house of Edward Norgate, a _protégé_ of the Earl of Arundel, charged by
the King to provide for all the needs of his guest. Another such
installation could not be repeated. The sovereign himself took pains to
find a suitable establishment for his painter. Mr. Carpenter cites a
very curious note on this subject. Charles I. wrote with his own
hand,--"To speak with Inigo Jones concerning a house for Vandike." This
house demanded the combination of certain conditions very difficult to
meet with. It was necessary that the artist should be comfortably
established; and, on the other hand, the King wished him not to be too
far from the palace. The architect was able to satisfy all these
requirements. A winter residence was found for Van Dyck in Blackfriars
on the right bank of the Thames. From his palace in Whitehall, Charles
I., crossing the river in his barge, could conveniently reach the studio
of his favourite painter. He took great pleasure in watching him at work
and loved to forget himself during the long hours charmed by the wit and
innate distinction of his entertainer. During the summer season, Van
Dyck lived at Eltham in the county of Kent. He probably occupied an
apartment or some dependency of one of the palaces of the Crown. An
annual pension of two hundred pounds sterling was assigned to him, first
of all to enable him to support a household worthy of the title bestowed
upon him,--"Principal Painter in Ordinary." The portraits commanded by
the King were paid for independently. The remuneration for his works
finally provided the artist with that brilliant and gorgeous life which
had been his ambition for so long and which an assiduous industry had
not been able to procure for him in Flanders. He had no less than six
servants and several horses; at all periods, as we know, he always
bestowed much care and refinement upon his toilet. Frequenting an
elegant and frivolous court could not but develop this natural
disposition for all the quests of luxury.
[Illustration: PORTRAIT OF THE CHILDREN OF CHARLES I.
_Van Dyck._]
Three months after his arrival, Van Dyck was included in a creation of
knights made on July 5, 1632. Charles I. added still more to this favour
by the gift of a chain of gold bearing a miniature of himself enriched
with diamonds. In many of his portraits the artist is represented with
this mark of royal munificence.
It now devolved upon him to justify the high position to which he found
himself so rapidly elevated. An act of the Privy Seal pointed out by Mr.
Carpenter shows us that Van Dyck lost no time in satisfying the
impatience of his royal protector. On August 8, 1632, the sum of £224
was allowed him from the royal treasury for various works of painting.
The enumeration of these pictures furnishes precious details for the
price of the artist's works. It seems that from the very beginning, a
kind of tariff was adopted with common accord, according to the size of
each portrait. The price of a whole length portrait was £25; other
canvases only fetched £20; that refers probably to personages at half
length. Finally, a large family picture, representing the King, the
Queen, and their two children attained the sum of £100. At a later
period, these figures were increased and the price of a full length
portrait was raised to £40.
But how many of these works, in which, however, very great qualities
shine, pale before a canvas of the Master preserved in the Museum of
Turin! We mean the picture in which the three young children of Charles
I. are grouped--the Prince of Wales, the Princess Henrietta Maria who
became the Duchess of Orleans, and the Duke of York. All three are still
in long dresses, therefore the eldest was about five or six years old at
most; all three are standing up, and for that reason we cannot give the
youngest less than eighteen months or two years. This circumstance dates
the picture--it was painted in 1635.
We know the various portraits of the children of Charles I. disseminated
in the museums and palaces of Europe; we have seen and admired the
picture in Dresden, those at Windsor, the sketch in the Louvre, and the
canvas in Berlin, a copy of the great composition which belongs to the
Queen of England. Very well! there is not the slightest hesitation
possible--not one of these pictures is comparable to that in Turin.
Nowhere does there exist a work of Van Dyck's so delicate, so well
preserved, and so perfect in all its points. With what care and worship
this picture is surrounded no one can imagine. The most watchful
precautions and the most respectful regard are at its service. We have
been told that the directors of the Museum constantly refuse to move it
for the convenience of photographers. A little detail hardly worth
mentioning, one would say! We do not think so. We consider that the
authorities of the Museum are right a thousand times, when they possess
such a _chef-d'oeuvre_, not to neglect any precaution, however
insignificant it may appear, to assure it a longer duration.
