sang, accompanying himself on a silver lute, which he had had
fashioned in imitation of a horse's skull. After he attached himself
to the court of the Duke of Milan, his gift of invention was
constantly called into use, and one of the surprises he had in store
for the Duke's guests was a great mechanical lion, which being wound
up, would walk into the presence of the court, open its mouth and
disclose a bunch of flowers inside.
Leonardo worked very slowly upon his paintings, because he was never
satisfied with a work, and would retouch it day after day. Then, too,
he was a man of moods, like most geniuses, and could not work with
regularity. The picture of the "Last Supper" was painted in Milan, by
order of his patron, the Duke, and there are many picturesque stories
written of its production. It was painted upon the refectory wall of a
Dominican convent, the Santa Maria delle Grazie; and at first the work
went off well, and the artist would remain upon his scaffolding from
morning till night, absorbed in his painting. It is said that at such
times he neither ate nor drank, forgetting all but his great work. He
kept postponing the painting of two heads--Christ and Judas.
He had worked painstakingly and with enthusiasm till that point, but
deferred what he was hardly willing to trust himself to perform. He
had certain conceptions of these features which he almost feared to
execute, so tremendous was his purpose. He let that part of the work
go, month after month, and having already spent two years upon the
picture, the monks began to urge him to a finish. He was not the man
to endure much pressure, and the more they urged the more resentful he
became. Finally, he began to feel a bitter dislike for the prior, the
man who annoyed him most. One day, when the prior was nagging him
about the picture, wanting to know why he didn't get to work upon it
again, and when would it be finished, Leonardo said suavely: "If you
will sit for the head of Judas, I'll be able to finish the picture at
once." The prior was enraged, as Leonardo meant he should be; but
Leonardo is said actually to have painted him in as Judas. Afterward
he painted in the face of Christ with haste and little care, simply
because he despaired of ever doing the wonderful face that his art
soul demanded Christ should wear.
The one bitter moment in Leonardo's life, in all probability, was when
he came in dire competition with Michael Angelo. When he removed to
Florence he was required to submit sketches for the Town Hall--the
Palazzo Vecchio--and Michael Angelo was his rival. The choice fell to
Angelo, and after a life of supremacy Leonardo could not endure the
humiliation with grace. Added to disappointment, someone declared that
Leonardo's powers were waning because he was growing old. This was
more than he could bear, and he left Italy for France, where the king
had invited him to come and spend the remainder of his life. Francis
I. had wished to have the picture in the Milan monastery taken to
France, but that was not to be done.
Doubtless the king expected Leonardo to do some equally great work
after he became the nation's guest.
Before leaving Italy, Leonardo had painted his one other "greatest"
picture--"La Gioconda" (Mona Lisa)-and he took that wonderful work
with him to France, where the King purchased it for $9,000, and to
this day it hangs in the Louvre.
But Leonardo was to do no great work in France, for in truth he was
growing old. His health had failed, and although he was still a dandy
and court favourite, setting the fashion in clothing and in the cut of
hair and beard, he was no longer the brilliant, active Leonardo.
Bernard Berensen, has written of him: "Painting ... was to Leonardo so
little of a preoccupation that we must regard it as merely a mode of
expression used at moments by a man of universal genius." By which
Berensen means us to understand that Leonardo was so brilliant a
student and inventor, so versatile, that art was a mere pastime. "No,
let us not join in the reproaches made to Leonardo for having painted
so little; because he had so much more to do than to paint, he has
left all of us heirs to one or two of the supremest works of art ever
created."
Another author writes that "in Leonardo da Vinci every talent was
combined in one man."
Leonardo was the third person of the wonderful trinity of Florentine
painters, Raphael and Michael Angelo being the other two.
He knew so much that he never doubted his own powers, but when he
died, after three years in France, he left little behind him, and that
little he had ever declared to be unfinished--the "Mona Lisa" and the
"Last Supper." He died in the Château de Cloux, at Amboise, and it is
said that "sore wept the king when he heard that Leonardo was dead."
In Milan, near the Cathedral, there stands a monument to his memory,
and about it are placed the statues of his pupils. To this day he is
wonderful among the great men of the world.
