HIRAM POWERS.
Hiram Powers was born in Woodstock, Vermont, on the 29th of July, 1805.
He was the eighth in a family of nine children, and was the son of a
farmer who found it hard to provide his little household with the
necessaries of life. He grew up as most New England boys do, sound and
vigorous in health, passing the winters in attendance upon the district
schools, and the summers in working on the farm. "The only distinctive
trait exhibited by the child was mechanical ingenuity; he excelled in
caricature, was an adept in constructiveness, having made countless
wagons, windmills, and weapons for his comrades, attaining the height of
juvenile reputation as the inventor of what he called a 'patent fuse.'"
The Powers family lived just over the river, opposite the village, and
all joined heartily in the effort to keep the wolf from the doors. Mr.
Powers, Sen., was induced to become security for one of his friends,
and, as frequently happens, lost all he had in consequence. Following
close upon this disaster came a dreadful famine in the State, caused by
an almost total failure of the crops. "I recollect," says Mr. Powers,
"we cut down the trees, and fed our few cows on the browse. We lived so
long wholly on milk and potatoes, that we got almost to loathe them.
There were seven of us children, five at home, and it was hard work to
feed us."
One of the sons had managed to secure an education at Dartmouth College,
and had removed to Cincinnati, where he was at this time editing a
newspaper. Thither his father, discouraged by the famine, determined to
follow him. Accordingly, placing his household goods and his family in
three wagons, and being joined by another family, he set out on the long
journey to the West. This was in 1819, when young Hiram was fourteen
years old. It cost him a sharp struggle to leave his old home, and as
they climbed the hills beyond Woodstock he lingered behind with his
mother to take a last view of the place. They crossed the State, and
passing through western New York came to the vicinity of Niagara Falls.
They were near enough to the great cataract to hear its solemn roar
sounding high above the silent woods. The boy was eager to visit it, but
the distance was too great to the falls, and he was forced to relinquish
this pleasure. Continuing their journey westward, they reached the Ohio
River, down which stream they floated on a flatboat until they came to
Cincinnati, then a city of fourteen thousand inhabitants.
Through the assistance of his eldest son, the editor, Mr. Powers was
enabled to secure a farm not far from Cincinnati, and removing his
family to it, began the task of clearing and cultivating it.
Unfortunately for the new-comers, the farm was located on the edge of a
pestilential marsh, the poisonous exhalations of which soon brought the
whole family down with the ague. Mr. Powers the elder died from this
disease, and Hiram was ill and disabled from it for a whole year. The
family was broken up and scattered, and our hero, incapable of
performing hard work so soon after his sickness, obtained a place in a
produce store in Cincinnati, his duty being to watch the principal road
by which the farmers' wagons, laden with grain and corn whisky, came
into the city, and to inform the men in charge of them that they could
obtain better prices for their produce from his employers than from any
other merchants in the city. It was also a part of his duty to help to
roll the barrels from the wagons to the store. He made a very good
"drummer," and gave satisfaction to his employers, but as the concern
soon broke up, he was again without employment.
His brother, the editor, now came to his assistance, and made a bargain
with the landlord of a hotel in the city to establish a reading-room at
his hotel. The landlord was to provide the room and obtain a few paying
subscribers; the editor was to stock it with his exchange newspapers,
and Hiram was to be put in charge of it and receive what could be made
by it. The reading-room was established, but as the landlord failed to
comply with his agreement, Powers was forced to abandon the undertaking.
[Illustration: POWERS' DISTRUST OF THE HUNTERS.]
"About that time," said he, in relating his early life to the Rev. Dr.
Bellows, some years ago, "looking around anxiously for the means of
living, I fell in with a worthy man, a clock-maker and organ-builder,
who was willing to employ me to collect bad debts in the country. He put
me on an old horse which had one very bad fault. He was afflicted with
what the Western people called the 'swaleys,' and could not go downhill.
