Letter XXIX.American Artists Abroad.Rome,October, 1845.You would perhaps like to hear what the American artists on the continent are doing. I met with Leutze at Düsseldorf. After a sojourn of some days in Holland, in which I was obliged to talk to the Dutchmen in German and get my answers in Dutch, with but a dim apprehension of each other's meaning, as you may suppose, on both sides; after being smoked through and through like a herring, with the fumes of bad tobacco in the railway wagons, and in the diligence which took us over the long and monotonous road on the plains of the Rhine between Arnheim and Düsseldorf—after dodging as well as we were able, the English travellers, generally the most disagreeable of the travelling tribe, who swarm along the Rhine in the summer season, it was a refreshment to stop a day at Düsseldorf and take breath, and meet an American face or two. We found Leutze engaged upon a picture, the subject of which is John Knox reproving Queen Mary. It promises to be a capital work. The stern gravity of Knox, the embarrassment of the Queen, and the scorn with which the French damsels of her court regard the saucy Reformer, are extremely well expressed, and tell the story impressively.At Düsseldorf, which is the residence of so many eminent painters, we expected to find some collection, or at least some of the best specimens, of the works of the modern German school. It was not so, however—fine pictures are painted at Düsseldorf, but they are immediately carried elsewhere. We visited the studio of Schröter—a man with humor in every line of his face, who had nothing to show us but a sketch, just prepared for the easel, of the scene in Goëthe's Faust, where Mephistophiles, in Auerbach's cellar, bores the edge of the table with a gimlet, and a stream of champagne gushes out. Köhler, an eminent artist, allowed us to see a clever painting on his easel, in a state of considerable forwardness, representing the rejoicings of the Hebrew maidens at the victory of David over Goliath. At Lessing's—a painter whose name stands in the first rank, and whom we did not find at home—we saw a sketch on which he was engaged, representing the burning of John Huss; yet it was but a sketch, a painting in embryo.But I am wandering from the American artists. At Cologne, whither we were accompanied by Leutze, he procured us the sight of his picture of Columbus before the Council of Salamanca, one of his best. Leutze ranks high in Germany, as a young man of promise, devoting himself with great energy and earnestness to his art.At Florence we found Greenough just returned from a year's residence at Graefenberg, whence he had brought back his wife, a patient of Priessnitz and the water cure, in florid health. He is now applying himself to the completion of the group which he has engaged to execute for the capitol at Washington. It represents an American settler, an athletic man, in a hunting shirt and cap, a graceful garb, by the way, rescuing a female and her infant from a savage who has just raised his tomahawk to murder them. Part of the group, the hunter and the Indian, is already in marble, and certainly the effect is wonderfully fine and noble. The hunter has approached his enemy unexpectedly from behind, and grasped both his arms, holding them back, in such a manner that he has no command of their muscles, even for the purpose of freeing himself. Besides the particular incident represented by the group, it may pass for an image of the aboriginal race of America overpowered and rendered helpless by the civilized race. Greenough's statue of Washington is not as popular as it deserves to be; but the work on which he is now engaged I am very sure will meet with a different reception.In a letter from London, I spoke of the beautiful figure of the Greek slave, by Powers. At Florence I saw in his studio, the original model, from which his workmen were cutting two copies in marble. At the same place I saw his Proserpine, an ideal bust of great sweetness and beauty, the fair chest swelling out from a circle of leaves of the acanthus. About this also the workmen were busy, and I learned that seven copies of it had been recently ordered from the hand of the artist. By its side stood the unfinished statue of Eve, with the fatal apple in her hand, an earlier work, which the world has just begun to admire. I find that connoisseurs are divided in opinion concerning the merit of Powers as a sculptor.All allow him the highest degree of skill in execution, but some deny that he has shown equal ability in his conceptions. "He is confessedly," said one of them to me, who, however, had not seen his Greek slave, "the greatest sculptor of busts in the world—equal, in fact, to any that the world ever saw; the finest heads of antiquity are not of a higher order than his." He then went on to express his regret that Powers had not confined his labors to a department in which he was so pre-eminent. I have heard that Powers, who possesses great mechanical skill, has devised several