The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858

V >> Various >> The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20

It is to us a source of noble delight, that with these permanent
trophies of the sculptor's art may now be mingled our national fame.
Twenty years ago, the address in Murray's Guide-Book,--_Crawford, an
American Sculptor, Piazza Barberini_,--would have been unique; now
that name is enrolled on the list of the world's benefactors in the
patrimony of Art. Greenough, by his pen, his presence, and his chisel,
gave an impulse to taste and knowledge in sculpture and architecture
not destined soon to pass away; no more eloquent and original
advocate of the beautiful and the true in the higher social economies
has blest our day; his Cherubs and Medora overflow with the poetry
of form; his essays are a valuable legacy of philosophic thought.
The Greek Slave of Powers was invariably surrounded by visitors at
the London World's Fair and the Manchester Exhibition. Palmer has
sent forth from his isolated studio at Albany a series of ideal busts,
of a pure type of original and exquisite beauty. Others might be
named who have honorably illustrated an American claim to
distinction in an art eminently republican in its perpetuation of
national worth and the identity of its highest achievements with
social progress.

Facility of execution and prolific invention were the essential
traits of Crawford's genius. For some years his studio has been one
of the shrines of travellers at Rome, because of the number and
variety as well as excellence of its trophies. The idea has been
suggested, and it is one we hope to see realized, that this complete
series of casts should be permanently conserved in such a temple as
Copenhagen reared to the memory of her great sculptor. It was on
account of this facility and fecundity that Crawford advocated
plaster as an occasional substitute for bronze and marble, where
elaborate compositions were proposed. He felt capable of achieving
so much, his mind teemed with so many panoramic and single
conceptions,--historical, allegorical, ideal, and illustrative of
standard literature or classical fable,--that only time and expense
presented obstacles to unlimited invention. Perhaps no one can
conceive this peculiar creativeness of his fancy and aptitude of hand,
who has not had occasion to talk with Crawford of some projected
monument or statue. No sooner was he possessed of the idea to be
embodied, the person or occasion to be commemorated, than he
instantly conceived a plan and drew a model, invariably possessing
some felicitous thought or significant arrangement. His sketch-book
was quite as suggestive of genius as his studio. The "Sketch of a
Statue to crown the Dome of the United States Capitol"--a photograph
of which is before us as we write, dated two years ago--is an
instance in point. A more grand figure, original and symbolic,
graceful and sublime, in attitude, aspect, drapery, accessories, and
expression, or one more appropriate, cannot be imagined; and yet it
is only one of hundreds of national designs, more or less mature,
which that fertile brain, patriotic heart, and cunning hand devised.
We are justified in regarding the appropriation by the State of
Virginia, for a monument to Washington by such a man, as an epoch in
the history of national Art. Crawford hailed it as would a confident
explorer the ship destined to convey him to untracked regions, the
ambitious soldier tidings of the coming foe, or any brave aspirant a
long-sought opportunity. It is one of the drawbacks to elaborate
achievement in sculpture, that the materials and the processes of
the art require large pecuniary facilities. To plan and execute a
great national monument, under a government commission, was
precisely the occasion for which Crawford had long waited. Happening
to read the proposals in a journal, while on a visit to this country,
he repaired immediately to Richmond, submitted his views, and soon
received the appointment.