I frequently had to dismount and back him down, as the only way of
getting along. The road often lay through forests and clearings, in
mire, and among the roots of the beeches, with which my poor beast was
constantly struggling. I would sometimes emerge from a dark wood, five
miles through, perhaps, and find myself near a clearing where the
farmer's house I was seeking lay, half a mile off the road. Picking up
a stout club to defend myself against the inevitable dog, which, in the
absence of men-folks, guarded every log-house, I plodded across the
plowed field, soon to be met by the ferocious beast, who, not seeing a
stranger more than once a month, was always furious and dangerous. Out
would come, at length, the poor woman, too curious to see who it was
that broke up her monotonous solitude, to call off the dog, who
generally grew fiercer as he felt his backer near him, and it was
commonly with a feeling as of a bare escape of my life that I finally
got into the house. It was sad enough, too, often to find sickness and
death in those fever-stricken abodes--a wan mother nursing one dying
child, with perhaps another dead in the house. My business, too, was not
the most welcome. I came to dun a delinquent debtor, who had perhaps
been inveigled by some peddler of our goods into an imprudent purchase,
for a payment which it was inconvenient or impossible to make. There, in
the corner, hung the wooden clock, the payment for which I was after,
ticking off the last minutes of the sick child--the only ornament of the
poor cabin. It was very painful to urge my business under such
circumstances. However, I succeeded, by kindness, in getting more money
than I expected from our debtors, who would always pay when they could.
I recollect, one night, almost bewailing my success. I had reached the
entrance of a forest, at least nine miles through, and finding a little
tavern there, concluded it was prudent to put up and wait till morning.
There were two rough-looking fellows around, hunters, with rifles in
their hands, whose appearance did not please me, and I fancied they
looked at each other significantly when the landlord took off my
saddle-bags and weighted them, feeling the hundred dollars of silver I
had collected. I was put into the attic, reached by a ladder, and,
barricading the trap-door as well as I could, went to sleep with one
eye open. Nothing, however, occurred, and in the morning I found my
wild-looking men up as early as I, and was not a little disturbed when
they proposed to keep me company across the forest. Afraid to show any
suspicion, I consented, and then went and looked at the little
flint-pistol I carried, formidable only to sparrows, but which was my
only defense.
"About two miles into the wood, my fierce-looking friends, after some
exchange of understanding as to their respective ways and meeting-point,
started off on different sides of the road in search of game, as they
said, but, as I feared, with the purpose of robbing and perhaps
murdering me at some darker spot in the forest. I had gone perhaps two
miles farther, when I heard the breaking of a twig, and, looking on one
side, saw a hand signaling me to stop. Presently an eye came out behind
the tree, and then an arm, and I verily thought my hour had come. But,
keeping straight on, I perceived, almost instantly, to my great relief,
two fine deer, who appeared not at all disturbed by a man on horseback,
though ready enough to fly from a gun, and began to suspect that the
robber I was dreading was, after all, only a hunter in the honest
pursuit of his living. The crack of the rifle soon proved that the deer,
and not my saddle-bags, were the game aimed at, and I found my
imagination had for twelve hours been converting very harmless huntsmen
into highwaymen of a most malicious aspect."
His employer was so well pleased with the success of his young collector
that he offered to give him a place in the factory, saying there would
always be plenty of rough work at which an inexperienced hand could
employ himself. "I could refuse no proposition that promised me bread
and clothes," said he, "for I was often walking the streets hungry, with
my arms pressed close to my sides to conceal the holes in my coat
sleeves." His first task was to thin down with a file some brass plates
which were to be used as parts of the stops of an organ. Powers was
expected to do merely the rough work, after which the plates were to
pass into the hands of the regular finisher. His employer, knowing that
the task was one which would require time, told him he would look in in
a few days, and see how he had succeeded. The young man's mechanical
talent, on which he had prided himself when a boy in Vermont, now did
him good service, and he applied himself to his task with skill and
determination. When his employer asked for the plates, he was astonished
to find that Powers had not only done the rough work, but had finished
them much better than the regular finisher had ever done, and this
merely by his greater nicety of eye and his undaunted energy. He had
blistered his hands terribly, but had done his work well. His employer
was delighted, and, finding him so valuable an assistant, soon gave him
the superintendence of all his machinery, and took him to live in his
own family.
As has been stated, his employer's business was the manufacture of
organs and clocks. Powers displayed great skill in the management of the
mechanical department of the business, and this, added to the favor
shown him by the "boss," drew upon him the jealousy of the other
workmen. There hung in the shop at this time an old silver bull's-eye
watch, a good time-piece, but very clumsy and ungainly in appearance.
Powers was anxious to become its owner. Being too poor to buy it, he hit
upon the following expedient for obtaining it. He had carefully studied
the machine used in the shop for cutting out wooden clock wheels, and
had suggested to his employer several improvements in it. The workmen,
however, had ridiculed his suggestions, and had denounced as the most
barefaced presumption his belief that he could improve a machine which
had come all the way from Connecticut, where, they said, people were
supposed to know something about clocks. Nevertheless, he maintained his
opinions, and told his employer that if he would give him the silver
watch, he would invent a much better machine. His offer was accepted,
and in ten days he produced a machine, not only much simpler than the
old one, but capable of performing twice as much and better work. The
workmen promptly acknowledged his success, and his employer gave him the
watch. "The old watch," said he, a few years ago, "has ticked all my
children into existence, and three of them out of this world. It still
hangs at the head of my bed."
About this time, in a chance visit to the Museum in Cincinnati, he saw a
plaster cast of Houdon's "Washington." It was the first bust he had ever
seen, and he says it moved him strangely. He had an intense desire to
know how it was done, and a vague consciousness that he could do work of
the same kind if he could find an instructor. The instructor he soon
found in a German living in the city, who made plaster casts and busts,
and from him he learned the secret of the art. He proved an apt pupil,
and surprised his teacher by his proficiency. His first effort at
modeling from life was the bust of a little daughter of Mr. John P.
Foote. She sat to him during the hours he could spare from his regular
work. His model was made of beeswax, as he was afraid that clay would
freeze or stiffen. His success encouraged him very greatly. "I found I
had a correct eye," said he, "and a hand which steadily improved in its
obedience to my eye. I saw the likeness, and knew it depended on the
features, and that, if I could copy the features exactly, the likeness
would follow just as surely as the blood follows the knife. I found
early that all the talk about catching the expression was mere twaddle;
the expression would take care of itself if I copied the features
exactly."
The true principles of his art seemed to come to him naturally, and
having the genius to comprehend them so readily, he had the courage to
hold on to them often in the face of adverse criticism. While conscious
of having a perfectly correct eye, however, he did not scorn the humbler
method of obtaining exactness by mathematical measurement. The following
incident, which he related to Dr. Bellows, illustrates this:
"One of the first busts I ever made was of an artist, a Frenchman, who
came over with Mrs. Trollope. He proposed to paint my picture, while I
was to make his bust. He was older, and considered himself much my
superior, and, indeed, undertook to be my instructor. I was to begin.
His first _canon_ was that I was to use no measurements, and he quoted
Michael Angelo's saying--'A sculptor should carry his compasses in his
eyes, not in his fingers,' I humbly submitted to his authority, and
finished the bust without a single measurement. He was very triumphant
at what he called the success of his method. I begged permission of him,
now that the bust was completed, to verify my work by the dividers. He
graciously consented, and I was pleased to find how nearly I had hit the
mark. A few imperfections, however, appeared, and these, in spite of his
objections, I corrected without his knowledge, for I was determined to
have the bust as near right as I could make it. It had taken me,
however, at least five times as long to measure the distances with my
eyes as it would have done to measure them with the calipers, and I saw
no advantage in the longer and more painful effort. The measurements are
mere preparations for the artist's true work, and are, like the
surveyor's lines, preparatory to the architect's labor. When my subject,
in his turn, undertook my portrait, he was true to his own principles,
and finished it without measurements. I then, though with some horror at
my temerity, asked permission to verify his work with the dividers, and
found at the first stroke a difference of at least half an inch in the
distance between the eyes. He looked very much mortified, but said that
it was done to 'give the effect.' I have had no misgivings since about
the economy and wisdom of using the calipers freely. To be useful, they
must be applied with the greatest precision--so small are the
differences upon which all the infinite variety in human countenances
depends. With the aid of my careful measurements, I do in one day what
it would cost me a week or two's work to accomplish without, and I am
then able to give my exclusive attention to the modeling."