methods of his own for giving precision and perfection to the execution of his works. It may be that my unlearned eyes are dazzled by this perfection, but really I can not imagine any thing more beautiful of its kind than his statue of the Greek slave.Gray is at this moment in Florence, though he is soon coming to Rome. He has made some copies from Titian, one of which I saw. It was a Madonna and child, in which the original painting was rendered with all the fidelity of a mirror. So indisputably was it a Titian, and so free from the stiffness of a copy, that, as I looked at it, I fully sympathized with the satisfaction expressed by the artist at having attained the method of giving with ease the peculiarity of coloring which belongs to Titian's pictures.An American landscape painter of high merit is G. L. Brown, now residing at Florence. He possesses great knowledge of detail, which he knows how to keep in its place, subduing it, and rendering it subservient to the general effect. I saw in his studio two or three pictures, in which I admired his skill in copying the various forms of foliage and other objects, nor was I less pleased to see that he was not content with this sort of merit, but, in going back from the foreground, had the art of passing into that appearance of an infinity of forms and outlines which the eye meets with in nature. I could not help regretting that one who copied nature so well, should not prefer to represent her as she appears in our own fresh and glorious land, instead of living in Italy and painting Italian landscapes.To refer again to foreign artists—before I left Florence I visited the annual exhibition which had been opened in the Academy of the Fine Arts. There were one or two landscapes reminding me somewhat of Cole's manner, but greatly inferior, and one or two good portraits, and two or three indifferent historical pictures. The rest appeared to me decidedly bad; wretched landscapes; portraits, some of which were absolutely hideous, stiff, ill-colored, and full of grimace.Here at Rome, we have an American sculptor of great ability, Henry K. Brown, who is just beginning to be talked about. He is executing a statue of Ruth gleaning in the field of Boaz, of which the model has been ready for some months, and is also modelling a figure of Rebecca at the Well. When I first saw his Ruth I was greatly struck with it, but after visiting the studios of Wyatt and Gibson, and observing their sleek imitations of Grecian art, their learned and faultless statues, nymphs or goddesses or gods of the Greek mythology, it was with infinite pleasure that my eyes rested again on the figure and face of Ruth, perhaps not inferior in perfection of form, but certainly informed with a deep human feeling which I found not in their elaborate works. The artist has chosen the moment in which Ruth is addressed by Boaz as she stands among the gleaners. He quoted to me the lines of Keats, on the song of the nightingale—"Perchance the self-same song that found a pathTo the sad heart of Ruth, when sick for home,She stood in tears amid the alien's corn."She is not in tears, but her aspect is that of one who listens in sadness; her eyes are cast down, and her thoughts are of the home of her youth, in the land of Moab. Over her left arm hangs a handful of ears of wheat, which she has gathered from the ground, and her right rests on the drapery about her bosom. Nothing can be more graceful than her attitude or more expressive of melancholy sweetness and modesty than her physiognomy. One of the copies which the artist was executing—there were two of them—is designed for a gentleman in Albany. Brown will shortly, or I am greatly mistaken, achieve a high reputation among the sculptors of the time.Rosseter, an American painter, who has passed six years in Italy, is engaged on a large picture, the subject of which is taken from the same portion of Scripture history, and which is intended for the gallery of an American gentleman. It represents Naomi with her two daughters-in-law, when "Orpah kissed her, but Ruth clave unto her." The principal figures are those of the Hebrew matron and Ruth, who have made their simple preparations for their journey to the land of Israel, while Orpah is turning sorrowfully away to join a caravan of her country people. This group is well composed, and there is a fine effect of the rays of the rising sun on the mountains and rocks of Moab.At the studio of Lang, a Philadelphia artist, I saw two agreeable pictures, one of which represents a young woman whom her attendants and companions are arraying for her bridal. As a companion piece to this, but not yet finished, he had upon the easel a picture of a beautiful girl, decked for espousals of a different kind, about to take the veil, and kneeling in the midst of a crowd of friends and priests, while one of them is cutting off her glossy and flowing hair. Both pictures are designed for a Boston gentleman, but a duplicate of the first has already been painted for the King of Wirtemberg.
