Produced by Arno Peters, Branko Collin, Tiffany Vergon,
Charles Aldarondo, Charles Franks, and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team.
PICTURES EVERY CHILD SHOULD KNOW
A SELECTION OF THE WORLD'S ART MASTERPIECES FOR YOUNG PEOPLE
BY DOLORES BACON
Illustrated from Great Paintings
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Besides making acknowledgments to the many authoritative writers upon
artists and pictures, here quoted, thanks are due to such excellent
compilers of books on art subjects as Sadakichi Hartmann, Muther,
C. H. Caffin, Ida Prentice Whitcomb, Russell Sturgis and others.
INTRODUCTION
Man's inclination to decorate his belongings has always been one of
the earliest signs of civilisation. Art had its beginning in the lines
indented in clay, perhaps, or hollowed in the wood of family utensils;
after that came crude colouring and drawing.
Among the first serious efforts to draw were the Egyptian square and
pointed things, animals and men. The most that artists of that day
succeeded in doing was to preserve the fashions of the time. Their
drawings tell us that men wore their beards in bags. They show us,
also, many peculiar head-dresses and strange agricultural
implements. Artists of that day put down what they saw, and they saw
with an untrained eye and made the record with an untrained hand; but
they did not put in false details for the sake of glorifying the
subject. One can distinguish a man from a mountain in their work, but
the arms and legs embroidered upon Mathilde's tapestry, or the figures
representing family history on an Oriental rug, are quite as correct
in drawing and as little of a puzzle. As men became more intelligent,
hence spiritualised, they began to express themselves in ideal ways;
to glorify the commonplace; and thus they passed from Egyptian
geometry to gracious lines and beautiful colouring.
Indian pottery was the first development of art in America and it led
to the working of metals, followed by drawing and portraiture. Among
the Americans, as soon as that term ceased to mean Indians, art took a
most distracting turn. Europe was old in pictures, great and
beautiful, when America was worshipping at the shrine of the chromo;
but the chromo served a good turn, bad as it was. It was a link
between the black and white of the admirable wood-cut and the true
colour picture.
Some of the Colonists brought over here the portraits of their
ancestors, but those paintings could not be considered "American" art,
nor were those early settlers Americans; but the generation that
followed gave to the world Benjamin West. He left his Mother Country
for England, where he found a knighthood and honours of every kind
awaiting him.
The earliest artists of America had to go away to do their work,
because there was no place here for any men but those engaged in
clearing land, planting corn, and fighting Indians. Sir Benjamin West
was President of the Royal Academy while America was still revelling
in chromos. The artists who remained chose such objects as Davy
Crockett in the trackless forest, or made pictures of the Continental
Congress.
After the chromo in America came the picture known as the "buckeye,"
painted by relays of artists. Great canvases were stretched and
blocked off into lengths. The scene was drawn in by one man, who was
followed by "artists," each in turn painting sky, water, foliage,
figures, according to his specialty. Thus whole yards of canvas could
be painted in a day, with more artists to the square inch than are now
employed to paint advertisements on a barn.
The Centennial Exhibition of 1876 came as a glorious flashlight. For
the first time real art was seen by a large part of our nation. Every
farmer took home with him a new idea of the possibilities of drawing
and colour. The change that instantly followed could have occurred in
no other country than the United States, because no other people would
have travelled from the four points of the compass to see such an
exhibition. Thus it was the American's _penchant_ for travel which
first opened to him the art world, for he was conscious even then of
the educational advantages to be found somewhere, although there
seemed to be few of them in the United States.
After the Centennial arose a taste for the painting of "plaques," upon
which were the heads of ladies with strange-coloured hair; of
leather-covered flatirons bearing flowers of unnatural colour, or of
shovels decorated with "snow scenes." The whole nation began to revel
in "art." It was a low variety, yet it started toward a goal which
left the chromo at the rear end of the course, and it was a better
effort than the mottoes worked in worsted, which had till then been
the chief decoration in most homes. If the "buckeye" was
hand-painting, this was "single-hand" painting, and it did not take a
generation to bring the change about, only a season. After the
Philadelphia exhibition the daughter of the household "painted a
little" just as she played the piano "a little." To-day, much less
than a man's lifetime since then, there is in America a universal love
for refined art and a fair technical appreciation of pictures, while
already the nation has worthily contributed to the world of
artists. Sir Benjamin West, Sully, and Sargent are ours: Inness,
Inman, and Trumbull.
The curator of the Metropolitan Museum in New York has declared that
portrait-painting must be the means which shall save the modern
artists from their sins. To quote him: "An artist may paint a bright
green cow, if he is so minded: the cow has no redress, the cow must
suffer and be silent; but human beings who sit for portraits seem to
lean toward portraits in which they can recognise their own features
when they have commissioned an artist to paint them. A man _will_
insist upon even the most brilliant artist painting him in trousers,
for instance, instead of in petticoats, however the artist-whim may
direct otherwise; and a woman is likely to insist that the artist who
paints her portrait shall maintain some recognised shade of brown or
blue or gray when he paints her eye, instead of indulging in a burnt
orange or maybe pink! These personal preferences certainly put a limit
to an artist's genius and keep him from writing himself down a
madman. Thus, in portrait-painting, with the exactions of truth upon
it, lies the hope of art-lovers!"
It is the same authority who calls attention to the danger that lies
in extremes; either in finding no value in art outside the "old
masters," or in admiring pictures so impressionistic that the objects
in them need to be labelled before they can be recognised.
The true art-lover has a catholic taste, is interested in all forms of
art; but he finds beauty where it truly exists and does not allow the
nightmare of imagination to mislead him. That which is not beautiful
from one point of view or another is not art, but decadence. That
which is technical to the exclusion of other elements remains
technique pure and simple, workmanship--the bare bones of art. A thing
is not art simply because it is fantastic. It may be interesting as
showing to what degree some imaginations can become diseased, but it
is not pleasing nor is it art. There are fully a thousand pictures
that every child should know, since he can hardly know too much of a
good thing; but there is room in this volume only to acquaint him with
forty-eight and possibly inspire him with the wish to look up the
neglected nine hundred and fifty-two.
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
I. Andrea del Sarto, Florentine School, 1486-1531
II. Michael Angelo (Buonarroti), Florentine School, 1475-1564
III. Arnold Böcklin, Modern German School, 1827-1901
IV. Marie-Rosa Bonheur, French School, 1822-1899
V. Alessandro Botticelli, Florentine School, 1447-1510
VI. William Adolphe Bouguereau, French (Genre) School 1825-1905
VII. Sir Edward Burne-Jones, English (Pre-Raphaelite) School, 1833-1898
VIII. John Constable, English School, 1776-1837
IX. John Singleton Copley, English School, 1737-1815
X. Jean Baptiste Camille Corot, Fontainebleau-Barbizon School, 1796-1875
XI. Correggio (Antonio Allegri), School of Parma, 1494(?)--1534
XII. Paul Gustave Doré, French School, 1833-1883
XIII. Albrecht Dürer, Nuremberg School, 1471-1528
XIV. Mariano Fortuny, Spanish School, 1838-1874
XV. Thomas Gainsborough, English School, 1727-1788
XVI. Jean Léon Gérôme, French Semi-classical School, 1824-1904
XVII. Ghirlandajo, Florentine School, 1449-1494
XVIII. Giotto (di Bordone), Florentine School, 1276-1337
XIX. Franz Hals, Dutch School, 1580-84-1666
XX. Meyndert Hobbema, Dutch School, 1637-1709
XXI. William Hogarth, School of Hogarth (English), 1697-1764
XXII. Hans Holbein, the Younger, German School, 1497-1543
XXIII. William Holman Hunt, English (Pre-Raphaelite) School, 1827-
XXIV. George Inness, American, 1825-1897
XXV. Sir Edwin Henry Landseer, English School, 1802-1873
XXVI. Claude Lorrain (Gellée), Classical French School, 1600-1682
XXVII. Masaccio (Tommaso Guidi), Florentine School, 1401-1428
XXVIII. Jean Louis Ernest Meissonier, French School, 1815-1891
XXIX. Jean François Millet, Fontainebleau-Barbizon School, 1814-1875
XXX. Claude Monet, Impressionist School of France, 1840-
XXXI. Murillo (Bartolomé Estéban), Andalusian School, 1617-1682
XXXII. Raphael (Sanzio), Umbrian, Florentine, and Roman Schools,
1483-1520
XXXIII. Rembrandt (Van Rijn), Dutch School, 1606-1669
XXXIV. Sir Joshua Reynolds, English School, 1723-1792
XXXV. Peter Paul Rubens, Flemish School, 1577-1640
XXXVI. John Singer Sargent, American and Foreign Schools, 1856-
XXXVII. Tintoretto (Jacopo Robusti), Venetian School, 1518-1594
XXXVIII. Titian (Tiziano Vecelli), Venetian School, 1489-1576
XXXIX. Joseph Mallord William Turner, English, 1775-1831
XL. Sir Anthony Van Dyck, Flemish School, 1599-1641
XLI. Velasquez (Diego Rodriguez de Silva), Castilian School, 1599-1660
XLII. Paul Veronese (Paolo Cagliari), Venetian School, 1528-1588.
XLIII. Leonardo da Vinci, Florentine School, 1452-1519.
XLIV. Jean Antoine Watteau, French (Genre) School, 1684-1721
XLV. Sir Benjamin West, American, 1738-1820
Index
ILLUSTRATIONS
FRONTISPIECE
The Avenue, Middleharnis, Holland--_Hobbema_
Madonna of the Sack--_Andrea del Sarto_
Daniel--_Michael Angelo (Buonarroti)_
The Isle of the Dead--_Arnold Böcklin_
The Horse Fair--_Rosa Bonheur_
Spring--_Alessandro Botticelli_
The Hay Wain--_John Constable_
A Family Picture--_John Singleton Copley_
The Holy Night--_Correggio (Antonio Allegri)_
Dance of the Nymphs--_Jean Baptiste Camille Corot_
The Virgin as Consoler--_Wm. Adolphe Bouguereau_
The Love Song--_Sir Edward Burne-Jones_
The Mystic Marriage of St. Catherine--_Correggio_
Moses Breaking the Tablets of the Law--_Paul Gustave Doré_
The Nativity--_Albrecht Dürer_
The Spanish Marriage--_Mariana Fortuny_
Mrs. Richard Brinsley Sheridan--_Thomas Gainsborough_
The Sword Dance--_Jean Léon Gérôme_
Portrait of Giovanna degli Albizi--_Ghirlandajo (Domenico Bigordi)_
The Nurse and the Child--_Franz Hals_
The Meeting of St. John and St. Anna at Jerusalem--_Giotto (Di
Bordone)_
The Avenue--_Meyndert Hobbema_
The Marriage Contract--_Wm. Hogarth_
The Light of the World--_William Holman Hunt_
Robert Cheseman with his Falcon--_Hans Holbein, the Younger_
The Berkshire Hills--_George Inness_
The Old Shepherd's Chief Mourner--_Sir Edwin Henry Landseer_
