wrote to the brother of the lady. "If she would only waive her
bashfulness, or, in other words, make an offer instead of expecting
one, the same (Solus Lodge) might change occupiers." Faint heart
certainly did not win fair lady in this case, for she married
another. Before he died Turner was offered $25,000 for two pictures
which he would not sell. "No" he said. "I have willed them and cannot
sell them." He disposed of several great works as legacies. One
picture of which he was very fond, "Carthage," was the occasion of an
amusing anecdote. "Chantry," he said to his friend the sculptor, "I
want you to promise that when I am dead you will see me rolled in that
canvas when I'm buried."
"All right," said Chantry, "I'll do it, but I'll promise to have you
taken up and unrolled, also."
A remarkable incident of generosity is told of Turner. In 1826 he hung
two exquisite pictures in the Academy. One, "Cologne," having a most
beautiful, golden effect. This was hung between two portraits by Sir
Thomas Lawrence. The golden colouring of Turner's picture entirely
destroyed the effect of the Lawrence pictures, and without a word,
Turner washed his lovely picture over with lampblack. This gave the
Lawrence, pictures their full colour value. A friend who had been
enthusiastic about the "Cologne" was provoked with Turner. "What in
the world did you do that for?" he demanded. "Well, poor Lawrence was
so unhappy. It will all wash off after the exhibition." Turner had his
reward in cash, for the picture sold for 2,000 guineas.
Above all things Turner hated engravings, or any process that
cheapened art, and one day he stated this to his friend Lawrence. "I
don't choose to be a basket engraver," he declared.
"What do you mean by that," Sir Thomas inquired.
"Why when I got off the coach t' other day at Hastings, a woman came
up with a basket of your 'Mrs. Peel,' and offered to sell me one for a
sixpence."
Turner dearly loved his friends, and the story of Chantry's death,
illustrates it. He was in his room when the sculptor breathed his
last, and just as he died, the artist turned to another friend, George
Jones, and with tears streaming down his face, wrung Jones's hand and
rushed from the room, unable to speak.
Again, when William Frederick Wells, another friend, died, Turner
rushed to the house of Clara Wells, his daughter, and cried: "Oh
Clara, Clara! these are iron tears. I have lost the best friend I ever
had in my life."
In his old age Turner suddenly disappeared from all his haunts, and
his friends could not find him. They were much troubled, but one day
his old housekeeper found a note in a pocket of an old coat, which
made her think he had gone to Chelsea. She looked there for him, and
found him very ill, in a little cottage on the Thames River. Everybody
about called him Admiral Booth, believing him to be a retired
admiral. He had felt his death near and had tried to meet it quite
alone. He died the very day after his friends found him, as he was
being wheeled by them to the window to look out upon the river for the
last time. He was buried in St. Paul's Cathedral between Sir Joshua
Reynolds and James Barry. He left his drawings and pictures to a
"Turner Gallery," and $100,000 to the Royal Academy, to be used for a
medal to be struck every two years for the best exhibitor. The rest of
his fortune went to care for "poor and decayed male artists born in
England and of English parents only." This was to be known as Turner's
Gift, and that is why he had saved money all his life.
A few more of the numberless stories of his generosity should be
told. A picture had been sent to the Academy by a painter named Bird
It was very fine, and Turner was full of its praise, but when they
came to hang it no place could be found.
"It can't be hung," the others of the committee said.
"It must be hung," returned Turner, but nothing could be done about
it, for there was absolutely no place. Then Turner went aside with the
picture and sat studying it a long time. Finally he got up, took down
a picture of his own and hung Bird's in its place. "There!" he
said. "It is hung!"
Again, an old drawing-master died and Turner who had known the family
for a long time, was aware that they were destitute, so he gave the
widow a good sum of money with which to bury her husband and to meet
general expenses. After some time she came to him with the money; but
Turner put his hands in his pockets. "No," he said; "keep it. Use it
to send the children to school and to church."
On one occasion when he had irritably sent a beggar from his house, he
ran out and called her back, thrusting a £5 note into her hand before
letting her go.
