A PICTURE BY MURILLO.--The time has yet to arrive when the march of empire
_westward_ will bring in its train our portion of those chef d'oeuvres of
painting and sculpture which adorn the princely palaces of Europe, and
confer distinction upon the possessors of wealth and taste in humbler
abodes. To us, who have never visited those miracles of art, the sight of
one of them is too gratifying to be passed over without imparting a share
of the pleasure to our less fortunate readers. For the first time in our
lives, we have enjoyed the delight of seeing at the house of a friend one
of the grand pictures of MURILLO, which was obtained by a distinguished
connoisseur at Lima, in 1828, from the cloister of an old convent, where
it had hung for countless years in ignoble seclusion. It had probably been
brought from Spain during the life-time of the painter, as it is not
described by any of his biographers, who have carefully enumerated the
works of his pencil. This idea is strengthened by the fact of his having
inscribed his name upon the picture, which is not to be found upon any of
his master-pieces at Madrid and Seville. Although it has not escaped the
injuries of time and ignorance, it appears to have had the rare good
fortune never to have passed through the hands of a restorer or scourer:
the whole effect of its magical colouring remains unobscured, except a few
touches of the brush of some dauber, who has tried the experiment of
adding freshness to the rose.
The subject of it is the Holy Family, of life-size. Saint Joseph is seen
in the background, with the infant SAVIOUR in his arms, presenting him to
his mother, who is kneeling with extended hands to receive the precious
burden of love. Like most of his great scriptural pictures, the
composition is simple and natural, exhibiting a familiar scene in domestic
life, elevated by expression, and ennobled by beauty. The Saint's face,
which is of the true Andalusian type, is fraught with benignity, as he
graciously inclines toward the mother, with the infant resting tenderly in
his hands as if supported by a bed of down. Nothing can surpass the
graceful figure and attitude of the mother, whose features are literally
overflowing with maternal affection, while she caressingly holds out her
hands to receive her son. But the charm of the picture is the infant DEITY
himself, upon whom the painter has lavished his art, and poured forth the
inspiration of his genius. His position forms the centre of the group, and
instantly arrests the attention and commands the admiration of the
spectator. He looks as if just awakened from a deep slumber; his eye-lids
are tinged with red, and the motion of his limbs betokens the sudden
consciousness of suspended existence; his playful smiling features are
radiant with joy at recognizing his mother, toward whom his hands are
invitingly opened. His figure is foreshortened, and to such a degree that
his legs are out of the canvass, instinct with life and motion. His flesh
has the plumpness and transparency of perfect health, flushed with roseate
tints; his appearance denotes a child of nine or ten months old, but
without that expression of premature intelligence by which the infant
SAVIOUR is distinguished in the pictures of RAPHAEL. He is, in short, just
one of those angelic creatures fresh from the hands of the CREATOR,
oftener found in the cradles of peasants than of princes. The hands and
feet of all the figures are painted with warmth, and with such sun-light
transparency, that the ruddy current seems actually coursing beneath the
skin. Indeed the whole tone of the picture is so life-like, that for the
moment we cease believing it to be an illusion of lights and shadows
reflected upon canvass. All the draperies are large and flowing, and
broadly touched: that of the infant is a luminous white; the saint's is
sombre; the mother's is of that violet tint, said to be peculiar to
MURILLO, styled by the French, _lie de vin_.
In the grand compositions of RAPHAEL, we often see the actors grouped into
a pyramidal form. In this of MURILLO, they present a diagonal line;
extending from the head of the Saint to that of the mother, and down to a
pannier in the corner of the picture, which contains her needle-work
attached to a cushion in the Spanish fashion. At her feet a small dog is
seated, of the Mexican race, which appears alive. Saint Joseph is painted
in shadow, and forms the second plan of the picture. Behind him are
suspended some of the implements of his humble trade.
The fame of MURILLO out of his native country, has risen within these last
ten or fifteen years to the highest rank, and his historical pictures are
now classed with those of the greatest masters of the Italian school: as a
colorist he is admitted to stand without a rival. This sudden extension of
his merits is in some degree owing to the cheap acquisition of eight of
his finest works by Marshal SOULT, when he was NAPOLEON'S governor of
Andalusia. These pictures have been seen and admired by all the world in
Paris. Two of them, the Return of the Prodigal Son, and Abraham Receiving
the Angels, have passed from the gallery of the illustrious Marshal to
that of the Duke of Sutherland, for a _consideration_. The fine collection
of pictures of the Spanish schools, purchased by Baron Taylor for LOUIS
PHILIPPE, and now exhibited in the LOUVRE, has contributed to the same
effect. It contains MURILLO'S Virgin de la Faxa, a perfect master-piece of
coloring, which cost one hundred and thirty thousand francs.