The Artist's Portrait--_Tommaso Masaccio_
Acis and Galatea--_Claude Lorrain_
Retreat from Moscow--_Jean Louis Ernest Meissonier_
The Angelus--_Jean François Millet_
The Immaculate Conception--_Murillo (Bartolomé Estéban)_
Haystack in Sunshine--_Claude Monet_
The Sistine Madonna--_Raphael (Sanzio)_
The Night Watch--_Rembrandt (Van Rijn)_
The Duchess of Devonshire and Her Daughter--_Sir Joshua Reynolds_
The Infant Jesus and St. John--_Peter Paul Rubens_
Carmencita--_John Singer Sargent_
The Miracle of St. Mark--_Tintoretto (Jacopo Robusti)_
The Artist's Daughter, Lavinia--_Titian (Tiziano Vecelli)_
The Fighting Téméraire--_Joseph Mallord William Turner_
The Children of Charles the First--_Sir Anthony Van Dyck_
Equestrian Portrait of Don Balthasar Carlos--_Velasquez (Diego
Rodriguez de Silva)_
The Marriage at Cana--_Paul Veronese_
The Death of Wolfe--_Sir Benjamin West_
The Artist's Two Sons--_Peter Paul Rubens_
The Last Supper--_Leonardo da Vinci_
Fête Champêtre--_Jean Antoine Watteau_
I
ANDREA DEL SARTO
(Pronounced Ahn'dray-ah del Sar'to)
_Florentine School_
1486-1531
_Pupil of Piero di Cosimo_
Italian painters received their names in peculiar ways. This man's
father was a tailor; and the artist was named after his father's
profession. He was in fact "the Tailor's Andrea," and his father's
name was Angelo.
One story of this brilliant painter which reads from first to last
like a romance has been told by the poet, Browning, who dresses up
fact so as to smother it a little, but there is truth at the bottom.
Andrea married a wife whom he loved tenderly. She had a beautiful face
that seemed full of spirituality and feeling, and Andrea painted it
over and over again. The artist loved his work and dreamed always of
the great things that he should do; but he was so much in love with
his wife that he was dependent on her smile for all that he did which
was well done, and her frown plunged him into despair.
Andrea's wife cared nothing for his genius, painting did not interest
her, and she had no worthy ambition for her husband, but she loved
fine clothes and good living, and so encouraged him enough to keep him
earning these things for her. As soon as some money was made she would
persuade him to work no more till it was spent; and even when he had
made agreements to paint certain pictures for which he was paid in
advance she would torment him till he gave all of his time to her
whims, neglected his duty and spent the money for which he had
rendered no service. Thus in time he became actually dishonest, as we
shall see. It is a sad sort of story to tell of so brilliant a young
man.
Andrea was born in the Gualfonda quarter of Florence, and there is
some record of his ancestors for a hundred years before that, although
their lives were quite unimportant. Andrea was one of four children,
and as usual with Italians of artistic temperament, he was set to work
under the eye of a goldsmith. This craftsmanship of a fine order was
as near to art as a man could get with any certainty of making his
living. It was a time when the Italian world bedecked itself with rare
golden trinkets, wreaths for women's hair, girdles, brooches, and the
like, and the finest skill was needed to satisfy the taste. Thus it
required talent of no mean order for a man to become a successful
goldsmith.
Andrea did not like the work, and instead of fashioning ornaments from
his master's models he made original drawings which did not do at all
in a shop where an apprentice was expected to earn his salt. Certain
fashions had to be followed and people did not welcome fantastic or
new designs. Because of this, Andrea was early put out of his master's
shop and set to learn the only business that he could be got to learn,
painting. This meant for him a very different teacher from the
goldsmith.
The artist may be said to have been his own master, because, even when
he was apprenticed to a painter he was taught less than he already
knew.
That first teacher was Barile, a coarse and unpleasing man, as well as
an incapable one; but he was fair minded, after a fashion, and put
Andrea into the way of finding better help. After a few years under
the direction of Piero di Cosimo, Andrea and a friend, Francia Bigio,
decided to set up shop for themselves.
The two devoted friends pitched their tent in the Piazza del Grano,
and made a meagre beginning out of which great things were to
grow. They began a series of pictures which was to lead at least one
of them to fame. It was in the little Piazza, del Grano studio that
the "Baptism of Christ" was painted, a partnership work that had been
planned in the Campagnia dello Scalzo.
"The Baptism" was not much of a picture as great pictures go, but it
was a beginning and it was looked at and talked about, which was
something at a time when Titian and Leonardo had set the standard of
great work. In the Piazza del Grano, Andrea and his friend lived in
the stables of the Tuscan Grand Dukes, with a host of other fine
artists, and they had gay times together.
