sphere, rather than the art itself, which is thus bounded; and one of its
most glorious distinctions, like that of the human form and face, which
are its highest subject, is the vast possible variety within what seems,
at first thought, to be so narrow a field. That the same number and kind
of limbs and features should, under the plastic touch of genius, have
given birth to so many and totally diverse forms, memorable for ages, and
endeared to humanity, is in itself an infinite marvel, which vindicates,
as a beautiful wonder, the statuary's art from the more Protean rivalry of
pictorial skill. If we call to mind even a few of the sculptured creations
which are 'a joy for ever,' even to retrospection, haunting by their pure
individuality the temple of memory, permanently enshrined in heartfelt
admiration as illustrations of what is noble in man and woman, significant
in history, powerful in expression, or irresistible in grace,--we feel
what a world of varied interest is hinted by the very name of Sculpture.
Through it the most just and clear idea of Grecian culture is revealed.
The solemn mystery of Egyptian, and the grand scale of Assyrian,
civilization are best attested by the same trophies. How a Sphinx typifies
the land of the Pyramids and all its associations, mythological,
scientific, natural, and sacred,--its reverence for the dead, and its dim
and portentous traditions! and what a reflex of Nineveh's palmy days are
the winged lions exhumed by Layard! What more authentic tokens of mediæval
piety and patience exist than the elaborate and grotesque carvings of
Albert Dürer's day? The colossal Brahma in the temple of Elephanta, near
Bombay, is the visible acme of Asiatic superstition. And can an
illustration of the revival of art in the fifteenth century, so exuberant,
aspiring, and sublime, be imagined, to surpass the Day and Night, the
Moses, and other statues of Angelo? But such general inferences are less
impressive than the personal experience of every European traveller with
the least passion for the beautiful or reverence for genius. Is there any
sphere of observation and enjoyment, to such a one, more prolific of
individual suggestions than this so-called limited art? From the soulful
glow of expression in the inspired countenance of the Apollo, to the
womanly contours so exquisite in the armless figure of the Venus de
Milo,--from the aërial posture of John of Bologna's Mercury, to the
inimitable and firm dignity in the attitude of Aristides in the Museum of
Naples,--from the delicate lines which teach how grace can chasten nudity
in the Goddess of the Tribune at Florence, to the embodied melancholy of
Hamlet in the brooding Lorenzo of the Medici Chapel,--from the stone
despair, the frozen tears, as it were, of all bereaved maternity, in the
very bend of Niobe's body and yearning gesture, to the _abandon_ gleaming
from every muscle of the Dancing Faun,--from the stern brow of the
Knife-grinder, and the bleeding frame of the Gladiator, whereon are
written for ever the inhumanities of ancient civilization, to the
triumphant beauty, and firm, light, enjoyable aspect of Dannecker's
Ariadne,--from the unutterable joy of Cupid and Psyche's embrace, to the
grand authority of Moses,--how many separate phases of human emotion 'live
in stone'! What greater contrast to eye or imagination, in our knowledge
of facts, and in our consciousness of sentiment, can be exemplified, than
those so distinctly, memorably, and gracefully moulded in the apostolic
figures of Thorwaldsen, the Hero and Leander of Steinhaüser, the lovely
funereal monument, inspired by gratitude, which Rauch reared to Louise of
Prussia, Chantrey's Sleeping Children, Canova's Lions in St. Peter's, the
bas-reliefs of Ghiberti on the Baptistery doors at Florence, and Gibson's
Horses of the Sun?
The last time Heine went out of doors, before succumbing to his fearful
malady, he says: 'With difficulty I dragged myself to the Louvre, and
almost sank down as I entered that magnificent hall where the ever-blessed
goddess of beauty, our beloved Lady of Milo, stands on her pedestal. At
her feet I lay long and wept so bitterly that a stone must have pitied me.
The goddess looked compassionately on me, but at the same time
disconsolately, as if she would say: Dost thou not see that I have no
arms, and thus cannot help thee?'