He did not regularly devote himself to his art, however, but remained in
the employment of the organ and clock maker for some time longer, giving
his leisure hours to constant practice. When he was about twenty-three
years old, a Frenchman named Herview opened in Cincinnati a museum of
natural history and wax figures. The latter had been very much broken
and disfigured in transportation, and their owner, in despair, begged
Powers to undertake the task of restoring them. The figures were
representations of distinguished men and women, and as Powers readily
saw that it would be impossible to repair them without having proper
likenesses as his guides, he proposed to the Frenchman to make an
entirely new composition of the old materials, and one which should
attract attention by its oddity. This was agreed to, and the result was
a hideous and ungainly figure, which Powers proposed should be called
the "King of the Cannibal Islands," but to his amazement the Frenchman
advertised it as the embalmed body of a South Sea man-eater, "secured at
immense expense." Powers declared to his employer that the audience
would discover the cheat and tear down the museum; but the "man-eater"
drew immense crowds, and was regarded as the most wonderful natural
curiosity ever seen in the West. The Frenchman was so well pleased with
it that he employed the artist permanently as inventor, wax-figure
maker, and general mechanical contriver in the museum.
Powers remained in the Frenchman's employ for seven years, hoping all
the while to earn money enough to devote himself entirely to art, which
had now become his great ambition. His experience was not a pleasant
one. Some of it was so singular, not to say ludicrous, that he shall
relate one portion of it in his own language:
"One of the first things I undertook, in company with Herview, was a
representation of the infernal regions after Dante's description. Behind
a grating I made certain dark grottoes, full of stalactites and
stalagmites, with shadowy ghosts and pitchforked figures, all calculated
to work on the easily-excited imaginations of a Western audience, as the
West then was. I found it very popular and attractive, but occasionally
some countryman would suggest to his fellow spectator that a little
motion in the figures would add much to the reality of the show. After
much reflection I concluded to go in among the figures dressed like the
Evil One, in a dark robe, with a death's-head and cross-bones wrought
upon it, and with a lobster's claw for a nose. I had bought and fixed up
an old electrical machine, and connected it with a wire, so that, from a
wand in my hand, I could discharge quite a serious shock upon any body
venturing too near the grating. The plan worked admirably, and excited
great interest; but I found acting the part of wax-figure two hours
every evening in the cold no sinecure, and was put to my wits to devise
a figure that could be moved by strings, and which would fill my place.
I succeeded so well that it ended in my inventing a whole series of
automata, for which the old wax-figures furnished the materials, in
part, and which became so popular and so rewarding, that I was kept
seven years at the business, my employer promising me, from time to
time, an interest in the business, which he quite forgot to fulfill.
When, at last, I found out the vanity of my expectations, I left him. He
knew I kept no accounts, but he did not know that I reported all the
money he gave me to my wife, who did keep our accounts. He tried to
cheat me, but I was able to baffle him through her prudence and method.
For I had married in this interval, and had a wife and children to
support."
Powers was now thirty years old, and had acquired considerable
reputation in Cincinnati as an artist. His abilities coming to the
notice of Mr. Nicholas Longworth, of that city, that good genius of
young men of talent called on him and offered to buy out the museum and
establish him in the business. The offer was declined with thanks. Mr.
Longworth then proposed to send him to Italy to study his profession,
but this, too, being declined, Mr. Longworth urged him to go to
Washington and try his fortune with the public men of the country. To
this Powers consented, and, aided by his generous friend, he repaired to
the national capital in 1835, and spent two years there. During this
period he modeled busts of Andrew Jackson, J.Q. Adams, Calhoun, Chief
Justice Marshall, Woodbury, Van Buren, and others. Being unable to
secure a model of Webster in Washington, the statesman invited him to go
with him to Marshfield for that purpose. Powers accepted the invitation,
and declares that he looks back upon his sojourn there as one of the
most delightful portions of his life.
General Jackson was very kind to him, and won his lasting esteem and
gratitude. Upon being asked if he would sit for his bust, the old hero
hesitated, and, looking at the artist nervously, asked: "Do you daub any
thing over the face? Because," he added, "I recollect poor Mr. Jefferson
got nearly smothered when they tried to take his bust. The plaster
hardened before they got ready to release him, and they pounded it with
mallets till they nearly stunned him, and then almost tore off a piece
of his ear in their haste to pull off a sticking fragment of the mold. I
should not like that." Powers assured him that such a terrible process
would not be necessary, but that he only wished to look at him for an
hour a day, sitting in his chair. The General brightened up at once, and
cordially told him it would give him pleasure to sit for him. He at once
installed the artist in a room in the White House, and gave him a
sitting of an hour every morning until the model was done.
