a gallery is everywhere a home. In this

country, the antique is known only by plaster casts, and by drawings.

The BOSTON ATHENÆUM,--on whose sunny roof and beautiful chambers may

the benediction of centuries of students rest with mine!--added to

its library, in 1823, a small, but excellent museum of the antique

sculpture, in plaster;--the selection being dictated, it is said, by

no less an adviser than Canova. The Apollo, the Laocoon, the Venuses,

Diana, the head of the Phidian Jove, Bacchus, Antinous, the Torso

Hercules, the Discobolus, the Gladiator Borghese, the Apollino,--all

these, and more, the sumptuous gift of Augustus Thorndike. It is much

that one man should have power to confer on so many, who never saw

him, a benefit so pure and enduring.

To these were soon added a heroic line of antique busts, and, at last,

by Horatio Greenough, the Night and Day of Michel Angelo. Here was old

Greece and old Italy brought bodily to New England, and a verification

given to all our dreams and readings. It was easy to collect, from the

drawing-rooms of the city, a respectable picture-gallery for a summer

exhibition. This was also done, and a new pleasure was invented for

the studious, and a new home for the solitary. The Brimmer donation,

in 1838, added a costly series of engravings, chiefly of the French

and Italian museums, and the drawings of Guercino, Salvator Rosa, and

other masters. The separate chamber in which these collections were at

first contained, made a favorite place of meeting for Margaret and a

few of her friends, who were lovers of these works.

First led perhaps by Goethe, afterwards by the love she herself

conceived for them, she read everything that related to Michel Angelo

and Raphael. She read, pen in hand, Quatremère de Quincy's lives of

those two painters, and I have her transcripts and commentary before

me. She read Condivi, Vasari, Benvenuto Cellini, Duppa, Fuseli, and

Von Waagen,--great and small. Every design of Michel, the four volumes

of Raphael's designs, were in the rich portfolios of her most intimate

friend. 'I have been very happy,' she writes, 'with four hundred and

seventy designs of Raphael in my possession for a week.'

* * * * *

These fine entertainments were shared with many admirers, and, as I

now remember them, certain months about the years 1839, 1840, seem

colored with the genius of these Italians. Our walls were hung with

prints of the Sistine frescoes; we were all petty collectors; and

prints of Correggio and Guercino took the place, for the time, of

epics and philosophy.

In the summer of 1839, Boston was still more rightfully adorned with

the Allston Gallery; and the sculptures of our compatriots Greenough,

and Crawford, and Powers, were brought hither. The following lines

were addressed by Margaret to the Orpheus:--

'CRAWFORD'S ORPHEUS.

'Each Orpheus must to the abyss descend,

For only thus the poet can be wise,--

Must make the sad Persephone his friend,

And buried love to second life arise;

Again his love must lose, through too much love,

Must lose his life by living life too true;

For what he sought below has passed above,

Already done is all that he would do;

Must tune all being with his single lyre;

Must melt all rocks free from their primal pain,

Must search all nature with his one soul's fire;

Must bind anew all forms in heavenly chain:

If he already sees what he must do,

Well may he shade his eyes from the far-shining view.'

Margaret's love of art, like that of most cultivated persons in this

country, was not at all technical, but truly a sympathy with the

artist, in the protest which his work pronounced on the deformity

of our daily manners; her co-perception with him of the eloquence

of form; her aspiration with him to a fairer life. As soon as her

conversation ran into the mysteries of manipulation and artistic

effect, it was less trustworthy. I remember that in the first times

when I chanced to see pictures with her, I listened reverently to

her opinions, and endeavored to see what she saw. But, on several

occasions, finding myself unable to reach it, I came to suspect my

guide, and to believe, at last, that her taste in works of art, though

honest, was not on universal, but on idiosyncratic, grounds. As it has

proved one of the most difficult problems of the practical astronomer

to obtain an achromatic telescope, so an achromatic eye, one of the

most needed, is also one of the rarest instruments of criticism.

