At this period Duerer was also engaged in experimenting upon the art of copper-plate engraving, in which he restricted himself mainly to reproducing copies of the works of other artists, among them those of Jacopo de Barbari, a painter of the Italian school, who was residing in Nuremberg, and who among other things gave the great artist instruction in plastic anatomy. The influence of his instructor is plain, when we compare engravings executed about 1504 with those published at a previous date, and especially when we examine his design of the Passion of our Lord painted in white upon a green ground, commonly known as "The Green Passion," which is treasured in the Albertina at Prague. He also during these twelve years finished seven of the twelve great wood-cuts illustrating the passion, and sixteen of the twenty cuts which compose the series known as "The Life of the Virgin." The activities of Duerer in Nuremberg were temporarily interrupted by a journey to Italy, which he undertook in the fall of the year 1505. What the immediate occasion for undertaking this journey may have been is not plain, though it seems most likely that one of his objects was to enable him to recuperate from the effects of a protracted illness, from which he had suffered during the summer of this year, and also incidentally to secure a market for his wares in Venice, the commercial relationships of which with Nuremberg were very close at this period. A German colony, composed largely of Nuremberg factors and merchants, was located at this time in Venice, and they had secured the privilege of dedicating a great painting in the church of St. Bartholomew. The commission for the execution of this painting was secured by Duerer. It represents the adoration of the Virgin, but has been commonly known under the name of "The Feast of the Rose Garlands." After having undergone many vicissitudes, it is preserved to-day in a highly mutilated condition in the monastery of Strachow, near Prague. Duerer's stay in Venice was signalized not only by the production of this painting, but of three or four other notable works which still exist, and which reflect the great influence upon him of the Italian school of painting, with which he had attained familiarity. His stay in Venice lasted about a year. In the fall of 1506, he returned to Nuremberg, and there remained for the next fourteen years, engaged in the practice of his art. These years were years of success and prosperity. His name and fame had spread over the whole of Europe, and the greatest artists of the day were glad to do him homage. Raphael said of him, when contemplating some of his designs, "Truly this man would have surpassed us all, if he had the masterpieces of ancient art constantly before his eyes as we have." A friendly correspondence was maintained between the immortal Italian and his German contemporary, and in his own country, all men, from the emperor to the peasant, delighted to do honor to his genius, the products of which were found alike in church and palace, and through his printed designs in the homes of the humble poor.

The proud old imperial city of Nuremberg had gathered within its battlemented walls a multitude of men who were distinguished not only for their commercial enterprise and wealth, but many of whom were the exponents of the literary and artistic culture of the time. Among the men with whom Duerer found congenial companionship were Adam Krafft, the sculptor; Veit Stoss, whose exquisite carvings in wood may reflect in some measure in the wild luxuriance of the imagination which they display, the restless, "dare-devil" spirit with which his biographers invest him; Peter Vischer, the bronze founder; and last but not least. Hans Sachs, the cobbler poet, whose quaint rhymes are a source of delight to this day, and were a mighty force in the great work of the Reformation, by which the fetters of mediaeval traditions and ecclesiastical abuse were thrown off by the German people.

Of the personal appearance of Duerer at this time, we are not left in ignorance. A portrait of himself from his own hands has been preserved and is well known. His features reveal refinement and great intellectuality, united with grace, and his attire shows that he was not oblivious to matters of personal adornment. After the fashion of the time, his hair was worn in long and graceful ringlets, which fell in heavy masses about his shoulders.

The first six years which followed his return from Venice were almost wholly given to painting, and his productions give evidence of the fact that he had dismissed from his employment the retinue of assistants and apprentices, whom he had employed in his earlier years. From this period date most of his great masterpieces, which are still preserved, among them the "Adam and Eve," in the Pitti Palace; the "Ten Thousand Martyrs of Nicomedia," in the Imperial Gallery, at Vienna; the "Adoration of the Trinity," at the Belvedere, in Vienna; and "The Assumption of the Virgin," the original of which was destroyed by fire more than three hundred years ago, but of which a good copy is preserved at Frankfort. To this period belong the portraits of Charlemagne and of the Emperor Sigismund, which are preserved in the National German Museum at Nuremberg.



But while prosecuting the work of the painter, he did not neglect the art of the engraver, and in 1511, brought out in complete form his great book of woodcuts in folio, and began to develop that marvellous art of etching which is indissolubly connected with his name. Among the products of the etcher's needle which attest his activity in this direction are those masterpieces which have for centuries been at once the delight and the puzzle of artistic minds: the "Melancholia," "The Knight and the Devil," and "St. Jerome in his Cell." The most reasonable explanation of these weird fancies is that they were intended to represent in allegorical style the three temperaments—the melancholic, the sanguine, and the phlegmatic. The Diet of Augsburg, which was convened in 1518, gave Duerer a passing opportunity to depict the lineaments of the Emperor Maximilian, who gave him several sittings, and who manifested great interest in the painter. The death of the emperor in the following year, the outbreak of an epidemic in Nuremberg, together with the coronation of Charles V. at Aix-la-Chapelle, led Duerer to undertake a journey to the Low Countries, in which he was accompanied by his faithful wife. He was present at the coronation and was one of the distinguished civilians whose appearance added dignity to the occasion. His diary, in which he recounts his experiences upon this journey, and which is accompanied by a multitude of wayside sketches, is still preserved, and contains, besides the dry entries of his current expenditures, most entertaining allusions to the distinguished people whom he met, and who received him with the utmost cordiality. Intermingled with these narrative details are outbursts of feeling, which are provoked by passing political and ecclesiastical events, in which he took a profound interest, though he never appears to have committed himself with positive openness to the party of reform. His sympathies are, however, clearly shown by his writings, as well as by his works of art, to have been with the Reformers, and he lived on terms of intimacy with Erasmus and Melancthon, of both of whom we have portraits from his hand.

Duerer returned from the Netherlands in 1521, about the middle of July, and the remaining years of his life were spent in the prosecution of the art of the engraver, in painting, and in the effort to elucidate the sciences of perspective, geometry, and fortification, upon all of which he has left treatises.

His labors, though they had not brought with them great wealth, had secured for him a competency, and the latter years of his life were devoted more and more to labors which, while dignified, did not tend to add greatly to his already magnificent reputation. These labors were prosecuted in spite of ever-failing health. While in the Netherlands he had contracted a malarial fever, the effects of which clung to him, in spite of the best treatment which could be secured, and left him the wreck of his former self. On April 6, 1528, death suddenly overtook him. There was not even time to summon his friends to his side before his spirit had fled. The city which had been his home from childhood was filled with mourning. They took up his remains and gently laid them to rest in the burial vault of his wife's family in the graveyard of the Church of St. John, where the setting sun pours its last glowing beams at evening over the low Franconian hill-tops. The vault has since been changed and the last resting-place of the remains of the Raphael of the North is a lowly mound, reverently approached by all who visit the quaint imperial city, upon which is a slab, covered with a bronze tablet upon which are the words:

Quicquid Alberti Dureri Mortale Fuit Sub Hoc Conditum Tumulo. Emigravit VIII Idus Aprilis, MDXXVIIL

"Emigravit is the inscription on the tombstone where he lies; Dead he is not, but departed—for the artist never dies. Fairer seems the ancient city, and the sunshine seems more fair, That he once has trod its pavement, that he once has breathed its air!"

[Signature of the author.]



RUBENS

By Mrs. LEE

(1577-1640)



"It is just one hundred and twenty years to-day," said a young artist to his friend, as he stood in the hall of St. Mark, at Venice, contemplating the noble works of Titian. "Time, the destroyer, has here stayed his hand; the colors are as vivid and as fresh as if they were laid on but yesterday. Would that my old friend and master, Otho Venius, was here! At least I will carry back to Antwerp that in my coloring which shall prove to him that I have not played truant to the art."

"Just one hundred and twenty years," repeated he, "since Titian was born. Venice was then in its glory, but now it is all falling; its churches and palaces are crumbling to dust, its commerce interrupted. The republic continually harassed by the Porte, and obliged to call on foreign aid; depressed by her internal despotism, her council of ten, and state inquisitors; her decline, though gradual, is sure; yet the splendor of her arts remains, and the genius of Titian, her favorite son, is yet in the bloom and brilliancy of youth!"

