TO FLORENCE AND BACK
We started on our most delightful journey to Florence early in September
of that year to assist at the Michael Angelo fêtes as the guests of dear
Mrs. Janet Ross and the Marchese della Stufa, who, with Mr. Ross,
inhabited in the summer the delicious old villa of Castagnolo, at Lastra
a Signa, six miles on the Pisan side of my beloved Florence. Of course,
I give page after page in the Diary to our journey across Italy under
the Alps and the Apennines. To the modern motorist it must all sound
slow, though we did travel by rail! Above all the lovely things we saw
on our way by the Turin-Bologna line, I think Parma, rising from the
banks of a shallow river, glowing in sunshine and palpitating jewel-like
shade, holds pride of place for noontide beauty. After Modena came the
deeper loveliness of the afternoon, and then Bologna, mellowed by the
rosy tints of early evening. Then the sunset and then the tender moon.
By moonlight we crossed the Apennines, and to the sound of the droning
summer beetle--an extraordinarily penetrating sound, which I declared
makes itself heard above the railway noises, we descended into the
Garden of Italy, slowly, under powerful brakes. At ten we reached
Florence, and in the crowd on the platform a tall, distinguished-looking
man bowed to me. “Miss Thompson?” “Yes.” It was the Marchese, and lo!
behind him, who should there be but my old master, Bellucci. What a
warm welcome they gave us. Of course, our luggage had stuck at the
_douane_ at Modane, and was telegraphed for. No help for it; we must do
without it for a day or two. We got into the carriage which was awaiting
us, and the Marchese into his little pony trap, and off we went flying
for a mysterious, dream-like drive in misty moonlight, we in front and
our host behind, jingle-jingling merrily with the pleasant monotony of
his lion-maned little pony’s canter. We could not believe the drive was
a real one. It was too much joy to be at Florence--too good to be true.
But how tired we were!
At last we drove up to the great towered villa, an old-fashioned
Florentine ancestral place, which has been the home of the Della Stufas
for generations, and there, in the great doorway, stood Mrs. Ross,
welcoming us most cordially to “Castagnolo.” We passed through frescoed
rooms and passages, dimly lighted with oil lamps of genuine old Tuscan
patterns, and were delighted with our bedrooms--enormous, brick-paved
and airy. There we made a show of tidying ourselves, and went down to a
fruit-decked supper, though hardly able to sit up for sleep. How kind
they were to us! We felt quite at home at once.
“_September 12th._--After Mass at the picturesque little chapel which,
with the _vicario’s_ dwelling, abuts on the _fattoria_ wing of the
villa, we drove into Florence with Mrs. Ross and the Marchese, whom we
find the typical Italian patrician of the high school. We were rigged
out in Mrs. Ross’s frocks, which didn’t fit us at all. But what was to
be done? Provoking girls! It was a dear, hot, dusty, dazzling old
Florentine drive, bless it! and we were very pleased. Florence was _en
fête_ and all _imbandierata_ and hung with the usual coloured draperies,
and all joyous with church bells and military bands. The concert in
honour of Michael Angelo (the fêtes began to-day) was held in the
Palazzo Vecchio, and very excellent music they gave us, the audience
bursting out in applause before some of the best pieces were quite
finished in that refreshingly spontaneous way Italians have. After the
concert we loitered about the piazza looking at the ever-moving and
chattering crowd in the deep, transparent shade and dazzling sunshine.
It was a glorious sight, with the white statues of the fountain rising
into the sunlight against houses hung mostly with very beautiful yellow
draperies. I stood at the top of the steps of the Loggia de’ Lanzi, and,
resting my book on the pedestal of one of the lions, I made a rough
sketch of the scene, keeping the _Graphic_ engagement in view. I
subsequently took another of the Michael Angelo procession passing the
Ponte alle Grazie on its way from Santa Croce to the new ‘Piazzale
Michel Angelo,’ which they have made since we were here before, on the
height of San Miniato. It was a pretty procession on account of the rich
banners. A day full of charming sights and melodious sounds.”
The great doings of the last day of the fêtes were the illuminations in
the moonlit evening. They were artistically done, and we had a feast of
them, taking a long, slow drive to the piazzale by the new zigzag.