She was very susceptible to pleasurable stimulus, took delight in

details of form, color, and sound. Her fancy and imagination were

easily stimulated to genial activity, and she erroneously thanked the

artist for the pleasing emotions and thoughts that rose in her mind.

So that, though capable of it, she did not always bring that highest

tribunal to a work of art, namely, the calm presence of greatness,

which only greatness in the object can satisfy. Yet the opinion was

often well worth hearing on its own account, though it might be wide

of the mark as criticism. Sometimes, too, she certainly brought to

beautiful objects a fresh and appreciating love; and her written

notes, especially on sculpture, I found always original and

interesting. Here are some notes on the Athenæum Gallery of Sculpture,

in August, 1840, which she sent me in manuscript:--

'Here are many objects worth study. There is Thorwaldsen's

Byron. This is the truly beautiful, the ideal Byron. This head

is quite free from the got-up, caricatured air of disdain,

which disfigures most likenesses of him, as it did himself

in real life; yet sultry, stern, all-craving, all-commanding.

Even the heavy style of the hair, too closely curled for

grace, is favorable to the expression of concentrated life.

While looking at this head, you learn to account for the grand

failure in the scheme of his existence. The line of the cheek

and chin are here, as usual, of unrivalled beauty.

'The bust of Napoleon is here also, and will naturally be

named, in connection with that of Byron, since the one in

letters, the other in arms, represented more fully than any

other the tendency of their time; more than any other gave it

a chance for reaction. There was another point of resemblance

in the external being of the two, perfectly corresponding with

that of the internal, a sense of which peculiarity drew on

Byron some ridicule. I mean that it was the intention of

nature, that neither should ever grow fat, but remain a

Cassius in the commonwealth. And both these heads are taken

while they were at an early age, and so thin as to be still

beautiful. This head of Napoleon is of a stern beauty. A head

must be of a style either very stern or very chaste, to make

a deep impression on the beholder; there must be a great force

of will and withholding of resources, giving a sense of depth

below depth, which we call sternness; or else there must be

that purity, flowing as from an inexhaustible fountain through

every lineament, which drives far off or converts all baser

natures. Napoleon's head is of the first description; it is

stern, and not only so, but ruthless. Yet this ruthlessness

excites no aversion; the artist has caught its true character,

and given us here the Attila, the instrument of fate to serve

a purpose not his own. While looking on it, came full to mind

the well-known lines,--

'"Speak gently of his crimes:

Who knows, Scourge of God, but in His eyes, those crimes

Were virtues?"

His brows are tense and damp with the dews of thought. In that

head you see the great future, careless of the black and white

stones; and even when you turn to the voluptuous beauty of the

mouth, the impression remains so strong, that Russia's

snows, and mountains of the slain, seem the tragedy that must

naturally follow the appearance of such an actor. You turn

from him, feeling that he is a product not of the day, but of

the ages, and that the ages must judge him.

'Near him is a head of Ennius, very intellectual; self-centred

and self-fed; but wrung and gnawed by unceasing thoughts.

'Yet, even near the Ennius and Napoleon, our American men look

worthy to be perpetuated in marble or bronze, if it were only

for their air of calm, unpretending sagacity. If the young

American were to walk up an avenue lined with such effigies,

he might not feel called to such greatness as the strong Roman

wrinkles tell of, but he must feel that he could not live an

idle life, and should nerve himself to lift an Atlas weight

without repining or shrinking.

'The busts of Everett and Allston, though admirable as

every-day likenesses, deserved a genius of a different order

from Clevenger. Clevenger gives the man as he is at the

moment, but does not show the possibilities of his existence.