Such was the enthusiastic exclamation of Rubens, as he contemplated those paintings which had brought him from Antwerp. How many gifted minds spoke to him from the noble works which were before him! The three Bellinis, the founders of the Venetian school; Giorgione, Titian, and Tintoretto. Then Paolo Veronese, who, though born at Verona, in 1537, adopted Venice as his home, and became the fellow-artist of Tintoretto, and the disciple of Titian. Pordenone, too, who viewed Titian as a rival and an enemy. Palma the young, and Palma the old, born in 1548, and the Bassanos, who died near 1627.

All these were present to the eye of Rubens, their genius embodied on the canvas in the halls of St. Mark. "These," he exclaimed, "have formed the Venetian school, and these shall be my study!"

From this time, the young artist might daily be seen with his sheets of white paper, and his pencil in his hand. A few strokes preserved the outline which his memory filled up; and by an intuitive glance, his genius understood and appropriated every signal beauty.

In Venice he became acquainted with the Archduke Albert, who introduced him to the Duke of Mantua, whither he went for the purpose of studying the works of Julio Romano. From thence he proceeded to Rome; here Raphael was his model, and Michael Angelo his wonder. He devoted himself to painting with a fervor that belongs only to genius; and he soon proved that, whatever he gained by ancient study, the originality of his own conceptions would still remain and appear. To the vivid and splendid coloring of the Venetian school, he was perhaps more indebted than to any other model. The affectionate and constant intercourse, by letters, that subsisted between Rubens and his mother, made his long residence in Italy one of pleasure. At Rome he was employed to adorn, by his paintings, the Church of Santa Croce, and also the "Chiesa Nova."

Rubens had been originally destined by his mother for one of the learned professions. His father was born at Antwerp, and held the honorable office of councillor of state. When the civil war broke out he repaired to Cologne, where his son, Peter Paul Rubens, was born. He died soon after his return to Antwerp, and left his property much diminished from losses occasioned by the civil war. The mother of Rubens put him early to the best schools, where he was initiated in learning and discovered a taste for belles-lettres; but all the intervals of necessary study were devoted to drawing. His mother perceiving it, determined to indulge his inclination, and placed him in the studio of Van Noort.

The correct taste of the scholar soon led him to perceive that he could not adopt this artist's style, and he became the pupil of Otho Venius. Similarity of thought and feeling united them closely, and it was with true disinterestedness that the master urged his pupil to quit his confined circle and repair to Italy, the great school of art.

Time flew rapidly with Rubens, while engaged in his beloved and honorable pursuit; he looked forward to the period when he might return to Antwerp and place his mother in her former affluence. Nearly seven years had passed since he took leave of her. Of late he thought her letters had been less cheerful; she spoke of her declining health, of her earnest hope that she might live to embrace him once more. This hint was enough for his affectionate heart. He immediately broke off all his engagements and prepared to return. Everyone knows what impatience is created when one first begins to contemplate home, after a long absence, and the heart is turned toward it. "Seven years absent?" wrote Rubens to his mother, "how is it possible I have lived so long away from you? It is too long; henceforth I will devote myself to your happiness. Antwerp shall be my future residence. I have acquired a taste for horticulture; our little garden shall be enlarged and cultivated, and our home will be a paradise."

What are human anticipations and projects! the day before he was to quit Rome he received a letter informing him that his mother was very ill, and begging him to return with all speed. With breathless haste he hurried back, without sleep or rest. When he reached the city he dared not make any inquiries. At length he stood before the paternal mansion; he saw the gloomy tiles and half-closed window-shutters. It was the fall of the trees. He observed people going in and out at the door; to speak was impossible. At length he rushed in and heard the appalling sentence, "Too late," a sentence that often strikes desolation to the human heart. His mother had expired that morning.

While he was struggling with the bitterness of sorrow, he met with Elizabeth Brants. There was something in the tone of her voice which infused tranquillity into his mind, and affection came in a new form to assuage his loss. She was the "ladye of his love," and afterward his wife. He built a magnificent house at Antwerp, with a saloon in form of a rotunda, which he ornamented and enriched with antique statues, busts, vases, and pictures by the most celebrated painters. Thus surrounded by the gems of art, he devoted himself to the execution of works which were the pride of his native country, and caused honors and wealth to be heaped upon him.

There were those found who could not endure the splendor of his success; these calumniated. There were others who tried to draw him into visionary speculations. A chemist offered him a share of his laboratory, to join in his search for the philosopher's stone. He carried the visionary to his painting-room, and said, "The offer comes too late. You see I have found out the art of making gold by my palette and pencils."

Rubens was now at the height of prosperity and happiness, a dangerous eminence, and one on which few are permitted to rest. A second time his heart was pierced with sorrow: he lost his young wife, Elizabeth, a few years after their union. Deep as was his sorrow, he had yet resolution enough to feel the necessity of exertion. He left the place which constantly reminded him of domestic enjoyment, the memory of which contrasted so sadly with the present silence and solitude, and travelled for some time in Holland. After his return, he received a commission from Mary de Medici, of France, to adorn the palace of the Luxembourg. He executed for this purpose a number of paintings at Antwerp, and instructed several pupils in his art.

At this time Rubens devoted himself wholly to painting, and scarcely allowed himself time for recreation. He considered it one of the most effectual means of instruction, to allow his pupils to observe his method of using his paints. He therefore had them with him while he worked on his large pictures. Teniers, Snyders, Jordaens, and Vandyke were among his pupils—all names well known.

When Rubens had executed the commission given him by Mary de Medici, wife of Henry IV., he repaired to Paris to arrange his pictures at the Luxembourg palace, and there painted two more, and likewise the galleries, representing passages of her life.

Here he became acquainted with the Duke of Buckingham, as that nobleman was on his way to Madrid with Prince Charles. On his return to Antwerp, he was summoned to the presence of the Infanta Isabella, who had, through Buckingham, become interested in his character. She thought him worthy of a political mission to the court of Madrid, where he was most graciously received by Philip. While at Madrid he painted four pictures for the convent of the Carmelites, and a fine portrait of the king on horseback, with many other pictures; for these extraordinary productions he was richly rewarded, received the honor of knighthood, and was presented with the golden key.

While in Spain, Don John, Duke of Braganza, who was afterward king of Portugal, sent and invited him to visit him at Villa Vitiosa, the place of his residence. Rubens, perhaps, might at this time have been a little dazzled with his uncommon elevation. He was now Sir Paul and celebrated all over Europe. It was proper he should make the visit as one person of high rank visits another. His preparations were great to appear in a becoming style, and not to shame his noble host. At length the morning arrived, and, attended by a numerous train of courteous friends and hired attendants, the long cavalcade began the journey. When not far distant from Villa Vitiosa, Rubens learned that Don John had sent an embassy to meet him. Such an honor had seldom been accorded to a private gentleman, and Rubens schooled himself to receive it with suitable humility and becoming dignity.

He put up at a little distance from Villa Vitiosa, awaiting the arrival of the embassy; finally it came, in the form of a single gentleman, who civilly told him that the duke, his master, had been obliged to leave home on business that could not be dispensed with, and therefore must deny himself the pleasure of the visit; but as he had probably been at some extra expense in coming so far, he begged him to accept of fifty pistoles as a remuneration.

Rubens refused the pistoles, and could not forbear adding that he had "brought two thousand along with him, which he had meant to spend at his court during the fifteen days he was to spend there."

The truth was, that when Don John was informed that Rubens was coming in the style of a prince to see him, it was wholly foreign to his plan; he was a great lover of painting, and had wished to see him as an artist. He therefore determined to prevent the visit.

The second marriage of Rubens, with Helena Forman, was, no less than the first, one of affection; she had great beauty, and became a model for his pencil. His favor with the great continued. Mary de Medici visited him at his own home more than once; and the Infanta Isabella was so much satisfied with his mission in Spain, that she sent him to England, to sound the disposition of the government on the subject of a peace.