There was a man who in Turner's youth, while the little fellow was
making pictures in the cheerless barber shop bought all of these
drawings he could find. He often raised the price and in every way
tried to help Turner. In after years that old patron went
bankrupt. Turner heard that his steward had been instructed to cut
down some fine old trees on this man's estate, and sell them. Turner,
without letting himself be known in the matter, at once stopped the
cutting and put into his old patron's hands about £20,000. The rescued
man, afterward, through the same channels that he had received the
money, paid it all back. Years passed, and the son of that same man
got into the same difficulties, and again, without being known in the
matter, Turner restored his fortune. That son, in his turn, honestly
paid back the full amount. This was the miser who saved all his
money--to do good deeds to his friends. Ruskin wrote that in all his
life he had never heard from Turner one unkind or blameful word for
others.
PLATE--THE FIGHTING TÉMÉRAIRE
This was the picture which Turner loved best of all, the one he would
never sell; but at his death ho gave it to the English nation.
"Many years before he painted it, he had gone down to Portsmouth one
day to see Nelson's fleet come in after the glorious victory of
Trafalgar. The _Téméraire_ was pointed out to him--a battle ship that
had very proudly borne the English flag, for during the battle it had
run in between two French frigates and captured them both.
"And now between thirty and forty years later, he lingered one
afternoon on the banks of the Thames. As he looked over the water he
saw the grand old hulk being towed down the river by a noisy little
tug to be broken up at Deptford. 'There's a fine subject!' he
exclaimed as he looked at the heroic ship that had known many glorious
years; and in his thought he compared it to 'a battle-scarred warrior
borne to the grave.'
"Then he painted the picture. The glow of the setting sun irradiates
the scene and bids farewell to the old ship. Twilight is coming on,
and the new moon has just risen in its pearly light. It is a pathetic
picture," and well illustrates how truly a "master of sunsets and
waves" the artist was.
Among his other paintings are several of Venice; "The Slave Ship" and
many other sea pieces.
XL
SIR ANTHONY VAN DYCK
_Flemish School_
1599-1641
_Pupil of Rubens_
Anthony Van Dyke's father was neither a gentleman nor an ill-born
person. He was "betwixt-and-between," being a silk merchant, who met
so many fine folk that he seemed to be "fine folk" himself; and by the
time Anthony had grown up, he actually believed himself to be one of
them. If manners stand for fineness Sir Anthony must have been
superfine, because he was almost overburdened with "manners."
He became a wonderful, be-laced, perfumed, shiny gentleman who never
stooped to paint anything less than royalty and its associates, nor in
anything less than velvets and laces. Like Rembrandt and Gainsborough,
he set a fashion--or rather the style in which he painted came to be
known after his name. We are all familiar with the kind of
ornamentation on clothes called Van Dyck--pointed lace, or
trimmings--and pointed beards.
As a very young lad he was almost too dainty to be liked by healthy
boys; and the worst of it was he did not care whether healthy, robust
chaps liked him or not; certainly he did not care for them. He liked
to sit in his father's shop and be smiled upon by the great ladies who
came to buy, and in turn to smile shyly at them; this tendency became
stronger as he grew to be a man.
Anthony's mother made the most exquisite embroideries, and this may
mean that some part of his art was inherited. She handled lovely
colours, and tried to fashion beautiful flower shapes for
customers. She was a fragile, tender sort of woman, while the father
was doubtless a dapper, over-nice little fellow.
Anthony was born in Antwerp, and the facts concerning his education,
as in the case of most artists, are lost to our knowledge. He probably
had a little of some sort outside of painting, but it certainly was
not enough to hurt him, nor to make a fine healthy man of him. He was
very beautiful, in a lady-like, faint-coloured way, not in the least
resembling the handsome, gorgeous, elegant, robust Rubens, a true
cavalier, of a dashing sort.
He was apprenticed to a painter when he was ten years old, and later
on became the pupil of Rubens. He painted a whole series of Apostles'
heads, about which a lawsuit took place. The papers relating to this
were found about twenty years ago, though the lawsuit occurred as far
back as 1615. Several of the Apostles' heads that brought about the
suit are to-day to be seen in the gallery at Dresden.
Everything in those days--especially in Germany and Holland--was
represented by a "guild." In reading about the Mastersingers of
Nuremberg we are told that on the day when the trial of singers was to
take place, dozens of "guilds" assembled in the meadow--guilds of
bakers, of shoemakers--of which Hans Sachs was the head--guilds of
goldsmiths, etc. Van Dyck was a member of the painters' guild when he
was no more than nineteen. His work at that time showed so much
strength that there is a picture of his, an old gentleman and lady, in
the Dresden gallery, which for a long time was supposed to have been
painted by his master, Rubens.