Even thus seen, the head of Mr. Everett brings back all the

age of Pericles, so refined and classic is its beauty. The

two busts of Mr. Webster, by Clevenger and Powers, are the

difference between prose,--healthy and energetic prose,

indeed, but still prose,--and poetry. Clevenger's is such as

we see Mr. Webster on any public occasion, when his genius

is not called forth. No child could fail to recognize it in

a moment. Powers' is not so good as a likeness, but has the

higher merit of being an ideal of the orator and statesman at

a great moment. It is quite an American Jupiter in its eagle

calmness of conscious power.

'A marble copy of the beautiful Diana, not so spirited as

the Athenæum cast. S. C---- thought the difference was one of

size. This work may be seen at a glance; yet does not tire

one after survey. It has the freshness of the woods, and of

morning dew. I admire those long lithe limbs, and that column

of a throat. The Diana is a woman's ideal of beauty; its

elegance, its spirit, its graceful, peremptory air, are what

we like in our own sex: the Venus is for men. The sleeping

Cleopatra cannot be looked at enough; always her sleep seems

sweeter and more graceful, always more wonderful the drapery.

A little Psyche, by a pupil of Bartolini, pleases us much thus

far. The forlorn sweetness with which she sits there, crouched

down like a bruised butterfly, and the languid tenacity of

her mood, are very touching. The Mercury and Ganymede with

the Eagle, by Thorwaldsen, are still as fine as on first

acquaintance. Thorwaldsen seems the grandest and simplest of

modern sculptors. There is a breadth in his thought, a freedom

in his design, we do not see elsewhere.

'A spaniel, by Gott, shows great talent, and knowledge of the

animal. The head is admirable; it is so full of playfulness

and of doggish knowingness.'

I am tempted, by my recollection of the pleasure it gave her, to

insert here a little poem, addressed to Margaret by one of her

friends, on the beautiful imaginative picture in the gallery of 1840,

called "The Dream."

"A youth, with gentle brow and tender cheek,

Dreams in a place so silent, that no bird,

No rustle of the leaves his slumbers break;

Only soft tinkling from the stream is heard,

As in bright little waves it comes to greet

The beauteous One, and play upon his feet.

"On a low bank, beneath the thick shade thrown,

Soft gleams over his brown hair are flitting,

His golden plumes, bending, all lovely shone;

It seemed an angel's home where he was sitting,

Erect, beside, a silver lily grew,

And over all the shadow its sweet beauty threw.

"Dreams he of life? O, then a noble maid

Toward him floats, with eyes of starry light,

In richest robes all radiantly arrayed,

To be his ladye and his dear delight.

Ah no! the distance shows a winding stream;

No lovely ladye moves, no starry eyes do gleam.

"Cold is the air, and cold the mountains blue;

The banks are brown, and men are lying there,

Meagre and old; O, what have they to do

With joyous visions of a youth so fair?

He must not ever sleep as they are sleeping,

Onward through life he must be ever sweeping.

"Let the pale glimmering distance pass away;

Why in the twilight art thou slumbering there?

Wake, and come forth into triumphant day;

Thy life and deeds must all be great and fair.

Canst thou not from the lily learn true glory,

Pure, lofty, lowly?--such should be thy story.

"But no! thou lovest the deep-eyéd Past,

And thy heart clings to sweet remembrances;

In dim cathedral aisles thou'lt linger last,

And fill thy mind with flitting fantasies.

But know, dear One, the world is rich to-day,

And the unceasing God gives glory forth alway."

I have said she was never weary of studying Michel Angelo and Raphael;

and here are some manuscript "notes," which she sent me one day,

containing a clear expression of her feeling toward each of these

masters, after she had become tolerably familiar with their designs,

as far as prints could carry her:--

'On seeing such works as these of Michel Angelo, we feel the

need of a genius scarcely inferior to his own, which should

invent some word, or some music, adequate to express our

feelings, and relieve us from the Titanic oppression.

'"Greatness," "majesty," "strength,"--to these words we had

before thought we attached their proper meaning. But now we

repent that they ever passed our lips. Created anew by the

genius of this man, we would create language anew, and give

him a word of response worthy his sublime profession of faith.