The absence of complexity in the language and intent of sculpture is
always obvious in the expositions of its votaries. In no class of
men have we found such distinct and scientific views of Art. One
lovely evening in spring, we stood with Bartolini beside the corpse
of a beautiful child. Bereavement in a foreign land has a desolation
of its own, and the afflicted mother desired to carry home a statue
of her loved and lost. We conducted the sculptor to the chamber of
death, that he might superintend the casts from the body. No sooner
did his eyes fall upon it, than they glowed with admiration and
filled with tears. He waved the assistants aside, clasped his hands,
and gazed spellbound upon the dead child. Its brow was ideal in
contour, the hair of wavy gold, the cheeks of angelic outline.
"How beautiful!" exclaimed Bartolini; and drawing us to the bedside,
with a mingled awe and intelligence, he pointed out how the rigidity
of death coincided, in this fair young creature, with the standard
of Art;--the very hands, he declared, had stiffened into lines of
beauty; and over the beautiful clay we thus learned from the lips of
a venerable sculptor how intimate and minute is the cognizance this
noble art takes of the language of the human form. Greenough would
unfold by the hour the exquisite relation between function and beauty,
organization and use,--tracing therein a profound law and an
illimitable truth. No more genial spectacle greeted us in Rome than
Thorwaldsen at his Sunday-noon receptions;--his white hair, kindly
smile, urbane manners, and unpretending simplicity gave an added
charm to the wise and liberal sentiments he expressed on Art,--
reminding us, in his frank eclecticism, of the spirit in which
Humboldt cultivates science, and Sismondi history. Nor less
indicative of this clear apprehension was the thorough solution we
have heard Powers give, over the mask taken from a dead face, of the
problem, how its living aspect was to modify its sculptured
reproduction; or the original views expressed by Palmer as to the
treatment of the eyes and hair in marble. During Crawford's last
visit to America, we accompanied him to examine a portrait of
Washington by Wright. It boasts no elegance of arrangement or
refinement of execution; at a glance it was evident that the artist
had but a limited sense of beauty and lacked imagination; but, on
the other hand, he possessed what, for a sculptor's object,--namely,
facts of form and feature,--is more important,--conscience.
Crawford declared this was the only portrait of Washington which
literally represented his costume; having recently examined the
uniform, sword, etc., he was enabled to identify the strands of the
epaulette, the number of buttons, and even the peculiar seal and
watch-key. A man so faithful to details, so devoted to authenticity,
Crawford argued, was reliable in more essential things. He remarked,
that one of his own greatest difficulties in the equestrian statue
had been to reconcile the shortness of the neck in Stuart's portrait
and Houdon's statue (the body of which was not taken from life) with
the stature of Washington,--there being an anatomical incongruity
therein. "I had determined," he continued, "to follow what the laws
of Nature and all precedent indicate as the right proportion,--
otherwise it would be impossible to make a graceful and impressive
statue; but in this picture, bearing such remarkable evidence of
authenticity, I find the correct distance between chin and breast."

American travellers in Italy will sometimes be repelled by a certain
narrowness in the critical estimate of modern sculptors; though of
all arts sculpture demands and justifies the most liberal eclecticism.
Thus, a broad line of demarcation has been arbitrarily drawn between
high finish and prolific invention, originality and superficial skill;
as if these merits could not be united, or were incompatible with
each other,--and that, invariably, works of "outward skill elaborate"
are "of inward less exact." A Boston critic denominates Powers
"a sublime mechanic," as if there were only physical imitation in
his busts, and no expression in his figures. The insinuation is
unjust. By exquisite finish and patient labor he makes of such
subjects as the Fisher-boy, the Proserpine, and Il Penseroso
charming creations,--in attitude and feature true to the moment and
the mood delineated, and not less true in each detail; their
popularity is justified by scientific and tasteful canons; and his
portrait busts and statues are, in many instances, unrivalled for
character as well as execution. A letter to one of his friends lies
before us, in which he responds to an amicable remonstrance at his
apparent slowness of achievement. The reasoning is so cogent, the
principle asserted of such wide application, and the artistic
conscience so nobly evident, that we venture to quote a passage.

"It is said, that works designed to adorn buildings need not be done
with much care, being only architectural sculptures. This is quite a
modern idea. The Greeks did not entertain it, as is proved by those
gems which Lord Elgin sawed away from the walls of the Parthenon. I
cannot admit that a noble art should ever be prostituted to purposes
of mere show. They do not make rough columns, coarse and uneven
friezes, jagged mouldings, etc., for buildings. These are always
highly finished. Are figures in marble less important? But speed,
speed, is the order of the day,--'quick and cheap' is the cry; and
if I prefer to linger behind and take pains with the little I do,
there are some now, and there will be more hereafter, to approve it.
I cannot consent to model statues at the rate of three in six months,
and a clear conscience will reward me for not having yielded to the
temptation of making money at the sacrifice of my artistic reputation.
Art is, or should be, poetry, in its various forms,--no matter what
it is written upon,--parchment, paper, canvas, or marble. Milton
employed his daughter to write his 'Paradise Lost,' not to compose it;
her hand was moved by his soul; she was his modelling-tool,--nothing
more. But to employ another to model for you, and go away from him,
is not analogous. He then composes for you; modelling is composition.
And whom did Shakspeare get to do this for him? Whom did Gray employ
to arrange in words that immortal wreath set with diamond thoughts
which he has thrown upon a country churchyard? Whom did Michel
Angelo get to model his Moses? How many young men did Ghiberti employ
during the forty years he was engaged upon the Gates of Paradise? I
cannot yield my convictions of what is proper in Art. I will do my
work as well as I know how, and necessity compels me to demand ample
payment for it."