Andrea was a shy youth, a little timid, and by no means vain of his
own work, but he painted with surprising swiftness and sureness, and
had a very brilliant imagination. Its was his main trouble that he had
more imagination than true manhood; he sacrificed everything good to
his imagination.
After the partnership with his friend, he undertook to paint some
frescoes independently, and that work earned for him the name of
"Andrea senza Errori"--Andrea the Unerring. Then, as now, each artist
had his own way of working, and Andrea's was perhaps the most
difficult of all, yet the most genius-like. There were those, Michael
Angelo for example, who laid in backgrounds for their paintings; but
Andrea painted his subject upon the wet plaster, precisely as he meant
it to be when finished.
He was unlike the moody Michael Angelo; unlike the gentle Raphael;
unlike the fastidious Van Dyck who came long afterward; he was
hail-fellow-well-met among his associates, though often given over to
dreaminess. He belonged to a jolly club named the "Kettle Club,"
literally, the Company of the Kettle; and to another called "The
Trowel," both suggesting an all around good time and much good
fellowship The members of these clubs were expected to contribute to
their wonderful suppers, and Andrea on one occasion made a great
temple, in imitation of the Baptistry, of jelly with columns of
sausages, white birds and pigeons represented the choir and
priests. Besides being "Andrew the Unerring," and a "Merry Andrew," he
was also the "Tailor's Andrew," a man in short upon whom a nickname
sat comfortably. He helped to make the history of the "Company of the
Kettle," for he recited and probably composed a touching ballad called
"The Battle of the Mice and the Frogs," which doubtless had its origin
in a poem of Homer's. But all at once, in the midst of his gay
careless life came his tragedy; he fell in love with a hatter's
wife. This was quite bad enough, but worse was to come, for the hatter
shortly died, and the widow was free to marry Andrea.
After his marriage Andrea began painting a series of Madonnas,
seemingly for no better purpose than to exhibit his wife's beauty over
and over again. He lost his ambition and forgot everything but his
love for this unworthy woman. She was entirely commonplace, incapable
of inspiring true genius or honesty of purpose.
A great art critic, Vasari, who was Andrea's pupil during this time,
has written that the wife, Lucretia, was abominable in every way. A
vixen, she tormented Andrea from morning till night with her bitter
tongue. She did not love him in the least, but only what his money
could buy for her, for she was extravagant, and drove the sensitive
artist to his grave while she outlived him forty years.
About the time of the artist's marriage he painted one fresco, "The
Procession of the Magi," in which he placed a very splendid substitute
for his wife, namely himself. Afterward he painted the Dead Christ
which found its way to France and it laid the foundation for Andrea's
wrongdoing. This picture was greatly admired by the King of France who
above all else was a lover of art. Francis I. asked Andrea to go to
his court, as he had commissions for him. He made Andrea a money offer
and to court he went.
He took a pupil with him, but he left his wife at home. At the court
of Francis I. he was received with great honours, and amid those new
and gracious surroundings, away from the tantalising charms of his
wife and her shrewish tongue, he began to have an honest ambition to
do great things. His work for France was undertaken with enthusiasm,
but no sooner was he settled and at peace, than the irrepressible wife
began to torment him with letters to return. Each letter distracted
him more and more, till he told the King in his despair, that he must
return home, but that he would come back to France and continue his
work, almost at once. Francis I., little suspecting the cause of
Andrea's uneasiness, gave him permission to go, and also a large sum
of money to spend upon certain fine works of art which he was to bring
back to France.
We can well believe that Andrea started back to his home with every
good intention; that he meant to appease his wife and also his own
longing to see her; to buy the King his pictures with the money
entrusted to him, and to return to France and finish his work; but,
alas, he no sooner got back to his wife than his virtuous purpose
fled. She wanted this; she wanted that--and especially she wanted a
fine house which could just about be built for the sum of money which
the King of France had entrusted to Andrea.
Andrea is a pitiable figure, but he was also a vagabond, if we are to
believe Vasari. He took the King's money, built his wretched wife a
mansion, and never again dared return to France, where his dishonesty
made him forever despised.
Afterward he was overwhelmed with despair for what he had done, and he
tried to make his peace with Francis; but while that monarch did not
punish him directly for his knavery; he would have no more to do with
him, and this was the worst punishment the artist could have
had. However, his genius was so great that other than French people
forgot his dishonesty and he began life anew in his native place.
Almost all his pictures were on sacred subjects; and finally, when
driven from Florence to Luco by the plague, taking with him his wife
and stepdaughter, he began a picture called the "Madonna del Sacco"
(the Madonna of the Sack).
This fresco was to adorn the convent of the Servi, and the sketches
for it were probably made in Luco. When the plague passed and the
artist was able to return to Florence, he began to paint it upon the
cloister walls.
Andrea, like Leonardo, painted a famous "Last Supper," although the
two pictures cannot be compared. In Andrea's picture it is said that
all the faces are portraits.
Just before the plague sent him and his family from Florence a most
remarkable incident took place. Raphael had painted a celebrated
portrait of Pope Leo X. in a group, and the picture belonged to
Ottaviano de Medici. Duke Frederick II., of Mantua, longed to own this
picture, and at last requested the Medici to give it to him. The Duke
could not well be refused, but Ottaviano wanted to keep so great a
work for himself. What was to be done? He was in great trouble over
the affair. The situation seemed hopeless. It seemed certain that he
must part with his beloved picture to the Duke of Mantua; but one day
Andrea del Sarto declared that he could make a copy of it that even
Raphael himself could not tell from his original. Ottaviano could
scarcely believe this, but he begged Andrea to set about it, hoping
that it might be true.
