CALLOT AND HIS SCHOOL.--CALLOT'S ROMANTIC HISTORY.--HIS
"CAPRICI," AND OTHER BURLESQUE WORKS.--THE "BALLI" AND THE
BEGGARS.--IMITATORS OF CALLOT; DELLA BELLA.--EXAMPLES OF DELLA
BELLA.--ROMAIN DE HOOGHE.
The art of engraving on copper, although it had made rapid advances
during the sixteenth century, was still very far from perfection; but
the close of that century witnessed the birth of a man who was destined
not only to give a new character to this art, but also to bring in a
new style of caricature and burlesque. This was the celebrated Jacques
Callot, a native of Lorraine, and descended from a noble Burgundian
family. His father, Jean Callot, held the office of herald of Lorraine.
Jacques was born in the year 1592,[91] at Nancy, and appears to have
been destined for the church, with a view to which his early education
was regulated. But the early life of Jacques Callot presents a
romantic episode in the history of art aspirations. While yet hardly
more than an infant, he seized every opportunity of neglecting more
serious studies to practise drawing, and he displayed especially a
very precocious taste for satire, for his artistic talent was shown
principally in caricaturing all the people he knew. His father, and
apparently all his relatives, disapproved of his love for drawing, and
did what they could to discourage it; but in vain, for he still found
means of indulging it. Claude Henriet, the painter to the court of
Lorraine, gave him lessons, and his son, Israel Henriet, formed for
him a boy's friendship. He also learnt the elements of the art of
engraving of Demange Crocq, the engraver to the duke of Lorraine.
[91] This is the date fixed by Meaume, in his excellent work on
Callot, entitled "Recherches sur la Vie et les Ouvrages de
Jacques Callot," 2 tom. 8vo., 1860.
About this time, the painter Bellange, who had been a pupil of Claude
Henriet, returned from Italy, and gave young Callot an exciting account
of the wonders of art to be seen in that country; and soon afterwards
Claude Henriet dying, his son Israel went to Rome, and his letters
from thence had no less effect on the mind of the young artist at
Nancy, than the conversation of Bellange. Indeed the passion of the boy
for art was so strong, that, finding his parents obstinately opposed
to all his longings in this direction, he left his father's house
secretly, and, in the spring of 1604, when he had only just entered his
thirteenth year, he set out for Italy on foot, without introductions
and almost without money. He was even unacquainted with the road, but
after proceeding a short distance, he fell in with a band of gipsies,
and, as they were going to Florence, he joined their company. His
life among the gipsies, which lasted seven or eight weeks, appears to
have furnished food to his love of burlesque and caricature, and he
has handed down to us his impressions, in a series of four engravings
of scenes in gipsy life, admirably executed at a rather later period
of his life, which are full of comic humour. When they arrived at
Florence, Jacques Callot parted company with the gipsies, and was
fortunate enough to meet with an officer of the grand duke's household,
who listened to his story, and took so much interest in him, that he
obtained him admission to the studio of Remigio Canta Gallina. This
artist gave him instructions in drawing and engraving, and sought to
correct him of his taste for the grotesque by keeping him employed upon
serious subjects.
After studying for some months under Canta Gallina, Jacques Callot
left Florence, and proceeded to Rome, to seek his old friend Israel
Henriet; but he had hardly arrived, when he was recognised in the
streets by some merchants from Nancy, who took him, and in spite of
his tears and resistance, carried him home to his parents. He was
now kept to his studies more strictly than ever, but nothing could
overcome his passion for art, and, having contrived to lay by some
money, after a short interval he again ran away from home. This time
he took the road to Lyons, and crossed Mont Cenis, and he had reached
Turin when he met in the street of that city his elder brother Jean,
who again carried him home to Nancy. Nothing could now repress young
Callot's ardour, and soon after this second escapade, he engraved a
copy of a portrait of Charles III., duke of Lorraine, to which he put
his name and the date 1607, and which, though it displays little skill
in engraving, excited considerable interest at the time. His parents
were now persuaded that it was useless to thwart any longer his natural
inclinations, and they not only allowed him to follow them, but they
yielded to his wish to return to Italy. The circumstances of the moment
were especially favourable. Charles III., duke of Lorraine, was dead,
and his successor, Henry II., was preparing to send an embassy to Rome
to announce his accession. Jean Callot, by his position of herald,
had sufficient interest to obtain for his son an appointment in the
ambassador's retinue, and Jacques Callot started for Rome on the 1st
of December, 1608, under more favourable auspices than those which had
attended his former visits to Italy.
Callot reached Rome at the beginning of the year 1609, and now at
length he joined the friend of his childhood, Israel Henriet, and began
to throw all his energy into his art-labours. It is more than probable
that he studied under Tempesta, with Henriet, who was a pupil of that
painter, and another Lorrainer, Claude Dervet. After a time, Callot
began to feel the want of money, and obtained employment of a French
engraver, then residing in Rome, named Philippe Thomassin, with whom he
worked nearly three years, and became perfect in handling the graver.
Towards the end of the year 1611, Callot went to Florence, to place
himself under Julio Parigi, who then flourished there as a painter and
engraver. Tuscany was at this time ruled by its duke Cosmo de' Medicis,
a great lover of the arts, who took Callot under his patronage, giving
him the means to advance himself. Hitherto his occupation had been
principally copying the works of others, but under Parigi he began to
practise more in original design, and his taste for the grotesque came
upon him stronger than ever. Although Parigi blamed it, he could not
help admiring the talent it betrayed. In 1615, the grand duke gave a
great entertainment to the prince of Urbino, and Callot was employed
to make engravings of the festivities; it was his first commencement
in a class of designs by which he afterwards attained great celebrity.
In the year following, his engagement with Parigi ended, and he became
his own master. He now came out unfettered in his own originality. The
first fruits were seen in a new kind of designs, to which he gave the
name of "Caprices," a series of which appeared about the year 1617,
under the title of "Caprici di varie Figure." Callot re-engraved them
at Nancy in later years, and in the new title they were stated to have
been originally engraved in 1616. In a short preface, he speaks of
these as the first of his works on which he set any value. They now
strike us as singular examples of the fanciful creations of a most
grotesque imagination, but they no doubt preserve many traits of the
festivals, ceremonies, and manners of that land of masquerade, which
must have been then familiar to the Florentines; and these engravings
would, doubtless, be received by them with absolute delight. One is
copied in our cut No. 163; it represents a cripple supporting himself
on a short crutch, with his right arm in a sling. Our cut No. 164 is
another example from the same set, and represents a masked clown, with
his left hand on the hilt of his dagger, or perhaps of a wooden sword.
From this time, although he was very industrious and produced much,
Callot engraved only his own designs.
[Illustration: _No. 163. A Cripple._]
[Illustration: _No. 164. A Grotesque Masker._]
While employed for others, Callot had worked chiefly with the graver,
but now that he was his own master, he laid aside that implement, and
devoted himself almost entirely to etching, in which he attained the
highest proficiency. His work is remarkable for the cleanness and ease
of his lines, and for the life and spirit he gave to his figures.
His talent lay especially in the extraordinary skill with which he
grouped together great numbers of diminutive figures, each of which
preserved its proper and full action and effect. The great annual fair
of the Impruneta was held with extraordinary festivities, and attended
by an immense concourse of people of all classes on St. Luke's Day,
the 18th of October, in the outskirts of Florence. Callot engraved
a large picture of this fair, which is absolutely wonderful. The
picture embraces an extensive space of ground, which is covered with
hundreds of figures, all occupied, singly or in groups, in different
manners, conversing, masquerading, buying and selling, playing games,
and performing in various ways; each group or figure is a picture in
itself. This engraving produced quite a sensation, and it was followed
by other pictures of fairs, and, after his final return to Nancy,
Callot engraved it anew. It was this talent for grouping large masses
of persons which caused the artist to be so often employed in drawing
great public ceremonies, sieges, and other warlike operations.