Rubens disclosed in this embassy his diplomatic talents; he first appeared there in his character of artist, and insensibly won upon the confidence of Charles. The king requested him to paint the ceiling of the banqueting-house at Whitehall. While he was employed upon it, Charles frequently visited him and criticised the work. Rubens, very naturally introducing the subject, and finding, from the tenor of his conversation, that he was by no means averse to a peace with Spain, at length produced his credentials. The king received his mission most graciously, and Rubens returned to the Netherlands crowned with honors and success.

He had passed his fiftieth year when his health began to fail, and he was attacked with a severe fit of the gout. Those who have witnessed the irritation attendant upon that disorder will appreciate the perfect harmony and gentleness that existed between Rubens and his wife. With untiring tenderness she devoted herself to him, and was ingenious in devising alleviations and comforts.

The severe attacks of Rubens' disorder debilitated his frame, yet he continued painting at his easel almost to the last; and, amid suffering and sickness, never failed in giving the energy of intellect to his pictures. He died at the age of sixty-three, in the year 1640, leaving great wealth. The pomp and circumstance of funeral rite can only be of consequence as showing the estimation in which a departed citizen is held. Public funeral honors were awarded, and men of every rank were eager to manifest their respect to his memory. He was buried in the Church of St. James, at Antwerp, under the altar of his private chapel, which was decorated with one of his own noble pictures.



REMBRANDT[4]

[Footnote 4: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]

By ELIZABETH ROBINS PENNELL

(1606-1669)



A heretic in art Rembrandt was to many of his Dutch contemporaries; to us, he is the master, supreme alike in genius and accomplishment. Because, as time went on, he broke completely from tradition and in his work gave full play to his originality, his pictures were looked at askance; because he chose to live his own life, indifferent to accepted conventions, he himself was misunderstood. It was his cruel fate to enjoy prosperity and popularity in his earlier years, only to meet with neglect in his old age. But this he felt probably less than other men; he was not a courtier, with Velasquez, nor vowed to worldly success, with Rubens. His pleasure and his reward, he found in his work. So long as easel and canvas, brushes and paints were left to him, he demanded no greater happiness.



In Leyden, a town already made famous by another master, Lucas van Leyden, Rembrandt was born in 1606; though this date has been disputed, some authorities suggesting 1607, others, 1608. His family were respectable, if not distinguished, burghers, his father, Harmen Gerritszoon, being a miller by trade, his mother, Neeltjen Willems of Zuitbroeck, the daughter of a baker. Not until early in the seventeenth century did permanent surnames become common among Dutchmen; hitherto children had been given their father's, in addition to their own Christian name; Rembrandt for many years was known as Rembrandt Harmenzoon, or the son of Harmen. But the miller, to be in the growing fashion, had called himself Van Ryn—of the Rhine—and thus, later on, Rembrandt also signed himself. Harmen was well-to-do; he owned houses in Leyden, and beyond the walls, gardens, and fields, and the mill where Rembrandt, because he once drew a mill, was supposed to have been born. But there was no reason for Neeltjen to move from a comfortable house in town into such rustic quarters, and it is more likely that Rembrandt's birthplace was the house pointed out in the Nordeinde Street. A commercial career had been chosen for his four older brothers. But Harmen, his means allowing the luxury, decided to make of his fifth son a man of letters and learning, and Rembrandt was sent to the University of Leyden. That letters, however, had small charm for him, was clear from the first. Better than his books he loved the engravings of Swanenburch, better still, the pictures of Lucas van Leyden, which he could look at to his heart's content on gala days, when the Town Hall, where they hung, was thrown open to the public. His hours of study were less profitable than his hours of recreation when he rambled in the country, through his father's estate, and, sometimes as far as the sea, a sketch-book, the chances are, for sole companion. Certainly, by the time he was fifteen, so strong were the proofs of his indifference to the classics and his love for art, that his father, sacrificing his own ambitions, allowed Rembrandt to leave the university for the studio of Van Swanenburch. From this day forth, his life's history is told in the single word—work; his indeed was the genius of industry.

Van Swanenburch had studied in Italy; but his own painting, to judge by the few examples still in existence, was entirely commonplace. Three years were more than enough to be passed under his tuition. At the end of the third, Rembrandt went to Amsterdam, and there entered the studio of Lastman. His second master also had studied in Italy, and also was a painter of mediocre talent, popular in his own times—the Apelles of the day, he was called—but remembered now chiefly because of his relations to his pupil. From the first, Rembrandt, even if obliged to paint the stock subjects of the day, was determined to treat them in his own way, and not to follow set forms that happened to be adopted in the schools. He used real men and women for models, and painted them as he saw them, not as he was bidden to look at them through his teacher's spectacles. In six months he had learned at least one thing, that Lastman had nothing more to teach him. The man of genius must ever be his own master, though he remain the hard-working student all his days. Back to Leyden and to his father's house, Rembrandt had not returned to lead a life of idleness. He worked tremendously in these early years. Even needed models he found in the members of his family; he has made the face of his mother as familiar as that of a friend; his own, with the heavy features, the thick, bushy hair, the small intelligent eyes, between them the vertical line, fast deepening on the fine forehead, he drew and etched and painted, again and again. More elaborate compositions he also undertook. As in his maturity, it was to the Bible he turned for suggestions: Saint Paul in prison, Samson and Delilah, the Presentation in the Temple—these were the themes then in vogue which he preferred, rendering them with the realism which distinguished his later, more famous Samsons and Abrahams and Christs, making them the motive for a fine arrangement of color, for a striking study of light and shadow. A pleasant picture one can fancy of his life at this period; he was with his own people, for whom his love was tender; busy with brush, pencil, and etching-needle; he was strengthening his powers of observation, developing and perfecting his style, occasionally producing work that won for him renown in Leyden; and, gradually, he gathered round him a small group of earnest fellow-workers, chief among them Lievens, Gerard Dou, and Van Vliet, the last two, though but slightly his juniors, looking up to him as master. These were the years of his true apprenticeship.

Leyden, however, was not the best place for a young painter who had his fortunes to make. It was essentially a university town; interest was concentrated upon letters; art was but of secondary consideration. It was different in Amsterdam, the great commercial centre of Holland. There, all was life and activity and progress; there, was money to be spent, and the liberal patron willing to lavish it upon the artist. Holland just then was in the first flush of prosperity and patriotism, following upon her virtual independence from Spain. Not a citizen but glowed with self-respect at the thought of the victory he had, in one way or another, helped to win; the state, as represented by the good burghers, was supreme in every man's mind. It was natural that individuals and corporations alike should seek to immortalize their greatness by means of the painter's art, which, in Holland, had long since ceased to be a monopoly of the church. Hence the age became essentially one of portrait-painting. Many were the painters whose portraits had already achieved distinction. De Keyser was busy in Amsterdam; a far greater genius, Franz Hals, but fifteen years Rembrandt's senior, was creating his masterpieces in The Hague and Harlem. It was as inevitable that Rembrandt should turn to portraiture, as that he should find commissions less numerous in Leyden than in Amsterdam. Often in the latter town his services were required; so often, indeed, that at last, about 1631, when he was just twenty-five, he settled there permanently and set up a studio of his own.

Success was his from the start. Sitter after sitter sought him out in his house on the Bloemgracht; the most distinguished men in the town hastened to patronize him. His work was liked by the burghers whom he painted, its strength was felt by artists, whose canvases soon showed its influence. Admirers crowded to his studio. He had not been in Amsterdam a twelvemonth when, before he was yet twenty-six, he was entrusted with an order of more than usual importance. This was the portrait of Dr. Tulp and his class of surgeons: the famous "Lesson in Anatomy" now in the Gallery at The Hague. The subject at the time was very popular. Many artists, De Keyser among others, had already, in painting prominent surgeons, placed them around the subject they were dissecting; indeed, this was the arrangement insisted upon by the surgeons themselves, and, as there seems to have been no limit to their vanity, "Lessons in Anatomy" were almost as plentiful in Holland as "Madonnas" in Umbria. Rembrandt in his composition was simply adhering to accepted tradition. It is true that he instilled life into a group hitherto, on other painters' canvases, stiff and perfunctory; but, though the picture was a wonderful production for a man of his years, it is not to be ranked with his greatest work.