PLATE--THE LAST SUPPER
This, as we have said, is in the former convent of Santa Maria delle
Grazie, in Milan. It was the first painted story of this legendary
event in which natural and spontaneous action on the part of all the
company was presented.
To-day the picture is nearly ruined by smoke, time, and alterations in
the place, for a great door lintel has been cut into the
picture. Leonardo used the words of the Christ: "Verily, I say unto
you that one of you shall betray me," as the starting point for this
painting. It is after the utterance of these words that we see each of
the disciples questioning horrified, frightened, anxious, listening,
angered--all these emotions being expressed by the face or gestures of
the hands or pose of the figures. It is a most wonderful picture and
it seems as if the limit of genius was to be found in it.
The company is gathered in a half-dark hall, the heads outlined
against the evening light that comes through the windows at the
back. We look into a room and seem to behold the greatest tragedy of
legendary history: treachery and sorrow and consternation brought to
Jesus of Nazareth and his comrades.
This great picture was painted in oil instead of in "distemper," the
proper kind of mixture for fresco, and therefore it was bound to be
lost in the course of time. Besides, it has known more than ordinary
disaster. The troops of Napoleon used this room, the convent
refectory, for a stable, and that did not do the painting any
good. The reason we have so complete a knowledge of it, however, is
that Leonardo's pupils made an endless number of copies of it, and
thus it has found its way into thousands of homes. The following is
the order in which Leonardo placed the disciples at the table: Jesus
of Nazareth in the centre, Bartholomew the last on the left, after him
is James, Andrew, Peter, Judas--who holds the money bag--and John. On
the right, next to Jesus, comes Thomas, the doubting one; James the
Greater, Philip, Matthew, Thaddeus, and Simon. Jesus has just declared
that one of them shall betray him, and each in his own way seems to be
asking "Lord, is it I?" In the South Kensington Museum in London will
be found carefully preserved a description, written out fairly in
Leonardo's own hand, to guide him in painting the Last Supper. It is
most interesting and we shall quote it: "One, in the act of drinking
puts down his glass and turns his head to the speaker. Another
twisting his fingers together, turns to his companion, knitting his
eyebrows. Another, opening his hands and turning the palm toward the
spectator, shrugs his shoulders, his mouth expressing the liveliest
surprise. Another whispers in the ear of a companion, who turns to
listen, holding in one hand a knife, and in the other a loaf, which he
has cut in two. Another, turning around with a knife in his hand,
upsets a glass upon the table and looks; another gasps in amazement;
another leans forward to look at the speaker, shading his eyes with
his hand; another, drawing back behind the one who leans forward,
looks into the space between the wall and the stooping disciple."
Other paintings of Leonardo's are: "Mona Lisa," "Head of Medusa,"
"Adoration of the Magi," and the "Madonna della Caraffa."
XLIV
JEAN ANTOINE WATTEAU
(Pronounced in French, Vaht-toh; English, Wot-toh)
_French (Genre) School_
1684-1721
_Pupil of Gillot and Audran_
Watteau's father was a tiler in a Flemish town--Valenciennes. He meant
that his son should be a carpenter, but that son tramped from
Valenciennes to Paris with the purpose of becoming a great painter. He
did more, he became a "school" of painting, all by himself.
There is no sadder story among artists than that of this lowly born
genius. He was not good to look upon, being the very opposite of all
that he loved, having no grace or charm in appearance. He had a
drooping mouth, red and bony hands, and a narrow chest with stooping
shoulders. Because of a strange sensitiveness he lived all his life
apart from those he would have been happy with, for he mistrusted his
own ugliness, and thought he might be a burden to others.
Such a man has painted the gayest, gladdest, most delicate and
exquisite pictures imaginable.
He entered Paris as a young man, without friends, without money or
connections of any kind, and after wandering forlornly, about the
great city, he found employment with a dealer who made hundreds of
saints for out-of-town churches.
It is said that for this first employer Watteau made dozens and dozens
of pictures of St. Nicholas; and when we think of the beautiful
figures he was going to make, pictures that should delight all the
world, there seems something tragic in the monotony and
common-placeness of that first work he was forced by poverty to
do. Certainly St. Nicholas brought one man bread and butter, even if
he forgot him at Christmas time.