None of his great compositions are taken from profane history or
mythology. He was in a manner interdicted from using subjects derived from
those copious sources, by a decree of the Holy Inquisition of Andalusia,
which prohibited painters and sculptors, under the penalties of fine and
excommunication, from displaying in their works any lascivious or naked
images. His landscapes and flower-girls are painted in the highest style
of beauty; and his beggars have never been excelled in all the loathsome
attributes of misery and disease. The fact of his never having been out of
his native country, disposed critics to believe that his works must be
deficient in that highest order of merit which exclusively belongs to the
classic schools of Italy: they would not admit that species of excellence
which knew how to adapt the highest subjects of art to the unlearned. Yet
such was MURILLO'S influence over the human heart, that his genius enabled
him to embellish truth, and to present it with all its graces and
attractions to the understandings of all those who are endowed with an
innate love of the beautiful. His pictures, like Gray's Elegy in a Country
Church-yard, may with equal truth be said 'to abound in images which find
a mirror in every mind, and with sentiments to which every bosom returns
an echo.'
It is true that there is nothing academic to be found in his groups; no
mysterious allegory; no theatrical display of the passions; very little of
what is more talked of than understood, the beau-ideal. Nevertheless, he
is always original, and never vulgar; his drawing is nearly faultless; his
compositions are instantly felt and understood by all who have read the
Scriptures, because they convey to the mind more of the evangelical
character and attributes of Christianity than those of any other painter.
On this subject some very characteristic remarks are made by the late Sir
David Wilkie, in his letters from Jerusalem.[2]
[2] SEE letter to WILLIAM COLLINS, ESQ., Vol. 3., p. 424: ALLEN
CUNNINGHAM'S Life of Sir DAVID WILKIE.
'His Madonnas, his saints, and even his Saviours, have the Spanish cast;
all his figures are probably portraits, and all his forms have a national
peculiarity of air, habit, and countenance; and although he often adopts a
beautiful expression of nature, there is generally a peasant-like
simplicity in his ideas. He gives occasional instances of great sublimity
of expression, but it is a sublimity which neither forces nor enlarges
nature: truth and simplicity are never out of sight. It is what the
painter sees, not what he conceives, which is presented to you. Herein he
is distinguished from his preceptor VELASQUEZ. That great master, by his
courtly habits of intercourse, contracted a more proud and swelling
character, to which the simple and chaste pencil of MURILLO never sought
to aspire. A plain and pensive cast, sweetly attempered by humility and
benevolence, marks his canvass; and on other occasions, where he is
necessarily impassioned or inflamed, it is the zeal of devotion, the
influx of pious inspiration, and never the guilty passions which he
exhibits. In short, from what he sees, he separates from what he feels,
and has within himself the counter-types of almost every object he
describes.'
If it be true, (says his biographer, BERMUDEZ,) that painters put their
own portraits in their works, that is to say, that they exhibit their own
genius, their propensities, affections, and the dispositions of their
minds in them, the pictures of MURILLO bear a great analogy to his
virtues, and the gentleness of his character. He was distinguished above
all others of his profession by the mildness with which he instructed his
pupils; by the urbanity with which he treated his rivals; by the humility
with which he excused himself from becoming the painter of the Camara to
CHARLES the Second, which was offered to him by the court; and for the
charity with which he distributed the most liberal alms to the poor, who
afterward deplored his death. But those who were most affected by it were
his beloved scholars, who, overwhelmed with grief and anguish, could find
no consolation for the loss of a father who loved them most dearly; of a
master who instructed them with the utmost kindness, and of a protector
who encouraged them by giving to each such portions of employment as
enabled them to maintain themselves. This affectionate tribute to the
character of MURILLO, must recall to the minds of our readers that
beautiful passage in the letter of BALDASSARE CASTÍGLIONE to his brother,
which is said to express the feelings of all the artists in Rome upon the
death of his friend RAPHAEL: 'Ma non mi pare esser a Roma, perchè non vi è
piu il mio poveretto RAFFAELLO.'
MURILLO was born at Magdalena, near Seville, on the first day of January,
1618, and died on the third of April, 1682. He was buried in the church of
Santa Cruz at Seville. The immediate cause of his death, although he had
long been worn out by the anguish of his infirmities, was a fall from a
scaffold while he was painting the Marriage of Saint Catharine for the
Convent of Capuchins at Cadiz. Notwithstanding the many pictures which he
painted, he died possessed of only a few rials, and some property which he
had acquired by his wife.