Michael Angelo was remembered at every turn, and the places he fortified
were especially marked out by lovely lights, all more or less soft and
glowing. Not a vile gas jet to be seen anywhere. The city was not
illuminated, nor was anything, with few exceptions, save the lines of
the great man’s fortifications. The old white banner of Florence, with
the _Giglio_, floated above the tricolour on the heights which Michael
Angelo defended in person. The effect, especially on the church of San
Miniato, of golden lamps making all the surfaces aglow, as if the walls
were transparent, and of the green-blue moonlight above, was a thing as
lovely as can be seen on this earth. It was a thoroughly Italian
festival. We were charmed with the people; no pushing in the crowds,
which enjoyed themselves very much. They made way for us when they saw
we were foreigners.
We stayed at Castagnolo nearly all through the vintage, pressed from one
week to another to linger, though I made many attempts to go on account
of beginning my “Balaclava.” The fascination of Castagnolo was intense,
and we had certainly a happy experience. I sketched hard every day in
the garden, the vineyards, and the old courtyard where the most
picturesque vintage incidents occurred, with the white oxen, the wine
pressing, and the bare-legged, merry _contadini_, all in an atmosphere
scented with the fermenting grapes. Everything in the _Cortile_ was dyed
with the wine in the making. I loved to lean over the great vats and
inhale that wholesome effluence, listening to the low sea-like murmur of
the fermentation. On the days when we helped to pick the grapes on the
hillside (and “helping ourselves” at the same time) we had _collazione_
there, a little picnic, with the indispensable guitar and post-prandial
cigarette. Every one made the most of this blessed time, as such moments
should be made the most of when they are given us, I think. Young
Italians often dined at the villa, and the evenings were spent in
singing _stornelli_ and _rispetti_ until midnight to the guitar,
every one of these young fellows having a nice voice. They were merry,
pleasant creatures.
[Illustration: ONE OF THE BALAKLAVA SIX-HUNDRED.]
Nothing but the stern necessity of returning to work could have kept me
from seeing the vintage out. We left most regretfully on October 4th,
taking Genoa and our dear step-sister on the way. Even as it was our
lingering in Italy made me too late, as things turned out, for the
Academy!
October 19th has this entry: “Began my ‘Balaclava’ cartoon to-day.
Marked all the positions of the men and horses. My trip to Italy and the
glorious and happy and healthy life I have led there, and the utter
change of scene and occupation, have done me priceless good, and at last
I feel like going at this picture _con amore_. I was in hopes this happy
result would be obtained.” “Balaclava” was painted for Mr. Whitehead, of
Manchester. I had owed him a picture from the time I exhibited
“Missing.” It was to be the same size, and for the same price as that
work, and I was in honour bound to fulfil my contract! So I again
brought forward the “Dawn of Sedan,” although my prices were now so
enlarged that £80 had become quite out of proportion, even for a simple
subject like that. However, after long parleys, and on account of Mr.
Whitehead’s repudiation of the Sedan subject, it was agreed that
“Balaclava” should be his, at the new scale altogether. The Fine Art
Society (late Dickenson & Co.) gave Mr. Whitehead £3,000 for the
copyright, and engaged the great Stacpoole, as before, to execute the
engraving.
I was very sorry that the picture was not ready for Sending-in Day at
the Academy. No doubt the fuss that was made about it, and my having
begun a month too late, put me off; but, be that as it may, I was a
good deal disturbed towards the end, and had to exhibit “Balaclava” at
the private gallery of the purchasers of the copyright in Bond Street.
This gave me more time to finish. I had my own Private View on April
20th, 1876: “The picture is disappointing to me. In vain I call to mind
all the things that judges of art have said about this being the best
thing I have yet painted. Can one _never_ be happy when the work is
done? This day was only for our friends and was no test. Still, there
was what may be called a sensation. Virginia Gabriel, the composer, was
led out of the room by her husband in tears! One officer who had been
through the charge told a friend he would never have come if he had
known how like the real thing it was. Curiously enough, another said
that after the stress of Inkermann a soldier had come up to his horse
and leant his face against it exactly as I have the man doing to the
left of my picture.
“_April 22nd._--An enormous number of people at the Society’s Private
View and some of the morning papers blossoming out in the most beautiful
notices, ever so long, and I getting a little reassured.” A day later:
“Went to lunch at Mrs. Mitchell’s, who invited me at the Private View,
next door to Lady Raglan’s, her great friend. Two distinguished officers
were there to meet me, and we had a pleasant chat.” And this is all I
say! One of the two was Major W. F. Butler, author of “The Great Lone
Land.”