By the duke of Florence, Cosmo II., Callot was liberally patronised
and loaded with benefits, but on his death the government had to be
placed in the hands of a regency, and art and literature no longer met
with the same encouragement. In this state of things, Callot was found
by Charles of Lorraine, afterwards duke Charles IV., and persuaded to
return to his native country. He arrived at Nancy in 1622, and began to
work there with greater activity even than he had displayed before. It
was not long after this that he produced his sets of grotesques, the
Balli (or dancers), the Gobbi (or hunchbacks), and the Beggars. The
first of these sets, called in the title _Balli_, or _Cucurucu_,[92]
consists of twenty-four small plates, each of them containing two comic
characters in grotesque attitudes, with groups of smaller figures in
the distance. Beneath the two prominent figures are their names, now
unintelligible, but at that time no doubt well known on the comic stage
at Florence. Thus, in the couple given in our cut No. 165, which is
taken from the fourth plate of the series, the personage to the left
is named Smaraolo Cornuto, which means simply Smaraolo the cuckold;
and the one on the right is called Ratsa di Boio. In the original the
background is occupied by a street, full of spectators, looking on at
a dance of pantaloons, round one who is mounted on stilts and playing
on the tabour. The couple in our cut No. 166, represents another of
Callot's "Caprices," from a set differing from the first "Caprices,"
or the Balli. The Gobbi, or hunchbacks, form a set of twenty-one
engravings; and the set of the Gipsies, already alluded to, which was
also executed at Nancy, was included in four plates, the subjects of
which were severally--1, the gipsies travelling; 2, the avant-guard;
3, the halt; and 4, the preparations for the feast. Nothing could be
more truthful, and at the same time more comic, than this last set of
subjects. We give, as an example of the set of the Baroni, or beggars,
Callot's figure of one of that particular class--for beggars and rogues
of all kinds were classified in those days--whose part it was to
appeal to charity by wounds and sores artificially represented. In the
English slang of the seventeenth century, these artificial sores were
called _clymes_, and a curious account of the manner in which they were
made will be found in that singular picture of the vicious classes of
society in this country at that period, the "English Rogue," by Head
and Kirkman. The false cripple in our cut is holding up his leg to make
a display of his pretended infirmity.
[92] Meaume appears to be doubtful of the meaning of this word; a
friend has pointed out to me the correction. It was the title
of a song, so called because the burden was an imitation of the
crowing of a cock, the singer mimicking also the action of the
bird. When Bacchus, in Redi's "Bacco in Toscana," is beginning
to feel the exhilarating effects of his critical investigation
of the Tuscan wines, he calls upon Ariadne to sing to him "sulla
mandola la Cucurucù," "on the mandola the Cucurucu." A note
fully explains the word as we have stated it--"Canzone cosi
detta, perchè in esse si replica molte volte la voce del gallo; e
cantandola si fanno atti e moti simili a quegli di esso gallo."
[Illustration: _No. 165. Smaraolo Cornuto.--Ratsa di Boio._]
[Illustration: _No. 166. A Caprice._]
[Illustration: _No. 167. The False Cripple._]
Callot remained at Nancy, with merely temporary absences, during the
remainder of his life. In 1628, he was employed at Brussels in drawing
and engraving the "Siege of Breda," one of the most finished of his
works, and he there made the personal acquaintance of Vandyck. Early
in 1629, he was called to Paris to execute engravings of the siege of
La Rochelle, and of the defence of the Isle of Rhé, but he returned to
Nancy in 1630. Three years afterwards his native country was invaded
by the armies of Louis XIII., and Nancy surrendered to the French on
the 25th of September, 1633. Callot was required to make engravings
to celebrate the fall of his native town; but, although he is said
to have been threatened with violence, he refused; and afterwards he
commemorated the evils brought upon his country by the French invasion
in those two immortal sets of prints, the lesser and greater "Misères
de la Guerre." About two years after this, Callot died, in the prime of
life, on the 24th of March, 1635.
The fame of Callot was great among his contemporaries, and his name
is justly respected as one of the most illustrious in the history of
French art. He had, as might be expected, many imitators, and the
Caprices, the Balli, and the Gobbi, became very favourite subjects.