A fine engraving of this incomparable jewel gives a very exact idea of
the arrangement and dominating qualities of the picture; but how can we
translate in black and white the shimmering of material, the delicacy of
tone, the colouring of those robes, rose, blue, and white, of exquisite
harmony and incomparable finesse.
What shall we say of the physiognomy, of the grace, and also the
penetrating charm of those three child figures? Such a work would alone
suffice for the glory of a museum, above all when it has kept its
freshness like the flowering of genius.
Every moment of the painter was consecrated to the various members of
the royal family. That was natural enough. Charles I. never desisted
from watching his clever _protégé_ at work, and spending his leisure in
his studio,--the habitual _rendez-vous_ of the young gentlemen and the
beauties of fashion. The establishment of the artist permitted him to
receive such guests becomingly. Hired musicians were instructed to
divert his aristocratic models during the hours of work. Thus he was
enabled to attract and hold at his home the very best society in
London. Every day at his table sat numerous guests chosen from the
_élite_ of the artists and _littérateurs_ mingled with the greatest
personages. Carried into the whirlwind of this light world so full of
entertainment, Van Dyck hastened to enjoy all the pleasures and exhaust
all the delights, without considering his strength, or hoarding his
health....
The King would never let him stop painting the pictures of his children.
On his side, Van Dyck brought to this task all his art, we might say all
his heart. Doubtless, he derived from Rubens and also from Van Balen
that very lively intelligence for the graces of childhood. Also, when he
occupied himself in rendering those delicious faces of rosy and chubby
babies, in the midst of glimmering stuffs, he found colours of
incomparable freshness....
Every artist of high degree carries within himself the ideal type whose
expression he pursues without pause. This search imprints upon each of
his works the characteristic mark of genius: originality. Thus we
recognize at the first glance the giants that sprang from the brain of
Michael Angelo, the enigmatical sirens of da Vinci, and those superhuman
figures with which Raphael has peopled his immortal compositions. Titian
lived in a world of kings and magnificent princes. Correggio's
individuality is grace of form and charm of colour; his portion is not
to be scorned. The exuberant nature of Rubens betrays itself in his
least important canvases. The personages of his innumerable pictures
share in common the affinities of race and family which make them
recognizable everywhere.
Anthonius Van Dyck obeys, likewise, the common law. Each of his works
is marked by that sign of originality, which in him consists of the
incessant pursuit of elegance and distinction. Distinction,--that is the
gift _par excellence_, the dominating quality of this artist, that which
constitutes his individuality, that which marks with an indelible
imprint all his glorious works, from the first gropings of the pupil of
Rubens to those immortal images of Charles I., his family, and his
court.
Whether he belongs to the highest spheres of society or whether he comes
from the simple _bourgeoisie_ of Antwerp, the model receives from Van
Dyck's brush the most aristocratic mien. One would insist that the
painter spent his life only in a world of gentlemen and patricians.
Never does he surprise even the men that he knows the best, his most
intimate friends, in the familiar carelessness of their daily
occupations. Rarely, very rarely, does it come into his mind to group
them in some intimate interior scene. Everybody is made to pose before
posterity; each sitter has the smile to give his or her descendants the
most exalted idea of his or her station and manners. Not one is vulgar,
not one dares to show himself in his ordinary work, or in the careless
good nature of daily life. Nothing alters their immutable serenity;
nothing troubles the unalterable placidity of their physiognomy. Let
others paint the people of taverns, the world of _kermesses_ and
peasants! Van Dyck wished to be and to live for ever the painter of
aristocracy.
_Antoine Van Dyck--sa vie et sonnoeuvre._ (Paris, 1882).
THE FIGHTING TÉMÉRAIRE TUGGED TO HER LAST BERTH TO BE BROKEN UP, 1838
(_TURNER_)
JOHN RUSKIN
"The flag which braved the battle and the breeze
No longer owns her."