Could we not at least have reserved "godlike" for him?

For never till now did we appreciate the primeval vigor of

creation, the instant swiftness with which thought can pass

to deed; never till now appreciate the passage, "Let there be

light, and there was light," which, be grateful, Michel! was

clothed in human word before thee.

'One feels so repelled and humbled, on turning from Raphael

to his contemporary, that I could have hated him as a Gentile

Choragus might hate the prophet Samuel. Raphael took us to his

very bosom, as if we had been fit for disciples,--

'"Parting with smiles the hair upon the brow,

And telling me none ever was preferred"

'This man waves his serpent wand over me, and beauty's self

seems no better than a golden calf!

'I could not bear M. De Quincy for intimating that the

archangel Michel could be jealous; yet I can easily see

that he might have given cause, by undervaluing his divine

contemporary. Raphael was so sensuous, so lovely and loving.

All undulates to meet the eye, glides or floats upon the

soul's horizon, as soft as is consistent with perfectly

distinct and filled-out forms. The graceful Lionardo might see

his pictures in moss; the beautiful Raphael on the cloud,

or wave, or foliage; but thou, Michel, didst look straight

upwards to the heaven, and grasp and bring thine down from the

very sun of invention.

'How Raphael revels in the image! His life is all reproduced;

nothing was abstract or conscious. Pantheism, Polytheism,

Greek god of Beauty, Apollo Musagetes,--what need of life

beyond the divine work? "I paint," said he, "from an idea that

comes into my mind."

'But thou, Michel, didst not only feel but see the divine

Ideal. Thine is the conscious monotheism of Jewry. Like thy

own Moses, even on the mount of celestial converse, thou didst

ask thy God to show now his face, and didst write his words,

not in the alphabet of flowers, but on stone tables.

'It is, indeed, the two geniuses of Greece and Jewry, which

are reproduced in these two men. Thaumaturgus nature saw fit

to wait but a very few years before using these moulds again,

in smaller space. Would you read the Bible aright? look at

Michel; the Greek Mythology? look at Raphael. Would you know

how the sublime coëxists with the beautiful, or the beautiful

with the sublime? would you see power and truth regnant on the

one side, with beauty and love harmonious and ministrant,

but subordinate; or would you look at the other aspect of

Deity?--study here. Would you open all the founts of marvel,

admiration, and tenderness?--study both.

'One is not higher than the other; yet I am conscious of a

slight rebuke from Michel, for having so poured out my soul at

the feet of his brother angel. He seems to remind of Mr. E.'s

view, and ask, "Why did you not question whether there was not

aught else? why not reserve some inaccessible stronghold for

me? why did you unlock the floodgates of the mind to such

tides of emotion?" But there is no reality or permanence in

this; it is only a reminder that the feminine part of human

nature must not be dominant.

'The prophets of Michel Angelo excite all my admiration at the

man capable of giving to such a physique an expression which

commands it. The soul is worthily lodged in these powerful

frames; and she has the ease and dignity of one accustomed to

command, and to command servants able to obey her hests.

Who else could have so animated such forms, that they are

imposing, but never heavy? The strong man is made so majestic

by his office, that you scarcely feel how strong he is. The

wide folds of the drapery, the breadth of light and shade, are

great as anything in

"the large utterance of the early gods."

'How they read,--these prophets and sibyls! Never did the

always-baffled, always reäspiring hope of the finite to

compass the infinite find such expression, except in the

_sehnsucht_ of music. They are buried in the volume. They

cannot believe that it has not somewhere been revealed, the

word of enigma, the link between the human and divine, matter

and spirit. Evidently, they hope to find it on the very next

page. I have always thought, that clearly enough did nature

and the soul's own consciousness respond to the craving for

immortality. I have thought it great weakness to need the

voucher of a miracle, or of any of those direct interpositions

of a divine power, which, in common parlance, are alone styled

revelation. When the revelations of nature seemed to me so

clear, I had thought it was the weakness of the heart, or

the dogmatism of the understanding, which had such need of

_a book_. But in these figures of Michel, the highest power

seizes upon a scroll, hoping that some other mind may have

dived to the depths of eternity for the desired pearl,

and enable him, without delay, consciously to embrace the

Everlasting Now.

