THE INFLUENCE OF PIRANESI ON DECORATION IN THE XVIII CENTURY
There is still another side of Piranesi’s originality, public
ignorance of which may be said to be complete--namely, his relation to
architecture, and the very great debt owed him by that art. That he
was an architect who signed himself as such on many plates during his
entire life is a fact ignored even by many of those architects who are
most indebted to him; but this fact is negligible, together with the
work which he actually executed as an architect. The benefits which he
conferred were rendered in other ways.
His first, and perhaps greatest, service consisted in the collection
of materials. The classic motives which he gathered and etched form an
inexhaustible store of ornament on which generation after generation
of architects has drawn, and will continue to draw. The enormous
quantity and variety of classic fragments of the best quality that
Piranesi brought together is in itself astounding, but a fact of still
greater importance is that it was he who, more than any one else, gave
these motives currency. In his day no one, except Winckelmann--now
known chiefly by his influence on Goethe, and by his tragic death--did
as much as Piranesi to foster appreciation and spread knowledge of
classic antiquity; while his plates, both by their greater currency
and higher artistic merit, did wider and more enduring good than could
ever be accomplished by the work of a critic and connoisseur, even
of Winckelmann’s talent and prestige. His boundless enthusiasm and
his real learning aroused more people than we shall ever know, at
the same time that his labors, so indefatigable as to be incredible,
spread abroad in prodigal profusion the reproductions of the remains
of classic buildings, statues, and ornament. The greater part of these
relics would have continued, but for him, to be known to only a few
collectors and frequenters of museums; and it is certain that more
classic motives have come into use, directly or indirectly, from the
works of Piranesi than from any other one source, with the possible
exception of modern photography.
In this connection it is impossible to insist too much on his exquisite
taste, which, although it had its lapses, as in his designs for
chimney-pieces, was on the whole of the highest. This fact seems
quite incredible if the time and place of his life be considered.
The intellectual degradation of all Italy at this period has already
been alluded to, and, art being always a reflection and expression
of contemporary life, it follows that the artistic degradation of
Piranesi’s Italian contemporaries was complete. It is difficult to
conceive the rococo horrors of eighteenth-century Italy. In France
the most contorted productions of the Louis XV style, or the most
far-fetched symbolic lucubrations under Louis XVI, never reached such
depths of bad taste; for the French, in their most unfortunate moments,
can never divest themselves entirely of an innate taste and a sense of
measure which give some redeeming grace to their worst follies. The
lack of tact, of a sense of limitations, which often characterizes
Spanish and Italian art, and at times makes possible splendid flights
never attempted by the French, also permits them, when misguided, to
sink to abysmal depths. It would be hard to find much good in the heavy
contortions of the rococo work of eighteenth-century Italy, which,
starting from Bernini, exaggerated all his faults and kept none of even
his perverted genius. Amid this riot of bad taste, Piranesi, with his
love of classic simplicity, his sense of the noble, and his feeling for
balance and distance, stands out an inexplicable phenomenon.
In certain plates, Piranesi, while using elements taken from antiquity,
created a style of ornamental composition which inspired or was copied
in work praised for its originality, and passing under the name of
other styles. No one dreams of speaking of a Piranesi style, yet there
is many a piece of decoration that calls itself Louis XVI, or Adam, or
anything else, which comes directly from the work of this much-pilfered
Italian. He stands in relation to a great deal of architectural
decoration much as do, in science, those profound and creative minds
who discover a great principle, but neglect its detailed application,
only to have it taken up by lesser inventors of a practical trend, who
put it to actual uses, the tangible value of which excites so great an
admiration that no thought is taken of the man who discovered the very
principle at the base of it all. In such plates as those dedicated to
Robert Adam and Pope Clement XIII there can be found, fully developed,
the style we call currently Louis XVI, although the greater part of
it was produced under Louis XV contemporaneously with the work which
goes by that name. The style in question is there, with its exquisite
detail copied from the antique; we can see its inspiration taken from
the classic which it wished to reproduce, together with its fortunate
inability to do so, and its consequently successful creation of
something entirely original but yet filled with classic spirit. That
interruption of ornament, that alternation of the decorated and the
plain, that sense of balance and of contrast, distinctive of the Louis
XVI style--all are here. To think that these qualities came to Piranesi
through French influence would be ridiculous, for the style under
discussion obviously took for its model classic art, to which it was an
attempted return; and as Piranesi was all his life in direct contact
with the source of this inspiration, he could scarcely have been formed
by a derivation of that which he knew directly.
If this be true, it may be asked why Piranesi’s work did not create in
Italy at least sporadic attempts at a style analogous to that of Louis
XVI. The reason for this lies in the already mentioned condition of
the Italy of that day, for a work of art is absolutely conditioned by,
and a result of, the environment in which it occurs. Here and there a
work of art may, by some phenomenon, occur in opposition, or without
apparent relation, to its surroundings; but in such circumstances
it will have no successors, just as an unusually hardy orange-tree
may thrive far to the north, but will not bear fruit and propagate
itself. A great critic has said: “There is a reigning direction, which
is that of the century; those talents who try to grow in an opposite
direction find the issue closed; the pressure of public spirit and of
surrounding manners compresses or turns them aside by imposing on them
a fixed flowering.” The torpor and bad taste engendered in Italy by
political and intellectual oppression precluded the work of Piranesi
from bearing any fruit in his own country.
[Illustration: Statue of Piranesi, by Angelini, assisted by Piranesi’s
son, and erected in the Church of Santa Maria in Aventino (Rome). It
faces the great candelabra which Piranesi had designed to illuminate
his statue. This plate was engraved by Piranesi’s son, Francesco, in
1790.
Size of the original engraving, 19⅞ × 12¾ inches]
[Illustration: PIRANESI. ANTIQUE MARBLE VASE
From “Vasi. Candelabri. Cippi. Sarcofagi. Tripodi. Lucerne ed Ornamenti
Antichi Disegn. ed inc. dal Cav. Gio. Batta. Piranesi.” (1778) Vol.
II, plate No. 73. Piranesi’s dedication of this plate reads: “Al Suo
Carissimo Amico Il. Sig. Riccardo Hayward Scuttore Inglese.”
Size of the original etching, 24 × 16⅜ inches]
To think, on the other hand, that Piranesi exerted an influence on
French art of his day is not so fanciful as might at first be supposed.
If it be true, as just stated, that it is impossible for the work of
an artist to produce any result when his environment is hostile, it
is equally true that an artist, or a body of artists, can exert an
enormous influence when their surroundings favor and the ground is
ready to receive the seed they sow. France was ripe for such seed as
Piranesi cast abroad vainly in Italy, and in the former country an
incalculable influence in the creation of the Louis XVI style was
exerted by those men who accompanied Mme. de Pompadour’s brother, Abel
Poisson, Marquis de Marigny, on his travels in Italy. Three years
previously this great patron of art had caused her brother to be
appointed to the succession of the “Surintendance des Beaux-Arts,” and
after three years of apprenticeship, in order to make himself worthy
of this important and exalted position, she sent him, in the company
of a numerous suite, to Italy in December, 1749, to complete his
education by remaining there until September, 1751. In his following
were Soufflot, the architect, and Charles Nicholas Cochin _fils_, the
celebrated engraver. On his return from Italy, M. de Marigny directed
all the works of art undertaken by the government throughout France,
while Soufflot built the church of Ste. Geneviève, now known as the
Panthéon, and was one of the most conspicuous and influential men in
the world of art in his day. Cochin, aside from being a great engraver,
was intellectually one of the most interesting artists of the day,
and, as M. de Marigny’s right-hand man, wielded an influence almost
incomprehensible to us of to-day. The latter part of his life, he
really ruled in M. de Marigny’s stead, and his absolute dictatorship in
all matters of art in France can only be compared to that of Le Brun
under Louis XIV.
That his Italian travels were the decisive influence of Cochin’s
career is clearly shown in his own work, and is expressly stated
by Diderot, who says of him that, “judge everywhere else, he was a
scholar at Rome.” Soufflot was only seven years older than Piranesi,
and Cochin but five. Now, when these distinguished Frenchmen were in
Rome, Piranesi was already famous and frequented the most interesting
artistic circles. His talents and his remarkably impetuous personality
made him one of the curiosities of Rome, so that it is scarcely
credible that these visiting foreigners should not have seen much of
him. As their express object was the study of antiquity, and as no one
in Rome knew more of the ruins or had so lively an enthusiasm for them
as Piranesi, it is certainly probable that he influenced them deeply.
[Illustration: SECTION OF ONE OF THE SIDES OF THE GREAT ROOM, OR
LIBRARY, OF EARL MANSFIELD’S VILLA AT KENWOOD
Robert Adam, Architect, 1767. Engraved by J. Zucchi in 1774
From “The Works in Architecture of Robert and James Adam.” (London,
1778)]
[Illustration: IONIC ORDER OF THE ANTEROOM, WITH THE REST OF THE DETAIL
OF THAT ROOM AT SION HOUSE, THE SEAT OF THE DUKE OF NORTHUMBERLAND IN
THE COUNTY OF MIDDLESEX
Robert Adam, Architect, 1761. Engraved by Piranesi
From “The Works in Architecture of Robert and James Adam.” (London,
1778)]
Aside from these men, the list is long of famous Frenchmen who studied
in Rome during the height of Piranesi’s artistic production, and must
certainly have felt his influence. It includes Augustin Pajou, the
sculptor, who went to the Villa Médicis as Prix de Rome in 1748, at
eighteen, and who afterward decorated the opera built at Versailles by
Ange Gabriel, architect of the faultless buildings which ennoble the
Place de la Concorde; Jean Jacques Caffieri, the sculptor, who was in
Rome from 1749 to 1753; Chalgrin, Prix de Rome in 1758, successor
to Soufflot as architect of the city of Paris, and architect of St.
Philippe du Roule and of the Arc de Triomphe; Jean Antoine Houdon,
the sculptor, Prix de Rome in 1761, at twenty, who came to America
with Franklin to execute the statue of Washington now in Richmond;
and finally Claude François Michel, known as Clodion, who gained the
Prix de Rome for sculpture in 1763 and filled whatever he touched
with unrivaled grace, raising the art of terra-cotta figurines to a
degree of loveliness no one else ever attained. It must be remembered
that these architects and sculptors did not confine themselves to
architecture pure and simple, as do our prouder and less talented
contemporaries. With the spirit which animates all periods of great
art, they considered no object too insignificant to be made lovely by
their talent. They decorated theaters and houses, designing furniture,
clocks, vases, and every article of daily life; filling them all with
the consummate, delicate art that remains the despair of all who
have followed. If, therefore, as is to be supposed, they underwent
Piranesi’s influence while in Rome, it would have made itself felt,
through them, in all the decorative arts of France.
If Piranesi’s influence in France be a subject for hypothesis, in
England it can be decisively proved in the case of the so-called
Adam style, a vulgar caricature of which is at present so prevalent
in New York. Robert Adam, a Scotchman who studied in Rome, was so
delightfully original and adventurous as to fit out an expedition
to explore the then totally unknown Palace of Diocletian at Spalato
in Dalmatia. He was also a friend of Piranesi, who dedicated his
views of the Campus Martius to “Robert Adam, a British cultivator
of architecture, as a proof of his affection.” Now Adam, a man of
unusually alert mind and delicate taste, was a poor architect, with a
most defective sense of proportion in the composition of a building
as a whole, who nevertheless possessed unusual and distinctive talent
as a decorator. His fine taste led him to cover his work with detail
executed and often conceived by remarkable persons, so that much of
the credit for originality and delicacy given to him is due, as with
so many an architect, to the artists whom he had the cleverness and
good fortune to employ and the ability to direct. In the preparation
of his monumental book he was assisted by “Eques J. B. Piranesi,” as
he there signs himself, who actually engraved three plates with his
own hand, while the rendering of every design in the book shows his
influence. Knowing this, it is impossible to doubt that Adam’s taste
and style were profoundly influenced by, and indebted to, so original
and masterly a mind as that of Piranesi.
A comparison of Adam’s book with certain plates by Piranesi will
clearly show the debt, while a careful study of only three of his
compositions--namely, the title-page before mentioned as dedicated
to Adam and the two plates inscribed with the name of Pope Clement
XIII--will in itself make clear that much decorative work called either
Louis XVI or Adam takes its forms as well as its inspiration directly
from the creations of Giambattista Piranesi. Piranesi’s influence can
also be proved in the case of George Dance, architect of old Newgate
Prison; of Robert Mylne, architect of old Blackfriars Bridge; of Sir
John Soane, architect of the Bank of England; and of many more. The
subject of Piranesi’s influence in England has been so exhaustively
treated by Mr. Arthur Samuels in his monograph as to make useless any
attempt to rehandle the subject here.
[Illustration: PIRANESI. TITLE-PAGE TO “IL CAMPO MARZIO DELL’ ANTICA
ROMA”
(Rome, 1762)
The dedication to Robert Adam is upon the column to the left
Size of the original etching, 19⅞ × 13¼ inches]
[Illustration: PIRANESI. UPPER LEFT-HAND PORTION, BEARING A DEDICATION
TO ROBERT ADAM, OF PIRANESI’S ETCHED PLAN OF THE CAMPUS MARTIUS
Size of the original etching (of which the above is a part only), 53 ×
45½ inches]
Still another example of Piranesi’s influence is to be found in the
sketches of the present-day German, Otto Rieth, the originality
of whose drawings is so vaunted. Very talented and individual
they certainly are, but to any one thoroughly familiar with the
architectural fantasies of Piranesi, the source of inspiration is so
obvious as to make it impossible that Rieth should not have known the
work of his great Italian predecessor.
The influence which Piranesi exerts on the École des Beaux-Arts, and
consequently on the leading contemporary architects of both France and
the United States, is enormous, if hard to define. The use of detail
which he furnishes is never-ceasing, but more important than this is
the constant inspiration sought in a study of those architectural
fantasies which he has filled with the qualities of grandeur and
immensity so much valued by the French to-day. The buildings of New
York are covered with motives either inspired by Piranesi or taken
directly from his work--ornament much of which would never have
come into vogue but for him; while a recent number of a leading
architectural periodical, without acknowledgment, printed a design of
his for its cover.
It is ardently to be hoped that a wider and more just appreciation of
Piranesi’s unique work may gradually gain currency. Mere productiveness
is, of course, of no intrinsic value; but that any human being should
be capable of so vast a labor as Piranesi must in itself excite in
us a lively sense of wonder and admiration. When, moreover, it is
found that his work, in addition to putting the art of architecture
under an enormous debt, is distinguished by imagination, originality,
sublimity, and immense skill of execution,--a certain portion of it at
least possessing these qualities to a degree unsurpassed by any artist
using the particular medium employed,--it is surely not unreasonable to
attribute to their creator the rare quality of original genius.
NOTE: I desire to acknowledge my indebtedness to Mr. Arthur Samuel
of London, both for material contained in his book and for personal
courtesy.
FRANCISCO GOYA Y LUCIENTES
BY CHARLES H. CAFFIN
Author of “The Story of Spanish Painting,” “Old Spanish Masters,
Engraved by Timothy Cole,” etc., etc.
The phenomenon of Goya is among the curiosities of the history of
art. For in the latter half of the eighteenth century, when, under
the feeble Bourbon dynasty, Spain had reached the lowest ebb of her
national and artistic life, an artist arose who represented more than
any other her racial characteristics and was destined to exert a
world-wide influence on the art of the succeeding century.
While the rest of Europe was seething with the spirit of revolution,
Goya, the man, was already in revolt, and at the same time had
discovered for himself a revolutionary form of art, which anticipated
by half a century the consciousness elsewhere of the need of a new
method to fit the new point of view. In a word, he drove an entering
wedge into the contemporary classicalism that was based upon a dry
imitation of Roman marbles and Raphaelesque compositions, restored
nature to art, and adapted his vision of nature to the spirit of
inquiry, observation, and research that was in process of fermentation.
Finally, he adjusted to his vision of life a method of composition,
freer and more flexible than the older ones: that was preoccupied less
with the representation of form than with the expression of movement
and character; its aim, in fact, being primarily expressional. Thus
he anticipated the motive of modern impressionism and determined in
advance the methods of rendering it.
No less remarkable is the degree in which he was an avatar of the
mingled traits of his race. For ethnologically the Spaniard is a
Celt, who first was disciplined by Roman civilization, then merged in
the flood of a Germanic wave, and later infused with the blood and
culture of the Arab and the Moor. A truly wonderful amalgam--the ironic
humor of the Celt; the mysticism, vigor, and grotesque imagination
of the forest-bred Goth; the subtle inventiveness, sensuousness, and
abstraction of the Orient, and the uncouth strain of the Black Man,
whom to-day we are discovering to be the flotsam of a far-off submerged
civilization in Darkest Africa. All these traits are recognizable in
the work of Goya that he did to please himself: namely, in his painted
figure-subjects, other than portraits, and in his drawings and etchings.
* * * * *
[Illustration: GOYA. PORTRAIT OF GOYA, DRAWN AND ETCHED BY HIMSELF
Size of the original etching, 5⁵⁄₁₆ × 4⅞ inches]
[Illustration: GOYA. THE DEAD BRANCH
From “_The Proverbs_” (Lefort No. 126)
A reference to the Spanish court, which rests on a dead branch over an
abyss
Size of the original etching, 8⅜ × 12⁹⁄₁₆ inches]
In the modern craze for making over biographies of past worthies,
so as to bring their lives into conformity with the standards of
respectability in the present, there is a tendency to suggest that
many of the records of Goya’s career may be apocryphal. This would rob
the story of art of a very picturesque personality; one, moreover,
which seems to be quite convincingly represented in his art. He was
born in 1746, in the little town of Fuendetodos near Zaragoza in the
province of Aragón, his father being a small farmer. Reared among
the hills, he breathed independence, throve mightily in bodily vigor,
and proved precociously disposed to art. Accordingly, at the age of
fourteen he was put under a teacher, Luzan, in Zaragoza. But it was
never Goya’s way to take instruction from a spoon, and at this period
he distinguished himself less as a student than as a roistering young
fellow, apt for gallantry and brawls and ready with his rapier. Having
drawn on himself the attention of the authorities of the Inquisition,
he found it convenient to proceed to Madrid. Here again his escapades
aroused notoriety, so that he abandoned the capital and set forth for
Rome, working his way to the sea-board by practising as a bull-fighter.
In Rome he mainly nourished his artistic development by observation
of the old masterpieces, meanwhile indulging in gallantries, which
culminated in a plot to rescue a young lady from a convent. This time
he found himself actually in the grip of the Inquisition and was
only released from it by the Spanish ambassador, who undertook to
ship him back to Spain. Arrived the second time in Madrid he found
a friend in the painter Francisco Bayeu, who gave him his daughter,
Josefa, in marriage and introduced him to Mengs, the arbiter of art
at Court. Josefa bore him twenty children, none of whom survived him,
and patiently put up with his infidelities. Mengs had been urged by
the king, Charles III, to revive the Tapestry Works of Santa Barbara,
and intrusted Goya with a series of designs, which to-day may be seen
in the basement galleries of the Prado, while some of them, executed
in the weave, adorn the walls of a room in the Escoriál. The vogue
at the time was for Boucher’s pretty pastoral ineptitudes, but Goya
took a hint from Teniers and represented the actual pastimes of the
Spanish people. He, however, far outstripped the Flemish artist in the
variety, naturalness, and vivacity of his subjects, while in the matter
of composition he showed himself already a student of the harmonies of
nature rather than a perpetuator of studio traditions.
These designs secured his general popularity and paved the way for
his _entrée_ into royal favor at the accession of Charles IV in 1788.
Goya, turned forty, was already the darling of the populace and now
became the cynosure of the Court. He would pit his prowess against
the professional strong man in the streets of Madrid and plunged with
equal aplomb and assurance into the gallantries of the royal circle,
which was a hotbed of intrigue under the lax régime of Queen Maria
Luisa, whose amours were notorious. Foremost among her lovers was
Manuel Godoy, whom she raised from the rank of a guardsman eventually
to be prime minister. He embroiled his country in a war with England,
and finally ratted to Napoleon, conniving at the invasion of the
French troops and the placing of Joseph Bonaparte on the throne of
Spain. Meanwhile, in the interval before this _débâcle_, Goya, while
dipping into intrigue, notably with the beautiful Countess of Alba,
and establishing his position as an artist to whom every one who would
be anybody must sit for a portrait, maintained an attitude of haughty
mental exclusiveness. He was the rebel, the insurgent, the nihilist;
lashing with the impartial whip of his satire the rottenness of the
Court and the shams and hypocrisies of the Middle Class, the Church,
Law, Medicine, and even Painting. Also, like many devotees of
sensual pleasures, he was hot in his denunciation of lust, a terrible
exponent of its consequences in satiety and sapped vitality.
[Illustration: GOYA. BACK TO HIS ANCESTORS!
“Poor animal! The genealogists and the kings of heraldry have muddled
his brain, and he is not the only one.”
Manuel Godoy, satirized in this print, had a long and fictitious
genealogy made for himself, according to which he was a direct
descendant of the ancient Gothic kings of Spain.
From “_The Caprices_” (Lefort No. 39).]
[Illustration: GOYA. “BIRDS OF A FEATHER FLOCK TOGETHER”
“The question is often raised whether men or women are superior. The
vices of either proceed from bad upbringing; where the men are depraved
the women likewise are depraved.”
From “_The Caprices_” (Lefort No. 5).]
This last is the theme of one of his most horribly arresting subjects
in oils, an allegory of the Fates, wherein lust and its accompanying
exhaustion represent the futility of man’s existence. It is painted
in colors of extreme neutrality that almost amount to monochrome.
Thus it illustrates a dictum of Goya’s that color no more than line
exists in nature; there are only differences of light and shade. It
accordingly prepares one for an appreciation of his etchings, in which
aquatint plays so intrinsically important a rôle. As a painter he had
begun with positive hues--to abandon them, as soon as he reached his
maturity, for a sparing use of color and a liberal differentiation of
color values. In this he was following Velasquez, whom he admitted to
be one of his teachers, the others being Rembrandt and nature. It was
Rembrandt, unquestionably, who helped him to a vision of nature that
reduced itself to the principle of light and dark; but from nature
herself he gained corroboration of the essential truth of such a
vision. How true it is the artist of the present day has learned from
Goya. Like the latter, he sees color in nature not as positive hues,
but as a complex weave of varying intensities of light and shade that
play over and transform the hues. It is by the correlation of these
varying values that he builds up the structure and secures the planes
of his composition, and realizes a unity and harmony of _ensemble_.
And it is in Goya’s etchings that he finds these principles of color
in relation to composition represented with most adequate reliance on
simplification, organization, and expression--the three watchwords of
contemporary artists who are working in the latest modern spirit.
Expression is the keynote of Goya’s etchings, as it is of his
paintings. It is the quality of feeling rather than of seeing that is
interpreted. Thus, in the oil painting of the _Maja_, _Nude_, it was
Goya’s intent not so much to represent the young form as to interpret
the expression of its youth through the play of light and shadow on
the supple torso and limbs; an expression so exquisitely subtle and
tender that it defies the copyist’s attempted imitation and eludes the
resources of photographic reproduction. Similarly, in the splendid
impressionism of the group-portrait of Charles IV and his family it is
not the appearance of the jewels, clustered on the breasts of the royal
pair, but the effect of their luster that he designed to render. And
so throughout his drawings and etchings the prime purpose is not to
represent the thing seen but to suggest its effect upon the feelings.
* * * * *
Goya’s etched work, as catalogued in 1907 by Julius Hofmann, comprises
268 pieces. These include 22 Various Subjects; 16 Studies after
Velasquez; 83 Caprices; 21 Proverbs; 82 Disasters of War and 44
Tauromachies, or Scenes from the Bull-Fight. To this list of engraved
work are to be added 20 lithographs.
The best known of these groups is _Los Caprichos_, etched in 1794-1798
but not published until 1803. These _Caprices_ represent the most
spontaneous expression of Goya’s temperament and of his attitude toward
the life and the society of his day. At the same time, the designs,
as in the case of all his etchings and lithographs, were executed
with due deliberation, worked out previously in drawings in which
every effect was carefully calculated and assured. With corresponding
fidelity the drawings were copied on the plate.
[Illustration: GOYA. THEY HAVE KIDNAPPED HER
“The woman who does not know how to guard herself is the first to
be attacked. And it is only when there is no longer time to protect
herself that she is astonished that she was carried off.”
From “_The Caprices_” (Lefort No. 8).]
[Illustration: GOYA. “BON VOYAGE!”
“Where go they across the shadows, this infernal cohort which makes the
air ring with their cries? If only there were daylight-- ... Then it
would be another thing: because with a gun we could bring them down....
But it is night and nobody can see them.” From “_The Caprices_” (Lefort
No. 64).]
It is in this set that the creative quality of Goya’s imagination is
most demonstrated. He could not only summon visions from the void, but
clothe them in convincing shape. Whether he stretched some human type
to the limit of caricature or invested it with attributes of bird,
beast, or reptile, or used some familiar form of animal, or created
a hybrid monster, he had the faculty of giving it an actuality that
makes it seem reasonable. As to the meaning of the subjects, the
titles which he himself gave them furnish, except in a few instances,
an intelligible clue. Prints of this set were brought to England by
officers engaged in the Peninsular War and later found their way to
Paris and exercised a very conscious influence upon Delacroix. For they
not only echoed the turbulence of his own spirit, but helped him to
give expression to his own visions of the horrible and fantastic. The
best proofs are those of the first edition, many of which were pulled
by the artist himself.
_The Proverbs_, although engraved between 1800 and 1810, were not
published until 1850. While their subjects are often difficult to
comprehend, they show generally a marked technical advance over the
previous work. This is apparent not only in the character of the
drawing, but also in the increased simplification and more highly
organized arrangement of the composition. Some of the latter, as for
example in the case of _The Infuriated Stallion_ and _The Bird-Men_,
present designs of extraordinary distinction.
The last prints of _La Tauromachie_ are dated 1815. This series falls
short of the others in esthetic interest, being more conspicuously
illustrative. It was, indeed, designed to represent the various phases
through which the baiting of bulls in Spain had passed. Beginning with
the early hunting of the bull in the open country, both on horseback
and on foot, it proceeds to the methods introduced by the Moors, who
are represented in the attire of Turks. Thence it gradually traces
the development of a precise science and technique in the management
of the sport and incidentally commemorates the prowess of individual
bull-fighters, beginning with the Emperor Charles V, and passing to
well-known professional toreadors. Contemporary proofs of Goya are very
rare; and it was not until 1855 that a complete set was published in
Madrid. A later issue, including seven extra prints, was published by
Loizelet in Paris.
[Illustration: GOYA. THE INFURIATED STALLION
From “_The Proverbs_” (Lefort No. 133)
Size of the original etching, 8⅜ × 12½ inches]
[Illustration: GOYA. THE BIRD-MEN
From “_The Proverbs_” (Lefort No. 136)
Size of the original etching, 8⅝ × 12⅞ inches]
Of the _Disasters of War_ no prints exist prior to those of the set
published by the Academy of San Fernando in 1863. Etched during 1810
and the succeeding years of the Peninsular War, the _Disasters_ are
regarded as the finest products of Goya’s needle. Yet he was sixty-four
years old when he commenced them. Though he had subscribed to the
Bonaparte régime and still held the position of Court painter, he
lived apart from active affairs in the seclusion of his country home.
The prints are inspired by his country’s sufferings, but he did not
publish them. To do so would have been to raise a protest against the
crime of the French invasion and to stir his countrymen to increased
patriotism. Under the circumstances of his equivocal position Goya may
have thought such a course impolitic. Perhaps he felt the national
condition to be hopeless. At any rate, he closed himself around in an
atmosphere of profound pessimism. “Was it for this they were born?”
is the legend beneath one of the prints which shows a heap of mangled
corpses. It is the note of the whole series--the criminal horror of
war, and its futility. Nowhere else is the element of the _macabre_
in his genius more fully revealed. The designs are in no sense
illustrative; they are visions of his own brooding, projected against
darkness and emptiness. Yet, just as in the _Caprices_ he gave bone and
flesh to the eery fabrics of his imagination, so by the magic of his
needle his abstract imaginings of the enormity of war became visualized
into concrete actuality.
Of Goya’s lithographs it must suffice here to mention the set of four
prints, _The Bulls of Bordeaux_. They were executed in that city in
1825. For after the expulsion of the French by Wellington and the
restoration of the Bourbon dynasty in the person of Ferdinand VII, Goya
again turned his coat. “For your treason you deserve to be hanged,”
remarked the new king, “but you are a great artist and I overlook the
past.” He was reappointed Court painter; but, broken in health and
spirits, so deaf that he could no longer indulge his musical taste in
playing, he obtained the king’s permission to retire to Bordeaux, where
he was cared for by a Madame Weiss and her daughter. It was during
this time that he visited Paris and was enthusiastically welcomed by
Delacroix and the other Romanticists. When he drew _The Bulls_ _of
Bordeaux_ he was in his seventy-ninth year and able to work only with
the aid of a powerful magnifying-glass. Yet the prints in their intense
and vigorous movement show no slackening of artistic power. He died
three years later, in 1828, and was buried in the cemetery of Bordeaux.
After lying there for seventy-one years, his body was claimed by his
country and interred with honors in Madrid. For by this time the modern
world of art had recognized Goya’s greatness and its own indebtedness
to his genius.
* * * * *
Goya’s etchings reveal him a great master of design. The versatility
of his invention suggests the exuberance of nature, yet calculated art
determines each composition. It is architectonic, organic, functional;
possessing the quality of a built-up structure, with perfect
correlation of its parts and absolute adjustment of means to end.
Moreover, it carries the final mark of distinction in that it appears
to have grown: it has the vitality, movement, and character of a living
organism. It is discovered to be the product of a new mating of nature
and geometry, inspired by a wider and more penetrating observation
of the former and a more extended and imaginative use of the latter.
Hence, at times it strangely anticipates what we are now familiar with
in Oriental composition.
Most remarkable also is the plastic quality, which is realized not
only in the _ensemble_ but also in the component parts. Goya’s
compositions are no mere patterning of surfaces, but an example of
actual space-filling, in the true sense that they occupy the third
dimension. The substance of his forms and their position in space
are so concretely realized that they most actively excite the tactile
sense. And yet, for all their concreteness, they are permeated with a
quality of abstraction. Thus they fascinate alike by their actuality
and their suggestion of a vision. They are frequently hideous, but
in their capacity of sense-enhancement and in their stimulus to the
esthetic intellectuality they are beautiful.
[Illustration: GOYA. GOOD ADVICE
“And this advice is worthy of her who gives it. Worse yet is the damsel
who follows it to the letter, and misfortune to the first one who
accosts her!” From “_The Caprices_” (Lefort No. 15).]
[Illustration: GOYA. GOD FORGIVE HER--IT’S HER OWN MOTHER!
“The damsel while young left her native land, served her apprenticeship
in Cadiz, and is now returned to Madrid. She has drawn a prize in the
lottery, goes one day to the Prado, and is accosted by an old and
decrepit beggar--she repulses her; the beggar woman insists. The beauty
turns and recognizes her--this poor old woman is her mother.”
From “_The Caprices_” (Lefort No. 16).]
And the beauty of these compositions is materially increased by the
sense of color which they suggest. In consequence of Goya’s influence
aquatint is coming largely into vogue with modern etchers; but he with
this process, and his contemporary, Turner, with mezzotint, were the
first to explore fully the resources of tint in combination with line.
The English artist, however, used it mainly as a convenient method
of representation. In Goya’s hand it became a medium of intellectual
and emotional expression, comparable to tone in music. Goya, in fact,
by his study of nature, advanced the circle of his art, so that, on
the one hand, it embraced more of the universal geometry and, on the
other, intersected more freely the circles of the other arts. Thus he
anticipated the latest modern thought, in its consciousness of the
essential unity of the arts and of the essential unity of art with
life.
A NOTE ON GOYA
BY WILLIAM M. IVINS, JR.
No other artist in black and white has ever exhibited such tremendous
vitality as Goya. Look back along the line, and there is no maker of
prints who has put into them the same exuberant, full-blooded delight
in life. For sheer physical strength Mantegna only may be compared
with him. And, strangely, with this often almost delirious overflow
of animal spirits there is the most remarkable sensitiveness to the
significance of gesture. Who, except Hokusai, has ever expressed, in
black and white, _weight_--the heaviness of tired bodies, the leaden
fall of an unconscious woman’s arm, or the buoyancy of excitement--as
this Spaniard? Who has ever made motion so moving--made young limbs so
supple, elastic, and graceful? His every line is kinetic--he does not
relate motion, he exhibits it--and in art as elsewhere deeds are worth
more than words.
For sensitiveness to the beauty of the human body, for curious
research in the esthetic inversion, the beauty of the hideous, Goya
stands alone. No one, not even Leonardo, has plumbed so deep in the
hidden shadowy parts. No one has so pictured _fear_--theatricalities a
plenty--but only here real terror.
[Illustration: GOYA. LOVE AND DEATH
“Here is a lover who, like those in Calderon, because he could not
refrain from mocking his rival, is dying in the arms of his beloved,
and by his temerity has lost all. It is not well to draw the sword too
often.” From “_The Caprices_” (Lefort No. 10).]
[Illustration: GOYA. HUNTING FOR TEETH
“The teeth of those who have been hanged are very efficacious in
bringing luck. Without this ingredient nothing worth while can be done.
Is it not pitiful that the common folk believe such foolishness?” From
“_The Caprices_” (Lefort No. 12).]
On the purely technical side--the broad massing of sharply contrasted
light and shade, the ability to tell a tale with the simplest means,
the instinctive choice of the pictorially dramatic detail--Rembrandt
and Goya stand alone.
On another side that is purely technical, it should be borne in
mind that Goya is the only one who has availed himself of all the
possibilities of aquatint--the only one who has used the medium with
audacity and resolution and success; the only one who has dared use it
to express powerful and fundamental things.
Goya, both in himself and for his influence, is one of the greatest
artists that the world has seen these last hundred and fifty years--and
his greatest work is his black and white.
THE ETCHINGS OF FORTUNY
BY ROYAL CORTISSOZ
Literary and Art Editor of the New York _Tribune_
The etchings of Fortuny make an inviting theme, inviting in itself
and doubly sympathetic because it provokes talk about Fortuny. I have
always had a weakness for that endearing personality and I cannot, for
the life of me, go with foot-rule and a spirit of cold analysis through
the twenty-five or thirty plates--twenty-nine, to be exact--recorded
in the useful compendium of Beraldi. You cannot be pedantic about an
artist whose work has meant to you an early enthusiasm and a lifelong
sense of gaiety and brilliance. The first work of art I ever yearned
to possess was a drawing by Fortuny. I did not get it into my hands.
The spell faded, but it was revived, and long afterward it involved me
in an enchanting task. In Paris, one summer, the late Philip Gilbert
Hamerton asked me to write a memoir of Fortuny and for two years I
spent a good deal of my leisure going hither and yon, collecting
material. The book never got itself written, for reasons which I found
both pathetic and comic. Too much of the “material” aforesaid proved
too heart-breakingly expensive. Mr. Hamerton and I and his London
publisher, the late Mr. Seeley, ruefully concluded as we counted up
the figures, that, humorously speaking, ruin stared us in the face. We
turned to other things.
[Illustration: FORTUNY. ARAB WATCHING BESIDE THE DEAD BODY OF HIS FRIEND
(Beraldi No. 1)
Size of the original etching, 7½ × 15¼ inches]
[Illustration: FORTUNY. IDYLL
(Beraldi No. 4)
Size of the original etching, 7⅝ × 5½ inches]
That, as I have said, was years ago, but every now and then I go
back to Fortuny, for old sake’s sake if for no other reason, though
he was, of course, a remarkable artist to whom one would be bound,
anyway, frequently to return. As a matter of fact, his genius has
needed, of late, to be restored to the public consciousness. When the
Impressionists came in, Fortuny, or perhaps I should more specifically
say, the hypothesis for which he stood, went out. One of the results
of my understanding with Mr. Hamerton was a series of visits to the
_palazzo_ in Venice which is still the home of Fortuny’s family, and
there you found a contrast that was full of meaning. On the _piano
nobile_ Fortuny’s art held its own in numerous unfinished pictures,
sketches, and the like. But, up-stairs, in his son’s studio, all was
changed. When young Marianito sought inspiration as a painter, he
did not follow in his father’s footsteps, but went to Munich, and on
his walls I saw huge canvases illustrating Wagnerian motives in a
huge and splashy manner, strongly suggestive of Franz Stuck and his
followers. I confess that at this distance of time I do not recall very
accurately just what they were all about; but I can remember as though
it were yesterday how extremely different they were from the paintings
down-stairs. Of course no one could blame Marianito. An artist must
seek salvation in his own way. But it is impossible not to feel a
certain indignation over the ignorance of those who have tried to wave
Fortuny aside as a painter of bric-a-brac.
We saw too much of that sort of thing when the works of Sorolla
and Zuloaga were shown at the Hispanic Museum and people went into
hysterics over them, talking especially about how the first of these
painters was rejuvenating Spanish art. I used to hear such talk in
Madrid, some fifteen years ago, amongst the younger men who were even
then hailing Sorolla as a pioneer. They were right, and it is right,
as I have argued elsewhere, to recognize in this painter’s work an
influence of the highest value to the modern Spanish school. But there
were great men before Agamemnon, and it is stupid to ignore what was
done for Spanish painting by Fortuny long before any one ever heard
of Sorolla. I have great respect and plenty of admiration for that
accomplished technician, and yet I think that he himself, if pressed
in the matter, would cheerfully admit that nothing he ever painted
could quite touch the portrait in the Metropolitan Museum, _A Spanish
Lady_, which Fortuny painted in 1865. Outside of France that was not a
particularly good year amongst painters, but Fortuny, then twenty-seven
years old, was proving himself not unworthy of Velasquez. He was
drawing with mastery and he was painting blacks with amazing skill
and taste, with amazing sensitiveness to the beauties lying entangled
in one of the most difficult of a colorist’s problems. Indeed, I may
note in passing that this picture alone would show Fortuny to have
enforced lessons in tone which no Spaniard since his time, not even the
prodigiously clever Sorolla, has begun to commence to prepare to equal.
[Illustration: FORTUNY. THE SERENADE
(Beraldi No. 10)
Size of the original etching, 15½ × 12¼ inches]
[Illustration: FORTUNY. A MOROCCAN SEATED
(Beraldi No. 19)
Size of the original etching, 5½ × 4 inches]
There are many other paintings of his over which it would be pleasant
to linger, but, having the etchings in view, I forbear. At the same
time I have driven at nothing irrelevant in speaking of Fortuny’s
command over the brush, for that is very closely related to his
command over the needle. It is important to remember, in the first
place, that he was a born draughtsman. The fact was brought home to
me when I made a pilgrimage to Barcelona, to see the big Moroccan
battle-piece which he painted for the municipality not long after he
had won the Prix de Rome. I saw in the spirited picture the Fortuny we
all know, but I saw also, in some earlier pieces, the kind of academic
work that he did under the influence of old Soberano, his master at
Reus, where he was born in 1838. Yes, it was academic work, but it
was the work of a youngster of genius who had a _flair_ for form and
drew it with astonishing adroitness. There, to be sure, you have the
essence of Fortuny, more even than in the glitter of light and color
conventionally associated with his name. The artists and critics who
think that the history of painting began with Manet are wont to damn
Fortuny with faint praise, talking about his dexterity as though that
were a very ordinary and perhaps specious gift. Well, there is a
dexterity, there is a sleight of hand, as honest as anything that you
will find in Manet, and Fortuny had it. There are moments, no doubt, in
which it takes your breath away as though by some deceptive stroke of
conjuror’s work. But at bottom there is a sterling sincerity about it,
and this, I think, is sharply perceptible in the etchings.
Paradoxically, these do not proclaim Fortuny what the master of etching
is wont to be--a lover of line for its own sake, a user of it as a
language possessing its own special character and charm. Rembrandt’s
strength and Whistler’s exquisiteness were alike unknown to him. The
truth is that Fortuny employed the needle somewhat as he employed the
pen, simply for purposes of swift and free expression. There are some
bewitching drawings of his, reproduced by the Amand-Durand process in
the memoir by Baron Davillier, and there are others in the catalogue of
the great sale of his studio effects in 1875, which, for the impression
they leave, might almost be regarded as etchings. The impression in
either category is very much one of “black-and-white.” Has not Fortuny
been the master of a generation of illustrators? Nevertheless his
drawings and his etchings are not absolutely interchangeable. In the
latter there is too much of the painter for that; his figures are too
closely modeled and his backgrounds are too transparent. Some of his
plates, such as _The Serenade_, _The Anchorite_, the _Kabyle Mort_, and
_The Farrier_, are wonderfully rich in color such as no pen draughtsman
could secure. He knew how to fill his backgrounds with deep warm tone,
and he could use the same vivifying touch in his treatment of the
figure. It is worth while to go carefully through the little collection
of etchings that he left, looking more particularly for those
rather thin staccato effects which his imitators affect--one is so
delightfully disappointed. I have spoken of his sincerity, his honesty.
Amongst all the plates there is only one, _La Victoire_, which hints
a contradiction. There is something factitious about the composition,
recalling the Sicilian nudities hawked about by the photographers in
Southern Italy. But even this etching has undeniable brilliance as
a piece of technique, and, for the rest, Fortuny is the quite artless
connoisseur of picturesqueness, etching his Moorish types and his
portraits in the mood of the serious observer of nature aiming at the
truth. On two or three occasions he appears to have let his fancy rove.
His _Amateur de Jardin_ and his _Méditation_ both belong amongst those
graceful studies of costume and pseudo-romantic sentiment with which
his paintings have made us so familiar. And once he turned poet in a
small way, etching that charming _Idylle_ which may reflect no emotion
whatever, but has, at all events, a certain dainty elegance; but do not
think that Fortuny was really a poet. It was not in his temperament. He
was sensuous, mundane, in the soul of him; the very man to enjoy just
the career that fell to his lot.
[Illustration: FORTUNY. A HORSE OF MOROCCO
(Beraldi No. 20)
Size of the original etching, 4¼ × 6¼ inches]
[Illustration: FORTUNY. INTERIOR OF THE CHURCH OF SAINT JOSEPH, MADRID
(Beraldi No. 21)
Size of the original etching, 5⅜ × 9¼ inches]
New Yorkers will recall the sale here of the collection formed by the
late W. H. Stewart in Paris, the “Cher Monsieur Guillermo” of more
than one of the artist’s letters printed by Davillier. It was full of
Fortunys, which made a dazzling array when they were put up at auction.
But it was better to see them scattered about in Mr. Stewart’s home by
the Seine, and there they breathed the atmosphere of a clearly defined
character. You did not think of Fortuny in Spain, quietly painting
at Granada; you did not think of him on the more adventurous soil of
Morocco, nor did you dwell on thoughts of his days in Rome and on the
beach at Portici. You thought, instead, of the Fortuny who took the
collectors of Paris by storm, who moved Théophile Gautier to jeweled
eloquence, who was young, successful, and happy, who had a great gift
and used it truly with a _gaillard_ grace. He was not the specious
entertainer, bemusing his audience with incredible tricks. All his
wizardry, all his diabolical cleverness, was quite natural to him,
springing from his heart and in no wise diminishing his weight and
seriousness as a student of nature. Beraldi applauds his etchings for
their originality. Let us honor them too for their fidelity to life,
for their simple strength, as well as for their light, vivacious charm.
PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS OF SIR SEYMOUR HADEN, P.R.E.
PART I
BY FREDERICK KEPPEL
Many treatises have been published on Seymour Haden the artist, but not
one, as yet, on Seymour Haden the man. This is as it should be; because
no one can write freely and frankly on the personality of a famous man
while that man is still living, and Sir Seymour lived until the year
1910, when he died at the great age of ninety-three.
I met him often every year for about thirty years, and I first made
his acquaintance when he lived in his very handsome house in the
aristocratic region known as Mayfair, in the west end of London. His
house adjoined the residence of the Lord Chief Justice of England.
The doctrine held by the ancients that the Goddess of Fortune was
stone-blind has much to warrant it. Let us take the case of three
contemporary nineteenth-century etchers, all three being men of genius.
I mean the two French masters, Charles Meryon and Jean-François Millet,
and the Englishman Seymour Haden. The two French etchers lived in dire
poverty and often had to go hungry because they had not the means to
pay for a meal; while, to their English contemporary, “the lines were
fallen in pleasant places” and he never knew the wants that pinch the
poor.
Born in 1818, in his father’s fine house in Sloane Street, London
West, Francis Seymour Haden had the advantage of coming of a good and
well-known family, in easy circumstances, and the further advantage of
having received an excellent university education, so that he found
himself, from the first, the social equal of many of the best in the
land, and he never had to invade and overcome that formidable social
barrier which in England so sternly divides the “somebodies” from
the “nobodies”; and during his long and active life he certainly did
nothing to diminish or discredit the high social standing to which he
was born and bred.
This being so, he remained to the end of his life an ideal Tory
aristocrat, a condition which might be compared to that of the Bourbon
kings, who “never forgot anything and never learned anything.” In
maintaining any opinion which he had formed, or inherited, he was as
immovable as the rock of Gibraltar, and it made no difference to him if
later evidence showed that his earlier opinions were wrong.
[Illustration: PORTRAIT OF SEYMOUR HADEN AT THE AGE OF SIXTY-TWO
From the engraving by C. W. Sherborn
Size of the original engraving, 6 × 3½ inches]
[Illustration: PORTRAIT OF SEYMOUR HADEN AT THE AGE OF FORTY-FOUR
From his etching from life, done in 1862
Size of the original print, 7¾ × 10⅝ inches]
I well remember hearing that man of genius, Henry Ward Beecher, say in
a sermon: “Talk of the sin of Pride--we haven’t half enough of it!” Be
that as it may, Seymour Haden was always a proud man, and this innate
pride sometimes rendered him intolerant of the opinions of other good
men whose ideas were also entitled to due respect. Indeed, I have never
known a man who set a higher value on himself. Nothing was too good
for him--whether it might be his collection of the best prints by
older masters, his house and its appointments great and small, or the
instruments which he used when he practised surgery,--everything must
be of the very best. This determination of his was, within limits, a
noble one, although it sometimes made him intolerant of other men who
were unable to rise to his high ideals.
In this ingrained pride and self-esteem of Seymour Haden’s he was far
too proud to be vain. I do not think he had any vanity at all. In
this respect he differed, “as far as the east is from the west,” from
his illustrious brother-in-law, Whistler. The latter’s lifelong habit
was to pose and to perform like an actor on the stage--whether his
audience consisted of many auditors or of only one; while Haden, though
an eminently well-bred gentleman, cared nothing whatever about the
impression he might be making on his auditors--so long as his actions
were approved by himself. On such occasions all went charmingly until
some other person uttered a heterodox opinion on art, or politics, or
any other subject; but when that happened Sir Seymour’s indignation
would burst forth like a raging volcano.
On one such occasion, while I was a guest in his country house, I
infuriated him--though with no evil intention. It was at the time when
the patriot Charles Stewart Parnell was making such a brave struggle in
the House of Commons on behalf of Home Rule for Ireland, I expressed
my admiration for Parnell, when Sir Seymour got very angry and so
made all the company uncomfortable. Thus far I did not blame myself;
but a year later I certainly was ashamed of my own indiscretion. I
had quite forgotten about the outbreak of the former year and I again
expressed my warm sympathy with the cause of Irish Home Rule. It was
just at the beginning of dinner at Sir Seymour’s hospitable table, but
no sooner had I mentioned the subject than he flung down knife and
fork, marched out of the dining-room, banged the door behind him, and
tramped up-stairs to his bedroom. That sweet woman, Lady Haden, said to
me very quietly, “We shall see no more of Sir Seymour to-night,” and
next morning, before my host appeared at breakfast, his very tactful
wife, laying her hand gently on my arm, said to me, “Mr. Keppel, in
conversing with my husband, pray avoid the subject of Home Rule in
Ireland.” Most readers would think that the little incident ended
here; but it didn’t. Presently Sir Seymour came down to breakfast and
carried in his hand a large and handsome book which he presented to
me. On the fly-leaf I read a long and most kindly dedication written
by himself; and so _that_ was the end of the incident. I remember that
when I received this _amende honorable_ my first impulse was to recall
a characteristic Irish adage which says: “First cut my head, an’ then
give me a plasther!”
[Illustration: SIR SEYMOUR HADEN
From the drawing by Alphonse Legros, done in 1895]
[Illustration: WOODCOTE MANOR (the Home of Sir Seymour Haden)
From the etching by Percy Thomas
Size of the original etching, 6⅝ × 10½ inches]
Lady Haden was, in a very quiet and refined way, a remarkable woman.
She was daughter of an American army officer, Major Whistler, and she
bore the Puritan Christian names of Deborah Delano. In more than one
of Sir Seymour’s etchings her first name is quieted down to “Dasha.”
She was half-sister to the great Whistler, who was the issue of her
father’s second marriage, and she clung to her “brother Jimmie” to the
end of her life. All the art which was inherent in the Whistler
family manifested itself in Lady Haden’s music. She was a marvelous
reader of piano music, and when Sir Seymour got possession of the fine
old Elizabethan mansion of Woodcote Manor in Hampshire, Lady Haden,
perceiving that there was no musical skill among the young men of the
neighboring village of Bramdean, organized a band or orchestra for
these rustics. To one she taught the violin, to another the flute, to
another the trombone, etc. After about two years of drilling I had
the opportunity of hearing her band performing in the school-house at
Bramdean, and they played respectably well, while the sweet old lady
conducted the music with her baton. Toward the end of her life she
became totally blind, and after that I never was more affected in my
life than when, at Woodcote Manor, I saw her grope her way to her piano
and heard her play, superbly, some great compositions by Beethoven and
Chopin.
At Woodcote Manor Sir Seymour enjoyed his life thoroughly (except
when something went wrong and made him angry). The mansion stood in
its own park and there was a beautiful old garden inclosed with high
stone walls. One summer when his long hedge of sweet pea was in full
bloom he took me to see it and told me that he had thought out a new
and interesting botanical fact, on which he had written a paper for
the learned Royal Society, and that he intended to send it to them in
London and to invite some eminent botanists of the Society to come to
Woodcote and see the phenomenon for themselves. His theory was that
garden flowers always had a tendency to return to the original color of
the same blossoms in the wild plant, especially when the garden plant
grew tall, and then he showed me that, in his hedge of sweet pea, the
purple blossoms at the top were much more numerous than the flowers of
pink or blue or white which were lower down, thus proving that when a
garden sweet pea grew tall the blossoms returned to the original purple
color of the wild pea.
I had always been somewhat of a horticulturist myself and so I said to
him: “It is evident that the plants here bearing purple flowers grow
taller than the others; but you must remember that any single plant
of sweet pea can give you nothing but one and the same color in its
blossoms.” Sir Seymour sent for his pig-headed old Hampshire gardener,
put the question to him, and although the old man was greatly in awe
of his master he gave his decision on my side and against Sir Seymour.
“You are a pair of fools,” was the old gentleman’s angry answer, and he
started to leave us. But I overtook him and said: “Now, Sir Seymour, it
is not fair to me to leave this little scientific question undecided.
Pray come back for a few minutes and let me cut two or three of your
plants at the roots, disentangle them from the hedge, and show you that
although they mingle when growing close together yet you never get
more than one colored bloom from one plant.” To this he consented, and
of course my demonstration showed that his theory was wrong; but his
anger against me lasted till bedtime, and it was only next morning that
he said to me: “Keppel, you made me angry yesterday about those sweet
peas,--but, all the same, I am glad you saved me from making a damned
fool of myself before the Royal Society.”
[Illustration: REPRODUCTION, IN REDUCED SIZE, OF A PAGE OF MANUSCRIPT
IN THE HANDWRITING OF SIR SEYMOUR HADEN]
[Illustration: FACSIMILE, IN REDUCED SIZE, OF THE CERTIFICATE OF
SEYMOUR HADEN’S CANDIDACY FOR MEMBERSHIP IN THE ATHENÆUM CLUB]
Sir Seymour’s anger on this occasion was mild compared with the rage
he flew into with his gardener when, after the master had been absent
for a day in London, he returned and found that his man had spent a
laborious day in scraping off the beautiful green moss which adorned
the trunks and larger branches of the old apple-trees in the garden. I
was with Sir Seymour when he made the distressing discovery and I heard
the furious sound of the vials of wrath which he poured on the stupid
old man’s head. After Sir Seymour had gone the poor gardener said
to me: “And that’s my thanks for having worked hard to make his old
apple-trees look neat and tidy!”
Besides being a fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons, Sir Seymour
Haden was a member of the most exclusive club in London--if not in the
world--the Athenæum. It generally took from fifteen to twenty years for
any candidate to be elected. Sir Seymour had to wait eighteen years.
The usage of this club is to hang on the wall a large sheet of paper
setting forth the name and the qualities of the candidate, and any
member who approved of this candidate would sign this paper. Whether
many of these eminent persons had much idea of the quality of a fine
etching is quite another matter, but Sir Seymour’s nomination sheet
at the club was crammed with signatures of eminent men advocating
his election. Among these signatures are those of Robert Browning,
Anthony Trollope, Matthew Arnold, Dr. Tait, Archbishop of Canterbury;
Huxley, the great scientist; Lord Chief Justice Coleridge, and Sir E.
J. Poynter, now President of the Royal Academy of Arts. Besides the
signatures of these famous men who had “achieved greatness” other
signers of this Athenæum document had been “born great,” including
several hereditary peers; and--to finish Shakespeare’s sentence--the
gentleman chiefly concerned never waited to have “greatness thrust upon
him,” for he was always quite willing to meet greatness half-way.
The Athenæum Club is so desperately exclusive that no member can
bring in an outsider except to a little sentry-box inside the main
portal, which room is only large enough to accommodate two persons.
On one occasion when I was visiting Sir Seymour I did one of the few
deliberately wicked things that ever I did in my life. As I stood in
the little sentry-box I perceived His Grace the Archbishop of York
entering with a friend at the front door of the club. The two walked
straight to the glass door of the little sentry-box where I was, and
the eminent prelate said to his friend, in a loud authoritative voice:
“We can sign the documents here in a moment.” Then it was that “Satan
entered into me.” I knew that this was my only chance ever to make a
British archbishop wait till I was “good and ready,” and so, although I
had finished my business with Sir Seymour, I began talking and talking
about his friends in Paris and what they were doing, until I kept the
very impatient archbishop striding up and down before the little door
for more than ten minutes, and twice when I caught his eye he looked at
his watch, glared at me, and exclaimed, “Dear me, how tiresome!” (It
will be remembered that in genteel English parlance the word “tiresome”
means “annoying” or “provoking.”) At last, when I could talk no more,
Sir Seymour rose from his chair, opened the door, and met the raging
Dr. Maclagan outside. “Oh, Archbishop,” said he, “I do hope we have not
kept you waiting,” and His Grace made answer in a very fretful voice,
“Well, in point of fact, Sir Seymour, _you have!_” I cannot claim that
this prank of mine did me any credit, but in my boyhood days in England
my family and I had suffered from the pomposity of English prelates.
[Illustration: HADEN. WHISTLER’S HOUSE, OLD CHELSEA
Etched in 1863. On the left is Lindsay Row, in which Whistler’s house
is indicated by a small stellated mark above the chimney. To the right
is old Chelsea Church and Battersea Bridge
Size of the original etching, 6⅞ × 13 inches]
[Illustration: HADEN. BATTERSEA REACH
A view of the Thames at Battersea, etched in 1863, looking out of
Whistler’s window
Size of the original etching, 5⅞ × 8⅞ inches]
The feud between Seymour Haden and Whistler was known throughout
Europe. Whistler loathed Haden and Haden detested Whistler. But Sir
Seymour drew a distinction between the man whom he abominated and the
artist whom he greatly admired. This admiration led him to make a
notable collection of Whistler’s prints. On one occasion Sir Seymour
said to me that if he were forced to part with his Rembrandt etchings
or with his Whistlers he would find it hard to determine which master’s
works he must let go. Later on I repeated this saying to Whistler and
that modest gentleman calmly remarked: “Why, Haden should first part
with his Rembrandts, of course.”
Among the historic questions which can never be definitely determined
is the one--whether Seymour Haden was the man who kicked Whistler
down-stairs or whether it was Whistler who administered this violent
treatment to Haden. I have heard the story from both, and each of these
eminent men stoutly maintained that _he_ had been the kicker and his
adversary the kicked one.
As president of the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers Sir Seymour did
a great work in maintaining sound doctrine in etching. Nothing was
admitted which was “commercial” in character, and etchings which were
done after paintings by other hands were rigorously ruled out.
The membership comprised foreign as well as British artists, and
membership was eagerly sought for,--so much so that many famous etchers
never were elected, although they tried hard to be.
The members often had to complain of the masterful ways of their
president; he ruled them with a rod of iron, but still the malcontents
were forced to endure it,--well knowing that no other man could give to
the Society the prestige and authority that Seymour Haden gave to it.
In all other art exhibitions a good thing, done by an outsider, is
accepted and welcomed, but the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers
exhibits nothing except the work of its own members.
We have seen that Sir Seymour Haden, in spite of his good
qualities--and his great qualities--was a man of a domineering and
disputatious nature. I know of no figure in dramatic literature whom
he resembled so closely as Sheridan’s _Sir Anthony Absolute_. Both of
these _Sirs_ were of a violent and masterful temper, and yet both of
them were good men.
[Illustration: HADEN. OUT OF STUDY WINDOW
Etched from an upper window in Mr. Haden’s house in Sloane Street. In
the mid-distance is the suburb of Brompton
Size of the original etching, 4¼ × 10¼ inches]
[Illustration: HADEN. THOMAS HADEN OF DERBY
“Thomas Haden of Derby, my grandfather, was, under a polished exterior,
one of the most determined men I have ever known, and one of the
bravest. He would have made a hero of romance if he had had the chance.
At the age of eighty-five he defended his home against the whole mob of
Derby, keeping them at bay all night.”
Seymour Haden.
Size of the original etching, 13⅞ × 9⅜ inches]
Besides Seymour Haden’s signal achievements as etcher and as surgeon,
and his zeal as an angler, he, like some other good men, had a special
hobby which he rode for years, and which he often ventilated in the
London _Times_. His theory was that no corpse should be buried in a
solid wooden coffin, but that it should be inclosed in a loose wicker
case, where the earth could come in direct contact with the dead body.
He contended that such contact would very quickly turn “earth to
earth.” One of his demonstrations was practised on the dead body of
a large old sow that died in his farm-yard. (The animal’s name, I
remember, was Mary Jane.) Sir Seymour had Mary Jane buried in the
garden, in a shallow grave, and he had a covering of not more than
three inches of earth laid over her. Then every visitor to Woodcote
Manor had to visit the grave and to use his olfactory organs over it. I
myself had to do this on two occasions and I must say that I detected
no foul odor whatever.
For more than twenty years I enjoyed a peculiar privilege in connection
with Woodcote Manor. The old couple, used to the stir and bustle of
London, where they had “troops of friends,” sometimes found themselves
somewhat lonely in the solitude of Hampshire, and so it happened that
for more than twenty years I was given _carte blanche_ to invite to
Woodcote any person I pleased. I was very particular as to the persons
whom I thus invited; but the people so invited were charmed with their
visit, whether it lasted for three days or for two weeks, and the
English know very well how to make a guest comfortable.
In the park at Woodcote Manor there is an etched tablet, nailed to the
trunk of an ancient hawthorn-tree. It reads:
A loyal friend through weal and woe,
At last, stern death o’ertakes him:
Here sleeps my loving, wise old crow,
Till Gabriel’s trumpet wakes him.
I wrote this epitaph at Lady Seymour Haden’s request. She gave to my
dear old pet crow a resting-place when he died. That crow was more like
a friend than a pet. On Atlantic steamers he would fly about among the
sea-gulls, and in London I used to open the windows and he flew where
he pleased, but I was always sure that he would come back to me.
* * * * *
The present article is already so long that I must not prolong it
further; but in a later number of THE PRINT-COLLECTOR’S QUARTERLY I
intend to give an account of Sir Seymour Haden’s visit to the United
States.
PART II
SEYMOUR HADEN IN AMERICA
The former chapter of my article on Sir Seymour Haden referred entirely
to my experiences with him in Europe; this second and concluding
portion will contain nothing except an account of his sayings and
doings during his visit to the United States in the year 1882. The
purpose of his American visit was to expound and vindicate the
importance of original etching as a fine art. This he did by delivering
a series of lectures on the subject, and these lectures, in the main,
were very well received.
[Illustration: PORTRAIT OF SEYMOUR HADEN
From a photograph from life: taken in New York in 1882]
[Illustration: CHAMPNEY. PORTRAIT OF SIR SEYMOUR HADEN
Sketched (unknown to him) in the Print Room of the British Museum by J.
Wells Champney of New York. Sir Seymour afterward wrote on this sketch.
“Excellent! S. H. 1899.”
Size of the original drawing, 9 × 8 inches]
Being a born and case-hardened controversialist he soon found out that
in America no man’s unproved _ipse dixit_, however eminent he might
be, was dutifully accepted as it would have been in one of the older
civilizations of Europe, and so it came about that several unprofitable
controversies were hotly waged on both sides. Seymour Haden was
by nature pugnacious and “toplofty,” and such an attitude went down
badly in America. But, all the same, the man himself was treated with
distinguished consideration here, and his lectures did genuine good to
the cause of true art. He lectured in all our principal cities from New
York to Chicago, and although when he landed here I think he had very
few personal acquaintances (except myself), yet when he sailed back to
England he took with him the cordial friendship and good will of many
Americans of the right sort.
His first lecture was delivered before a distinguished audience in
Chickering Hall, Fifth Avenue, New York. He had plenty of voice to
make his auditors hear him; but his lecture dragged considerably--for
a peculiarly British reason: it is known to some of us that in an
Englishman’s public oration he is not genteel or distinguished if
he speaks freely and fluently. No, no; he must befog and entangle
his words with all sorts of hesitations and amendments. It is the
same in the British House of Commons. I do not mean such master
orators as Gladstone was, but the public speech of the average
British member,--let us call him Sir Huddleston Fuddleston--sounds
like this: “The honorable, hum--the honorable and gallant member
from--ha--hum--from Hull, has been good enough to--a--um--to
_say_--etc.”
Well, Seymour Haden modeled his oratory on this preposterous but
genteel British usage; and yet, in private conversation, I have never
known a man who used more elegant and appropriate language than he. On
the day following that of the lecture, I received a visit from my kind
and valued friend the Right Reverend Monsignor Doane, who was a genuine
lover of fine prints, and he said to me: “Well, I heard your English
friend last evening humming and hawing through his lecture.” Soon
afterward I had the opportunity of bringing these two distinguished
men together, and after that, during his yearly visit to England, the
monsignor used to be a welcome and honored guest of Sir Seymour and
Lady Haden. The artist’s lectures in Boston were listened to with
earnest attention and he was the guest of honor at a reception given
at the St. Botolph Club; but even there storms and tempests arose. He
quarreled with the one eminent American whom, the rest of us would
think, nobody could quarrel with,--namely, Oliver Wendell Holmes.
It was all about a “fool” difference of opinion on some question of
medical ethics and usages in America as compared with England.
[Illustration: HADEN. MYTTON HALL
“Mytton Hall is an old Henry the Seventh house which Mr. Haden was in
the habit of staying at for the purpose of his salmon fishing in the
river Ribble (the Lancashire River) which runs past it.”
Seymour Haden.
Size of the original dry-point, 4¾ × 10⅜ inches]
[Illustration: HADEN. ON THE TEST
“This plate and _A Water Meadow_ were done on the same day, one at
noon, the other very late in the evening. The Test (in Hampshire) is a
famous trout stream.”
Seymour Haden.
Size of the original dry-point, 6 × 8⅞ inches]
Before the evening of his reception at the St. Botolph Club, Seymour
Haden procured a list of the principal personages whom he was to meet
there. He brought it to me, and said: “Now, what should I _know_ about
these people?” I wrote down for him as many notes as I could, and when
he met the Bostonians, I was astonished to see how well he had coached
himself about them. On his return to New York, he received a great
number of letters. He was staying at the old Hotel Brunswick, Fifth
Avenue, and every morning I had to go there and tell him “who was who”
among the writers of the letters. One day he was called down to the
parlor by a message that a lady wished to see him. He went down and
when he came back to his room carrying a card in his hand, he said to
me, “Well, I certainly am in an extraordinary country. That visitor,
whom I never knew, is evidently a lady, and she has invited me to come
and spend a week with her husband and herself at Yonkers.” Glancing at
the card, I read the name of Mrs. James B. Colgate, and said to Seymour
Haden, “I should certainly advise you to accept,” and I went on to say
that it was easy enough for a stranger from England to see our public
show places, big hotels, etc., but not so easy to get an entrée to
the home of a really nice American family. Seymour Haden accepted the
invitation and spent a week with Mr. and Mrs. Colgate. In those years,
I myself lived in Yonkers, and I called on him at the Colgate house
the day after his arrival there. The eminent banker showed us into his
library, and leaving us alone he closed the door. The English visitor,
first looking around to see that there was no other person present,
said to me in a sort of whisper: “I am very comfortable here, with
but one serious drawback. I have been in the habit, all my life, of
taking wine with my dinner; but last evening, what do you suppose they
gave me in the place of wine?--_milk!_” This was about nine o’clock at
night, and when I got home I stated the case to my dear old mother. She
laughed a little wickedly, and said, “I think I can help your friend
in this case.” We happened to have some very good sherry. The old lady
got a large flat bottle, filled it with the wine, corked it and put it
into an innocent-looking pasteboard box, telling me to take it to him.
Before leaving my home, I wrote a brief note to Seymour Haden saying
that the package which I had to deliver to him must be opened only in
the privacy of his own chamber. The Colgates were total abstainers of
so pronounced a kind that when Mr. Colgate rented any house of his in
Yonkers, he made a condition in the lease that no intoxicants of any
kind were ever to be received in that house. Further than that, one
of his principles was, not only never to drink wine or spirits, but
never to touch or carry them. When I got back to Mr. Colgate’s house,
it was ten o’clock at night, and all the lights in the big house were
extinguished and the doors locked. I rang and rang at the bell, and at
last Mr. Colgate himself, wearing trousers and slippers, opened the
door. I had to manufacture a small fiction, which recalls Sir Walter
Scott’s couplet:
Oh, what a tangled web we weave,
When first we practise to deceive.
Mr. Colgate said to me rather fretfully that all the household had
retired, and that Mr. Seymour Haden must wait until the morning. I
said to him in reply, that he would do me a great favor, if when he
was passing his guest’s chamber door, he would knock at it and deliver
the package, and this Mr. Colgate consented to do. Some days later a
reception was given to Seymour Haden at the Lotos Club, Fifth Avenue,
and I accompanied him from Yonkers to New York on that occasion. When
Mr. Haden found himself safe in the train, he said to me: “I couldn’t
have slept a wink except for that excellent sherry that your mother
sent me, but I took deucéd good care to carry away the empty bottle
in my bag.” I remember that from the train we saw the gorgeous sight
of the sun setting behind the Palisades, and mirrored in the Hudson
River, and Mr. Haden said to me, with something like reproach in his
voice: “Now, why have I never been told of the beauty of all this?”
Later on, he said to me, looking about in the crowded train: “Now,
isn’t it melancholy to think that nobody among all these people, except
myself (and perhaps you), has the slightest sense of the beauty of this
magnificent sunset!” I was tempted to say to him that he had no right
to assume such callous insensibility on the part of the Americans, but
though I thought it, I did not say it. Seymour Haden’s reception at the
Lotos Club was a notable function. I remember that the President, the
Hon. Whitelaw Reid, made a very graceful speech in honor of his guest,
and I recall vividly the marvelous cleverness of a very young man who
had been invited to entertain the company. One of this young man’s
monologues represented an intimate talk between three Italian opera
singers, the soprano, the tenor, and the basso; the three continually
interrupting one another. The speaking of the young man was in “fake”
Italian, and the three speaking voices were admirably differentiated.
I inquired who this young man was, and was told that he was the son of
the famous oratorio singer, Madame Rudersdorf of Boston, that his name
was Richard Mansfield, and that he was studying for the stage. I then
uttered a prophecy that that young man would be a great actor later on;
and so he was.
[Illustration: HADEN. A BY-ROAD IN TIPPERARY
This magnificent plate was etched in 1860, in the park of Viscount
Hawarden. All things considered, it is the artist’s finest rendering of
tree-forms
Size of the original etching, 7½ × 11¼ inches]
[Illustration: HADEN. A SUNSET IN IRELAND
“This plate, and also _A By-road in Tipperary_, were done in the park
of Viscount Hawarden, in the most beautiful part of Tipperary.” Seymour
Haden.
Size of the original dry-point, 5½ × 8½ inches]
After his return from Boston, the artist spent several weeks in New
York, and while he was there, I arranged for him the first public
exhibition of his etchings which was ever made in America. The New
York press took up the subject with enthusiasm, and every important
newspaper printed a long review of the artist and his work. I
collected all of these very laudatory articles, and took them to Mr.
Haden at the Hotel Brunswick. Next day he said to me, “Do you know
that these reviews of the New York press are distinctly abler and more
intelligent than if they had been written in London?” He added, “I wish
you would pay my particular compliments to the gentleman who wrote the
review in the New York _World_; that article in particular I found to
be admirable.” He was surprised when he saw me begin to laugh, but I
explained to him that the “gentleman” in question was a lady, and the
article which he so greatly admired was from the pen of Mrs. Schuyler
van Rensselaer.
One very seldom finds that the imaginative and creative artist is
also endowed with a logical and judicial cast of mind. It was so with
Seymour Haden. He had brought from England a large collection of
excellent lantern-slides to illustrate these lectures by means of a
stereopticon, and in the lecturer’s zeal to glorify original etching
at the expense of prints done by any other method, he had procured one
lantern slide of the beautiful little portrait which Rembrandt had
etched of himself, the complete print of which is hardly bigger than
a postage stamp. It was the _Rembrandt à trois moustaches_. Alongside
of this, Mr. Haden had printed a morsel of the same size, taken from a
crude and unimportant part of the foreground of William Sharp’s famous
line-engraving of the _Holy Family_, after the painting by Sir Joshua
Reynolds. Thus this special pleader, Haden, displayed an etching in
its entirety, and less than one-hundredth part of a line-engraving of
very large size. Wherever, during his lectures, this illustration
was exhibited by a stereopticon, there was a universal outcry against
the unfairness of it. People all, with one accord, declared that if the
artist wanted to confront and contrast etching with line-engraving,
fairness would require the lecturer to have chosen two prints of the
same size; but there was no “budging” Seymour Haden, when he had formed
an opinion.
[Illustration: HADEN. A LANCASHIRE RIVER.
A well-known salmon pool on the Ribble. In Sir Seymour’s opinion this
is one of his very finest plates. It was awarded the Medal of Honor at
the Paris Exposition of 1889.
Size of the original etching, 11 × 16 inches]
[Illustration: HADEN. SAWLEY ABBEY
Sawley Abbey stands by a salmon river, the Ribble, which here is
enlarged into a wide pool. Seymour Haden often came here for his salmon
fishing.
Size of the original etching, 10 × 14⅞ inches]
While in New York, he visited the exhibition of paintings at the
National Academy of Design, and was escorted through the galleries
by the late James D. Smillie, N.A. When his eye fell upon a certain
painting, he suddenly stopped as if he were paralyzed. “Who did
that picture?” “It is the work of one of our New York artists, Miss
So-and-So.” “Why do you allow such dreadful things on your walls?”
“Well,” said Mr. Smillie, “we like to exemplify various phases in art.”
“Hum,” rejoined Seymour Haden, while glaring at the picture; “she ought
to be _disemboweled_!”
Of at least one of our well-known American artists, Seymour Haden
expressed the strongest admiration. This was the late John Lafarge,
N.A., and he also spoke with enthusiasm of the original American
etchings of thirty years ago, the work of such men as Stephen Parrish,
Charles A. Platt, Peter Moran, and Joseph Pennell. On seeing a very
large, intricate plate by Mr. Parrish, Mr. Haden made the remark to
me, “That young man does not know what the sense of fatigue in making
a picture is.” Even at this period, Seymour Haden was known throughout
Europe as being the judge _par excellence_ of a fine print, and he was
also recognized as an admirable judge of paintings.
While on this subject of Haden’s learned judgment of pictures, I will
record what he remarked to me after he had visited Niagara for the
first time. What he said was: “No artist, except Turner, should have
ever dared to attempt making a picture of the Falls of Niagara.”
One of Seymour Haden’s exceptionally good days was the Sunday which he
spent in visiting that famous art collector and admirable man, James
L. Claghorn, of Philadelphia. On that occasion, I myself was included
as a sort of “make-weight.” The Englishman, with genuine zeal, went
through Mr. Claghorn’s collection of prints, and he wrote with pencil
on several of them that they were exceptionally fine.
On another side Mr. Haden excelled as a judge, and that was in the
matter of first-class food and first-class cooking. At lunch, our
host treated us to a delicious dish of terrapin. Seymour Haden found
it wonderfully good and declared that not only had he never tasted
terrapin before, but he had never heard of the dish. “Oh, yes,” said
I to him; “you certainly have heard of terrapin; don’t you remember
at church on Sundays, when they sing the ‘Te Deum,’ they sing,
‘Terrapin and Seraphim.’” “Oh, tut, tut,” said he, “I want to hear no
irreverence.”
Seymour Haden had ranked as a very able physician. An incident occurred
while we were at Mr. Claghorn’s house which shows how wise he was in
this respect: Mr. Claghorn was a huge and corpulent man of about sixty,
but he was full of force and energy. While we were in his library he
got up and bustled out on some errand, and Seymour Haden said to me:
“Your friend will not live long, and when he dies he will go off
very suddenly.” I was shocked on hearing such an unexpected prophecy,
and I asked Mr. Haden how long Mr. Claghorn was likely to live. In
answer he said, “Just about two years.” Two years later, within ten
days of the time Haden had designated, Mr. Claghorn suddenly fell dead.
[Illustration: HADEN. THE BREAKING-UP OF THE AGAMEMNON
Perhaps, all things considered, the artist’s masterpiece. Collectors
differ as to the relative merits of the various etchings by Seymour
Haden, but all are agreed in ranking this as a masterpiece, Moreover,
it was the first etching to be treated in this particular manner, and
it has become the model for many imitators. This fine plate was etched
on the Thames, at Greenwich, in 1870. Sir Seymour devoted the money
obtained from the sale of the proofs to the aid of the London Hospital
for Incurables.
Size of the original etching, 7¾ × 16¼ inches]
[Illustration: HADEN. CALAIS PIER
Etched by Seymour Haden after the painting by J. M. W. Turner in the
National Gallery, London. This superb etching stands alone in the
history of the art. The scene could not be more strongly felt nor more
vividly presented had the etcher been working from nature instead of
from a painting by another hand. When this etching appeared, Seymour
Haden received an enthusiastic letter from John Ruskin, in which the
latter exhorted him to devote the remainder of his life to etching the
paintings of Turner.
Size of the original print, 23½ × 33 inches]
Still continuing the subject of Mr. Haden’s critical judgment in
dining. I may mention that wherever he went, he would never partake, at
a hotel, of a _table d’hôte_ meal. He insisted on selecting particular
dishes which he wished for, and he had them specially cooked for him.
On his return from Cincinnati, he told me that while there he met my
own dear friend, the late Herman Goepper, and he had given him, at a
club, the very best, and best-served, dinner that he had ever partaken
of.
Seymour Haden’s course of lectures at Chicago was a great success, and
a very notable reception was tendered to him. During the course of
that reception, a very influential Chicago lady marched up and said
in a loud voice: “Why don’t you _educate_ your women in England?”
“I know what you mean,” said the Englishman, “but we don’t like to
have our English women crammed with a lot of abstruse _isms_ and
_ologies_.” Another lady, who thought the English guest had been rather
unfairly attacked, said to him, “Now, Mr. Haden, can’t you attack her
in return?” “Well, yes,” said he: “in America, you don’t know how to
make tea, and your table knives will not cut anything.” Another little
dispute arose in Detroit. Haden had arrived late at night, very much
fatigued, at the Russell House. At about eight o’clock in the morning
he was awakened from a much-needed sleep by a sound of hammering and
grinding in the wall outside his window. He got up, raised the window,
and saw two men boring a hole into the front wall of the hotel, for the
purpose of inserting an iron bar from which a sign was to be swung. Mr.
Haden remonstrated at being disturbed. The two mechanics answered that
they were “on that job” and that they were going to do it. Then, as
the _Detroit Free Press_ related the incident, the elderly gentleman,
dressed in night-clothes and a nightcap, had pushed out both his arms,
seized the offending and disturbing crowbar, hauled it into his room
and shut down the window. Very soon after, the proprietor of the hotel
came, knocked at his guest’s door, and said that the crowbar which had
been seized was not his property and that he would get into trouble if
it were not given up at once, but Seymour Haden before giving it up
stipulated that he was not to be disturbed with any more noise until
such time as he was ready to leave his bed.
It will be noticed that, while in my former article I called him Sir
Seymour Haden, in the present one I call him plain Mister. This was
because it was after his return from America to England that Queen
Victoria gave him his title, and although in London he had a large
medical practice he never was even Doctor Haden. In England a surgeon,
however eminent, is never addressed as Doctor.
[Illustration: HADEN. AN EARLY RISER
Engraved in pure mezzotint in 1897. To this plate and Sir Seymour’s
mezzotint _Grayling Fishing_ was awarded the Medal of Honor at the
Paris Exposition of 1900.
Size of the original mezzotint, 8⅞ × 11⅞ inches]
[Illustration: HADEN. HARLECH
In _Harlech_ the artist has first mezzotinted his composition and has
then strengthened and defined the outlines with etched lines. This is
the reverse of the method employed by Turner in the “Liber Studiorum.”
Turner first etched the main lines of his composition and then finished
the plate in mezzotint.
Size of the original engraving, 8⅞ × 12½ inches]
This change to a title of nobility reminds me of a couplet in
Thackeray’s fine Irish ballad, “Mr. Molony’s Account of the Ball”:
There was Lord Crowhurst, I knew him first
When only Misther Pips he was.
During his stay in America he learned to like our people greatly,
and it was his intention to make us a second visit and to bring his
charming American wife along with him; but this purpose of his was
never carried out.
Shortly before leaving our shores, he said to me: “One thing alone
would render it impossible for me ever to reside permanently in the
United States, and that is the intolerable and brutal insolence of the
lower classes.” To this I made answer: “But, Mr. Haden, in America we
have no ‘lower classes.’ What you suffered from these people was really
your own fault. It is all very well in England for a fine gentleman to
bully and denounce the cabman, the railway-porter, and the servants at
hotels, but it will not do here, and no American, however eminent, ever
does it.”
When Seymour Haden returned to England he took with him the genuine
good will of many Americans, and the lasting friendship of not a few.
THE WATER-COLORS AND DRAWINGS OF SIR SEYMOUR HADEN, P.R.E.
BY H. NAZEBY HARRINGTON
Author of “The Engraved Work of Sir Francis Seymour Haden, P.R.E.”
As an etcher the work of Sir Seymour Haden is known to all lovers of
art the wide world over, and not least in the United States, but his
general capacity as an artist in other forms of expression is less well
known, partly from lack of opportunity and partly from the very limited
amount of material.
It must never be forgotten that art was not the main business of his
life; it was but an occasional and fitful relaxation in a life devoted
to another profession and full of other and varied interests. The
wonder is, not that his artistic work was so limited, but that it was
so great and so successful.
When a medical student in Paris, instead of spending his evenings in
the usual frivolities of the Quartier Latin, he attended the classes
of the Government School of Art, which were held in the same building
as the School of Medicine. This was done, not from any positive love
for art, but rather with the fixed idea that such study would train
his powers of observation and make the hands more alert to obey the
impulses of the will, and in this way help him in his surgical work.