Going at the work in good earnest, Andrea painted a copy so exact that
the pupil of Raphael, who had more or less to do with the original
picture, could not tell which was which when he was asked to
choose. This pupil, Giulio Romano, was so familiar with every stroke
of Raphael's that if he were deceived surely any one might be; so the
replica was given to the Duke of Mantua, who never found out the
difference.
Years afterward Giulio Romano showed the picture to Vasari, believing
it to be the original Raphael, neither Andrea nor the Medici having
told Romano the truth. But Vasari, who knew the whole story, declared
to Romano that what he showed him was but a copy. Romano would not
believe it, but Vasari told him that he would find upon the canvas a
certain mark, known to be Andrea's. Romano looked, and behold, the
original Raphael became a del Sarto! The original picture hangs in the
Pitti Palace, while the copy made by Andrea is in the Naples Gallery.
The introduction of Andrea to Vasari was one of the few gracious
things, that Michael Angelo ever did. About Andrea he said to Raphael
at the time: "There is a little fellow in Florence who will bring
sweat to your brows if ever he is engaged in great works." Raphael,
would certainly have agreed, with him had he known what was to happen
in regard to the Leo X. picture.
Notwithstanding Andrea's unfortunate temperament, which caused him to
be guided mostly by circumstances instead of guiding them, he was said
to be improving all the time in his art. He had a great many pupils,
but none of them could tolerate his wife for long, so they were always
changing.
Throughout his life the artist longed for tenderness and encouragement
from his wife, and finally, without ever receiving it, he died in a
desolate way, untended even by her. After the siege of Florence there
came a pestilence, and Andrea was overtaken by it. His wife, afraid
that she too would become ill, would have nothing to do with him. She
kept away and he died quite alone, few caring that he was dead and no
one taking the trouble to follow him to his grave. Thus one of the
greatest of Florentine painters lived and died. Years after his death,
the artist Jacopo da Empoli, was copying Andrea's "Birth of the
Virgin" when an old woman of about eighty years on her way to mass
stopped to speak with him. She pointed to the beautiful Virgin's face
in the picture and said: "I am that woman." And so she was--the widow
of the great Andrea. Though she had treated him so cruelly, she was
glad to have it known that she was the widow of the dead genius.
PLATE--THE MADONNA DEL SACCO
_(Madonna of the Sack)_
This picture is a fresco in the cloister of the Annunziata at
Florence, and it is called "of the sack" because Joseph is posed
leaning against a sack, a book open upon his knees.
Doubtless the model for this Madonna is Andrea del Sarto's abominable
wife, but she looks very sweet and simple in the picture. The folds of
Mary's garments are beautifully painted, so is the poise of her head,
and all the details of the picture except the figure of the
child. There is a line of stiffness there and it lacks the softness of
many other pictures of the Infant Jesus.
PLATE--THE HOLY FAMILY
In this picture in the Pitti Palace, Florence, Andrea del Sarto
represents all the characters in a serious mood. There are St. John
and Elizabeth, Mary and the Infant Jesus, and there is no touch of
playfulness such as may be found in similar groups by other artists of
the time. Attention is concentrated upon Jesus who seems to be
learning from his young cousin. The left hand, resting upon Mary's arm
is badly drawn and in character does not seem to belong to the figure
of the child. A full, overhanging upper lip is a dominant feature in
each face.
Other works of Andrea del Sarto are "Charity," which is in the Louvre;
"Madonna dell' Arpie," "A Head of Christ," "The Dead Christ," "Four
Saints," "Joseph in Egypt," his own portrait, and "Joseph's Dream."
II
MICHAEL ANGELO (BUONARROTI)
(Pronounced Meek-el-ahn-jel-o (Bwone-ar-ro'tee))
_Florentine School_
1475-1564
_Pupil of Ghirlandajo_
This wonderful man did more kinds of things, at a time when almost all
artists were versatile, than any other but one. Probably Leonardo da
Vinci was gifted in as many different ways as Michael Angelo, and in
his own lines was as powerful. This Florentine's life was as tragic as
it was restless.
There is a tablet in a room of a castle which stands high upon a rocky
mount, near the village of Caprese, which tells that Michael Angelo
was born in that place. The great castle is now in ruins, and more
than four hundred years of fame have passed since the little child was
born therein.
The unhappy existence of the artist seems to have been foreshadowed by
an accident which happened to his mother before he was born. She was
on horseback, riding with her husband to his official post at Chiusi,
for he was governor of Chiusi and Caprese. Her horse stumbled, fell,
and badly hurt her. This was two months before Michael Angelo was
born, and misfortune ever pursued him.
The father of Angelo was descended from an aristocratic house--the
Counts of Canossa were his ancestors--and in that day the profession
of an artist was not thought to be dignified. Hence the father had
quite different plans for the boy; but the son persisted and at last
had his way. When he was still a little child his father finished his
work as an official at Caprese and returned to Florence; but he left
the little Angelo behind with his nurse. That nurse was the wife of a
stonemason, and almost as soon as the boy could toddle he used to
wander about the quarries where the stonecutters worked, and doubtless
the baby joy of Angelo was to play at chiseling as it is the pleasure
of modern babies to play at peg-top. After a time he was sent for to
go to Florence to begin his education.