Have you ever strolled from the inn at Lucerne, on a pleasant afternoon,
along the Zurich road, to the old General's garden, where stands the
colossal lion designed by Thorwaldsen, to keep fresh the brave renown of
the Swiss guard who perished in defence of the royal family of France
during the massacre of the Revolution? Carved from the massive sandstone,
the majestic animal, with the fatal spear in his side, yet loyal in his
vigil over the royal shield, is a grand image of fidelity unto death. The
stillness, the isolation, the vivid creepers festooning the rocks, the
clear mirror of the basin, into which trickle pellucid streams, reflecting
the vast proportions of the enormous lion, the veteran Swiss, who acts as
_cicerone_, the adjacent chapel with its altar-cloth wrought by one of the
fair decendants of the Bourbon king and queen for whom these victims
perished, the hour, the memories, the admixture of Nature and Art, convey
a unique impression, in absolute contrast with such white effigies, for
instance, as in the dusky precincts of Santa Croce droop over the
sepulchre of Alfieri, or with the famous bronze boar in the Mercato Nuovo
of Florence, or the ethereal loveliness of that sweet scion of the English
nobility, moulded by Chantrey in all the soft and lithe grace of
childhood, holding a contented dove to her bosom.
Even as the subject of taste, independently of historical diversities,
sculpture presents every degree of the meretricious, the grotesque, and
the beautiful,--more emphatically, because more palpably, than is
observable in painting. The inimitable Grecian standard is an immortal
precedent; the mediæval carvings embody the rude Teutonic truthfulness;
where Canova provoked comparison with the antique, as in the Perseus and
Venus, his more gross ideal is painfully evident. How artificial seems
Bernini in contrast with Angelo! How minutely expressive are the terra
cotta images of Spain! What a climax of absurdity teases the eye in the
monstrosities in stone which draw travellers in Sicily to the eccentric
nobleman's villa, near Palermo! Who does not shrink from the French
allegory, and horrible melodrama, of Roubillac's monument to Miss
Nightingale, in Westminster Abbey? How like Horace Walpole to dote on Ann
Conway's canine groups! We actually feel sleepy as we examine the little
black marble Somnus of the Florence Gallery, and electrified with the
first sight of the Apollo, and won to sweet emotion in the presence of
Nymphs, Graces, and the Goddess of Beauty, when, shaped by the hand of
genius, they seem the ethereal types of that
'Common clay ta'en from the common earth,
Moulded by God and tempered by the tears
Of angels to the perfect form of woman.'
Calm and fixed as is the natural language of Sculpture, it is the artistic
illustration of life's normal activity and character in the economy not
less than in the ideal and heroic phase. 'Our statues,' says one of the
quaint personages of Richter's _Titan_, 'are no idle, dawdling citizens,
but all drive a trade. Such as are caryates hold up houses; and heathen
water-gods labour at the public fountains, and pour out water into the
pitchers of the maidens. Such as are angels bear up baptismal vessels.'
Yet the distinctive element in the pleasure afforded by sculpture is
tranquillity,--a quiet, contemplative delight; somewhat of awe chastens
admiration; a feeling of peace hallows sympathy; and we echo the poet's
sentiment,--
'I feel a mighty calmness creep
Over my heart, which can no longer borrow
Its hues from chance or change,--those children of to-morrow.'
It is this fixedness and placidity, conveying the impression of fate,
death, repose, or immortality, which render sculpture so congenial as
commemorative of the departed. Even quaint wooden effigies, like those in
St. Mary's Church at Chester, with the obsolete peaked beards, ruffs, and
broadswords, accord with the venerable associations of a mediæval tomb;
while marble figures, typifying Grief, Poetry, Fame, or Hope, brooding
over the lineaments of the illustrious dead, seem, of all sepulchral
decorations, the most apt and impressive. We remember, after exploring the
plain of Ravenna on an autumn day, and rehearsing the famous battle in
which the brave young Gaston de Foix fell, how the associations of the
scene and story were defined and deepened as we gazed on the sculptured
form of a recumbent knight in armour, preserved in the academy of the old
city; it seemed to bring back and stamp with brave renown for ever the
gallant soldier who so long ago perished there in battle. In Cathedral and
Parthenon, under the dome of the Invalides, in the sequestered parish
church or the rural cemetery, what image so accords with the sad reality
and the serene hope of humanity, as the adequate marble personification on
sarcophagus and beneath shrine, in mausoleum or on turf-mound?
'His palms enfolded on his breast,
There is no other thought express'd
But long disquiet merged in rest.'
In truth, it is for want of comprehensive perception that we take so
readily for granted the limited scope of this glorious art. There is in
the Grecian mythology alone a remarkable variety of character and
expression, as perpetuated by the statuary; and when to her deities we add
the athletes, charioteers, and marble portraits, a realm of diverse
creations is opened. Indeed, to the average modern mind, it is the statues
of Grecian divinities that constitute the poetic charm of her history;
abstractly, we regard them with the poet:--
'Their gods? what were their gods?
