Perhaps there is no notable department of human effort and interest--not
excepting literature itself--that furnishes such delightful and
plentiful materials for anecdote and illustration, as ART and ARTISTS.
As the studios of eminent painters or sculptors afford a favourite
lounge for men of taste and leisure; so, to those to whom such a
pleasure is denied, or as regards those sovereigns of the pencil and
chisel who are at rest from their labours, there is a peculiar
gratification in being placed, in fancy, in contact with the creators of
immortal things of beauty and of power. Artists, besides, have been and
are, in very many cases, also men of culture and wit, of refined taste
and powerful intellect--men remarkable quite apart from their
performances on canvas or in marble. Their works, moreover, possess what
we may almost term a personal history and vitality: they are each unique
and full of character, like human beings; and their voyagings and
vicissitudes are at times of even greater interest than those of their
authors--whose life, too, is but as a span in comparison with theirs.
This selection of facts and anecdotes relating to Art and Artists,
therefore, seems to require for its subject-matter no strenuous
recommendation to the favour of the reader; and it is put forth in the
confident hope that it may not be found lacking either in variety or in
interest.