Exhibited at the Academy in 1839, with the above lines cited in the
Catalogue. Of all Turner's pictures in the National Gallery this is
perhaps the most notable. For, _first_ it is the last picture he ever
painted with _perfect_ power--the last in which his execution is as firm
and faultless as in middle life; the last in which lines requiring
exquisite precision, such as those of the masts and yards of shipping,
are drawn rightly at once. When he painted the _Téméraire_ Turner could,
if he liked, have painted the _Shipwreck_ or the _Ulysses_ over again;
but when he painted the _Sun of Venice_, though he was able to do
different, and in some sort more beautiful things, he could not have
done _those_ again. His period of central power thus begins with the
_Ulysses_ and closes with the _Téméraire_. The one picture, it will be
observed, is of sunrise, the other of sunset. The one of a ship entering
on its voyage, and the other of a ship closing its course for ever. The
one, in all the circumstance of the subject, unconsciously
illustrative of his own life in its triumph, the other, in all the
circumstances of its subject, unconsciously illustrative of his own life
in its decline. Accurately as the first sets forth his escape to the
wild brightness of nature, to reign amidst all her happy spirits, so
does the last set forth his returning to die by the shore of the Thames.
And besides having been painted in Turner's full power, the _Téméraire_
is of all his large pictures the best preserved. _Secondly_, the subject
of the picture is, both particularly and generally, the noblest that in
an English National Gallery could be. The _Téméraire_ was the second
ship in Nelson's line at the Battle of Trafalgar; and this picture is
the last of the group which Turner painted to illustrate that central
struggle in our national history. The part played by the _Téméraire_ in
the battle will be found detailed below. And, generally, she is a type
of one of England's chief glories. It will be always said of us, with
unabated reverence, "They built ships of the line." Take it all in all,
a Ship of the Line is the most honourable thing that man as a gregarious
animal, has ever produced. By himself, unhelped, he can do better things
than ships of the line; he can make poems and pictures, and other such
concentrations of what is best in him. But as a being living in flocks,
and hammering out, with alternate strokes and mutual agreement, what is
necessary for him in those flocks, to get or produce, the ship of the
line is his first work. And as the subject was the noblest Turner could
have chosen so also was his treatment of it. Of all pictures of subjects
not visibly involving human pain, this is, I believe, the most pathetic
that was ever painted. The utmost pensiveness which can ordinarily be
given to a landscape depends on adjuncts of ruin; but no ruin was ever
so affecting as this gliding of the vessel to her grave. A ruin cannot
be so, for whatever memories may be connected with it, and whatever
witness it may have borne to the courage and glory of men, it never
seems to have offered itself to their danger, and associated itself with
their acts, as a ship of battle can. The mere facts of motion, and
obedience to human guidance, double the interest of the vessel: nor less
her organized perfectness, giving her the look, and partly the character
of a living creature, that may indeed be maimed in limb or decrepit in
frame, but must either live or die, and cannot be added to nor
diminished from--heaped up and dragged down--as a building can. And this
particular ship, crowned in the Trafalgar hour of trial with chief
victory--prevailing over the fatal vessel that had given Nelson
death--surely, if ever anything without a soul deserved honour or
affection, we owed them here. Those sails that strained so full bent
into the battle--that broad bow that struck the surf aside, enlarging
silently in steadfast haste full front to the shot--resistless and
without reply--those triple ports whose choirs of flame rang forth in
their courses, into the fierce revenging monotone, which, when it died
away, left no answering voice to rise any more upon the sea against the
strength of England--those sides that were wet with the long runlets of
English life-blood, like press planks at vintage, gleaming goodly
crimson down to the cast and clash of the washing foam--those pale masts
that stayed themselves up against the war-ruin, shaking out their
ensigns through the thunder, till sail and ensign drooped--steeped in
the death-stilled pause of Andalusian air, burning with its
witness-clouds of human souls at rest,--surely, for these some sacred
care might have been left in our thoughts, some quiet space amidst the
lapse of English waters? Nay, not so. We have stern keepers to trust her
glory to--the fire and the worm. Never more shall sunset lay golden robe
on her, nor starlight tremble on the waves that part at her gliding.