There's Mars, all bloody-haired; and Hercules,
Whose soul was in his sinews; Pluto, blacker
Than his own hell; Vulcan, who shook his horns
At every limp he took; great Bacchus rode
Upon a barrel; and in a cockle-shell
Neptune kept state; then Mercury was a thief;
Juno a shrew; Pallas a prude, at best;
And Venus walked the clouds in search of lovers;
Only great Jove, the lord and thunderer,
Sat in the circle of his starry power
And frowned "I will!" to all.'
Not in their marble beauty do they thus ignobly impress us,--but calm,
fair, strong, and immortal. 'They seem,' wrote Hazlitt, 'to have no
sympathy with us, and not to want our admiration. In their faultless
excellence, they appear sufficient to themselves.'
In the sculptor's art, more than on the historian's page, lives the most
glorious memory of the classic past. A visit to the Vatican by torchlight
endears even these poor traditional deities for ever.
On lofty ceilings vivid frescoes glow,
Auroras beam,
The steeds of Neptune through the waters go,
Or Sibyls dream.
As in the flickering torchlight shadows weaved
Illusions wild,
Methought Apollo's bosom slightly heaved,
And Juno smiled.
Aërial Mercuries in bronze upspring,
Dianas fly,
And marble Cupids to the Psyches cling
Without a sigh.
The absence of complexity in the language and intent of sculpture is
always obvious in the expositions of its votaries. In no class of men have
we found such distinct and scientific views of Art. One lovely evening in
spring we stood with Bartolini beside the corpse of a beautiful child.
Bereavement in a foreign land has a desolation of its own, and the
afflicted mother desired to carry home a statue of her loved and lost. We
conducted the sculptor to the chamber of death, that he might superintend
the casts from the body. No sooner did his eyes fall upon it, than they
glowed with admiration and filled with tears. He waved the assistants
aside, clasped his hands, and gazed spell-bound upon the dead child. Its
brow was ideal in contour, the hair of wavy gold, the cheeks of angelic
outline. 'How beautiful!' exclaimed Bartolini; and drawing us to the
bedside, with a mingled awe and intelligence, he pointed out how the
rigidity of death coincided, in this fair young creature, with the
standard of Art;--the very hands, he declared, had stiffened into lines of
beauty; and over the beautiful clay we thus learned, from the lips of a
venerable sculptor, how intimate and minute is the cognizance this noble
art takes of the language of the human form. Greenough would unfold by the
hour the exquisite relation between function and beauty, organization and
use, tracing therein a profound law and an illimitable truth. No more
genial spectacle greeted us in Rome than Thorwaldsen at his Sunday-noon
receptions;--his white hair, kindly smile, urbane manners, and
unpretending simplicity, gave an added charm to the wise and liberal
sentiments he expressed on Art, reminding us, in his frank eclecticism, of
the spirit in which Humboldt cultivated science, and Sismondi history. Nor
less indicative of this clear apprehension was the thorough solution we
have heard Powers give, over the mask taken from a dead face, of the
problem, how its living aspect was to modify its sculptured reproduction;
or the original views expressed by Palmer as to the treatment of the eyes
and hair in marble.
Appropriate and inspiring as are statues as memorials of character, in no
department of art is there more need of a pure and just sense of the
appropriate than in the choice of subject, locality, and treatment in
statuary embellishment. Many greatly-endeared human benefactors cannot
thus be wisely or genially celebrated. Of late years there has been a
mania on the subject; and even popular sentiment recognized the
impropriety of setting up a statue in the marketplace, of pious, retiring
Izaak Walton.
Shelley used to say that a Roman peasant is as good a judge of sculpture
as the best academician or anatomist. It is this direct appeal, this
elemental simplicity, which constitutes the great distinction and charm of
the art. There is nothing evasive and mysterious; in dealing with form and
expression through features and attitude, average observation is a
reliable test. The same English poet was right in declaring that the Greek
sculptors did not find their inspiration in the dissecting-room; yet upon
no subject has criticism displayed greater insight on the one hand and
pedantry on the other, than in the discussion of these very
_chefs-d'oeuvre_ of antiquity. While Michael Angelo was at Rome when the
Laocoön was discovered, hailed it as 'the wonder of Art,' and scholars
identified the group with a famous one described by Pliny, Canova thought
that the right arm of the father was not in its right position, and the
other restorations in the work have all been objected to. Goëthe
recognized a profound sagacity in the artist. 'If,' he wrote, 'we try to
place the bite in some different position, the whole action is changed,
and we find it impossible to conceive one more fitting; the situation of
the bite renders necessary the whole action of the limbs.' And another
critic says, 'In the group of the Laocoön, the breast is expanded and the
throat contracted to show that the agonies that convulse the frame are
borne in silence.' In striking contrast with such testimonies to the
scientific truth to Nature in Grecian Art, was the objection I once heard
an American backwoods mechanic make to this celebrated work. He asked why
the figures were seated in a row on a dry-goods box, and declared that the
serpent was not of a size to coil round so small an arm as the child's
without breaking its vertebræ. So disgusted was Titian with the critical
pedantry elicited by this group, that, in ridicule thereof, he painted a
caricature,--three monkeys writhing in the folds of a little snake.