Commissions now poured in still faster. It was at this time he painted several of his best known portraits: the "Master Shipbuilder and his Wife," at present in Buckingham Palace; that simply marvellous old woman at the National Gallery in London, made familiar to everyone by countless photographs and other reproductions; the man in ruff and woman in coif at the Brunswick Museum; and a score of others scarce less important. With increasing popularity, he was able to command his own prices, so that only a part of his time was it necessary for him to devote to the portraits which were his chief source of income. During the leisure he reserved, he painted biblical subjects, ever his delight, and made etchings and drawings, today the most prized treasures in the world's great galleries. As in Leyden, he drew about him students; a few, notably Ferdinand Bol and Christophe Paudiss, destined, in their turn, to gain name and fame. Indifferent to social claims and honors—an indifference the burghers, his patrons, found it hard to forgive, his one amusement was in collecting pictures and engravings, old stuffs and jewels, and every kind of bric-a-brac, until his house in Amsterdam was a veritable museum. This amusement later was to cost him dear.

Four years after the "Lesson in Anatomy" was painted, when he was at the height of prosperity, in 1634, he married Saskia van Uylenborch, the Saskia of so many an etching and picture. She was of a good Frisian family, and brought with her a dowry of no mean proportions. Rembrandt's marriage made small changes in his way of living. Into the society, so ready to receive him, he never went, not even now that he had a wife to introduce. It bored him, and he was no toady to waste his time fawning upon possible patrons. "When I desire to rest my spirit, I do not seek honors, but liberty," was his explanation. The companionship of artists he always welcomed; sometimes he visited the humbler burghers, whose ways were as simple as his own; sometimes he sought the humblest classes of all, because of their picturesqueness, and his contemporaries took him to task for his perverted taste for low company. The truth is that always he devoted himself solely and wholly to his art; the only difference, once he was married, was that, when he sat at his easel all day or over his copperplate, and sketchbook all evening, Saskia was with him. She shared all his interests, all his ambitions; she had no will but his. During his working hours, she was his model, obedient to his call. She never tired of posing for him, nor he of painting her now simply as Saskia, now as Delilah feasting with Samson, as Susanna surprised by the Elders, as the Jewish Betrothed at her toilet. Sometimes he represented her alone, sometimes with himself at her side; once, in the famous Dresden portrait, on his knee, as if to proclaim the love they bore for one another. And he, who could render faithfully the ways of the beggar, the austere black of the burgher, for himself and Saskia found no masquerading too gay or extravagant. In inventing costumes for their own portraits, he gave his exuberant fancy free play: in gorgeous embroidered robes, waving plumes, and priceless gems they arrayed themselves, until even the resources of his collection were exhausted: the same rich mantle, the same jewels appear, and reappear in picture after picture.

Rembrandt's short married years were happy, though not without their sorrows. Of Saskia's five children, four died in infancy; the fifth, Titus, was not a year old when, in 1642, the end came for Saskia, and Rembrandt, who had just reached his thirty-seventh year, was left in his great house alone with an infant son and his pupils. Her confidence in him is shown by her will, in which the inheritance of Titus is left in the father's charge, though already Rembrandt's affairs must have given signs of coming complications.



Much of his best work remained to be done, but after Saskia's death his worldly fortunes and his popularity never again touched such high-water mark. The reason for this is not far to seek. During all these years, Rembrandt's powers had matured, his methods broadened, and his individuality strengthened. With each new canvas, his originality became more conspicuous. It was not only that the world of nature, and not imagination, supplied his models. Many of the Dutch painters now were no less realists than he. It was not only that he solved certain problems of chiaro oscuro, there were men, like Lievens, who were as eager as he in the study of light and shadow. But Rembrandt brought to his every experiment an independence that startled the average man. He painted well because he saw well. If no one else saw things as he did, the loss was theirs. But he paid for his keener vision; because he did not paint like other artists, his methods were mistrusted. To be misunderstood is the penalty of genius. The picture which, of all his work, is now the most famous, marks the turn in the tide of his affairs. Shortly before Saskia's death, he had been commissioned to paint a portrait group of Banning Cock and the military company which he commanded. These portrait groups of the military corporations rivalled in popularity the "Lessons in Anatomy." Each member, or officer, paid to be included in the composition, and, as a rule, a stiff, formal picture, with each individual posed as for a photograph, was the result. Rembrandt, apparently, was in nowise restricted when he undertook the work for Banning Cock, and so, instead of the stupid, hackneyed arrangement, he made of the portrait of the company a picture of armed men marching forth to beating of drums and waving of banners, "The Night Watch," as it must ever be known—more accurately, "The Sortie of the Company of Banning Cock"—now in the Ryks Museum of Amsterdam. With the men for whom it was painted, it proved a failure. The grouping, the arrangement displeased them. Many of the company were left in deep shadow, which was not the privilege for which they had agreed to pay good money. Rembrandt was not the man to compromise. After this many burghers, who cared much for themselves and their own faces, and not in the least for art, were afraid to entrust their portraits to him lest their importance might be sacrificed to the painter's effects. Certain it is that six years later, in 1648, when the independence of Holland was formally recognized at the Congress of Westphalia, though Terburg and Van der Heist celebrated the event on canvas, Rembrandt's services were not secured. Good friends were left to him—men of intelligence who appreciated his strong individuality and the great originality of his work. Banning Cock himself was not among the discontented. A few leading citizens, like Dr. Tulp and the Burgomeister Six, were ever his devoted patrons. Artists still gathered about him; pupils still crowded to his studio; Nicolas Maes, De Gelder, Kneller among them. Many of his finest portraits—those of Hendrickje Stoffels, of his son, of himself in his old age, of the Burgomeister Six, above all, his masterpiece, "The Syndics of the Guild of Clothmakers," now in Amsterdam; many of his finest etchings, the little landscapes, the famous "Hundred Guilder Print," "Christ Healing the Sick," belong to this later period. There was no falling off, but rather an increase, in his powers, despite the clouds that darkened his years of middle age.

Of these clouds, the darkest was due to his financial troubles. Rembrandt had made large sums of money; Saskia's dowry had been by no means small. But he also spent lavishly. He had absolutely no business capacity. Once he was accused of miserliness; that he would at times lunch on dry bread and a herring served as reproach against him; there was a story current that his pupils would drop bits of paper painted to look like money in order to see him stoop to pick them up. Both charges are too foolish to answer seriously. When he was at work, it mattered little to him what he ate, so that he was not disturbed; who would not stoop to pick up coins apparently scattered on the floor? The money he devoted to his collection is sufficient to show how small a fancy he had for hoarding; upon it a princely fortune had been squandered. To his own people in Leyden, when times were hard, he had not been slow to hold out a generous hand. It was because he was not enough of a miser, because he gave too little heed to business matters, that difficulties at length overwhelmed him. It is too sad a story to tell in detail. Perhaps the beginning was when he bought a house for which he had not the ready money to pay, and borrowed a large sum for the purpose. More and more involved became his affairs. In time his creditors grew clamorous, and at length the blow fell when, in 1657, he was declared bankrupt. The collection of years, the embroidered mantles and draperies, the jewels with which Saskia had been so gayly decked, the plumes and furs and gorgeous robes in which he himself had masqueraded, the armor and plate, the engravings and pictures which had filled his house—all were sold. He, the master, had, at the age of fifty-one, to begin life anew as if he were still but the apprentice.

In the midst of his troubles and losses, Hendrickje Stoffels, whose portrait hangs in the Louvre, was the friend who cheered and comforted him. She had been his servant; afterward she lived with him as his wife, though legally they were not married. To Titus, as to her own children, she was ever a tender mother, and Titus, in return, seems to have loved her no less well. In the end, they together took Rembrandt's business interests into their own hands, the son, probably, using his inheritance in the enterprise. Renting a house in their own name, they became his print and picture dealers.