You would perhaps like to hear what the American artists on the continent are doing. I met with Leutze at Düsseldorf. After a sojourn of some days in Holland, in which I was obliged to talk to the Dutchmen in German and get my answers in Dutch, with but a dim apprehension of each other's meaning, as you may suppose, on both sides; after being smoked through and through like a herring, with the fumes of bad tobacco in the railway wagons, and in the diligence which took us over the long and monotonous road on the plains of the Rhine between Arnheim and Düsseldorf—after dodging as well as we were able, the English travellers, generally the most disagreeable of the travelling tribe, who swarm along the Rhine in the summer season, it was a refreshment to stop a day at Düsseldorf and take breath, and meet an American face or two. We found Leutze engaged upon a picture, the subject of which is John Knox reproving Queen Mary. It promises to be a capital work. The stern gravity of Knox, the embarrassment of the Queen, and the scorn with which the French damsels of her court regard the saucy Reformer, are extremely well expressed, and tell the story impressively.
At Düsseldorf, which is the residence of so many eminent painters, we expected to find some collection, or at least some of the best specimens, of the works of the modern German school. It was not so, however—fine pictures are painted at Düsseldorf, but they are immediately carried elsewhere. We visited the studio of Schröter—a man with humor in every line of his face, who had nothing to show us but a sketch, just prepared for the easel, of the scene in Goëthe's Faust, where Mephistophiles, in Auerbach's cellar, bores the edge of the table with a gimlet, and a stream of champagne gushes out. Köhler, an eminent artist, allowed us to see a clever painting on his easel, in a state of considerable forwardness, representing the rejoicings of the Hebrew maidens at the victory of David over Goliath. At Lessing's—a painter whose name stands in the first rank, and whom we did not find at home—we saw a sketch on which he was engaged, representing the burning of John Huss; yet it was but a sketch, a painting in embryo.
But I am wandering from the American artists. At Cologne, whither we were accompanied by Leutze, he procured us the sight of his picture of Columbus before the Council of Salamanca, one of his best. Leutze ranks high in Germany, as a young man of promise, devoting himself with great energy and earnestness to his art.
At Florence we found Greenough just returned from a year's residence at Graefenberg, whence he had brought back his wife, a patient of Priessnitz and the water cure, in florid health. He is now applying himself to the completion of the group which he has engaged to execute for the capitol at Washington. It represents an American settler, an athletic man, in a hunting shirt and cap, a graceful garb, by the way, rescuing a female and her infant from a savage who has just raised his tomahawk to murder them. Part of the group, the hunter and the Indian, is already in marble, and certainly the effect is wonderfully fine and noble. The hunter has approached his enemy unexpectedly from behind, and grasped both his arms, holding them back, in such a manner that he has no command of their muscles, even for the purpose of freeing himself. Besides the particular incident represented by the group, it may pass for an image of the aboriginal race of America overpowered and rendered helpless by the civilized race. Greenough's statue of Washington is not as popular as it deserves to be; but the work on which he is now engaged I am very sure will meet with a different reception.
In a letter from London, I spoke of the beautiful figure of the Greek slave, by Powers. At Florence I saw in his studio, the original model, from which his workmen were cutting two copies in marble. At the same place I saw his Proserpine, an ideal bust of great sweetness and beauty, the fair chest swelling out from a circle of leaves of the acanthus. About this also the workmen were busy, and I learned that seven copies of it had been recently ordered from the hand of the artist. By its side stood the unfinished statue of Eve, with the fatal apple in her hand, an earlier work, which the world has just begun to admire. I find that connoisseurs are divided in opinion concerning the merit of Powers as a sculptor.
All allow him the highest degree of skill in execution, but some deny that he has shown equal ability in his conceptions. "He is confessedly," said one of them to me, who, however, had not seen his Greek slave, "the greatest sculptor of busts in the world—equal, in fact, to any that the world ever saw; the finest heads of antiquity are not of a higher order than his." He then went on to express his regret that Powers had not confined his labors to a department in which he was so pre-eminent. I have heard that Powers, who possesses great mechanical skill, has devised several methods of his own for giving precision and perfection to the execution of his works. It may be that my unlearned eyes are dazzled by this perfection, but really I can not imagine any thing more beautiful of its kind than his statue of the Greek slave.