Mr. Powers regards the bust of Jackson as one of his best efforts, and
the President himself was very much pleased with it. After he had
completed his model, Mr. Edward Everett brought Baron Krudener, the
Prussian Minister to Washington, to see it. The Baron was a famous art
critic, and poor Powers was terribly nervous as he showed him the bust.
The Baron examined it closely, and then said to the artist, "You have
got the General completely: his head, his face, his courage, his
firmness, his identical self; and yet it will not do! You have also got
all his wrinkles, all his age and decay. You forget that he is President
of the United States and the idol of the people. You should have given
him a dignity and elegance he does not possess. You should have employed
your _art_, sir, and not merely your _nature_." The artist listened in
silence, and Mr. Everett stood by without saying a word, "conscious," as
he afterward confessed, "of a very poor right to speak on such a
subject," after listening to so famous a critic. "_I_ did not dare,"
says Powers, "in my humility and reverence for these two great men, to
say what I wanted to in reply; to tell the Baron that my 'art' consisted
in concealing art, and that my 'nature' was the highest art I knew or
could conceive of. I was content that the 'truth' of my work had been so
fully acknowledged, and the Baron only confirmed my resolution to make
truth my only model and guide in all my future undertakings."
One of his sitters in Washington was Senator Preston, of South Carolina,
who conceived such an interest in him that he wrote to his brother,
General Preston, of Columbia, South Carolina, a gentleman of great
wealth, urging him to come to the artist's assistance, and send him to
Italy. General Preston at once responded to this appeal, of which Powers
was ignorant, and wrote to the artist to draw on him for a thousand
dollars, and go to Italy at once, and to draw on him annually for a
similar sum for several years. Powers was profoundly touched by this
noble offer, and accepted it as frankly as it had been made. He sent his
models to Italy, and took his departure for the Old World in 1837.
Speaking of Mr. Preston's generosity, he said, two years ago: "I have
endeavored to requite his kindness by sending him works of mine, equal
in money value to his gifts; but I can never extinguish my great
obligations. I fear he don't like me since the war,--for I could not
suppress my strong national feelings for any man's friendship,--but I
like and honor him; I would do any thing in my power to show him my
inextinguishable gratitude."
He reached Florence in advance of his models, and while waiting for them
made two busts, one of a professor in Harvard College, and the other of
an American lady. A severe domestic affliction, however, which came upon
him soon after his arrival in Italy, affected him so greatly that he was
not able to return to his work for a long time. Then he applied himself
to his busts, which were warmly praised by the artists in Florence and
by his countrymen traveling abroad. Thorwaldsen visited him in his
studio, and pronounced his bust of Webster the best work of its kind in
modern times, and praises from other distinguished artists were equally
as warm. Orders came in rapidly from English and Italians, and from
Americans in Europe, and the sculptor soon had as much business as he
could attend to. He gave his leisure time to work on an ideal figure,
which, when completed, was purchased by an English gentleman of wealth.
This was "The Greek Slave," the most popular of all his works.
Duplicates of it were exhibited in America and at the Crystal Palace in
England, and won him praise from all quarters. This single work
established his fame as an artist, and brought him orders from all parts
of the civilized world. His statue of "Eve," which had preceded "The
Greek Slave" by a year, had been pronounced by Thorwaldsen fit to be any
man's master-piece, but it had not created such a furore as "The Greek
Slave." Subsequently he made an exquisite bust of the Grand Duchess of
Tuscany, with which the Grand Duke was so pleased that he called on
Powers, and asked him as a favor to himself to apply to him whenever he
could do him a service. Powers asked permission to take a cast of the
Venus, and this much-coveted boon, which had been denied to other
artists for years, was at once granted to him.
Since then his works have been numerous. Among these are "The Fisher
Boy," of which three duplicates in marble have been made;
"Il Penseroso;" "Proserpine," a bust; "California;" "America," modeled
for the Crystal Palace at Sydenham, England; "Washington" and "Calhoun,"
portrait statues, the former for the State of Louisiana, and the latter
for the State of South Carolina; and "Benjamin Franklin" and "Thomas
Jefferson," in the Capitol at Washington. His works are all marked by
beauty and vigor of conception as well as by exquisite finish. Beautiful
as his ideal figures are, he yet excels in his busts and statues of the
great men of his native land. His "Jefferson" and "Franklin" are
wonderful works, and his "Calhoun" is said to be almost life-like. This
last was wrecked on the coast of Long Island on its voyage to America,
and remained in the sea for some time, but being well packed was found,
when raised, to be only slightly damaged by the water.