The London season went by full of society doings. Our mother had long
been “At Home” on Wednesdays, and much good music was heard at “The
Boltons,” South Kensington. Ruskin came to see us there. He and our
mother were often of the same way of thinking on many subjects, and I
remember seeing him gently clapping his hands at many points she made.
He was displeased with me on one occasion when, on his asking me which
of the Italian masters I had especially studied, I named Andrea del
Sarto. “Come into the corner and let me scold you,” were his
disconcerting words. Why? Of course, I was crestfallen, but, all the
same, I wondered what could be the matter with Andrea’s “Cenacolo” at
San Salvi, or his frescoes at the SS. Annunziata, or his “Madonna with
St. Francis and St. John,” in the Tribune of the Uffizi. The figure of
the St. John is, to me, one of the most adorable things in art. That
gentle, manly face; that dignified pose; the exquisite modelling of the
hand, and the harmonious colours of the drapery--what _could_ be the
matter with such work? I remember, at one of the artistic London “At
Homes,” Frith, R.A., coming up to me with a long face to say, if I did
not send to the Academy, I should lose my chance of election. But I
think the difficulties of electing a woman were great, and much
discussion must have been the consequence amongst the R.A.’s. However,
as it turned out, in 1879 I lost my election by _two_ votes only! Since
then I think the door has been closed, and wisely. I returned to the
studio on May 18th, for I could not lay down the brush for any amount of
society doings. Besides, I soon had to make preparations for
“Inkermann.”
“_Saturday, June 10th._--Saw Genl. Darby-Griffith, to get information
about Inkermann. I returned just in time to dress for the delightful
Lord Mayor’s Banquet to the Representatives of Art at the Mansion
House, a place of delightful recollections for me. Neither this year’s
nor last year’s banquet quite came up to the one of ‘The Roll Call’ year
in point of numbers and excitement, but it was most delightful and
interesting to be in that great gathering of artists and hear oneself
gracefully alluded to in The Lord Mayor’s speech and others. Marcus
Stone sat on my left, and we had really a thoroughly good conversation
all through dinner such as I have seldom embarked on, and I found, when
I tried it, that I could talk pretty well. He is a fine fellow, and
simple-minded and genuine. My _vis-à-vis_ was Alma Tadema, with his
remarkable-looking wife, like a lady out of one of his own pictures; and
many well-known heads wagged all around me. After dinner and the
speeches, Du Maurier, of _Punch_, suggested to the Lord Mayor that we
should get up a quadrille, which was instantly done, and the friskier
spirits amongst us had a nice dance. Du Maurier was my partner; and on
my left I had John Tenniel, so that I may be said to have been supported
by Punch both at the beginning and end of dinner, this being Du
Maurier’s simple and obvious joke, _vide_ the post-turtle indulgence
peculiar to civic banquets. After a waltz we laggards at last took our
departure in the best spirits.”
I remember that in June we went to a most memorable High Mass, to wit,
the first to be celebrated in the Old Saxon Church of St. Etheldreda
since the days of the Reformation. This church was the second place of
Christian worship erected in London, if not in England, in the old Saxon
times. We were much impressed as the Gregorian Mass sounded once more in
the grey-stoned crypt. The upper church was not to be ready for years.
Those old grey stones woke up that morning which had so long been
smothered in the London clay.
Here follow too many descriptions in the Diary of dances, dinners and
other functions. They are superfluous. There were, however, some
_Tableaux Vivants_ at an interesting house--Mrs. Bishop’s, a very
intellectual woman, much appreciated in society in general, and Catholic
society in particular--which may be recorded in this very personal
narrative, for I had a funny hand in a single-figure tableau which
showed the dazed 11th Hussar who figures in the foreground of my
“Balaclava.” The man who stood for him in the tableau had been my model
for the picture, but to this day I feel the irritation caused me by that
man. In the picture I have him with his busby pushed back, as it
certainly would and should have been, off his heated brow. But, while I
was posing him for the tableau, every time I looked away he rammed it
down at the becoming “smart” angle. I got quite cross, and insisted on
the necessary push back. The wretch pretended to obey, but, just before
the curtain rose, rammed the busby down again, and utterly destroyed the
meaning of that figure! We didn’t want a representation of Mr. So-and-so
in the becoming uniform of a hussar, but my battered trooper. The thing
fell very flat. But tableaux, to my mind, are a mistake, in many ways.