We have sometimes wondered that some aesthetic philosopher has not
analyzed the vital relation of the arts to each other and given a
popular exposition of their mutual dependence. Drawing from the
antique has long been an acknowledged initiation for the limner, and
Campbell, in his terse description of the histrionic art, says that
therein "verse ceases to be airy thought, and sculpture to be dumb."
How much of their peculiar effects did Talma, Kemble, and Rachel owe
to the attitudes, gestures, and drapery of the Grecian statues! Kean
adopted the "dying fall" of General Abercrombie's figure in St.
Paul's as the model of his own. Some of the memorable scenes and
votaries of the drama are directly associated with the sculptor's art,--
as, for instance, the last act of "Don Giovanni," wherein the
expressive music of Mozart breathes a pleasing terror in connection
with the spectral nod of the marble horseman; and Shakspeare has
availed himself of this art, with beautiful wisdom, in that melting
scene where remorseful love pleads with the motionless heroine of the
"Winter's Tale,"--

"Her natural posture!
Chide me, dear stone, that I may say, indeed,
Thou art Hermione; or rather, thou art she
In thy not chiding: for she was as tender
As infancy and grace."

Garrick imitated to the life, in "Abel Drugger," a vacant stare
peculiar to Nollekens, the sculptor; and Colley Cibber's father was
a devotee of the chisel and adorned Chatsworth with free-stone
Sea-Nymphs.

Crawford's interest in portrait-busts was secondary, owing to his
inventive ardor; the study he bestowed upon the lineaments of
Washington, however, gave a zest and a special insight to his
endeavor to represent his head in marble, and, accordingly, this
specimen of his ability, which arrived in this country after his
decease, is remarkable for its expressive, original, and finished
character. For ourselves, in view of the great historical value,
comparative authenticity, and possible significance and beauty of
this department of sculpture, it has a peculiar interest and charm.
The most distinct idea we have of the Roman emperors, even in regard
to their individual characters, is derived from their busts at the
Vatican and elsewhere. The benignity of Trajan, the animal
development of Nero, and the classic rigor of young Augustus are
best apprehended through these memorable effigies which Time has
spared and Art transmitted. And a similar permanence and
distinctness of impression associate most of our illustrious moderns
with their sculptured features: the ironical grimace of Voltaire is
perpetuated by Houdon's bust; the sympathetic intellectuality of
Schiller by Dannecker's; Handel's countenance is familiar through
the elaborate chisel of Roubillac; Nollekens moulded Sterne's
delicate and unimpassioned but keen physiognomy, and Chantrey the
lofty cranium of Scott. Who has not blessed the rude but
conscientious artist who carved the head of Shakspeare preserved at
Stratford? How quaintly appropriate to the old house in Nuremberg is
Albert Duerer's bust over the door! Our best knowledge of Alexander
Hamilton's aspect is obtained from the expressive marble head of him
by that ardent republican sculptor, Ceracchi. It was appropriate for
Mrs. Darner, the daughter of a gallant field-marshal, to portray in
marble, as heroic idols, Fox, Nelson, and Napoleon. We were never
more convinced of the intrinsic grace and solemnity of this form of
"counterfeit presentment" than when exploring the Bacioechi _palazzo_
at Bologna. In the centre of a circular room, lighted from above,
and draped as well as carpeted with purple, stood on a simple
pedestal the bust of Napoleon's sister, thus enshrined after death
by her husband. The profound stillness, the relief of this isolated
head against a mass of dark tints, and its consequent emphatic
individuality, made the sequestered chamber seem a holy place, where
communion with the departed, so spiritually represented by the
exquisite image, appeared not only natural, but inevitable. Our
countryman, Powers, has eminently illustrated the possible
excellence of this branch of Art. In mathematical correctness of
detail, unrivalled finish of texture, and with these, in many cases,
the highest characterization, busts from his hand have an absolute
artistic value, independent of likeness, like a portrait by Vandyck
or Titian. When the subject is favorable, his achievements in this
regard are memorable, and fill the eye and mind with ideas of beauty
and meaning undreamed of by those who consider marble portraits as
wholly imitative and mechanical. Was there ever a human face which
so completely reflected inward experience and individual genius as
the bust which haunts us throughout Italy, broods over the monument
in Santa Croce, gazes pensively from library niche, seems to awe the
more radiant images of boudoir and gallery, and sternly looks
melancholy reproach from the Ravenna tomb?