An intimate friend of Van Dyck, Kenelm Digby, says that Van Dyck's
first relations with Rubens came about by Van Dyck being employed to
make engravings for the reproduction of Rubens's great works. After
that he studied painting with him.
One of his friends of that time wrote that at twenty Van Dyck was
nearly as great as Rubens, though this is hardly substantiated by the
verdict of time, and that being a man with very rich family
connections, he could hardly be expected to leave home. On every hand
we have signs of the artist's affected feeling about himself and other
people.
However, an annual pension from the King of England seems to have made
travelling possible to this fine gentleman of lace ruffles, pale face,
and lady-like ways.
There is an entry about him on the royal account book of "Special
service ... performed for His Majesty." Also "Antonio Van Dyck, gent.,
_His Majesty's servant_, is allowed to travaile 8 months, he havinge
obtayneid his Majesty's leave in that behalf, as was signified to the
E. of Arundel." Certainly by that time Van Dyck had become a truly
great portrait painter; not the greatest, because every picture showed
the same characteristics in its subject--elegance, fine clothes,
languid manners, without force of great truth or any excellent moral
quality to distinguish one from another. Nevertheless, the kind of
painting that he did, he did better than anyone else had ever done, or
probably ever will do.
While in England he painted all the royalties and many aristocrats,
and wherever he went he was always painting pictures of himself.
He travelled about a good deal, always painting people of the same
class--kings and queens and fine folk, and painting them pretty nearly
all alike.
When he went to Italy he was everywhere received as a great painter,
but while artists agreed that his work was excellent he was not much
liked by them, and many tales are told about that journey which are
interesting, if not entirely true. Van Dyck was the sort of man about
whom tales would be made up. One, however, sounds true. It is said
that he fell in love--which of course he was always doing--with a
beautiful country girl, and that for love of her he painted an altar
piece into which he put himself, seated on the great gray horse which
Rubens had given him. That picture is in St. Martin's Church at
Saventhem, near Brussels, but although one is inclined to believe this
story because it was quite the sort of thing which might be expected
of Van Dyck, even this is not true, because the painting was done long
after the artist had made his Italian journey, and it was commissioned
by a gentleman living at Saventhem, whose daughter Van Dyck
undoubtedly liked pretty well; but he made the picture for money, not
for love.
While he was in Italy he lived with a cardinal, and painted languid
pictures of sacred subjects, which were far from being his best
work. The best that he did was in portraiture. Distinguished though he
was, he did not have a very good time in Italy, because he would not
join the artists who worked there, nor associate with them in the
least, and naturally this made him disliked.
We see a good many portraits painted by Van Dyck, of persons mounted
upon or standing beside the gray horse, and these were painted about
the time of that Italian journey. He used the Rubens horse in many
paintings.
Of all the people with whom he painted, he most valued the knowledge
he got from a blind woman painter of Sicily, called Sofonisba
Anguisciola, and he often said that he had learned more from a blind
woman than from all the open-eyed men he ever knew. This woman artist
was over ninety years old at the time he learned from her.
While he was in Italy the plague broke out, and Van Dyck fled for his
life, leaving an unfinished picture behind him, one ordered by the
English king, the subject being Rinaldo and Armida, which had gained
for the artist his knighthood pension.
It is said that during his first year in England he painted the king
and queen twelve times. He had an extraordinary record for industry,
and painted very quickly, as he had need to do, because it took a
great deal of money to buy the sort of things Van Dyck liked--fine
laces and velvets, perfumes and satins. His plan was to sketch his
subject first on gray paper with black and white chalk, and after that
he gave the sketch to an assistant who increased it to the size he
wished to paint. The next step was to set his painter to work upon the
clothing of his figures. This was painted in roughly, together with
background and any architectural effect Van Dyck wanted. After this
the artist himself sat down and in three or four sittings, of not more
than an hour each, he was able to finish a picture worth to-day
thousands of dollars.
He painted hands specially well, and kept certain models for them
alone.