Mr. Powers has now resided in Italy for thirty-three years. Motives of
economy have controlled his action, for he would gladly return to his
own land did he feel justified in doing so. He has thus stated the
reasons which have influenced his long residence abroad:
Sculpture is universal. The human form is of no country, and may be
studied with equal advantage at home and abroad. The opportunities
of studying it abroad are so immeasurably greater than at home,
that I do not see how it is possible, without great loss, to
neglect them.
1. It is impossible to model successfully without living models;
and in America, in my time, it was almost at the peril of
reputation, both for model and sculptor, that an artist employed
the living model, even if he could procure it. Now, I understand, a
few models may be obtained in New York; but they are so rare and so
expensive, that it is almost ruinous to employ them. It costs two
or three dollars there to secure a model which here may be had for
half a day for forty cents. There is no want of models here; but
their history is a sad one, and makes one often seriously lament
the necessity for employing them. Young women, especially, are
driven to this employment by the want of bread. I have numerous
offers of their services made by parents who are in great distress.
I make it a point to discourage all who come to me from entering
the business, and am only conquered when I feel sure that, if I
decline, they will be driven to other studios. I prefer only
professional models, already thoroughly committed to the calling,
as I shrink from the responsibility of leading any into so perilous
a vocation. They are usually accompanied by their mothers, and I
strive to treat them in a way to save their self-respect and
delicacy--a very hard task, which too often breaks down in less
scrupulous hands.
2. The opportunities of anatomical studies are here nearly perfect,
and free from all expense. The medical schools not only illustrate
anatomy by surgery on the cadaver, but standing by the side of the
dead body is a living one, in which the action of the muscles
dissected before the student may be studied in life. These colleges
are open to all artists, and furnish the best possible schooling in
anatomy, a thorough acquaintance with which is indispensable to the
sculptor, and can only be obtained in America at great cost.
3. Marble is no cheaper here than in New York, the long
sea-carriage costing no more to America than the short
land-carriage does from the quarries to Florence or Rome. But good
workmen, who can not be dispensed with, are so abundant and so
cheap here, so rare and so dear at home, that that alone is a
decisive reason for coming abroad. Even here it is a heavy expense
to procure sufficient and competent workmen; at home it is almost
at ruinous cost and with nearly insuperable difficulty. I have two
workmen--as good, certainly, as the best in America--to the finest
of whom I pay only four dollars a day. He could make twice that
cutting weeping-willows on American tomb-stones. What could he not
justly demand in wages from a New York sculptor? I employ a dozen
workmen in my studios; the poorest, at work on pedestals and rough
work, earn about half a dollar a day; the moderately skilled, a
little over a dollar. The whole cost me about fifteen dollars per
day, which is wonderfully low. Then, my rent--which could not, for
my extensive accommodations, be less than two thousand five hundred
dollars a year in any eligible position which the public would
visit--reaches only about four hundred and fifty dollars, annually.
But, 4. The general expenses of maintaining a family are so much
less here than at home, that a man without capital, possessing a
profession so slow in reaching its pecuniary returns as an
artist's, finds an immense inducement to live abroad. It is true
that, music and accomplishment in languages apart, the
opportunities of a substantial education for one's children are not
as good here as at home. There are, however, less temptations to
vice, and less exposures to the American habit of hard drinking
among young men; but, no doubt, the general influences here, in
the way of developing a manly, energetic, and self-relying
character, are less favorable than at home. There is a softness, a
disposition to take life easy, and a want of moral earnestness in
Italy, which are not favorable to youthful ambition and
independence. On the other hand, the money-getting propensities and
social rivalries of America tend to harden human character, and to
bring out a severe selfishness which is offensive. On the whole,
the balance is on our side, and, other things apart, American youth
are better brought up in America. But the artist must make this
sacrifice to his art.
Mr. Powers is sixty-five years old, but is in full possession of his
mental and physical strength. He is a genuine American, notwithstanding
his long residence abroad, and has always a warm welcome for his
countrymen visiting his studio. He is a favorite with the younger
artists, who find in him a kind and judicious friend. Scorning servile
imitation, he still exhibits in his works the freshness of his youth and
the genuine originality which was the basis of his fame.