In Florence he fell in with a young chap who, like himself, loved art,
but who was fortunate enough already to be apprenticed to the great
painter of his time--Ghirlandajo. One happy day this young Granacci
volunteered to take Michael Angelo to his master's studio, and there
Angelo made such an impression on Ghirlandajo that he was urged by the
artist to become his pupil.
All the world began to seem rose coloured to the ambitious boy, and he
started his life-work with enthusiasm. At that time he was thirteen
years old, full of hope and of love for his kind; but his good fortune
did not last long. He had hardly settled to work in Ghirlandajo's
studio than his genius, which should have made him beloved, made him
hated by his master. Angelo drew superior designs, created new
art-ideas, was more clever in all his undertakings than any other
pupil--even ahead of his master; and almost at once Ghirlandajo became
furiously jealous. This enmity between pupil and master was the
beginning of Angelo's many misfortunes.
One day he got into a dispute with a fellow student, Torregiano, who
broke his nose. This deformity alone was a tragedy to one like Michael
Angelo who loved everything beautiful, yet must go through life
knowing himself to be ill-favoured.
In height he was a little man, topped by an abnormally large head
which was part of the penalty he had to pay for his talents. He had a
great, broad forehead, and an eye that did not gleam nor express the
beauty of his creative mind, but was dull, and lustreless, matching
his broken, flattened nose. Indeed he was a tragedy to himself. In the
"History of Painting" Muther describes his unhappy disposition:
"In his youthful years he never learned what love meant. 'If thou
wishest to conquer me,' in old age he addresses love, 'give me back my
features, from which nature has removed all beauty.' Whenever in his
sonnets he speaks of passion, it is always of pain and tears, of
sadness and unrequited longing, never of the fulfilment of his
wishes."
Then, too, Michael Angelo had a quarrelsome disposition, and he was
harsh in his criticism of others. He hated Leonardo da Vinci more for
his great physical beauty than for his genius. He quarreled with most
of his contemporaries, never joined the assemblies of his brother
artists, but dwelt altogether apart. His was a gloomy and melancholy
disposition and he never found relief outside his work.
He was all kinds of an artist--poet, sculptor, architect, painter--and
although he worked with the irregularity of true genius, he worked
indefatigably when once he began. It is said that when he was making
his "David" he never removed his clothing the whole time he was
employed upon the work, but dropped down when too exhausted to work
more, and slept wherever he fell.
His first flight from the workshop of Ghirlandajo was to the gardens
of the great Florentine prince, Lorenzo de' Medici, who had sent to
Ghirlandajo for two of his best pupils. He wished them to come to his
gardens and study the beautiful Greek statues which ornamented
them. The choice fell to Angelo and Granacci. Probably those statues
in Lorenzo's garden were the first glimpses of really great art that
Michael Angelo ever had. Certain it is that he was overwhelmed with
happiness when he was given permission to copy what he would, and at
once he fell to work with his chisel. His first work in that garden
was upon the head of an old faun; and Lorenzo, walking by, curious to
know to what use the lad was putting his opportunity, made a
criticism:
"You have made your faun old," he said, "yet you have left all the
teeth; at such an age, generally the teeth are wanting."
Angelo had nothing to say and the prince walked on, but when next he
came that way, he found that Angelo had broken off two of the faun's
teeth; and this recognition of his criticism pleased Lorenzo so much
that he invited Angelo to live with him. At first his father
objected. He felt himself to be an aristocrat, and sculpture and
painting were indeed low occupations for his son, who he had resolved
should be nothing less than a silk merchant. Nevertheless, the
prince's command, united with the son's pleading, compelled the father
to give up his cherished dream of making a merchant of him, and Angelo
went to live in the palace.
Then indeed what seemed a beautiful life opened out. He was dressed in
fine clothing, dined with princes, and possibly he was grateful to his
patron. Some historians say so, and add that when Lorenzo died Angelo
wept, and returned sadly to his father's house to mourn, but this tale
seems at odds with what else we know of Angelo's unangelic, envious
and bitter disposition. It is quite certain, however, that with the
death of Lorenzo, Angelo's, fortunes became greatly changed. Another
prince followed in line--Pietro de' Medici--but he was a poor thing,
who brought little good to anybody. He had small use for Michael
Angelo's genius, but it is said that he did give him one
commission. After a great storm one day, he asked him to make a
snow-man for him, and Angelo obligingly complied. It was doubtless a
very beautiful snow-man, but although it was Angelo's it melted in the
night, even as if it had been Johnny's or Tommy's snow-man, and left
no trace behind.
In Rome there was a high and haughty pope on the throne--Julius
II.--who had probably not his match for obstinacy and haughtiness,
excepting in the great painter and sculptor. When Angelo went to Rome,
he was bound to come in conflict with Julius for it was popes and
princes who gave art any reason for being in those days, and the
Church prescribed what kind of art should be cultivated. Michael was
to come directly under the command of the pope and such a combination
promised trouble. Kings themselves had to remove their crowns and hats
to Julius, and why not Michael Angelo? Yet there he stood, covered,
before the pope, opposing his greatness to that of the pope. Soderini
says that Angelo treated the pope as the king of France never would
have dared treat him; but Angelo may have known that kings of France
might be born and die, times without number, while there would never
be born another Michael Angelo. There could be nothing but antagonism
between Angelo and Julius, and soon after the artist returned to
Florence; but the necessity for following his profession enabled
Julius to tame him after all, and it is said that the pope led him
back to Rome, later, "with a halter about his neck." This must have
been agony to Angelo.