Van Dyck had eleven brothers and sisters, whom he always kept in
mind. Some of his sisters had become nuns while some of his brothers
were priests, and Van Dyck's influence got a monkish brother called to
the Dutch court to act as chaplain to the queen.
By this time every royal personage in the world, nearly, had sent for
Van Dyck to paint his portrait, for he could make one look handsomer
than could any other painter in existence. If the king was very ugly,
Van Dyck painted such beautiful clothes upon him that nobody noticed
the plainness of the features.
When Van Dyck was about thirty-six years old he married a great lady,
the Lady Mary Ruthven, granddaughter of the Earl of Gowrie, but before
that he had had a lady-love, Margaret Lemon, whom he painted as the
Virgin and in several other pictures. When he married Lady Mary,
Margaret Lemon was so furiously jealous that she tried to injure Van
Dyck's right hand so that he could paint no more.
About this time Rubens died in Flanders, leaving behind him an
unfinished series of pictures which had been commissioned by the king
of Spain. Van Dyck was asked to finish these, but declined until he
was asked to make an independent picture, to complete the series, and
this he was delighted to do. Ferdinand of Austria wrote to the king of
Spain that Van Dyck had returned in great haste to London to arrange
for his change of home, in order to do the work. "Possibly he may
still change his mind," he added, "for he is stark mad." This shows
how Van Dyck's erratic ways appeared to some people.
He had a sister, Justiniana, who was also something of an artist and
she married a nobleman when she was about twelve years old.
When Van Dyck died he was buried in St. Paul's, London, and Charles
I. placed an inscription on his tomb.
In the "Young People's Story of Art," is the following anecdote: "A
visit was once paid by a courtly looking stranger passing through
Haarlem, to Franz Hals, the distinguished Dutch painter.
"Hals was not at home but he was sent for to the tavern and hastily
returned. The stranger told him that he had heard of his
reputation--had just two hours to spare--and wished to have his
portrait painted. Hals, seizing canvas and brushes fell vigorously to
work; and before the given time had elapsed, he said, 'Have the
goodness to rise, sir, and examine your portrait!' The stranger looked
at it, expressed his satisfaction, and then said, 'Painting seems such
a very easy thing, suppose we change places and see what I can do!'
"Hals assented, and took his position as the sitter. The unknown
began, and as Hals watched him, he saw that he wielded the brush so
quickly, he must be a painter. His work, too, was rapidly finished,
and as Hals looked at it he exclaimed, 'You must be Van Dyck! No one
else could paint such a portrait!'
"No two portraits could have been more unlike. The story adds that the
famous Dutch and Flemish masters heartily embraced each other."
The stories of Van Dyck's youth are interesting, and probably true. It
is said that he drew so well when he was a pupil of Rubens that the
great master often allowed him to retouch his own works. Once in
Rubens's studio, some of the students got the key and went in to see
what the master was doing, when he was absent. Rubens had left a
painting fresh upon the easel, and in looking about them one of the
boys rubbed against it. This frightened them all. What should they do?
Rubens would find his picture ruined and know that they had broken in.
After consultation they decided there was no one with them who could
repair the damage as well as Van Dyck, who set about it, and soon he
had painted in the smudged part so perfectly that when Rubens saw it,
he did not for some time know that anything had happened to his
picture. Later he suspected something, and when he learned of the
prank and its outcome, he was so delighted with Van Dyck's work that
he praised him instead of blaming him for it.
Van Dyck had a very precise method of working. When sitters came to
him he would paint for just one hour. Then he would politely dismiss
them, and his servant would wash his brushes, and clear the way for
the next sitter. He dined with his sitters often that he might
surprise in them the expression which he wanted to paint. Also, he had
their clothing sent to his studio, that it might be exactly imitated
by himself or by those assistants who painted in the foundation for
his finished work.
While attached to King Charles I.'s court, Van Dyck was given a fine
house at Blackfriars, on the Thames, and he had a private landing
place made for boats, so that the royal family might visit him at
their convenience. Charles I. used often to go to Van Dyck's studio to
escape his many troubles, and thus the artist's home became as
fashionable a gathering place, as Gainsborough's studio was in
Bath. He painted Queen Henrietta not less than twenty-five times. He
often furnished concerts for his sitters, for he himself was
passionately fond of music, and moreover he believed that music often
brought to the faces of his sitters, an expression that he loved to
paint.