"The lips, as Cumae's cavern close,
The cheeks, with fast and sorrow thin,
The rigid front, almost morose,
But for the patient hope within,
Declare a life whose course hath been
Unsullied still, though still severe,
Which, through the wavering days of sin,
Kept itself icy chaste and clear."

National characters become, as it were, household gods through the
sculptor's portrait; the duplicates of Canova's head of Napoleon
seem as appropriate in the _salons_ and shops of France, as the
heads of Washington and Franklin in America, or the antique images
of Scipio Africanus and Ceres in Sicily, and Wellington and Byron in
London.

There is no phase of modern life so legitimate in its enjoyment and
so pleasing to contemplate as the life of the true artist. Endowed
with a faculty and inspired by a love for creative beauty, work is
to him at once a high vocation and a generous instinct. Imagine the
peace and the progress of those years at Rome when Crawford toiled
day after day in his studio,--at first without encouragement and for
bread, then in a more confident spirit and with some definite triumph,
and at last crowned with domestic happiness and artistic renown,--his
mind filled with ideal tasks more and more grand in their scope, and
the coming years devoted in prospect to the realization of his
noblest aspirations. From early morning to twilight, with rare and
brief interruptions, he thus designed, modelled, chiselled,
superintended, every day adding something permanent to his trophies.
This self-consecration was entire, and in his view indispensable. Few
and simple were the recreative interludes: a reunion of
brother-artists or fellow-countrymen and their families,--an
occasional journey, almost invariably with a professional intent,--a
summer holiday or a winter festival; but, methodical in pastime as
in work, his family and his books were his cherished resources.
Often so weary at night that he returned home only to recline on a
couch, caress his children, or refresh his mind with some agreeable
volume provided by his vigilant companion,--the best energies of his
mind and the freshest hours of life were absolutely given to Art.
This is the great lesson of his career: not by spasmodic effort, or
dalliance with moods, or fitful resolution, did he accomplish so much;
but by earnestness of purpose, consistency of aim, heroic decision of
character. There is nothing less vague, less casual in human
experience, than true artist-life. Rome is the shrine of many a
dreamer, the haunt of countless inefficient enthusiasts. But there,
as elsewhere, will must intensify thought, action control imagination,
or both are fruitless. Those melancholy ruins, those grand temples
of religion, the immortal forms and hues that glorify palace and
chapel, square, mausoleum, and Vatican, the dreamy murmur of
fountains, the aroma of violets and pine-trees, the pensive relics
of imperial sway, the sublime desolation of the Campagna, the mystery
of Nature and Art, when both are hallowed by time, the social zest
of an original brotherhood like the artists, the freedom and
loveliness, the ravishment of spring and the soft radiance of sunset,
all that there captivates soul and sense, must be resisted as well
as enjoyed;--self-control, self-respect, self-dedication are as
needful as susceptibility, or these peerless local charms will only
enchant to betray the artist. Crawford carried to Rome the ardor of
an Irish temperament and the vigor of an American character.
Hundreds have passed through a like ordeal of privation, ungenial
because conventional work, and slow approach to the goal of
recognized power and remunerated sacrifice; but few have emerged
from the shadow to the sunshine, by such manly steps and patient,
cheerful trust. It was not the voice of complaint that first
attracted towards him intelligent sympathy,--it was brave achievement;
and from the day when a remittance from Boston enabled him to put
his Orpheus in marble, to the day when, attended by his devoted
sister, he paid the last visit to his crowded studio, and looked,
with quivering eyelids, but firm heart, on the silent but eloquent
offspring of his brain and hand, the Artist in him was coincident
with the Man,--clear, unswerving, productive, the sphere extending,
the significance multiplying, and the mastery becoming more and more
complete through resolute practice, vivid intuition, and candid
search for truth.