Perhaps, where the low gate opens to some cottage-garden, the tired
traveller may ask, idly, why the moss grows so green on its rugged wood;
and even the sailor's child may not answer, nor know, that the night-dew
lies deep in the war-rents of the wood of the old _Téméraire_. And,
_lastly_, the pathos of the picture--the contrast of the old ship's past
glory with her present end; and the spectacle of the "old order" of the
ship of the line whose flag had braved the battle and the breeze,
yielding place to the new, in the little steam-tug--these pathetic
contrasts are repeated and enforced by a technical _tour de force_ in
the treatment of the colours which is without a parallel in art. And the
picture itself thus combines the evidences of Turner's supremacy alike
in imagination and in skill. The old masters, content with one simple
tone, sacrificed to its unity all the exquisite gradations and varied
touches of relief and change by which nature unites her hours with each
other. They gave the warmth of the sinking sun, overwhelming all things
in its gold, but they did not give those gray passages about the
horizon, where, seen through its dying light, the cool and the gloom of
night gather themselves for their victory.... But in this picture,
under the blazing veil of vaulted fire, which lights the vessel on her
last path, there is a blue, deep, desolate hollow of darkness out of
which you can hear the voice of the night wind, and the dull boom of the
disturbed sea; the cold deadly shadows of the twilight are gathering
through every sunbeam, and moment by moment, as you look, you will fancy
some new film and faintness of the night has risen over the vastness of
the departing form. (Compiled from _Modern Painters_, Vol. I. pt. ii.
Sec. I. ch. vii. § 46 _n._, Sec. II. ch i. § 21; _Harbours of England_,
p. 12; and _Notes on the Turner Gallery_, pp. 75-80.)
[Illustration: THE FIGHTING TÉMÉRAIRE.
_Turner._]
Finally a few words about the history of the picture itself may be
interesting. The subject of it was suggested to Turner by Clarkson
Stanfield (who himself, it will be remembered, had painted a _Battle of
Trafalgar_). They were going down the river by boat, to dine, perhaps,
at Greenwich, when the old ship, being tugged to her last berth at
Deptford, came in sight. "There's a fine subject, Turner," said
Stanfield. This was in 1838. Next year the picture was exhibited at the
Academy, but no price was put upon it. A would-be purchaser offered
Turner 300 guineas for it. He replied that it was his "200 guinea size"
only, and offered to take a commission at that price for any subject of
the same size, but with the _Téméraire_ itself he would not part.
Another offer was subsequently made from America, which again Turner
declined. He had already mentally included the picture, it would seem,
amongst those to be bequeathed to the nation; and in one of the codicils
to his will, in which he left each of his executors a picture to be
chosen by them in turn, the _Téméraire_ was specially excepted from the
pictures they might choose.[30]
Edward T. Cook, _A Popular Handbook to the National Gallery_.
FOOTNOTES:
[30] Mr. W. Hale White recently drew up for Mr. Ruskin, from official
records, the following history of the _Téméraire_. To him and to Mr.