Few statues at Rome excite the imagination, apart from intrinsic beauty,
like that of Pompey, at whose base, tradition says, 'great Cæsar fell.' It
was discovered lying across the boundary line of two estates, and claimed
by both proprietors. Shrewd Cardinal Spada decided the head belonged to
one, and the body to another. It was decapitated, and sold in fragments
for a small sum, and by this device was added to his famous collection, by
the wily churchman.
Yet, despite the jargon of connoisseurship, against which Byron, while
contemplating the Venus de Medici, utters so eloquent an invective,
sculpture is a grand, serene, and intelligible art,--more so than
architecture and painting,--and, as such, justly consecrated to the heroic
and the beautiful in man and history. It is pre-eminently commemorative.
How the old cities of Europe are peopled to the imagination, as well as
the eye, by the statues of their traditional rulers or illustrious
children, keeping, as it were, a warning sign, or a sublime vigil, silent,
yet expressive, in the heart of busy life and through the lapse of ages!
We could never pass Duke Cosmo's imposing effigy in the old square of
Florence, without the magnificent patronage and the despotic perfidy of
the Medicean family being revived to memory with intense local
association,--nor note the ugly mitred and cloaked papal figures, with
hands extended, in the mockery of benediction, over the beggars in the
piazzas of Romagna, without Ranke's frightful picture of church abuses
reappearing, as if to crown these brazen forms with infamy. There was
always a gleam of poetry--however sad--on the most foggy day, in the
glimpse afforded from our window, in Trafalgar Square, of that patient
horseman, Charles the Martyr. How alive old Neptune sometimes looked, by
moonlight, in Rome, as we passed his plashing fountain. And those German
poets--Goëthe, Schiller, and Jean Paul,--what to modern eyes were
Frankfort, Stuttgart, and Baireuth, unconsecrated by their endeared forms?
The most pleasant association Versailles yielded us of the Bourbon dynasty
was that inspired by Jeanne d'Arc, graceful in her marble sleep, as
sculptured by Marie d'Orléans; and the most impressive token of Napoleon's
downfall we saw in Europe was his colossal image intended for the square
of Leghorn, but thrown permanently on the sculptor's hands by the waning
of his proud star. The statue of Heber, to Christian vision, hallows
Calcutta. The Perseus of Cellini breathes of the months of artistic
suspense, inspiration, and experiment so graphically described in that
clever egotist's memoirs. One feels like blessing the grief-bowed figures
at the tomb of the Princess Charlotte, so truly do their attitudes express
our sympathy with the love and the sorrow her name excites. Would not
Sterne have felt a thrill of complacency, had he beheld his tableau of the
Widow Wadman and Uncle Toby so genially embodied by Ball Hughes? What more
spirited symbol of prosperous conquest can be imagined than the gilded
horses of St. Mark's? How natural was Michael Angelo's exclamation,
'March!' as he gazed on Donatello's San Giorgio, in the Church of San
Michele,--one mailed hand on a shield, bare head, complete armour, and the
foot advanced, like a sentinel who hears the challenge, or a knight
listening for the charge! Tenerani's Descent from the Cross, in the
Torlonia Chapel, outlives in remembrance the brilliant assemblies of that
financial house. The outlines of Flaxman, essentially statuesque, seem
alone adequate to illustrate to the eye the great mediæval poet, whose
verse seems often cut from stone in the quarries of infernal destiny. How
grandly sleep the lions of Canova at Pope Clement's tomb!
A census of the statues of the world, past and present, would indicate an
enormous marble population: in every Greek and Roman house, temple, public
square, cemetery, these effigies abounded. According to Pliny the number
of memorable statues in Athens exceeded three thousand; the number brought
to Rome from conquered provinces was so great that the record seems
incredible; add to these the countless statues we know to have been
destroyed, the innumerable fragmentary images encountered in Italy, and
the variety of modern works--from those which people the cathedral roof to
those which adorn private galleries and favourite studios,--and the mind
is bewildered by the extent not less than the beauty of the products of
the chisel.