'How fine the attendant intelligences! So youthful and fresh,

yet so strong. Some merely docile and reverent, others eager

for utterance before the thought be known,--so firm is the

trust in its value, so great the desire for sympathy. Others

so brilliant in the attention of the inquiring eye, so

intelligent in every feature, that they seem to divine the

whole, before they hear it.

'Zachariah is much the finer of the two prophets.

'Of the sibyls, the _Cumæa_ would be disgusting, from her

overpowering strength in the feminine form, if genius had not

made her tremendous. Especially the bosom gives me a feeling

of faintness and aversion I cannot express. The female breast

looks made for the temple of sweet and chaste thoughts, while

this is so formed as to remind you of the lioness in her lair,

and suggest a word which I will not write.

'The _Delphica_ is even beautiful, in Michel's fair,

calm, noble style, like the mother and child asleep in the

_Persica_, and _Night_ in the casts I have just seen.

'The _Libica_ is also more beautiful than grand. Her adjuncts

are admirable. The elder figure, in the lowest pannel,--with

what eyes of deep experience, and still unquenched enthusiasm,

he sits meditating on the past! The figures at top are fiery

with genius, especially the melancholy one, worthy to lift any

weight, if he did but know how to set about it. As it is, all

his strength may be wasted, yet he no whit the less noble.

'But the _Persica_ is my favorite above all. She is the

true sibyl. All the grandeur of that wasted frame comes from

within. The life of thought has wasted the fresh juices of the

body, and hardened the sere leaf of her cheek to parchment;

every lineament is sharp, every tint tarnished; her face is

seamed with wrinkles,--usually as repulsive on a woman's

face as attractive on a man. We usually feel, on looking at

a woman, as if Nature had given them their best dower, and

Experience could prove little better than a step-dame. But

here, her high ambition and devotion to the life of thought

gives her the masculine privilege of beauty in advancing

years. Read on, hermitess of the world! what thou seekest is

not there, yet thou dost not seek in vain.

'The adjuncts to this figure are worthy of it. On the right,

below, those two divine sleepers, redeeming human nature, and

infolding expectation in a robe of pearly sheen. Here is the

sweetness of strength,--honey to the valiant; on the other

side, its awfulness,--meat to the strong man. His sleep is

more powerful than the waking of myriads of other men. What

will he do when he has recruited his strength in this night's

slumber? What wilt thou sing of it, wild-haired child of the

lyre?

'I admire the heavy fall of the sleeper's luxuriant hair,

which reminds one of the final shutting down of night upon a

sullen twilight.

'The other figures, too, are full of augury, sad but

life-like, in its poetry. On the shield, how perfectly is the

expression of being struck home to the heart given! I wish I

could have that shield, in some shape. Only a single blow

was needed; the hand was sure, the breast shrinking, but

unresisting. Die, child of my affection, child of my old age!

Let the blood follow to the hilt, for it is the sword of the

Lord!

'In looking again, this shield is on the _Libica_, and that of

the _Persica_ represents conquest, not sacrifice.

'Over all these figures broods the spirit of prophecy. You

see their sternest deed is under the theocratic form. There is

pride in action, but no selfism in these figures.

'When I first came to Michel, I clung to the beautiful

Raphael, and feared his Druidical axe. But now, after the

sibyls of Michel, it is unsafe to look at those of Raphael;

for they seem weak, which is not so, only seems so, beside the

sterner ideal.

'The beauty of composition here is great, and you feel that

Michel's works are looked at fragment-wise in comparison. Here

the eye glides along so naturally, does so easily justice to

each part.'