Among these imitators, the most successful and the most distinguished
was Stephano Della Bella; and, indeed, the only one deserving of
particular notice. Della Bella was born at Florence, on the 18th of
May, 1610;[93] his father, dying two years afterwards, left him an
orphan, and his mother in great poverty. As he grew up, he showed, like
Callot himself, precocious talents in art, and of the same kind. He
eagerly attended all public festivals, games, &c., and on his return
from them made them the subject of grotesque sketches. It was remarked
of him, especially, that he had a curious habit of always beginning
to draw a human figure from the feet, and proceeding upwards to the
head. He was struck at a very early period of his pursuit of art by the
style of Callot, of which, at first, he was a servile imitator, but he
afterwards abandoned some of its peculiarities, and adopted a style
which was more his own, though still founded upon that of Callot. He
almost rivalled Callot in his success in grouping multitudes of figures
together, and hence he also was much employed in producing engravings
of sieges, festive entertainments, and such elaborate subjects. As
Callot's aspirations had been directed towards Italy, those of Della
Bella were turned towards France, and when in the latter days of
the ministry of Cardinal Richelieu, the grand duke of Florence sent
Alexandro del Nero as his resident ambassador in Paris, Della Bella
was permitted to accompany him. Richelieu was occupied in the siege
of Arras, and the engraving of that event was the foundation of Della
Bella's fame in France, where he remained about ten years, frequently
employed on similar subjects. He subsequently visited Flanders and
Holland, and at Amsterdam made the acquaintance of Rembrandt. He
returned to Florence in 1650, and died there on the 23rd of July, 1664.
[93] The materials for the history of Della Bella and his works,
will be found in a carefully compiled volume, by C. A. Jombert,
entitled, "Essai d'un Catalogue de l'Oeuvre d'Etienne de la
Bella." 8vo., Paris, 1772.
[Illustration: _No. 168. A Witch Mounted._]
While still in Florence, Della Bella executed four prints of dwarfs
quite in the grotesque style of Callot. In 1637, on the occasion of
the marriage of the grand duke Ferdinand II., Della Bella published
engravings of the different scenes represented, or performed, on that
occasion. These were effected by very elaborate machinery, and were
represented in six engravings, the fifth of which (_scena quinta_)
represents hell (_d' Inferno_), and is filled with furies, demons, and
witches, which might have found a place in Callot's "Temptation of St.
Anthony."
A specimen of these is given in our cut No. 168--a naked witch seated
upon a skeleton of an animal that might have been borrowed from some
far distant geological period. In 1642, Della Bella executed a set of
small "Caprices," consisting of thirteen plates, from the eighth of
which we take our cut No. 169. It represents a beggar-woman, carrying
one child on her back, while another is stretched on the ground. In
this class of subjects Della Bella imitated Callot, but the copyist
never succeeded in equalling the original. His best style, as an
original artist of burlesque and caricature, is shown in a set of five
plates of Death carrying away people of different ages, which he
executed in 1648. The fourth of this set is copied in our cut No. 170,
and represents Death carrying off, on his shoulder, a young woman, in
spite of her struggles to escape from him.
[Illustration: _No. 169. Beggary._]
With the close of the seventeenth century these "Caprices" and
masquerade scenes began to be no longer in vogue, and caricature and
burlesque assumed new forms; but Callot and Della Bella had many
followers, and their examples had a lasting influence upon art.
We must not forget that a celebrated artist, in another country, at the
end of the same century, the well-known Romain de Hooghe, was produced
from the school of Callot, in which he had learnt, not the arts of
burlesque and caricature, but that of skilfully grouping multitudes of
figures, especially in subjects representing episodes of war, tumults,
massacres, and public processions.
Of Romain de Hooghe we shall have to speak again in a subsequent
chapter. In his time the art of engraving had made great advance
on the Continent, and especially in France, where it met with more
encouragement than elsewhere. In England this art had, on the whole,
made much less progress, and was in rather a low condition, one branch
only excepted, that of portraits. Of the two distinguished engravers
in England during the seventeenth century, Hollar was a Bohemian, and
Faithorne, though an Englishman, learnt his art in France. We only
began to have an English school when Dutch and French engravers came in
with King William to lay the groundwork.
[Illustration: _No. 170. Death carrying off his Prey._]