We have sometimes wondered that some æsthetic philosopher has not analyzed
the vital relation of the arts to each other, and given a popular
exposition of their mutual dependence. Drawing from the antique has long
been an acknowledged initiation for the limner; and Campbell, in his terse
description of the histrionic art, says that therein 'verse ceases to be
airy thought, and sculpture to be dumb.' How much of their peculiar
effects did Talma, Kemble, and Rachel owe to the attitudes, gestures, and
drapery of the Grecian statues! Kean adopted the 'dying fall' of General
Abercrombie's figure in St. Paul's as the model of his own. Some of the
memorable scenes and votaries of the drama are directly associated with
the sculptor's art,--as, for instance, the last act of _Don Giovanni_,
wherein the expressive music of Mozart breathes a pleasing terror in
connection with the spectral nod of the marble horseman; and Shakspeare
has availed himself of this art, with beautiful wisdom, in that melting
scene where remorseful love pleads with the motionless heroine of the
_Winter's Tale_,--
'Her natural posture!
Chide me, dear stone, that I may say, indeed,
Thou art Hermione; or rather thou art she,
In thy not chiding: for she was as tender
As infancy and grace.'
Garrick imitated to the life, in _Abel Drugger_, the vacant stare peculiar
to Nollekens, the sculptor; and Colley Cibber's father was a devotee of
the chisel, and adorned Chatsworth with freestone Sea-Nymphs.
In view of the great historical value, comparative authenticity, and
possible significance and beauty of busts, this department of sculpture
has a peculiar interest and charm. The most distinct idea we have of the
Roman emperors, even in regard to their individual characters, is derived
from their busts at the Vatican and elsewhere. The benignity of Trajan,
the animal development of Nero, and the classic vigour of young Augustus,
are best apprehended through these memorable effigies which Time has
spared and Art transmitted. And a similar permanence and distinctness of
impression associate most of our illustrious moderns with their sculptured
features; the ironical grimace of Voltaire is perpetuated by Houdon's
bust; the sympathetic intellectuality of Schiller by Dannecker's; Handel's
countenance is familiar through the elaborate chisel of Roubillac;
Nollekens moulded Sterne's delicate and unimpassioned but keen
physiognomy, and Chantrey the lofty cranium of Scott. Who has not blessed
the rude but conscientious artist who carved the head of Shakspeare,
preserved at Stratford? How quaintly appropriate to the old house in
Nuremberg is Albert Dürer's bust over the door! Our best knowledge of
Alexander Hamilton's aspect is obtained from the expressive marble head of
him by that ardent republican sculptor, Ceracchi. It was appropriate for
Mrs. Damer, the daughter of a gallant field-marshal, to portray in marble,
as heroic idols, Fox, Nelson, and Napoleon. We were never more convinced
of the intrinsic grace and solemnity of this form of 'counterfeit
presentment' than when exploring the Baciocchi _palazzo_ at Bologna. In
the centre of a circular room, lighted from above, and draped as well as
carpeted with purple, stood on a simple pedestal the bust of Napoleon's
sister, thus enshrined after death by her husband. The profound stillness,
the relief of this isolated head against a mass of dark tints, and its
consequent emphatic individuality, made the sequestered chamber seem a
holy place, where communion with the departed, so spiritually represented
by the exquisite image, appeared not only natural, but inevitable. Our
countryman, Powers, has eminently illustrated the possible excellence of
this branch of Art. In mathematical correctness of detail, unrivalled
finish of texture, and with these, in many cases, the highest
characterization, busts from his hand have an absolute artistic value,
independent of likeness, like a portrait by Vandyke or Titian. When the
subject is favourable, his achievements in this regard are memorable, and
fill the eye and mind with ideas of beauty and meaning undreamed of by
those who consider marble portraits as wholly imitative and mechanical.
Was there ever a human face which so completely reflected inward
experience and individual genius as the bust which haunts us throughout
Italy, broods over the monument in Santa Croce, gazes pensively from
library niche, seems to awe the more radiant images of boudoir and
gallery, and sternly looks melancholy reproach from the Ravenna tomb?
'The lips, as Cumæ's cavern close;
The cheeks, with fast and sorrow thin;
The rigid front, almost morose,
But for the patient hope within;
Declare a life whose course hath been
Unsullied still, though still severe,
Which, through the wavering days of sin,
Kept itself icy chaste and clear.'
National characters become, as it were, household gods through the
sculptor's portrait; the duplicates of Canova's head of Napoleon seem as
appropriate in the _salons_ and shops of France, as the heads of
Washington and Franklin in America, or the antique images of Scipio
Africanus and Ceres in Sicily, and Wellington and Byron in London.