GOSSIP WITH READERS AND CORRESPONDENTS.--We would respectfully ask the
reader's attention to the advertisement of the '_Knickerbocker Library_,'
on the second page of the cover of the present number. 'Our best exertions
shall not be wanting' to make the series all that the publishers hope for
it. That the _matériel_ is good, our readers, we think, need not be
informed. The plan has been cordially welcomed by the press, with a single
exception; and in that, the _quo animo_ was so apparent as to neutralize
the slur intended by the writer. We shall be enabled to secure the
earliest literary rarities on both sides of the water for the
'Knickerbocker Library,' and the style in which they will be presented
will be unsurpassed. · · · WE lament in the recent death of WILLIS
GAYLORD, the loss of a beloved relative, who was our elder companion in
childhood and youth, and our faithful friend and correspondent, to the
close of his useful and honored life. Mr. GAYLORD died at his beautiful
residence of Limerock Farm, Onondaga county, on the 27th ultimo, after a
brief illness. 'Few men,' says the _Albany Argus_, 'were better known
throughout the agricultural community than Mr. GAYLORD. He was for many
years one of the editors of 'The Genesee Farmer,' and since the death of
Judge Buel, has been the senior editor of 'The Cultivator.' As an
agricultural writer, it is not too much to say, that his equal is not left
to mourn his loss. He was also favorably known by his contributions to our
literary and scientific journals. He was distinguished as a warm-hearted
philanthropist, and few men have more largely benefitted the community by
their labors. His social virtues endeared him warmly to all by whom he was
known. In the pathetic language of one by whom the intelligence of his
death is communicated, he was truly 'the friend of the farmer--the friend
of humanity.' We have the proceedings of a meeting of the New-York
Agricultural Society, held in the State-House at Albany, on receiving the
intelligence of the death of Mr. GAYLORD. The President, JOHN P. BEEKMAN,
Esq., of Columbia county, passed a high and deserved eulogium upon the
character of the deceased. 'The judgment of every intelligent farmer in
the State,' he observed, 'will respond to the assertion that to no man
whatever, excepting perhaps Judge BUEL, is the agriculture of the State
more indebted than to Mr. GAYLORD. For myself, I can declare in all
sincerity that there is no man whose writings caused within me a greater
desire to be honored with a personal acquaintance. The character of WILLIS
GAYLORD was in all respects what might be expected from his writings;
benevolent, enlightened, elevated; yet plain, practical, unassuming. Every
day of his useful life was marked, not merely by the exercise of his
versatile talents on the multifarious subjects embraced by agriculture and
the domestic arts, but by the acquisition and promulgation of knowledge in
the wide range of science.' He was cordially esteemed by all who knew him;
he had not an enemy in the world. Hon. CALVIN HUBBARD, of the Legislature,
offered resolutions in testimony of the deep regret which the death of Mr.
GAYLORD had created in the public mind, copies of which were ordered to be
transmitted to the relatives of the deceased; after which, as a token of
respect to his memory, the meeting was adjourned. 'A scholar, a gentleman,
a christian, a friend of man, Mr. GAYLORD lived universally beloved, and
died universally lamented.' · · · IT has been assumed lately by certain of
the political and financial enemies of the late NICHOLAS BIDDLE, Esq.,--an
accomplished gentleman and scholar, whose pen has often entertained and
instructed the readers of this Magazine--that he had little power of
style, and that his intellectual rôle was a limited one. Nothing could be
farther from the truth. That point however we are not now to discuss. We
merely wish to ask the reader's attention to the subjoined remarks of Mr.
BIDDLE upon the besetting sin of our American style, oral as well as
written: 'A crude abundance is the disease of our American style. On the
commonest topic of business, a speech swells into a declamation--an
official statement grows to a dissertation. A discourse about anything
must contain every thing. We will take nothing for granted. We must
commence at the very commencement. An ejectment for ten acres reproduces
the whole discovery of America; a discussion about a tariff or a turnpike,
summons from their remotest caves the adverse blasts of windy rhetoric;
and on those great Serbonian bogs, known in political geography as
constitutional questions, our ambitious fluency often begins with the
general deluge, and ends with its own. It is thus that even the good sense
and reason of some become wearisome, while the undisciplined fancy of
others wanders into all the extravagances and the gaudy phraseology which
distinguish our western orientalism.' A specimen of this 'orientalism' we
gave in our last number. Here is another example of a somewhat kindred
character. A western orator recently delivered himself of it from the
summit of a sugar-maple stump at a political barbacue:
'Whar, I say _whar_, is the individual who would give up the first
foot, the first outside shadow of a foot of the great Oregon!
There aint no such individual. Talk about treaty occupations to a
country over which the great American eagle has flew! I scorn
treaty occupation; d--n treaty occupation! Who wants a parcel of
low-flung, 'outside barbarians,' to go in cahoot with us, and
share alike a piece of land that always was and always will be
ours? Nobody. Some people talk as though they were afeard of
England. _Who's_ afeard? Haven't we licked her twice, and can't we
lick her again? Lick her! Yes! just as easy as a bear can slip
down a fresh-peeled sapling! Some skeery folks talk about the navy
of England; but who the h-ll cares for the navy? Others say that
she is the _mistress_ of the ocean. Supposin' she is? aint we the
_masters_ of it? Can't we cut a canal from the Mississippi to the
Mammoth Cave of Kentucky, turn all the water into it, and dry up
the d----d ocean in three weeks? Whar then would be the navy? It
would be _no whar_! There never would _have been_ any Atlantic
ocean if it hadn't been for the Mississippi, nor never will be,
after we've turned the waters of that big drink into the Mammoth
Cave! When that's done, you'll see all their steam-ships and their
sail-ships they splurge so much about, lying high and dry,
floundering like so many turtles left ashore at low tide. That's
the way we'll fix 'em. _Who's afeard!_'
* * * * *
WE have often thought, that if the various _similes_ employed in the
Scriptures were thoroughly understood, that their appositeness and beauty
would be themes of increased admiration. Observe how the latent meanings
of the following passage reveal themselves to the heart: