Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects and Curiosities of Art (Vol. 3 of 3) by S. Spooner (pdf to ebook reader .TXT) 📕

youthful, the painter replied by seizing his pencil, and with four

strokes so seamed the face with wrinkles, and so entirely altered its

air, that the royal critic once more "remained stupid," hardly knowing

whether he had judged amiss, or the change had been effected by magic.

By means of thus painting at full speed, frequently without sketches,

and sometimes with both hands at once, Cambiaso clothed the vault with

its immense fresco in about fifteen months. The coloring is still fresh,

and many of the forms are fine and the figures noble; but the

composition cannot be called pleasing. The failure must be mainly

attributed to the unlucky meddling of the friars, who have marshalled

"The helmed Cherubim,

   And sworded Seraphim,"

with exact military precision, ranged the celestial choir in rows like

the fiddlers of a sublunary orchestra, and accommodated the congregation

of the righteous with long benches, like those of a Methodist

meeting-house! However, the king was so well pleased with the work, that

he rewarded Cambiaso with 12,000 ducats.

CAMBIASO'S ARTISTIC MERITS.

In the earlier part of his career, the impetuosity of his genius led him

astray; he usually painted his pictures in oil or fresco without

preparing either drawing or cartoon; and his first style was gigantic

and unnatural. Subsequently, however, he checked this impetuosity, and

it was in the middle of his life that he produced his best works. His

fertility of invention was wonderful; his genius grappled with and

conquered the most arduous difficulties of the art, and he shows his

powers in foreshortening in the most daring variety. He was rapid and

bold in design, yet was selected by Boschini as a model of correctness;

hence his drawings, though numerous, are highly esteemed. His Rape of

the Sabines, in the Palazzo Imperiali at Terralba, near Genoa, has been

highly extolled. It is a large work full of life and motion, passionate

ravishers and reluctant damsels, fine horses and glimpses of noble

architecture, with several episodes heightening the effect of the main

story. Mengs declared he had seen nothing out of Rome that so vividly

reminded him of the chambers of the Vatican.

RARITY OF FEMALE PORTRAITS IN SPAIN.

Very few female portraits are found in the Spanish collections. Their

painters were seldom brought in professional contact with the beauty of

high-born women--the finest touchstone of professional skill--and their

great portrait painters lived in an age of jealous husbands, who cared

not to set off to public admiration the charms of their spouses.

Velasquez came to reside at court about the same time that Madrid was

visited by Sir Kenelm Digby, who had like to have been slain the first

night of his arrival, for merely looking at a lady. Returning with two

friends from supper at Lord Bristol's, the adventurous knight relates in

his Private Memoirs, how they came beneath a balcony where a love-lorn

fair one stood touching her lute, and how they loitered awhile to admire

her beauty, and listen to her "soul-ravishing harmony." Their delightful

contemplations, however, were soon arrested by a sudden attack from

several armed men, who precipitated themselves upon the three Britons.

Their swords were instantly drawn, and a fierce combat ensued; but the

valiant Digby slew the leader of the band, and finally succeeded in

escaping with his companions.

Of the sixty-two works by Velasquez in the Royal Gallery at Madrid,

there are only four female portraits; and of these, two represent

children, another an ancient matron, and a fourth his own wife! The Duke

of Abuquerque, who at the door of his own palace waylaid and

horsewhipped Philip IV., and his minister Olivarez, feigning ignorance

of their persons, as the monarch came to pay a nocturnal visit to the

Duchess, was not very likely to call in the court painter to take her

Grace's portrait. Ladies lived for the most part in a sort of Oriental

seclusion, amongst duennas, waiting-women, and dwarfs; and going abroad

only to mass, or to take the air in curtained carriages on the Prado. In

such a state of things, the rarity of female portraits in the Spanish

collections was a natural consequence.

MURILLO'S PICTURES IN SPANISH AMERICA.

It is related that this great Spanish painter visited America in early

life, and painted there many works; but the later Spanish historians

have shown that he never quitted his native country; and the

circumstance of his pictures being found in America, is best accounted

for by the following narrative. After acquiring considerable knowledge

of the art under Juan del Castillo at Seville, he determined to travel

for improvement; but how to raise the necessary funds was a matter of

difficulty, for his parents had died leaving little behind them, and his

genius had not yet recommended him to the good offices of any wealthy

or powerful patron. But Murillo was not to be balked of his cherished

desires. Buying a large quantity of canvas, he divided it into squares

of various sizes, which he primed and prepared with his own hands for

the pencil, and then converted into pictures of the more popular saints,

landscapes, and flower-pieces. These he sold to the American traders for

exportation, and thus obtained a sum of money sufficient for his

purpose.

MURILLO'S "VIRGIN OF THE NAPKIN."

The small picture which once adorned the tabernacle of the Capuchin high

altar at Seville, is interesting on account of its legend, as well as

its extraordinary artistic merits. Murillo, whilst employed at the

convent, had formed a friendship with a lay brother, the cook of the

fraternity, who attended to his wants and waited on him with peculiar

assiduity. At the conclusion of his labors, this Capuchin of the kitchen

begged for some trifling memorial of his pencil. The painter was quite

willing to comply, but said that he had exhausted his stock of canvas.

"Never mind," said the ready cook, "take this napkin," offering him that

which he had used at dinner. The good-natured artist accordingly went to

work, and before evening he had converted the piece of coarse linen into

a picture compared to which cloth of gold or the finest tissue of the

East would be accounted worthless. The Virgin has a face in which

thought is happily blended with maidenly innocence; and the divine

infant, with his deep earnest eyes, leans forward in her arms,

struggling as it were almost out of the frame, as if to welcome the

carpenter Joseph home from his daily toil. The picture is colored with a

brilliancy which Murillo never excelled, glowing with a golden light, as

if the sun were always shining on the canvas. This admirable work is now

in the Museum of Seville.

ANECDOTE OF AN ALTAR-PIECE BY MURILLO.

One of Murillo's pictures, in the possession of a society of friars in

Flanders, was bought by an Englishman for a considerable sum, and the

purchaser affixed his signature and seal to the back of the canvas, at

the desire of the venders. In due time it followed him to England, and

became the pride of his collection. Several years afterwards, however,

while passing through Belgium, the purchaser turned aside to visit his

friends the monks, when he was greatly surprised to find the beautiful

work which he had supposed was in his own possession, smiling in all its

original brightness on the very same wall where he had been first

smitten by its charms! The truth was, that the monks always kept under

the canvas an excellent copy, which they sold in the manner above

related, as often as they could find a purchaser.

MURILLO AND HIS SLAVE GOMEZ.

Sebastian Gomez, the mulatto slave of Murillo, is said to have become

enamored of art while performing the menial offices of his master's

studio. Like Erigonus, the color grinder of Nealces, or like Pareja, the

mulatto of Velasquez, he devoted his leisure to the secret study of the

principles of drawing, and in time acquired a skill with the brush

rivalled by few of the regular scholars of Murillo. There is a tradition

at Seville, that he took the opportunity one day, when the painting room

was empty, of giving the first proof of his abilities, by finishing the

head of a Virgin, that stood ready sketched on his master's easel.

Pleased with the beauty of this unexpected interpolation, Murillo, when

he discovered the author of it, immediately promoted Gomez to the use of

those colors which it had hitherto been his task to grind. "I am indeed

fortunate, Sebastian," said the good-natured artist, "for I have not

only created pictures, but a painter."

AN ARTIST'S LOVE ROMANCE.

Francisco Vieira, an eminent Portuguese painter, was still a child when

he became enamored of Doña Ignez Elena de Lima, the daughter of noble

parents, who lived on friendly terms with his own and permitted the

intercourse of their children. The thread of their loves was broken for

a while by the departure of the young wooer to Rome, in the suite of the

Marquis of Abrantes. There he applied himself diligently to the study of

painting, under Trevisani, and carried off the first prize in the

Academy of St. Luke. On returning to Portugal, although only in his 16th

year, he was immediately appointed by King John V. to paint a large

picture of the Mystery of the Eucharist, to be used at the approaching

feast of Corpus Christi; and he also painted the king's portrait.

An absence of seven years had not affected Vieira's constancy, and he

took the first opportunity of flying once more to Ignez. He was kindly

received by the Lima family, at their villa on the beautiful shores of

the Tagus, and was permitted to reside there for a while, painting the

scenery, and wooing his not unwilling mistress. When the maiden's heart

was fairly won, the parents at length interfered, and the lovers found

the old adage verified, that "the course of true love never did run

smooth." Vieira was ignominiously turned out of doors, and the fair

Ignez was shut up in the convent of St. Anna, and compelled to take the

veil.

The afflicted lover immediately laid his cause before the king, but

received an unfavorable answer. Nothing daunted, he then went to Rome,

and succeeded in obtaining from the Pope a commission to the Patriarch

of Lisbon, empowering him to inquire into the facts of the case; and

that prelate's report being favorable, the lover was made happy with a

bull annulling the religious vows of the nun, and authorizing their

marriage. It is uncertain how long this affair remained undecided; but a

Portuguese Jesuit having warned Vieira that at home he ran the risk of

being punished by confiscation of his property, for obtaining a bull

without the consent of the civil power, he prolonged his residence at

Rome to six years, that the affair might have time to be forgotten at

Lisbon. During this period he continued to exercise his pencil with so

much success that he was elected a member of the Academy of St. Luke.

After such a probation, the energy and perseverance of the lover is

almost unparalleled. He finally ventured to return to his native Tagus,

and accomplished the object of his life. Disguising himself as a

bricklayer, he skulked about the convent where Ignez lay immured,

mingling with the workmen employed there, till he found means to open a

communication with her and concert a plan of escape. He then furnished

her with male attire, and at last successfully carried her off on

horseback (though not without a severe wound from the brother of his

bride), to another bishopric, where they were married in virtue of the

Pope's bull. After residing for some time in Spain and Italy, however,

Vieira was commanded to return to Portugal, and appointed painter to the

king. Being the best artist in that kingdom, his talents soon

obliterated the remembrance of his somewhat irregular marriage, and

during forty years he painted with great reputation and success for the

royal palaces at Nafra and elsewhere, for the convents, and the

collections of the nobility. It will doubtless be pleasing to the fair

readers of these anecdotes, that all this long course of outward

prosperity was sweetened by the affection of his constant wife.

ESTEBAN MARCH'S STRANGE METHOD OF STUDY.

Estéban March, a distinguished Spanish painter of the 17th century, was

eccentric in character and violent in temperament. Battles being his

favorite subjects, his studio was hung round with pikes, cutlasses,

javelins, and other implements of war, which he used in a very peculiar

and boisterous manner. As the mild and saintly Joanes was wont to

prepare himself for his daily task by prayer and fasting, so his riotous

countryman used to excite his imagination to the proper creative pitch

by beating a drum, or blowing a trumpet, and then valiantly assaulting

the walls of his chamber with sword and buckler, laying about him, like

another Don Quixote, with a blind energy that told severely on the

plaster and furniture, and drove his terrified scholars or assistants to

seek safety