In the fifteenth century, and earlier, the lives of artists were
adventurous; political relations gave scope to incident; and Michel
Angelo, Salvator Rosa, and Benvenuto Cellini furnish almost as many
anecdotes as memorials of genius. In modern times, however,
vicissitude has chiefly diversified the uniform and tranquil
existence of the artist; his struggles with fortune, and not his
relations to public events, have given external interest to his
biography. It is the mental rather than the outward life which is
fraught with significance to the painter and sculptor; consciousness
more than experience affords salient points in his career. How the
executive are trained to embody the creative powers, through what
struggles dexterity is attained, and by what reflection and earnest
musing and observant patience and blest intuitions original
achievements glimmer upon the fancy, grow mature by thought, correct
through the study of Nature, and are finally realized in action,--
these and such as these inward revelations constitute the actual
life of the artist. The mere events of Crawford's existence are
neither marvellous nor varied; his early love of imitative pastime,
his fixed purpose, his resort to stone-cutting as the nearest
available expedient for the gratification of that instinct to copy
and create form which so decidedly marks an aptitude for sculpture,
his visit to Rome, the self-denial and the lonely toil of his
novitiate, his rapid advancement in both knowledge and skill, and
his gradual recognition as a man of original mind and wise
enthusiasm are but the normal characteristics of his fraternity.
Circumstances, however, give a singular prominence and pathos to
these usual facts of artist-life. When Crawford began his
professional career, sculpture, as an American pursuit, was almost
as rare as painting at the time of West's advent in Rome; to excel
therein was a national distinction, having a freshness and personal
interest such as the votaries of older countries did not share; as
the American representative of his art at Rome, even in the eyes of
his comrades, and especially in the estimation of his countrymen, he
long occupied an isolated position. The qualities of the man,--his
patient industry,--the new and unexpected superiority in different
branches of his art, so constantly exhibited,--the loyal, generous,
and frank spirit of his domestic and social life,--the freedom, the
faith, and the assiduity that endeared him to so large and
distinguished a circle, were individual claims often noted by
foreigners and natives in the Eternal City as honorable to his
country. It was remembered there, when he died, that the hand now
cold had warmly grasped in welcome his compatriots, shouldered a
musket as one of the republican guard, and been extended with
sympathy and aid to his less prosperous brothers. At the meeting of
fellow-artists, convened to pay a tribute to his memory, every
nation of Europe was represented, and the most illustrious of living
English sculptors was the first to propose a substantial memorial to
his name. What his nativity and his character thus so eminently
contributed to signalize, the offspring of his genius, the manner of
his death, solemnly confirmed. By no sudden fever, such as
insidiously steals from the Roman marshes and poisons the blood of
its victims,--by no violent epidemic, like those which have again
and again devastated the cities of Europe,--by no illusive decline,
whereby vital power is sapped unconsciously and with mild gradations,
and which, in that soft clime, has peopled with the dust of
strangers the cemetery which the pyramid of Cestius overshadows and
the heart of Shelley consecrates,--by none of these familiar gates
of death did Crawford pass on; but, in the meridian of his powers
and his fame, in the climax of his artistic career, in the noontide
of his most genial activity, a corrosive tumor on the inner side of
the orbit of the eye encroached month by month, week by week, hour
by hour, upon the sources of life. Medical skill freed the brain
from its deadly pressure, but could not divert its organic affinity.
The mind's integrity was thus preserved intact; consciousness and
self-possession lent their dignity to waning strength; but the alert
muscles were relaxed; the busy hands folded in prayer; what Michel
Angelo uttered in his eighty-sixth Crawford was called upon to echo
in his forty-fifth year:--

"Wellnigh the voyage now is overpast,
And my frail bark, through troubled seas and rude,
Draws nigh that common haven where at last,
Of every action, be it evil or good,
Must due account be rendered. Well I know
How vain will then appear that favored art,
Sole idol long, and monarch of my heart;
For all is vain that man desires below."

The cheerful voice was often hushed by pain; but conjugal and
sisterly love kept vigil, a long, a bitter year, by that couch of
suffering in the heart of multitudinous Paris and London; hundreds
of sympathizing friends, in both hemispheres, listened and prayed
and hoped through a dreary twelvemonth. With the ripe autumn closed
the quiet struggle; and "in the bleak December" the mortal remains
were followed from the temple where his youth worshipped, to the
snow-clad knoll at Greenwood; garlands and tears, the ritual and the
requiem, eulogy and elegy, consecrated the final scene. By a singular
coincidence, the news of his decease reached the United States
simultaneously with the arrival of the ship in James River with the
colossal bronze statue of Washington, his crowning achievement.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20