After that hard apprenticeship, Watteau's condition became slightly
better. He had been employed near the Pont Notre Dame, at three francs
a week, but now in the studio of a scene painter, Gillot, he did work
of coarse effect, very different from that exquisite school of art
which he was to bring into being. After Gillot's came the studio of
Claude Audran, the conservator of the Luxembourg, and with him Watteau
did decorative work. In reality he had no master, learned from nobody,
grovelled in poverty, and at first, forced a living from the meanest
sources. With this in mind, it remains a wonder that he should paint
as no other ever could, scenes of exquisite beauty and grace; scenes
of high life, courtiers and great ladies assembled in lovely
landscapes, doing elegant and charming things, dressed in unrivalled
gowns and costumes. Until Watteau went to the Luxembourg he had seen
absolutely nothing of refined or gracious living. He had come from
country scenes, and in Paris had lived among workmen and
bird-fanciers, flower sellers, hucksters and the like. This is very
likely the secret of his peculiar art.
Watteau would have been a wonderful artist under any circumstances, no
matter what sort of pictures he had painted; but circumstances gave
his imagination a turn toward the exquisite in colourand
composition. Doubtless when he first looked down from the palace
windows of the Luxembourg and saw gorgeous women and handsome men
languishing and coquetting and revelling in a life of ease and beauty,
he was transported. He must have thought himself in fairyland, and the
impulse to paint, to idealise the loveliness that he saw, must have
been greater in him than it would have been in one who had lived so
long among such scenes that they had become familiar with them.
After Watteau there were artists who tried to do the kind of work he
had done, but no one ever succeeded. Watteau clothed all his
shepherdesses in fine silken gowns, with a plait in the back, falling
from the shoulders, and to-day we have a fashion known as the "Watteau
back"--gowns made with this shoulder-plait. He put filmy laces or
softest silks upon his dairy maids, as upon his court ladies, dressing
his figures exquisitely, and in the loveliest colours. He had suffered
from poverty and from miserable sights, so when he came to paint
pictures, he determined to reproduce only the loveliest objects.
At that time French fashions were very unusual, and it was quite the
thing for ladies to hold a sort of reception while at their toilet. A
description of one of these affairs was written by Madame de Grignon
to her daughter: "Nothing can be more delightful than to assist at the
toilet of Madame la Duchesse (de Bourgoyne), and to watch her arrange
her hair. I was present the other day. She rose at half past twelve,
put on her dressing gown, and set to work to eat a _méringue_. She ate
the powder and greased her hair. The whole formed an excellent
breakfast and charming _coiffure_." Watteau has caught the spirit of
this strange airy, artificial, incongruous existence. His ladies seem
to be eating _meringues_ and powdering their hair and living on a diet
of the combination. One hardly knows which is toilet and which is real
life in looking at his paintings.
He quarreled with Audran at the Luxembourg, and having sold his first
picture, he went back to his Valenciennes home, to see his former
acquaintances, no doubt being a little vain of his performance.
After that he painted another picture which sold well enough to keep
him from poverty for a time, and on his return to Paris he was warmly
greeted by a celebrated and influential artist, Crozat. Watteau tried
for a prize, and though his picture came second it had been seen by
the Academy committee.
His greatness was acknowledged, and he was immediately admitted to the
Academy and granted a pension by the crown, with which he was able to
go to Italy, the Mecca of all artists the world over.
From Italy he went to London, but there the fogs and unsuitable
climate made his disease much worse and he hurried back to France,
where he went to live with a friend who was a picture dealer. It was
then that he painted a sign for this friend, Gersaint, a sign so
wonderful that it is reckoned in the history of Watteau's paintings.
Soon he grew so sensitive over his illness, that he did not wish to
remain near his dearest friends, but one of them, the Abbé Haranger,
insisted upon looking after his welfare, and got lodgings for him at
Nogent, where he could have country air and peace.
Watteau died very soon after going to Nogent in July, 1721, and he
left nine thousand livres to his parents, and his paintings to his
best friends, the Abbé, Gersaint, Monsieur Henin, and Monsieur
Julienne. He is called the "first French painter" and so he
was--though he was Flemish, by birth.