Back in Rome, he was commissioned to make a tomb for the pope. He had
no sooner set about the preliminaries--the getting of suitable marble
for his work--than he began to quarrel with the men who were to hew
it. When that difficulty was settled, and the marble was got out, he
had a set-to with the shipowners who were to transport the stone, and
that row became so serious that the sculptor was besieged in his own
house.
At another and later time, when he was engaged upon the frescoes of
the Sistine Chapel, he was made to work by force. He accused the man
who had built the scaffolding upon which he must stand, or lie, to
paint, of planning his destruction. He suspected the very assistants
whom he, himself, had chosen to go from Florence, of having designs
upon his life. He locked the chapel against them, and they had to turn
away when they went to begin work. Because of his insane suspicion he
did alone the enormous work of the frescoes. Doubtless he was half
mad, just as he was wholly a genius.
By the time he had finished those frescoes he was so exhausted and
overworked that he wrote piteously to his people at home, "I have not
a friend in Rome, neither do I wish nor have use for any." This of
course was not true; or he would not have made the statement. "I
hardly find time to take nourishment. Not an ounce more can I bear
than already rests upon my shoulders." Even when the work was done he
felt no happiness because of it, but complained about everything and
everybody.
If Angelo thought this an unhappy day, worse was in store for
him. Julius II. died and in his place there came to reign upon the
papal throne, Leo X. If Michael Angelo had been restricted in his work
before, he was almost jailed under Leo X. Julius had been a virile,
forceful man, and Michael Angelo was the same. Since he must be
restrained and dictated to, it was possible for the artist to listen
to a man who was in certain respects strong like himself, but to be
under the thumb of a weak, effeminate person like Leo, was the tragedy
of tragedies to Angelo. That was a marvellous time in Rome. All its
citizens had become so pleasure-loving that the world, stood still to
wonder. When the pope banqueted, he had the golden plates from which
fair women had eaten hurled into the Tiber, that they might never be
profaned by a less noble use than they had known. From all this riot
and madness of pleasure, Michael Angelo stood aside with frowning brow
and scornful mien. He approved of nothing and of nobody--despising
even Raphael, the gentle and loving man whom the pleasure-crazed
people of Rome paused to smile upon and love. The pope said that
Angelo was "terrible," and that he filled everybody with fear.
Finally, Rome so resented his frowning looks and his surly ways that
work was provided for him at a distance. He was sent to Florence again
to build a facade. While there, the city was conquered, and Angelo was
one who fought for its freedom, but even so, he fled just at the
crisis. Thus he ever did the wrong thing--excepting when he worked. In
Florence he had planned to do mighty things, but he never accomplished
any one of them. He planned to make a wonderful colossal statue on a
cliff near Carrara, and also he resolved to make the tomb of Julius
the nucleus of a "forest of statues."
Michael Angelo never married, but he was burdened with a family and
all its cares. He supported his brothers and even his nephews, and
took care of his father. All of those people came to him with their
difficulties and with their demands for money. He chided, quarreled,
repelled, yet met every obligation. He would sit beside the sick-bed
of a servant the night through, but growl at the demands of his near
relatives--and it is not unlikely that he had good reason.
At last he withdrew himself from all human society but that of little
children, whom he cared to speak with and to please. He would have
naught to do with men of genius like himself; and when he fell from a
scaffolding and injured himself, the physician had to force his way
through a barred window, in order to get into the sick man's presence
to serve him.
An illustration of his determined solitude is given in the "Young
People's Story of Art:"
"There had long been lying idle in Florence an immense block of
marble. One hundred years before a sculptor had tried to carve
something from it, but had failed. This was now given to Michael
Angelo. He was to be paid twelve dollars a month, and to be allowed
two years in which to carve a statue. He made his design in wax; and
then built a tower around the block, so that he might work inside
without being seen."
Everything Angelo undertook bore the marks of gigantic
enterprise. Although he never succeeded in making the tomb of Julius
II. the central piece in his forest of statues, the undertaking was
marvellous enough. His original plan was to make the tomb three
stories high and to ornament it with forty statues, and if St. Peter's
Church was large enough to hold it, the work was to be placed therein;
but if not, a church was to be built specially to hold the tomb. When
at last, in spite of his difficulties with workmen and shipowners, the
marbles were deposited in the great square before St. Peter's, they
filled the whole place; and the pope, wishing to watch the progress of
the work and not himself to be observed, had a covered way built from
the Vatican to the workshop of Angelo in the square, by which he might
come and go as he chose, while an order was issued that the sculptor
was to be admitted at all times to the Vatican. No sooner was this
arrangement completed than Angelo's enemies frightened the pope by
telling him there was danger in making his tomb before his death; and
with these superstitions haunting him Julius II. stopped the work,
leaving Angelo without the means to pay for his marbles. With the
doors of the Vatican closed to him, Angelo withdrew, post haste to
Florence--and who can blame him? Nevertheless, the work was resumed
after infinite trouble on the pope's part. He had to send again and
again for Angelo and after forty years, the work was finished. There
the sequel of the sculptor's forty-years war with self and the world
stands to-day in "Moses," the wonderful, commanding central figure
which seems to reflect all the fierce power which Angelo had to keep
in check during a life-time.