What he dissected he drew, what he drew he modeled, and in this way
obtained a remarkable knowledge of anatomy and some facility in the
technique of graphic art.
In this way he got into the habit of using drawing as a sort of
shorthand, and so, when in 1844 he traveled in Italy, his diaries were
filled with sketches rather than verbal descriptions--sketches that
unfortunately have been too generously scattered.
While in Italy he met, and spent some time in the company of, Duval le
Camus, a capable French artist who painted a good deal in water-color,
and from him no doubt he picked up some knowledge of that medium.
In Naples and its neighborhood they spent many happy days sketching
together.
During the next fourteen or fifteen years Seymour Haden had not much
time for the practice of art. His professional work took up all his
time and vigor, but he always took a great interest in art and artists
and counted many artists among his friends. He was appointed Surgeon
to the Department of Science and Art at South Kensington, and became
a collector of etchings by the old masters, not merely for the sake
of acquisition but rather for the purpose of study and comparison. He
also became the possessor of many pictures and water-color drawings,
amongst others of several by Turner; and so, when in 1858 his young
brother-in-law J. M. Whistler returned from France with his recently
etched plates and his inciting tales of work in the Paris studios,
Haden became readily infected and took up etching again, with the
result we all know. Thenceforward, whenever a rare afternoon’s
holiday could be stolen, or a few moments spared between the casts of
the line during the annual vacation devoted to fishing, or on the
rarer occasions of a continental holiday, the copper plate or the
sketching block was brought into use. And so we find sketches done
on the Thames and the Ribble, the Teivy, the Test and the Spey; in
Holland and in Germany, in Spain and Madeira; at Chatsworth, in the
old towns of Rye and Winchelsea, and above all in the fascinating Isle
of Purbeck--sketches done for his own pleasure or for his friends,
with never a thought of placing them before either the critic or the
purchaser.
The earliest sketch that I have seen is one dated 1841. It is in
pen and sepia and represents an early morning execution outside the
Old Bailey. At a first glance it might be mistaken for an etching
by Cruikshank. It measures only three and one half by two and one
fourth inches, but is masterly in its drawing, and marvelous in its
suggestiveness of a large crowd.
The drawings done in 1844 in France and Italy vary from mere thumb-nail
sketches to comparatively finished drawings. Some of them in their
carefulness and decision resemble the early drawings of Turner. Two
or three figure sketches, notably portraits of Duval le Camus and the
Marquis de Belluno (two of his companions), are very expressive and
full of character.
While in Rome, through the introduction of the Marquis de Belluno,
Haden had many interviews with Pope Gregory XVI, and during two or
three of them he took the opportunity of sketching, on one of his shirt
cuffs, a somewhat elaborate portrait of His Holiness. The Pope very
kindly professed not to notice what the artist was doing until the
portrait was finished. He then quietly remarked that he “now understood
why M. Haden had attended at three audiences without a change of
linen.” One would give much to see this portrait (which Sir Seymour
always said was an excellent one), but it has disappeared, having been
lent to a friend and never returned.
[Illustration: HADEN. SALMON POOL ON THE SPEY
Size of the original charcoal drawing, 14 × 20 inches]
[Illustration: HADEN. OLD OAKS, CHATSWORTH
Size of the original charcoal drawing, 14 × 20 inches]
The drawings done after 1858 were much broader in style than the early
sketches, and vary in method, being in lead pencil, pen and ink, chalk,
charcoal, and water-color. Thrown off in a moment of inspiration, as a
poet would throw off a lyric, he chose the material which chanced to be
at hand. Some are on sheets of writing paper, and many valuable ones
are on perishable blotting paper. Here and there among these “slight”
sketches are specimens that in their economy of line, their stamp of
decision, and their interpretative insight, suggest the work of his
great master Rembrandt. What strikes one above all is their vigor and
“bigness.” There is no dainty indecision about them; they go straight
for the heart of the subject, giving the vigorous impression of a
vigorous mind. They do not give all that could be said on the subject,
but they give all that he feels is best worth saying. They make an
intellectual appeal to the mind and do not tire with unnecessary
platitudes.
The water-color drawings show a good but scarcely a great colorist.
They are in the “grand” manner and the best of them have a fine
atmospheric quality, as in the _Dinkley Ferry_ here, which reminds one
of a good De Wint. The _Course of the Ribble_ is probably one of the
most finished drawings he ever did, and shows to the highest degree of
what he was capable in this medium when time allowed and when loving
care was exercised. It is wonderfully mellow, good in color, and true
in drawing, but has less of the white heat of inspiration:--I envy the
fortunate possessor! The _Lancashire River_, a drawing of the same
subject as the etching with the same title, is perhaps his finest piece
of color.
But it is in his large charcoal drawings of the end of the seventies
that he rises to his greatest heights,--in the sketches done around
Swanage in the south of Dorsetshire, and at Chatsworth, and two or
three drawn from the stores of his memory. What a revelation it was
to me when--I scarcely like to count how many years ago--I first
passed into that peaceful little “garden room” that looked out upon
the old-time bowling green at Woodcote Manor and saw around its walls
some four and twenty of these large charcoal drawings! It was as
though some new planet swam into my ken! I had never seen so much
suggested with such simple means. Two or three hours’ work with a sheet
of rough paper, a piece of charcoal, and a mezzotint scraper! Heath
and woodland, sea cliff and river glen, radiant light and quivering
mist, houses sleeping in the sun and mysterious shadows lurking in the
corners of the quaint old kitchen or the romantic ruin, or lying full
length before the giant boles of centuries-old oaks; all suggested with
equal ease and magic mastery! Many and many an hour did I afterward
spend in that little treasure-house, ever finding fresh beauties
revealed to me, and learning through them to see in Nature much that
had previously been hidden from me. Haden’s etchings had proved him
to be a great master in line, these drawings proved him to be almost
equally great in tone. What particularly strikes one is the variety
and transparency of his shadows. They are not black patches, but
receding planes of varying densities. And what atmospheric quality they
have! Driving mist and slanting rain, and sun rays penetrating the
moisture-laden air, as though by a magician, are fixed for us on paper.
[Illustration: HADEN. COURSE OF THE RIBBLE BELOW PRESTON
Size of the original water-color, 12½ × 19 inches]
[Illustration: HADEN. DINKLEY FERRY
Size of the original water-color, 10¼ × 16½ inches]
The origin of many of these drawings has been described by Sir Seymour
himself in an article written some years ago in _Harper’s Magazine_,
“On the Revival of Mezzotint as a Painter’s Art.” With the idea that he
could use mezzotint as he had done etching, face to face with Nature,
he had taken a previously grounded plate to the bank of the River Test
and attempted to scrape upon it what he saw before him. The result
was the plate numbered 234 in my catalogue (_The Test at Longparish
No. 3_), interesting, but not wholly satisfactory and incomplete in
intention. This proved that, unlike etching, mezzotint was too slow
a process with which to work from nature at a single sitting, and a
return on a later day only proved that the natural effect had changed,
or that the artist was in a different phase of mind or not in the
humor to complete the original impression. So instead of taking a
grounded plate out with him he took a sheet of rough paper which had
been rubbed all over with charcoal, this black surface corresponding
to the mezzotint ground upon the copper plate, and on this prepared
surface he scraped away the lights. As will be readily understood,
this softer material could be much more rapidly manipulated than the
harder copper, and so he found that in two or three hours the desired
effect could be obtained. His intention was to reproduce in the studio
and at his leisure the effects of these studies upon the copper plate.
And so, with modifications, in several instances he did--I say _with
modifications_, for it was almost impossible for him to closely copy
even his own work. The _Salmon Pool on the Spey_ provided the _motif_
for the mezzotint plate with the same title (H. 250), and more closely
of the little _Salmon River_, which served as a frontispiece to Dr.
Hamilton’s book on “Fly Fishing.” The _Encombe Woods_ supplied the
subject for the two plates H. 218 and 219, which were intended to
be a combination of etching and mezzotint, but the latter part of
the project was never carried out. This too was the case with _Early
Morning_ (H. 244) and _By the Waters of Babylon_ (H. 245), _Ars Longa,
Vita Brevis_ (H. 210) and _A Study of Rocks_ (H. 211), all of which
were etched or dry-pointed from charcoal drawings. The only important
plates inspired by these drawings that were fully completed, were
_Evening Fishing, Longparish_ (H. 239), _An Early Riser_ (H. 240),
_Grayling Fishing_ (H. 241), and _The Pillar of Salt_ (H. 246); but
they are sufficient to prove what a series of masterpieces we have
lost through the dimming of the eye and the numbing of the hand by
relentless Age.
[Illustration: HADEN. ENCOMBE WOODS
Size of the original charcoal drawing, 14 × 20 inches]
[Illustration: HADEN. AN ELDERLY COUPLE, CHATSWORTH PARK
Size of the original charcoal drawing, 13½ × 19½ inches]
However, we must be thankful for what we have, and the regret one
has that these drawings should be scattered in different directions,
is tempered by the hope that by one of the marvelous photographic
processes of to-day this wonderful series of visions may be reproduced,
and so again brought together for all of us who love beautiful things,
and who reverence the master who produced them.
MERYON AND BAUDELAIRE
BY WILLIAM ASPENWALL BRADLEY
All French poets of the middle part of the nineteenth century were
interested, theoretically at least, in painting and the graphic
arts, which afforded them an ideal and an example of objectivity for
their own verbal representations of reality. From Théophile Gautier,
godfather of Parnassianism, who reserved for his prose the full
resources of his superb Turneresque palate, to Verlaine, creator
of decadence, with his limpid and lovely _aquarelles_, pictorial
preoccupations were, on the whole, paramount. Charles Baudelaire
almost alone appears, in part, an exception to this rule; but if, in
his work, the purely visual element is less pronounced than in that
of most of his contemporaries--if the images of sight yield there
in number and in clear evocative power to those of sound and of
scent, thereby preluding the way for a new poetic dispensation--he
nevertheless fits into the late romantic tradition, if only by reason
of his keen æsthetic appreciation of the arts of design, and of his
association, as a disinterested friend or sympathetic critic, with
many of the most illustrious artists of the age. Himself a rebel and
an outlaw in the domain of orthodox taste, though with a distinct
tinge of the traditional, he was especially drawn to the insurgent
leader, like Delacroix, his championship of whom is as famous as his
espousal of the cause of Wagner’s music in Paris, or to the solitary
_attardé_ of romanticism who, like Constantin Guys, worked out his
own salvation in his own way. It is not that he did not welcome new
movements in all their collectivity of talents and temperaments; but
these, to find favor with him, must be vouched for by unmistakable
evidences of creative vigor and originality in the individual artists,
not merely by plausible theories or pretentious dogmas professed
scholastically. Intellectual distinctions counted but little with him
in matters of art, and a new way of rendering what was actually seen
or felt seemed to him of infinitely more importance than any merely
academic discussion as to what an artist should or should not look for,
deliberately, in order to put it into or leave it out of his pictures.
Thus it was that while he shrugged his shoulders at the realists who
were not really observers, he turned an attentive eye to the work of
the group of young painter-etchers who, about 1859, were beginning to
attract attention in the salons. Baudelaire thought highly of etching
because it afforded an opportunity for “the most clean-cut possible
translation of the character of the artist,” and he was attracted
to those who were engaged in reviving this almost obsolete medium,
because they gave clear proof in their work of that personal force and
distinction which he valued above all else, and which he was always on
the alert to discover in the productions of the new and the unknown.