PLATE--FÊTE CHAMPÊTRE
This exquisite picture displays nearly all the characteristics of
Watteau's painting. He was said to paint with "honey and gold," and
his method was certainly remarkable. His clear, delicate colours were
put upon a canvas first daubed with oil, and he never cleaned his
palette. His "oil-pot was full of dust and dirt and mixed with the
washings of his brush." One would think that only the most slovenly
results could come from such habits of work, but the artist made a
colour which no one could copy, and that was a sort of creamy,
opalescent white. This was original with Watteau, and most beautiful.
In this "Fête Champêtre," which is now in the National Gallery at
Edinburgh, he paints an elegant group of ladies and gentlemen
indulging in an open air dance of some sort. One couple are doing
steps facing one another, to the music of a set of pipes, while the
rest flirt and talk, decorously, round about. There is no boisterous
rusticity here; all is dainty and refined.
The same characteristics are to be found in Watteau's other pictures
such as, "Embarkation for the Island of Cythera," "The Judgment of
Paris," and "Gay Company in a Park."
XLV
SIR BENJAMIN WEST
_American_
1738-1820
_Pupil of the Italian School_
The beautiful smile of his little niece helped to make this man an
artist. This is the story:
Benjamin West was born down in Pennsylvania, at Westdale, a small
village in the township of Springfield, of Quaker parentage. The
family was poor perhaps, but in America at a time when everybody was
struggling with a new civilisation it did not seem to be such binding
poverty as the same condition in Europe would have been. Benjamin had
a married sister whose baby he greatly loved, and he gave it devoted
attention. One day while it was sleeping and the undiscovered artist
was sitting beside it he saw it smile, and the beauty of the smile
inspired him to keep it forever if he could. He got paper and pencil
and forthwith transferred that "angel's whisper."
No child of to-day can imagine the difficulties a boy must have had in
those days in America, to get an art education, and having learned his
art, how impossible it was to live by it. Men were busy making a new
country and pictures do not take part in such pioneer work; they come
later. Still, there were bound to be born artistic geniuses then, just
as there were men for the plough and men for politics and for war. He
who happened to be the artist was the Quaker boy, West.
He took his first inspiration from the Cherokees, for it was the
Indian in all the splendour of his strength and straightness that
formed West's ideal of beautiful physique.
When he first saw the Apollo Belvedere, he exclaimed: "A young Mohawk
warrior!" to the disgust of every one who heard him, but he meant to
compliment the noblest of forms. Europeans did not know how
magnificent a figure the "young Mohawk warrior" could be; but West
knew.
After his Indian impetus toward art he went to Philadelphia, and
settled himself in a studio, where he painted portraits. His sitters
went to him out of curiosity as much as anything else, but at last a
Philadelphia gentleman, who knew what art meant, recognised Benjamin
West's talent, and made some arrangement by which the young man went
to Italy.
Life began to look beautiful and promising to the Pennsylvanian. He
was in Italy for three years, and in that home of art the young man
who had made the smile of his sister's sleeping baby immortal was
given highest honours. He was elected a member of all the great art
societies in Italy, and studied with the best artists of the time. He
began to earn his living, we may be sure, and then he went to England,
where, in spite of the prejudice there must have been against the
colonists, he became at once a favourite of George III., a friend of
Reynolds and of all the English artists of repute--unless perhaps of
Gainsborough, who made friends with none.
West was appointed "historical painter" to his Majesty, George III.,
and he was chosen to be one of four who should draw plans for a Royal
Academy. He was one of the first members of that great organisation,
and when Sir Joshua Reynolds, the first president, died, West became
president, remaining in office for twenty-eight years.
About that time came the Peace of Amiens, and West was able to go to
Paris, where he could see the greatest art treasures of Europe, which
had been brought to France from every quarter as a consequence of the
war. At that time, before Paris began to return these, and when she
had just pillaged every great capital of Europe, artists need take but
a single trip to see all the art worth seeing in the whole world.
After a long service in the Academy, West quarreled with some of the
Academicians and sent in his resignation; but his fellow artists had
too much sense and good feeling to accept it, and begged him to
reconsider his action. He did so, and returned to his place as
president. When West was sixty-five years old he made a picture,
"Christ Healing the Sick," which he meant to give to the Quakers in
Philadelphia, who were trying to get funds with which to build a
hospital. This picture was to be sold for the fund; but it was no
sooner finished and exhibited in London before being sent to America,
than it was bought for 3,000 guineas for Great Britain. West did not
contribute this money to the hospital fund, but he made a replica for
the Quakers, and sent that instead of the original.