The command of Julius that he should paint the ceiling of the Sistine
Chapel aroused all his fierce resistance. He did it under protest, all
the while accusing those about him of having designs upon his life.
"I am not a painter, but a sculptor," he said.
"Such a man as thou is everything that he wishes to be," the pope
replied.
"But this is an affair of Raphael. Give him this room to paint and let
me carve a mountain!" But no, he must paint the ceiling; but to render
it easier for him the pope told him he might fill in the spaces with
saints, and charge a certain amount for each. This Angelo, who was
first of all an artist, refused to do. He would do the work rightly or
not at all. So he made his own plans and cut himself a cardboard
helmet, into the front of which he thrust a candle, as if it were a
Davy lamp, and he lay upon his back to work day and night at the hated
task. During those months he was compelled to look up so continually,
that never afterward was he able to look down without difficulty. When
he had finished the work Julius had some criticisms to make.
"Those dresses on your saints are such poor things," he said. "Not
rich enough--such very poor things!"
"Well, they were poor things," was Angelo's answer. "The saints did
not wear golden ornaments, nor gold on their garments."
After Julius II. and Leo X. came Pope Paul III., and he, like the
other two, determined to have Angelo for his workman. Indeed all his
life, Michael Angelo's gifts were commanded by the Church of Rome. It
was for Paul III. he painted the "Last Judgment." His former work upon
the Sistine Chapel had been the story of the creation. All his work
was of a mighty and allegorical nature; tremendous shoulders, mighty
limbs, herculean muscles that seemed fit to support the
universe. These allegories are made of hundreds of figures. To-day
they are still there, though dimmed by the smoke of centuries of
incense, and dismembered by the cracking of plaster and disintegration
of materials.
Angelo's methods of work, as well as their results, were
oppressive. In his youth, while trying to perfect himself in his study
of the human form, he drew or modelled, from nude corpses. He had
these conveyed by stealth from the hospital into the convent of Santo
Spirito, where he had a cell and there he worked, alone.
He was concentrated, mentally and emotionally, upon himself. The only
remark he made after the blow from Torregiano was, "You will be
remembered only as the man who broke my nose!" This proved nearly
true, since Torregiano was banished, and murdered by the Spanish
Inquisition.
All sorts of anecdotes have floated through the centuries concerning
this man and his work. For example, he made a statue of a sleeping
cupid, which was buried in the ground for a time that it might assume
the appearance of age, and pass for an antique. Afterward it was sold
to the Cardinal San Giorgio for two hundred ducats, though Michael
Angelo received only thirty. Nevertheless, he died a rich man, after
having cared for a numerous family, while he himself lived like a man
without means. All the tranquillity he ever knew he enjoyed in his old
age.
It was characteristic of his perversity that he left his name upon
nothing that he made, with one exception. Vasari relates the story of
that exception:
"The love and care which Michael Angelo had given to this group, 'In
Paradise,' were such that he there left his name--a thing he never did
again for any work--on the cincture which girdles the robe of Our
Lady; for it happened one day that Michael Angelo, entering the place
where it was erected, found a large assemblage of strangers from
Lombardy there, who were praising it highly; one of them asking who
had done it, was told, 'our Hunchback of Milan'; hearing which Michael
Angelo remained silent, although surprised that his work should be
attributed to another. But one night he repaired to St. Peter's with a
light and his chisels, to engrave his name on the figure, which seems
to breathe a spirit as perfect as her form and countenance."
If his youth had been given to sculpture, his maturity to the painting
of wondrous frescoes, so his old age was devoted to architecture, and
as architect he rebuilt the decaying St. Peter's. In this work he felt
that he partly realised his ideal. Sculpture meant more to him, "did
more for the glory of God," than any other form of art. When he had
finished his work on St. Peter's, he is said to have looked upon it
and exclaimed: "I have hung the Pantheon in the air!"
This colossal genius died in Rome, and was carried by the light of
torches from that city back to his better loved Florence, where he was
buried. His tomb was made in the Santa Croce, and upon it are three
female figures representing Michael Angelo's three wonderful arts:
Architecture, sculpture and painting. No artist was greater than he.
His will committed "his soul to God, his body to the earth, and his
property to his nearest relatives."
PLATE--DANIEL
This wonderful painting is a part of the decoration of the Sistine
Chapel in Rome. The picture of the prophet tells so much in itself,
that a description seems absurd. It is enough to call attention to the
powerful muscles in the arm, the fall of the hand, and then to speak
of the main characteristics of the artist's pictures.
It is extraordinary that there is no blade of grass to be found in any
painting by Michael Angelo. He loved to paint but one thing, and that
was the naked man, the powerful muscles, or the twisted limbs of those
in great agony. He loved only to work upon vast spaces of ceiling or
wall. Look at this picture of Daniel and see how like sculpture the
pose and modelling appear to be. First of all, Michael Angelo was a
sculptor, and most of the painting which fate forced him to do has the
characteristics of sculpture.
One critic has remarked that he loves to think of this strange man
sitting before the marble quarry of Pietra Santa and thinking upon all
the beings hidden in the cliff--beings which he should fashion from
the marble.