But as time went on, Rembrandt's work brought lower and lower prices, and he, himself, the last two years of his life, was almost forgotten. Though he still lived in Amsterdam, the town from which he had so seldom journeyed, and then never far, he had fallen into such obscurity, that report now established him in Stockholm as painter to the King of Sweden, now in Hull, or Yarmouth. In his own family nothing but sorrow was in store for him. Hendrickje died, probably about 1664, and he was once more alone; and next he lost Titus, who then had been married but a few short months.

Fortunately for Rembrandt, he did not long survive them. In 1669, at the age of sixty-two, his release came. He was buried in the West Church, quietly and simply. Thirteen florins his funeral cost, and even this small expense had to be met by his daughter-in-law. When an inventory of his possessions was taken, these were found to consist of nothing but his own wardrobe and his painter's tools.

But better than a mere fortune, his work he left as an heirloom for all time; his drawings, not the least among them without the stamp of his genius; his prints, still unsurpassed, though it was he who first developed the possibilities of etching; his pictures, "painted with light," as Fromentin has said. His subjects he may have borrowed from the fashions and traditions of the time; certain mannerisms of technique and arrangement his pupils may have copied. But for all that, his work belongs to no special school or group; like all the world's great masterpieces, whether produced in Spain by a Velasquez, in Venice by a Titian, in England by a Whistler, it stands alone and supreme.

[Signature of the author.]



WILLIAM HOGARTH

(1697-1764)



"I was born," says Hogarth, in his Memoirs of himself, "in the city of London, November 10, 1697. My father's pen, like that of many authors, did not enable him to do more than put me in a way of shifting for myself. As I had naturally a good eye and a fondness for drawing, shows of all sorts gave me uncommon pleasure when an infant; and mimicry, common to all children, was remarkable in me. An early access to a neighboring painter drew my attention from play, and I was, at every possible opportunity, employed in making drawings. I picked up an acquaintance of the same turn, and soon learned to draw the alphabet with great correctness. My exercises when at school were more remarkable for the ornaments which adorned them than for the exercise itself. In the former I soon found that blockheads with better memories could much surpass me, but for the latter I was particularly distinguished."

To this account of Hogarth's childhood we have only to add that his father, an enthusiastic and laborious scholar, who, like many of his craft, owed little to the favor of fortune, consulted these indications of talent as well as his means would allow, and bound his son apprentice to a silver-plate engraver. But Hogarth aspired after something higher than drawing ciphers and coats-of-arms; and before the expiration of his indentures he had made himself a good draughtsman, and obtained considerable knowledge of coloring. It was his ambition to become distinguished as an artist; and not content with being the mere copier of other men's productions, he sought to combine the functions of the painter with those of the engraver, and to gain the power of delineating his own ideas and the fruits of his acute observation. He has himself explained the nature of his views in a passage which is worth attention:

"Many reasons led me to wish that I could find the shorter path—fix forms and characters in my mind—and instead of copying the lines, try to read the language, and, if possible, find the grammar of the art by bringing into one focus the various observations I have made, and then trying by my power on the canvas how far my plan enabled me to combine and apply them to practice. For this purpose I considered what various ways, and to what different purposes, the memory might be applied, and fell upon one most suitable to my situation and idle disposition; laying it down first as an axiom, that he who could by any means acquire and retain in his memory perfect ideas of the subjects he meant to draw, would have as clear a knowledge of the figure as a man who can write freely hath of the twenty-five letters of the alphabet and their infinite combinations." Acting on these principles, he improved, by constant exercise, his natural powers of observation and recollection. We find him roaming through the country, now at Yarmouth and again at Queenborough, sketching everywhere. In his rambles among the motley scenes of London he was ever on the watch for striking features or incidents; and not trusting entirely to memory, he was accustomed, when any face struck him as being peculiarly grotesque or expressive, to sketch it on his thumb-nail, to be treasured up on paper at his return home.

For some time after the expiration of his apprenticeship, Hogarth continued to practise the trade to which he was bred; and his shop-bills, coats-of-arms, engravings upon tankards, etc., have been collected with an eagerness quite disproportionate to their value. Soon he procured employment in furnishing frontispieces and designs for the booksellers. The most remarkable of these are the plates to an edition of "Hudibras," published in 1726; but even these are of no distinguished merit. About 1728 he began to seek employment as a portrait-painter. Most of his performances were small family pictures, containing several figures, which he calls "Conversation Pieces," from twelve to fifteen inches high. These for a time were very popular, and his practice was considerable, as his price was low. His life-size portraits are few; the most remarkable are that of Captain Coram, in the "Foundling Hospital," and that of Garrick as King Richard III., which is reproduced in the present volume. But his practice as a portrait-painter was not lucrative, nor his popularity lasting. Although many of his likenesses were strong and characteristic, in the representation of beauty, elegance, and high-breeding he was little skilled. The nature of the artist was as uncourtly as his pencil. When Hogarth obtained employment and eminence of another sort through his wonderful prints, he abandoned portrait-painting, with a growl at the jealousy of his professional brethren; and the vanity and blindness of the public.

March 25, 1729, Hogarth contracted a stolen marriage with the only daughter of the once fashionable painter, Sir James Thornhill. The father, for some time implacable, relented at last; and the reconciliation, it is said, was much forwarded by his admiration of the "Harlot's Progress," a series of six prints, commenced in 1731 and published in 1734. The novelty as well as merit of this series of prints won for them extraordinary popularity; and their success encouraged Hogarth to undertake a similar history of the "Rake's Progress," in eight prints, which appeared in 1735. The third, and perhaps the most popular, as it is the least objectionable of these pictorial novels, "Marriage a la Mode," was not engraved till 1745.



The merits of these prints were sufficiently intelligible to the public: their originality and boldness of design, the force and freedom of their execution, rough as it is, won for them an extensive popularity and a rapid and continued sale. The "Harlot's Progress" was the most eminently successful, from its novelty rather than from its superior excellence. Twelve hundred subscribers' names were entered for it; it was dramatized in several forms; and we may note, in illustration of the difference of past and present manners, that fan-mounts were engraved containing miniature copies of the six plates. The merits of the pictures were less obvious to the few who could afford to spend large sums on works of art, and Hogarth, too proud to let them go for prices much below the value which he put upon them, waited for a long time, and waited in vain, for a purchaser. At last he determined to commit them to public sale; but instead of the common method of auction, he devised a new and complex plan with the intention of excluding picture-dealers, and obliging men of rank and wealth who wished to purchase to judge and bid for themselves. The scheme failed, as might have been expected. Nineteen of Hogarth's best pictures, the "Harlot's Progress," the "Rake's Progress," the "Four Times of the Day," and "Strolling Actresses Dressing in a Barn" produced only L427 7s., not averaging L22 10s. each. The "Harlot's Progress" was purchased by Mr. Beckford at the rate of fourteen guineas a picture; five of the series perished in the fire at Fonthill. The "Rake's Progress" averaged twenty-two guineas a picture; it has passed into the possession of Sir John Soane, at the advanced price of five hundred and seventy guineas. The same eminent architect became the proprietor of the four pictures of an "Election" for the sum of L1,732. "Marriage a la Mode" was disposed of in a similar way in 1750; and on the day of the sale one bidder appeared, who became master of the six pictures, together with their frames, for L115 10s. Mr. Angerstein purchased them, in 1797, for L1,381, and they now form a striking feature in the National Gallery.

The satire of Hogarth was not often of a personal nature; but he knew his own power, and he sometimes exercised it. Two of his prints, "The Times," produced a memorable quarrel between himself, on one side, and Wilkes and Churchhill, on the other. The satire of the prints of "The Times," which were published in 1762, was directed, not against Wilkes himself, but his political friends, Pitt and Temple; nor is it so biting as to have required Wilkes, in defence of his party, to retaliate upon one with whom he had lived in familiar and friendly intercourse. He did so, however, in a number of the North Briton, containing not only abuse of the artist, but unjust and injurious mention of his wife. Hogarth was deeply wounded by this attack; he retorted by the well-known portrait of Wilkes with the cap of liberty, and he afterward represented Churchill as a bear. The quarrel was unworthy the talents either of the painter or poet. It is more to be regretted because its effects, as he himself intimates, were injurious to Hogarth's declining health. The summer of 1764 he spent at Chiswick, and the free air and exercise worked a partial renovation of his strength. The amendment, however, was but temporary, and he died suddenly, October 26th, the day after his return to his London residence in Leicester Square.



SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS

By SAMUEL ARCHER

(1723-1792)



Sir Joshua Reynolds, the celebrated painter, was, on July 16, 1723, born at Plympton, a small town in Devonshire, England. His father was a minister of the parish, and also master of the grammar school; and being a man of learning and philanthropy, he was beloved and respected by all to whom he was known. Such a man, it will naturally be supposed, was assiduous in the cultivation of the minds of his children, among whom his son Joshua shone conspicuous, by displaying at a very early period a superiority of genius and the rudiments of a correct taste. Unlike other boys, who generally content themselves with giving a literal explanation of their author, regardless of his beauties or his faults, young Reynolds attended to both these, displaying a happy knowledge of what he read, and entering with ardor into the spirit of his author. He discovered likewise talents for composition, and a natural propensity to drawing, in which his friends and intimates thought him qualified to excel. Emulation was a distinguishing characteristic of his mind, which his father perceived with the delight natural to a parent; and designing him for the church, in which he hoped that his talents might raise him to eminence, he sent him to one of the universities.

Soon after this period he grew passionately fond of painting; and by the perusal of Richardson's theory of that art was determined to make it his profession through life. At his own earnest request, therefore, he was removed to London; and about the year 1742 became a pupil to Mr. Hudson, who, though not himself an eminent painter, was preceptor to many who afterward excelled in the art. One of the first advices which he gave to Mr. Reynolds was to copy carefully Guercino's drawings. This was done with such skill, that many of the copies are said to be now preserved in the cabinets of the curious as the originals of that very great master.

About the year 1749, Mr. Reynolds went to Italy under the auspices, and in the company, of the late Lord (then Commodore) Keppel, who was appointed to the command of the British squadron in the Mediterranean. In this garden of the world, this magic seat of arts, he failed not to visit the schools of the great masters, to study the productions of different ages, and to contemplate with unwearied attention the various beauties which are characteristic of each. His labor here, as has been observed of another painter, was "the labor of love, not the task of the hireling;" and how much he profited by it is known to all Europe.

Having remained about two years in Italy, and studied the language as well as the arts of the country with great success, he returned to England, improved by travel and refined by education. On the road to London from the port where he landed, he accidentally found in the inn where he lodged Johnson's life of Savage, and was so taken with the charms of composition, and the masterly delineation of character displayed in that work, that, having begun to read it while leaning his arm on the chimney-piece, he continued in that attitude, insensible of pain till he was hardly able to raise his hand to his head. The admiration of the work naturally led him to seek the acquaintance of its author, who continued one of his sincerest admirers and warmest friends till 1784, when they were separated by the stroke of death.

The first thing that distinguished him after his return to his native country was a full-length portrait of Commodore Keppel; which in polite circles was spoken of in terms of the highest encomium, and testified to what a degree of eminence he had arrived in his profession. This was followed by a portrait of Lord Edgecombe, and a few others, which at once introduced him to the first business in portrait-painting; and that branch of the art he cultivated with such success as will forever establish his fame with all descriptions of refined society. Having painted some of the first-rate beauties of the age, the polite world flocked to see the graces and the charms of his pencil; and he soon became the most fashionable painter not only in England, but in all Europe. He has indeed preserved the resemblance of so many illustrious characters, that we feel the less regret at his having left behind him so few historical paintings; though what he has done in that way shows him to have been qualified to excel in both departments. The only landscape, perhaps, which he ever painted, except those beautiful and chaste ones which compose the backgrounds of many of his portraits, is "A View on the Thames from Richmond," which in 1784 was exhibited by the Society for Promoting Painting and Design in Liverpool.

In 1764 Mr. Reynolds had the merit of being the first promoter of that club, which, having long existed without a name, became at last distinguished by the appellation of the Literary Club. Upon the foundation of the Royal Academy of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture, he was appointed president; and his acknowledged excellence in his profession made the appointment acceptable to all the lovers of art. To add to the dignity of this new institution, his majesty conferred on the president the honor of knighthood; and Sir Joshua delivered his first discourse at the opening of the Academy, on January 2, 1769. The merit of that discourse has been universally admitted among painters; but it contains some directions, respecting the proper mode of prosecuting their studies, to which every student of every art would do well to pay attention. "I would chiefly recommend (says he) that an implicit obedience to the rules of art, as established by the practice of the great masters, should be exacted from the young students. That those models, which have passed through the approbation of ages, should be considered by them as perfect and infallible guides, as subjects for their imitation, not their criticism. I am confident that this is the only efficacious method of making a progress in the arts; and that he who sets out with doubting will find life finished before he becomes master of the rudiments. For it may be laid down as a maxim, that he who begins by presuming on his own sense, has ended his studies as soon as he has commenced them. Every opportunity, therefore, should be taken to discountenance that false and vulgar opinion, that rules are the fetters of genius. They are fetters only to men of no genius; as that armor, which upon the strong becomes an ornament and a defence, upon the weak and misshapen turns into a load, and cripples the body which it was made to protect."

Each succeeding year, on the distribution of the prizes, Sir Joshua delivered to the students a discourse of equal merit with this; and perhaps we do not hazard too much when we say, that from the whole collected, the lovers of belles-lettres and the fine arts will acquire juster notions of what is meant by taste in general, and better rules for acquiring a correct taste, than from the multitude of those volumes which have been professedly written on the subject.

In the autumn of 1785 he went to Brussels, where he expended about L1,000 on the purchase of paintings which, having been taken from the different monasteries and religious houses in Flanders and Germany, were then exposed to sale by the command of the Emperor Joseph. Gainsborough and he had engaged to paint each other's portrait; and the canvas for both being actually stretched, Sir Joshua gave one sitting to his distinguished rival; but to the regret of every admirer of the art, the unexpected death of the latter prevented all further progress.

In 1790 he was anxiously desirous to procure the vacant professorship of perspective in the academy for Mr. Bonomi, an Italian architect; but that artist not having been yet elected an associate, was, of course, no academician, and it became necessary to raise him to those positions, in order to qualify him for being a professor. Mr. Gilpin being his competitor for the associateship, the numbers on the ballot proved equal, when the president, on his casting vote, decided the election in favor of his friend, who was thereby advanced so far toward the professorship. Soon after this, an academic seat being vacant, Sir Joshua exerted all his influence to obtain it for Mr. Bonomi; but finding himself out-voted by a majority of two to one, he quitted the chair with great dissatisfaction, and next day sent to the secretary of the academy a formal resignation of the office, which for twenty-one years he had filled with honor to himself and to his country. His indignation, however, subsiding, he suffered himself to be prevailed upon to return to the chair, which, within a year and a half, he was again desirous to quit for a better reason.

Finding a disease of languor, occasioned by an enlargement of the liver, to which he had for some time been subject, increase, and daily expecting a total loss of sight, he wrote a letter to the academy, intimating his intention to resign the office of president on account of bodily infirmities, which disabled him from executing the duties of it to his own satisfaction. The academy received this intelligence with the respectful concern due to the talents and virtues of their president, and either then did enter, or designed to enter, into a resolution honorable to all parties, namely, that a deputation from the whole body of the academy should wait upon him, and inform him of their wish, that the authority and privileges of the office of president might be his during his life, declaring their willingness to permit the performance of any of its duties which might be irksome to him by a deputy.

From this period Sir Joshua never painted more. The last effort of his pencil was the portrait of the honorable Charles James Fox, which was executed in his best style, and shows that his fancy, his imagination, and his other great powers in the art which he professed, remained unabated to the end of his life. When the last touches were given to this picture,

"The hand of Reynolds fell, to rise no more."

On Thursday, February 23, 1792, the world was deprived of this amiable man and excellent artist, at the age of sixty-eight years; a man than whom no one, according to Johnson, had passed through life with more observations of men and manners. The following character of him is said to be the production of Mr. Burke:

"His illness was long, but borne with a mild and cheerful fortitude, without the least mixture of anything irritable or querulous, agreeably to the placid and even tenor of his whole life. He had, from the beginning of his malady, a distinct view of his dissolution, which he contemplated with that entire composure which nothing but the innocence, integrity, and usefulness of his life, and an unaffected submission to the will of Providence, could bestow. In this situation he had every consolation from family tenderness, which his tenderness to his family had always merited.