Ruskin I am indebted for permission to insert the history here. It will
be seen that Turner was right in calling his picture the _Fighting
Téméraire_ and the critic who induced him to change the title in the
engraving to the _Old Téméraire_ wrong:--
"The _Téméraire_, second-rate, ninety-eight guns, was begun at Chatham,
July, 1793, and launched on the 11th September, 1798. She was named
after an older _Téméraire_ taken by Admiral Boscawen from the French in
1759, and sold in June, 1784. The Chatham _Téméraire_ was fitted at
Plymouth for a prison ship in 1812, and in 1819 she became a receiving
ship and was sent to Sheerness. She was sold on the 16th August, 1838,
to Mr. J. Beatson for £5,530. The _Téméraire_ was at the Battle of
Trafalgar on the 21st October, 1805. She was next to the _Victory_, and
followed Nelson into action; commanded by Captain Elias Harvey, with
Thomas Kennedy as first lieutenant. Her maintopmast, the head of her
mizzenmast, her foreyard, her starboard, cathead and bumpkin, and her
fore and main topsail yards were shot away; her fore and main masts so
wounded as to render them unfit to carry sail, and her bowsprit shot
through in several places. Her rigging of every sort was cut to pieces;
the head of her rudder was taken off by the fire of the _Redoutable_;
eight feet of the starboard side of the lower deck abreast of the
mainmast were stove in, and the whole of her quarter-galleries on both
sides carried away. Forty-six men on board of her were killed, and
seventy-six wounded.... The _Téméraire_ was built with a beakhead, or,
in other words, her upper works were cut off across the catheads; a
peculiarity which can be observed in Turner's picture. It was found by
experience in the early part of the French war that this mode of
construction exposed the men working the guns to the enemy's fire, and
it was afterwards abandoned. It has been objected," adds Mr. White,
"that the masts and yards in the picture are too light for a
ninety-eight gun ship; but the truth is that when the vessel was sold
she was juryrigged as a receiving ship, and Turner, therefore, was
strictly accurate. He might have seemed more accurate by putting heavier
masts and yards in her; but he painted her as he saw her. This is very
important, as it gets rid of the difficulty which I myself have felt and
expressed, that it was very improbable that she was sold all standing in
sea-going trim, as I imagined Turner intended us to believe she was
sold, and answers also the criticism just mentioned as to the
disproportion between the weight of the masts and yards and the size of
the hull." Part of the _Téméraire_, Mr. White tells me, is still in
existence. Messrs. Castle, the shipbuilders of Millbank, have the two
figures of Atlas which supported the sterngallery.
SPRING
(_BOTTICELLI_)
MARCEL REYMOND
Of all the ancient Italian painters, Botticelli has, for several years,
been the master most in fashion. Why? The first reason should be sought
in that reaction against the pseudo-classic style of the Renaissance
which has seemed to be the dominant tendency of art in the Nineteenth
Century. But this explanation does not suffice to tell us for what
reasons the favour of the public has specially fallen upon Botticelli.
Why select Botticelli rather than any other artist of the Fourteenth or
Fifteenth Century? Why Botticelli and not Giotto, or Fra Angelico, or,
to cite none but his contemporaries, why not Signorelli, or Ghirlandajo?
It is because Fra Angelico's art is too religious for our century and
Giotto's art too philosophical, or, at least, it is because our century
no longer thinks of demanding from its artists, as in the time of Giotto
and Fra Angelico, the expression of the moral questions with which it is
occupied. And if we seem to-day somewhat indifferent to the art of
Ghirlandajo, or Signorelli, it is because their thought is too grave and
because we desire before all else that art shall bring smiles into our
laborious life; we demand that it shall give repose to our tired brains
by charming us with the vision of all terrestrial beauties, without
exacting any labour or any effort from our minds.
In this quest of beauty, our curious minds, which know so many things
and which have been able to compare the works of the most diverse
civilizations, are perpetually seeking novelty, eager for rare forms,
and inimical to everything banal and to everything that ordinary life
brings before our eyes. And in our _fin de siècle_ we have been so much
the more prone to subtle pursuits because for some time our French art
has seemed to take delight in the forms of a gross realism.
This refinement of art, this intimate analysis of form and thought, this
love of sensual beauty, had appeared at the court of the Medici by the
same causes that prompt us to seek them; they are the fruit of a society
that has attained the highest degree of well-being, wealth and
knowledge.
This kind of art lasted only for a moment in Florence. It is correct to
say that Florentine art did not seem destined to speak the charms of
feminine beauty. From its beginning, this school had been stamped by
Giotto with the philosophic impress, and for two centuries its artists
had been before everything else, thinkers, occupied more with moral
ideas than with the beauty of form.
The first in Florence to be enthralled by the charm of beautiful eyes
was the poor Filippo Lippi. It was he who created that new form of art
which was to continue with Botticelli, his pupil, and which attained its
perfection under the hands of Leonardo. If, to the Lucrezia Buti of
Filippo Lippi, we join Botticelli's Simonetta and Leonardo's Monna Lisa,
we should have the poem of love sung by Florentine genius under its most
exquisite form.
[Illustration: SPRING.
_Botticelli._]