West was eighty-two years old when he died and he was buried in
St. Paul's Cathedral after a distinguished and honoured life. Since
Europe gave him his education and also supported him most of his life,
we must consider him more English than American, his birth on American
soil being a mere accident.
PLATE--THE DEATH OF WOLFE
This death scene upon the Plains of Abraham, without the walls of
Quebec in 1759, must not be taken as a realistic picture of an
historic event. West drew upon his imagination and upon portraits of
the prominent men supposed to have been grouped around the dying
general, and he has produced a dramatic effect. One can imagine it is
the two with fingers pointing backward who have just brought the
memorable tidings, "They run! They run!"
"Who run?" asks Wolfe, for when he had fallen the issues of the fight
were still undecided. "The French, sir. They give way everywhere."
"Thank God! I die in peace," replied the English hero. At a time when
the momentous results of this battle had set the whole of Great
Britain afire with enthusiasm it is easy to understand the popularity
of a picture such as this. It was sold in 1791 for £28, and now
belongs to the Duke of Westminster. There is a replica of it in the
Queen's drawing-room at Hampton Court.
Another famous historical picture by West is "The Battle of La Hogue."
INDEX
About, Edmund
Academia, Florence
Academy, French
Rome,
Royal, London,
Venice
"Acis and Galatea"
Adoration of the Magi
"Adoration of the Shepherds"
"After a Summer Shower"
"Afternoon"
Albert, King
"Alessandro del Borro"
Alexander VI.
Alice, Princess
Allegri, Antonio. _See_ Correggi
Allegri, Pompino
"Ambassadors, The"
"American Mustangs"
"Anatomy Lesson, The"
Andrea del Sarto
Angelo, Michael
"Angels' Heads"
"Angelas, The"
Anguisciola, Sofonisba
Anne of Cleves
Anne of Saxony
Annunciata, cloister of the
"Annunciation, The"
"Ansidei Madonna, The"
"Antiope"
Apocalypse
Apollo Belvedere
Apostles, the Four
Apostles' Heads
Appelles
"Archipelago"
Arena Chapel
Arrivabene Chapel
"Artist's Two Sons, The"
"Arundel Castle and Mill"
"Assumption of the Virgin"
"At the Well"
Audran
Augusta, Princess
"Avenue, Middelharnis, Holland"
"Awakened Conscience, The"
"Bacchanal"
"Bacchus and Ariadne"
Balzac
"Banquet in Levi's House"
"Baptism of Christ, The"
Barbizon
Barile
Barry, James
Bartoli d'Angiolini
Bartolommeo, Fra
Bassano
"Bathers"
"Battle of La Hogue"
Beaumont, Sir George
Beaux-Arts, l'Ecole des
Begarelli
Bellini, Gentile
Bellini, Giovanni
Bembo, Cardinal
Beneguette
"Bent Tree"
Bentivoglio, Cardinal
Berck, Derich
Berensen, Bernard
Bergholt, East
"Berkshire Hills"
"Bianca"
Bicknell, Maria
Bigio, Francia
Bigordi. _See_ Ghirlandajo
Bird
"Birth of the Virgin"
(Andrea del Sarto)
(Murillo)
"Birth of Venus"
Blanc, Charles
"Blessed Herman Joseph, The"
"Bligh Shore"
"Blue Boy, The"
Böcklin, Arnold
"Boat-Building"
Boleyn, Anne
Bolton, Mrs. Sarah K.
Bonheur, Marie-Rosea
Bonheur, Raymond B.
Bordeaux
Bordone. _See_ Giotto
Borghese Palace
Borgia family
Borgia, Lucretia
Botticelli
Boudin
Bouguereau, William Adolphe
"Boy at the Stile, The"
Brancacci Chapel
Brant, Isabella
Breton, Jules
Brice, J. B.
Brouwer
Browning
Brunellesco
"Brutus"
Buckingham, Duke of
Buonarroti. _See_ Angelo Michael
Burgundy, Duchess of
Burke, Edmund
Burne-Jones, Sir Edward
Burr, Margaret