"Sir Joshua Reynolds was, on very many accounts, one of the most memorable men of his time; he was the first Englishman who added the praise of the elegant arts to the other glories of his country. In taste, in grace, in facility, in happy invention, and in richness and harmony of coloring, he was equal to the great masters of the renowned ages. In portrait he went beyond them; for he communicated to that branch of the art in which English artists are the most engaged, a variety, a fancy, and a dignity derived from the higher branches, which even those who professed them in a superior manner did not always preserve when they delineated individual nature. His portraits reminded the spectator of the invention of history and the amenity of landscape. In painting portraits he appears not to be raised upon that platform, but to descend to it from a higher sphere. His paintings illustrate his lessons, and his lessons seem to be derived from his paintings.

"He possessed the theory as perfectly as the practice of his art. To be such a painter, he was a profound and penetrating philosopher.

"In full happiness of foreign and domestic fame, admired by the expert in art, and by the learned in science, courted by the great, caressed by sovereign powers, and celebrated by distinguished poets, his native humility, modesty, and candor never forsook him, even on surprise or provocation; nor was the least degree of arrogance or assumption visible to the most scrutinizing eye in any part of his conduct or discourse.

"His talents of every kind—powerful from nature, and not meanly cultivated in letters—his social virtues in all the relations and all the habitudes of life, rendered him the centre of a very great and unparalleled variety of agreeable societies, which will be dissipated by his death. He had too much merit not to excite some jealousy, too much innocence to provoke any enmity. The loss of no man of his time can be felt with more sincere, general, and unmixed sorrow."



BENJAMIN WEST

By MARTHA J. LAMB[5]

[Footnote 5: Reprinted by permission, from the Magazine of American History.]

(1738-1820)



In the wilds of the new world, a century and a half ago, there was, apparently, no spot less likely to produce a famous painter than the Quaker province of Pennsylvania. And yet, when George Washington was only six years old there was born, in the little town of Springfield, Chester County, a boy whose interesting and remarkable career from infancy to old age has provided one of the most instructive lessons for students in art that America affords.

Perhaps Benjamin West's aptitude for picture-making in his infancy, while he was learning to walk and to talk, did not exceed that of hosts of other children, in like circumstances, in every generation since his time. But many curious things were remembered and told of this baby's performances after he had developed a decided talent for reproducing the beautiful objects that captivated his eye. It was in the summer of 1745, a few months before he was seven years old that his married sister came home for a visit, bringing with her an infant daughter. The next morning after her arrival, little Benjamin was left to keep the flies off the sleeping baby, while his mother and sister went to the garden for flowers. The baby smiled in its sleep, and the boy was captivated. He must catch that smile and keep it. He found some paper on the table, scrambled for a pen, and with red and black ink made a hasty but striking picture of the little beauty. He heard his mother returning, and conscious of having been in mischief, tried to conceal his production; but she detected and captured it, and regarded it long and lovingly, exclaiming as her daughter entered, "He has really made a likeness of little Sally!" She then caught up the boy in her arms, and kissed instead of chiding him, and he—looking up encouraged—told her he could make the flowers, too, if she would permit. The awakening of genius in Benjamin West has been distinctly traced to this incident, as the time when he first discovered that he could imitate the forms of such objects as pleased his sense of sight. And the incident itself has been aptly styled "the birth of fine arts in the New World."

The Quaker boy, in course of years, left the wilderness of America to become the president of the Royal Academy in London. His irreproachable character not less than his excellence as an artist, gave him commanding position among his contemporaries. From first to last he was distinguished for his indefatigable industry. The number of his pictures has been estimated, by a writer in Blackwood's Magazine, at three thousand; and Dunlap says that a gallery capable of holding them would be four hundred feet long, fifty feet wide, and forty feet high—or a wall a quarter of a mile long.

The parents of Benjamin West were sincere and self-respecting, and in the language of the times, well-to-do. His mother's grandfather was the intimate and confidential friend of William Penn. The family of his father claimed direct descent from the Black Prince and Lord Delaware, of the time of King Edward III. Colonel James West was the friend and companion in arms of John Hampden. When Benjamin West was at work upon his great picture of the "Institution of the Garter," the King of England was delighted when the Duke of Buckingham assured him that West had an ancestral right to a place among the warriors and knights of his own painting. The Quaker associates of the parents of the artist, the patriarchs of Pennsylvania, regarded their asylum in America as the place for affectionate intercourse—free from all the military predilections and political jealousies of Europe. The result was a state of society more contented, peaceful, and pleasing than the world had ever before exhibited. At the time of the birth of Benjamin West the interior settlements in Pennsylvania had attained considerable wealth, and unlimited hospitality formed a part of the regular economy of the principal families. Those who resided near the highways were in the habit, after supper and the religious exercises of the evening, of making a large fire in the hallway, and spreading a table with refreshments for such travellers as might pass in the night, who were expected to step in and help themselves. This was conspicuously the case in Springfield. Other acts of liberality were performed by this community, to an extent that would have beggared the munificence of the old world. Poverty was not known in this region. But whether families traced their lineage to ancient and noble sources, or otherwise, their pride was so tempered with the meekness of their faith, that it lent a singular dignity to their benevolence.

The Indians mingled freely with the people, and when they paid their annual visits to the plantations, raised their wigwams in the fields and orchards without asking permission, and were never molested. Shortly after Benjamin West's first efforts with pen and ink, a party of red men reached and encamped in Springfield. The boy-artist showed them his sketches of birds and flowers, which seemed to amuse them greatly. They at once proceeded to teach him how to prepare the red and yellow colors with which they decorated their ornaments. To these Mrs. West added blue, by contributing a piece of indigo. Thus the boy had three prismatic colors for his use. What could be more picturesque than the scene where the untutored Indian gave the future artist his first lesson in mixing paints! These wild men also taught him archery, that he might shoot birds for models if he wanted their bright plumage to copy.

The neighbors were attracted by the boy's drawings, and finally a relative, Mr. Pennington, a prominent merchant of Philadelphia, came to pay the family a visit. He thought the boy's crude pictures were wonderful, as he was then only entering his eighth year. When he went home he immediately sent the little fellow a box of paints, with six engravings by Grevling. John Gait, who wrote from the artist's own statements, describes the effect of this gift upon the boy. In going to bed he placed the box so near his couch, that he could hug and caress it every time he wakened. Next morning he rose early, and taking his paints and canvas to the garret, began to work. He went to breakfast, and then stole back to his post under the roof, forgetting all about school. When dinnertime came he presented himself at table, as usual, but said nothing of his occupation. He had been absent from school some days before the master called on his parents to inquire what had become of him. This led to the discovery of his secret painting, for his mother proceeded to the garret and found the truant. She was, however, so astonished with the creation upon his canvas, that she took him in her arms and kissed him with transports of affection. He had made a composition of his own out of two of the engravings—which he had colored from his ideas of the proper tints to be used—and so perfect did the picture appear to Mrs. West that, although half the canvas remained to be covered, she would not suffer the child to add another touch with his brush. Sixty-seven years afterward, Mr. Gait saw this production in the exact state in which it was left, and Mr. West himself acknowledged that in subsequent efforts he had never been able to excel some of the touches of invention in this first picture.

The first instruction in art which the artist received was from Mr. William Williams, a painter in Philadelphia. Young West's first attempt at portraiture was at Lancaster, where he painted "The Death of Socrates" for William Henry, a gunsmith. He was not yet sixteen, but other paintings followed which possessed so much genuine merit, that they have been preserved as treasures. One of these is in possession of General Meredith Reed, of Paris, France, a descendant of the signer. West returned to his home in Springfield, in 1754, to discuss the question of his future vocation. He had an inclination for military life, and volunteered as a recruit in the old French war; but military attractions vanished among the hardships involved, and in 1756, when eighteen years old, he established himself in Philadelphia as a portrait-painter, his price being "five guineas a head." Two years later he went to New York, where he passed eleven months, and was liberally employed by the merchants and others. He painted the portrait of Bishop Provoost, those of Gerardus Duyekinck and his wife—full length—one of Mrs. Samuel Breese, and many others, which are in the families of descendants, and characteristic examples of his early work.