Gray is at this moment in Florence, though he is soon coming to Rome. He has made some copies from Titian, one of which I saw. It was a Madonna and child, in which the original painting was rendered with all the fidelity of a mirror. So indisputably was it a Titian, and so free from the stiffness of a copy, that, as I looked at it, I fully sympathized with the satisfaction expressed by the artist at having attained the method of giving with ease the peculiarity of coloring which belongs to Titian's pictures.
An American landscape painter of high merit is G. L. Brown, now residing at Florence. He possesses great knowledge of detail, which he knows how to keep in its place, subduing it, and rendering it subservient to the general effect. I saw in his studio two or three pictures, in which I admired his skill in copying the various forms of foliage and other objects, nor was I less pleased to see that he was not content with this sort of merit, but, in going back from the foreground, had the art of passing into that appearance of an infinity of forms and outlines which the eye meets with in nature. I could not help regretting that one who copied nature so well, should not prefer to represent her as she appears in our own fresh and glorious land, instead of living in Italy and painting Italian landscapes.
To refer again to foreign artists—before I left Florence I visited the annual exhibition which had been opened in the Academy of the Fine Arts. There were one or two landscapes reminding me somewhat of Cole's manner, but greatly inferior, and one or two good portraits, and two or three indifferent historical pictures. The rest appeared to me decidedly bad; wretched landscapes; portraits, some of which were absolutely hideous, stiff, ill-colored, and full of grimace.
Here at Rome, we have an American sculptor of great ability, Henry K. Brown, who is just beginning to be talked about. He is executing a statue of Ruth gleaning in the field of Boaz, of which the model has been ready for some months, and is also modelling a figure of Rebecca at the Well. When I first saw his Ruth I was greatly struck with it, but after visiting the studios of Wyatt and Gibson, and observing their sleek imitations of Grecian art, their learned and faultless statues, nymphs or goddesses or gods of the Greek mythology, it was with infinite pleasure that my eyes rested again on the figure and face of Ruth, perhaps not inferior in perfection of form, but certainly informed with a deep human feeling which I found not in their elaborate works. The artist has chosen the moment in which Ruth is addressed by Boaz as she stands among the gleaners. He quoted to me the lines of Keats, on the song of the nightingale—
"Perchance the self-same song that found a pathTo the sad heart of Ruth, when sick for home,She stood in tears amid the alien's corn."
"Perchance the self-same song that found a pathTo the sad heart of Ruth, when sick for home,She stood in tears amid the alien's corn."
She is not in tears, but her aspect is that of one who listens in sadness; her eyes are cast down, and her thoughts are of the home of her youth, in the land of Moab. Over her left arm hangs a handful of ears of wheat, which she has gathered from the ground, and her right rests on the drapery about her bosom. Nothing can be more graceful than her attitude or more expressive of melancholy sweetness and modesty than her physiognomy. One of the copies which the artist was executing—there were two of them—is designed for a gentleman in Albany. Brown will shortly, or I am greatly mistaken, achieve a high reputation among the sculptors of the time.
Rosseter, an American painter, who has passed six years in Italy, is engaged on a large picture, the subject of which is taken from the same portion of Scripture history, and which is intended for the gallery of an American gentleman. It represents Naomi with her two daughters-in-law, when "Orpah kissed her, but Ruth clave unto her." The principal figures are those of the Hebrew matron and Ruth, who have made their simple preparations for their journey to the land of Israel, while Orpah is turning sorrowfully away to join a caravan of her country people. This group is well composed, and there is a fine effect of the rays of the rising sun on the mountains and rocks of Moab.
At the studio of Lang, a Philadelphia artist, I saw two agreeable pictures, one of which represents a young woman whom her attendants and companions are arraying for her bridal. As a companion piece to this, but not yet finished, he had upon the easel a picture of a beautiful girl, decked for espousals of a different kind, about to take the veil, and kneeling in the midst of a crowd of friends and priests, while one of them is cutting off her glossy and flowing hair. Both pictures are designed for a Boston gentleman, but a duplicate of the first has already been painted for the King of Wirtemberg.