He painted so many pictures of a certain kind of little dog, in the
pictures of King Charles I. that ever since that breed has been known
as the King Charles spaniel.
After a while Van Dyck got heavily into debt. King Charles himself was
in great trouble, and he had no money with which to pay his painter's
pension. The artist had lived so extravagantly that he did not know at
last which way to turn, so in desperation he thought to try alchemy
and maybe to learn the secret of making gold. He wasted much time at
this, as cleverer men have done, but at last he became too ill for
that or for his own proper work, and badly off though Charles was
himself, he offered his court physician a large sum if he could cure
his court painter. But Van Dyck had enjoyed life too well, and nothing
could be done for him.
He was the seventh child of his parents--which some have thought had
something to do with his genius and success; he lived gaily all the
years of his life, going restlessly from place to place, and having
many acquaintances but probably few friends, outside of his old
master, Rubens, who loved him for his genius.
PLATE--CHILDREN OF CHARLES THE FIRST
Van Dyck painted the family of the unfortunate king of England four
times. There are five children in the Windsor Castle picture, and this
one, which hangs in the Turin Gallery, was probably painted before the
birth of the fourth child in 1636. It is celebrated for its colouring
as well as for its great artistic merit. The children are surely
childlike enough, despite their stately attire, and they little dream
of the sad fate awaiting the whole of the Stuart family to which they
belong.
Other Van Dycks are: "The Blessed Herman Joseph," "Lords Digby and
Russell," "Lord Wharton," "Countess Folkestone," and "William Prince
of Orange."
XLI
VELASQUEZ (DIEGO RODRIGUEZ DE SILVA)
(Pronounced Vay-lahs'keth)
_Castilian School_
1599-1669
_Pupil of Herrera_
It is pretty difficult to find out why a man was named so-and-so in
the days of the early Italian and Spanish painters. More likely than
not they would be called after the master to whom they had been first
apprenticed; or after their trade; after the town from which they
came, and rarely because their father had had the name before them. In
Velasquez's case, he was named after his mother.
No one seemed to be certain what to call him, but he generally wrote
his name "Diego de Silva Velasquez." His father was Rodriguez de
Silva, a lawyer, but in calling the boy Velasquez the family followed
a universal Spanish custom of naming children after their mothers.
Little Velasquez was well taught in his childhood; he studied many
languages and philosophy, for he was intended to be a lawyer or
something learned, anything but a painter. The disappointment of
parents in those days, when they found a child was likely to become an
artist is touching.
Despite his equipment for a useful life, according to the ideas of his
parents, this little chap was bound to become nothing but a maker of
pictures.
Herrera was a bad-tempered master and little Velasquez could not get
on with him, so after a year of harsh treatment, he went to another
master, Pacheco, but by that time he had learned a secret that was to
help make his work great. Herrera had taught him to use a brush with
very long bristles, which had the effect of spreading the paint,
making it look as if his "colours had floated upon the canvas," in a
way that was the "despair of those who came after him."
Velasquez was born in Seville at a time when about all the art of the
world was Italian or German; thus he became the creator of a new
school of painting.
He stayed five years in Pacheco's studio and pupil and master became
very fond of each other. Pacheco was not a great master--not so good
as Herrera--but he was easy to get on with, and knew a good deal about
painting, so that as Velasquez had the genius, he was as well placed
as he needed to be.
In Pacheco's studio there was a peasant boy whose face was very
mobile, showed every passing feeling; and Velasquez used to make him
laugh and weep, till, surprising some good expression, he would
quickly sketch him. With this excellent model, Velasquez did a
surprising amount of good work.
Spain had just then conquered the far-off provinces of Mexico and
Peru, and was continually receiving from its newly got lands much
valuable merchandise. Rapidly growing rich, this Latin country loved
art and all things beautiful, so its money was bound to be spent
freely in such ways. Madrid had been made its capital, and at that
time there were few fine pictures to be found there. The Moors who had
conquered Spain had forbidden picture making, because it was contrary
to their religion to represent the human figure, or even the figures
of birds and beasts. Then the Inquisition had hindered art by its
rules, one of which was that the Virgin Mary should always be painted
with her feet covered; another, that all saints should be
beardless. There were many more exactions.