In 1760 an opportunity offered for him to visit Rome, Italy. He carried letters to Cardinal Albani and other celebrities, and as he was very handsome and intelligent, and came from a far-away land about which hung the perpetual charm of tradition and romance, he soon became the lion of the day among the imaginative Italians. It was a novelty then for an American to appear in the Eternal City, and the very morning after his arrival a curious party followed his steps to observe his pursuit of art. He remained in Italy until 1763, and while there he painted, among others, his pictures of "Cimon and Iphigenia," and "Angelica and Medora." His portrait of Lord Grantham excited much interest, and that nobleman's introduction facilitated his visit to London, which proved so prolific in results. There was no great living historical painter in England just then; and at first there was no sale for West's pictures, as it was unfashionable to buy any but "old masters." But the young artist was undaunted, and presently attracted attention in high places. His picture of "Agrippina Landing with the Ashes of Germanicus," painted for Dr. Drummond, Archbishop of York, secured him the favor of George III., and the commission from his majesty to paint the "Departure of Regulus from Rome." His untiring industry and gentlemanly habits were conspicuous, and may be regarded as among the great secrets of his continual advance and public recognition. His "Parting of Hector and Andromache," and "Return of the Prodigal Son," were among his notable productions of this period. His "Death of General Wolfe" has been, says Tuckerman, "truly declared to have created an era in English art, by the successful example it initiated of the abandonment of classic costume—a reform advocated by Reynolds, who glories in the popular innovation." His characters were clad in the dress of their time. Reynolds said to the Archbishop of York: "I foresee that this picture will not only become one of the most popular, but will occasion a revolution in art." It was purchased by Lord Grosvenor. Among the long list of paintings executed by order of the king were "The Death of Chevalier Bayard;" "Edward III. Embracing his Son on the Field of Battle at Cressy;" "The Installation of the Order of the Garter;" "The Black Prince Receiving the King of France and his Son Prisoners at Poictiers," and "Queen Philippa Interceding with Edward for the Burgesses of Calais." West was one of the founders, in 1768, of the Royal Academy, and succeeded Sir Joshua Reynolds as president of the institution in 1792, which post he held almost uninterruptedly until 1815.

In the year 1780 he proposed a series of pictures on the progress of revealed religion, of which there were thirty-six subjects in all, but he never executed but twenty-eight of these, owing to the mental trouble which befell the king. He then commenced a new series of important works, of which "Christ Healing the Sick" was purchased by an institution in Great Britain for L3,000, and was subsequently copied for the Pennsylvania Hospital. "Penn's Treaty with the Indians" was painted for Granville Penn, the scene representing the founding of Pennsylvania. West wrote to one of his family that he had taken the liberty of introducing in this painting the likeness of his father and his brother Thomas. "That is the likeness of our brother," he says, "standing immediately behind Penn, leaning on his cane. I need not point out the picture of our father, as I believe you will find it in the print from memory." Tuckerman says that the work which, in the opinion of many critics, best illustrates the skill of West in composition, drawing, expression, and dramatic effect, is his "Death on the Pale Horse." His "Cupid," owned in Philadelphia, is one of his most effective pictures as to color.

The full-length portrait of West, by Sir Thomas Lawrence, P.R.A., represents the great artist in his character as president of the Royal Academy, delivering a lecture on "coloring" to the students. Under his right hand may be noticed, standing on an easel, a copy of Raphael's cartoon of the "Death of Ananias." The picture of West's face has been considered a perfect likeness, but the figure somewhat too large and too tall in its effects. A copy of this portrait was made by Charles R. Leslie; and Washington Allston also painted a portrait of the artist. There exists, it is said, a portrait of West from his own hand, taken apparently at about the age of forty, three-quarter length, in Quaker costume.



THORWALDSEN

By HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN

(1770-1844)

It was in Copenhagen, on November 19, 1770, that a carver of figures for ships' heads, by name Gottskalk Thorwaldsen, was presented by his wife, Karen Groenlund, the daughter of a clergyman in Jutland, with a son, who at his baptism received the name of Bertel, or Albert.

The father had come from Iceland, and lived in poor circumstances. They dwelt in Lille Groennegade (Little Green Street), not far from the Academy of Arts. The moon has often peeped into their poor room; she has told us about it in "A Picture-book without Pictures":



"The father and mother slept, but their little son did not sleep; where the flowered cotton bed-curtains moved I saw the child peep out. I thought at first that he looked at the Bornholm clock, for it was finely painted with red and green, and there was a cuckoo on the top; it had heavy leaden weights, and the pendulum with its shining brass plate went to and fro with a 'tick! tick!' But it was not that he looked at; no, it was his mother's spinning-wheel, which stood directly under the clock; this was the dearest piece of furniture in the whole house for the boy; but he dared not touch it, for if he did, he got a rap over the fingers. While his mother spun, he would sit for hours together looking at the buzzing spindle and the revolving wheel, and then he had his own thoughts. Oh! if he only durst spin that wheel! His father and mother slept; he looked at them, he looked at the wheel, and then by degrees a little naked foot was stuck out of bed, and then another naked foot, then there came two small legs, and, with a jump, he stood on the floor. He turned round once more, to see if his parents slept; yes, they did, and so he went softly, quite softly, only in his little shirt, up to the wheel, and began to spin. The cord flew off, and the wheel then ran much quicker. His mother awoke at the same moment; the curtains moved; she looked out and thought of the brownie, or another little spectral being. 'Have mercy on us!' said she, and in her fear she struck her husband in the side; he opened his eyes, rubbed them with his hands, and looked at the busy little fellow. 'It is Bertel, woman,' said he."

What the moon relates we see here as the first picture in Thorwaldsen's life's gallery; for it is a reflection of the reality. Thorwaldsen has himself, when in familiar conversation at Nysoee, told the author almost word for word what he, in his "Picture-book," lets the moon say. It was one of his earliest remembrances, how he, in his little short shirt, sat in the moonlight and spun his mother's wheel, while she, dear soul, took him for a little spectre.

A few years ago there still lived an old ship-carpenter, who remembered the little, light-haired, blue-eyed boy, that came to his father in the carving-house at the dock-yard; he was to learn his father's trade; and as the latter felt how bad it was not to be able to draw, the boy, then eleven years of age, was sent to the drawing-school at the Academy of Arts, where he made rapid progress. Two years afterward, Bertel, or Albert, as we shall in future call him, was of great assistance to his father; nay, he even improved his work.

See the hovering ships on the wharves! The Dannebrog waves, the workmen sit in circle under the shade at their frugal breakfasts; but foremost stands the principal figure in this picture: it is a boy who cuts with a bold hand the lifelike features in the wooden image for the beak-head of the vessel. It is the ship's guardian spirit, and, as the first image from the hand of Albert Thorwaldsen, it shall wander out into the wide world. The eternally swelling sea should baptize it with its waters, and hang its wreaths of wet plants around it.

Our next picture advances a step forward. Unobserved among the other boys, he has now frequented the Academy's school for six years already, where, always taciturn and silent, he stood by his drawing-board. His answer was "yes" or "no," a nod or a shake of the head; but mildness shone from his features, and good-nature was in every expression. The picture shows us Albert as a candidate for confirmation. He is now seventeen years of age—not a very young age to ratify his baptismal compact; his place at the dean's house is the last among the poor boys, for his knowledge is not sufficient to place him higher. There had just at that time been an account in the newspapers, that the pupil Thorwaldsen had gained the Academy's smaller medal for a bas-relief representing a "Cupid Reposing." "Is it your brother that has gained the medal?" inquired the dean. "It is myself," said Albert, and the clergyman looked kindly on him, placed him first among all the boys, and from that time always called him Monsieur Thorwaldsen. Oh! how deeply did that "Monsieur" then sound in his mind! As he has often said since, it sounded far more powerfully than any title that kings could give him; he never afterward forgot it.