I often mention my pleasure in meeting Lord and Lady Denbigh, for they
were people after my own heart. Lady Denbigh was one of those women one
always looks at with a smile; she was so _simpatica_ and true and
unworldly.
July 18th is noted as “a memorable day for Alice, for she and I spent
the afternoon at _Tennyson’s_! I say ‘for Alice’ because, as regards
myself, the event was not so delightful as a day at Aldershot. Tennyson
has indeed managed to shut himself off from the haunts of men, for,
arrived at Haslemere, a primitive little village, we had a six-mile
drive up, up, over a wild moor and through three gates leading to
narrow, rutty lanes before we dipped down to the big Gothic, lonely
house overlooking a vast plain, with Leith Hill in the distance.
Tennyson had invited us through Aubrey de Vere, the poet, and very
apprehensive we were, and nervous, as we neared the abode of a man
reported to be such a bear to strangers. We first saw Mrs. Tennyson, a
gentle, invalid lady lying on her back on a sofa. After some time the
poet sent down word to ask us to come up to his sanctum, where he
received us with a rather hard stare, his clay pipe and long, black,
straggling hair being quite what I expected. He got up with a little
difficulty, and when we had sat down--he, we two and his most
deferential son--he asked which was the painter and which was the poet.
After our answer, which struck me as funny, as though we ought to have
said, with a bob, ‘Please, sir, I’m the painter,’ and ‘Please, sir, I’m
the poet,’ he made a few commonplace remarks about my pictures in a most
sepulchral bass voice. But he and Alice, in whom he was more interested,
naturally, did most of the talking; there was not much of that, though,
for he evidently prefers to answer a remark by a long look, and perhaps
a slightly sneering smile, and then an averted head. All this is not
awe-inspiring, and looks rather put on. We ceased to be frightened.
“There is no grandeur about Tennyson, no melancholy abstraction; and, if
I had made a demi-god of him, his personality would have much
disappointed me. Some of his poetry is so truly great that his manner
seems below it. The pauses in the conversation were long and frequent,
and he did not always seem to take in the meaning of a remark, so that I
was relieved when, after a good deal of staring and smiling at Alice in
a way rather trying to the patience, he acceded to her request and read
us ‘The Passing of Arthur.’ He was so long in finding the place, when
his son at last found him a copy of the book which suited him, and the
tone he read in so deep and monotonous, that I was much bored and longed
for the hour of our departure. He was vexed with Alice for choosing that
poem, which he seemed to think less of than of his later works, and he
took the poor child to task in a few words meant to be caustic, though
they made us smile. But the ice was melting. He seemed amused at us and
we gratefully began to laugh at some quaint phrases he levelled at us.
Then he dropped the awe-inspiring tone, and took us all over the grounds
and gave us each a rose. He pitched into us for our dresses which were
too fashionable and tight to please him. He pinned Alice against a
pillar of the entrance to the house on our re-entry from the garden to
watch my back as I walked on with his son, pointing the _walking-stick_
of scorn at my skirt, the trimming of which particularly roused his ire.
Altogether I felt a great relief when we said goodbye to our curious
host with whom it was so difficult to carry on conversation, and to know
whether he liked us or not. Away, over the windy, twilight heath behind
the little ponies--away, away!”
At the beginning of August I began my studies for “The Return from
Inkermann.” The foreground I got at Worthing; and I had another visit
to Aldershot and many further conversations with Inkermann
survivors--officers of distinction. I am bound to say that these often
contradicted each other, and the rough sketches I made after each
interview had to be re-arranged over and over again. I read Dr.
Russell’s account (_The Times_ correspondent) and sometimes I returned
to my own conception, finding it on the whole the most likely to be
true.
I laugh even now at the recollection of two elderly _sabreurs_, one of
them a General in the Indian Army, who had a hot discussion in my
studio, _â propos_ of my “Balaclava,” about the best use of the sabre.
The Indian, who was for slashing, twirled his umbrella so briskly, to
illustrate his own theory, that I feared for the picture which stood
close by his sword arm. The opposition umbrella illustrated “the point”
theory.
Having finally clearly fixed the whole composition of “Inkermann,” in
sepia on tinted paper the size of the future picture I closed the studio
on August 25th and turned my face once more to Italy.