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Italy, the Magic Land

Italy, the Magic Land

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Chapter 1 THE PERIOD OF MODERN ART IN ROME

Word Count: 23546    |    Released on: 01/12/2017

ing should vanis

t-scented manuscr

e that in the

hither flown ag

Kha

e poetic, historic, or tragic past. There were splendid Catholic processions and ceremonials that seemed organized as a part of the stage scenery that ensconced itself, also, with the nonchalance of easy possession, in the vast salons of historic palaces where tapestried walls and richly painted ceilings, arched high overhead, with statues dimly seen in niches here and there, and the bust of some crowned Antoninus, or radiant Juno, gleaming from a shadowy corner, all made up the mise-en-scène of familiar evenings. There were lingering hou

ding, too,

high necessi

the hour. For the most part the artists and their associates have gone their way-not into a Silent Land, a land of shadows and vague, wandering ghosts-but into that realm wherein is the "life more abundant," of

mes in fu

sion recogniz

ere shall

re on hom

nder, wo

range and ne

comes in

past, rich in ideal creation. Beautiful forms emerge from the marble; pictorial scenes glow from the canvas; song and st

any a ye

tribute their mystery to the general artistic effectiveness of the Seven-hilled City. All this group of American idealists, from Allston and Page to Crawford, Story, Ran

ing students and established permanent academies for their residence. Germany, France, and England were thus represented. Thorwaldsen came as a pensioner from the Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen; and it was during his life, and that of the noble Canova, that Rome began to be recognized as the modern world-centre of art. Was it not a natural sequence that the early painters and sculptors who came to study under the stimulating influences of the great masterpieces of the past should linger on in the city whose very air became to them the breath of inspiring suggestion? W

ork, their dreams, were the theme of literary discussion, and focussed the attention of the polite world. Their studios were among the important interests to every visitor in the Eternal City. In those days the traveller did not land with his touring car at Naples, make "the run" to Rome in a record that distanced any possibilities of railroad trains, pass two or three days in motoring about the city and its environs, seeing the exterior of everything in a dissolving view and the interior of nothing,-as within this time, at least, he must flash on in his to

the Eternal City or in the Flower City, their environment was alike Italy-the environment of the Magic Land. Among the more prominent of

auty; of her

oice is earth a

d her hands for

and her throne

Akers, William Wetmore Story, Harriet Hosmer, J. Rollin Tilton, and, later, Elihu Vedder, Moses Ezekiel, Franklin Simmons, Augustus St. Gaudens, and Charles Walter Stetson, the name of Mr. Stetson linking the long and interesting procession with the immediate life of to-day. Of these later artists Story, Miss Hosmer, Ezekiel, Vedder, Simmons, and Ste

Robert and Elizabeth Browning, the wedded poets, who sang of love and Italy; Harriet Beecher Stowe, finding on the enchanted Italian shores the material which she wove with such irresistible attraction into the romance of "Agnes of Sorrento;" Longfellow, with his poet's vision, transmuting every vista and impression into some exquisite lyric; Lowell, bringing his philosophic as well as his poetic insight to penetrate the untold meaning of Rome; Thomas William Parsons, making the country of Dante fairly his own; Thackeray, with his brilliant interpretation of the comédie humaine; Emerson, who, oblivious of all the glories of art or the joys of nature, absorbed himself in writing transcendental letters to his eccentric, but high-souled aunt, Mary Moody Emerson; Ruskin, translating Italian art to Italy herself; Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe and his poet wife, Mrs. Julia Ward Howe, in the first flush of their bridal happiness, when Mrs. Howe's impassioned love for the Seven-hilled City inspired many a lyric that mirrors the Roman atmosphere of that day; Kate Field, with a young girl's glad enthusiasm over the marvellous loveliness of a Maytime

e warm light rests, making them shine like the Delectable Mountains. Nearer at hand are the almond trees,

nd to whom, whenever she returns, she makes her first visit; some of whom are in

o wander in the Villa Borghese "before the place is thronged with the beauty and fashion of Rome as it is in the late afternoon. I do not wonder that Miriam and Donatello could forget their fate in these enchanted glades," she wrote, "and d

y Roman ladies also grow old and fade, and vanish from sight and from memory; but still these two, h

lest expressions, and has perpetuated, with masterly power, the energy of thought, at once profound and intense, in the countenance of Bishop Brooks. These, and many another whom the gods have loved and dowered with gifts, rise before any retrospective g

levation of the Host on Easter, and the illumination of St. Peter's, these all seem to rea

first visited Rome, which "is announced," he wrot

est là Ro

eau de Neron

ve for the Eternal City, and in

he ruins of Rome. The Forum and the Coliseum are beyond all I had ever fancied them; and the ruined temples and the mouldering aqueducts which are scattered over the Campagna; I do not believe there is a finer view in the world than that from the eastern gate of the city, embracing the Campagna, with its ruined aqueducts diverging in long broken arcades, and terminated by

t seems to be in rags and misery; and with the ceremonials of their religion and the holidays of the ch

the wonderful view included then the entire city "to where St. Peter's dome darke

e did not visit. An interesting acquaintance was that made with the Abbé Liszt, who was spending the winter in Rome, having rooms in the abandoned Convent of Santa Francesca, in the Forum. Calling there one evening, in company with Mr. Healy the artist, the inner door of the apartment was opened to them by Liszt himself, ho

gence. But Mr. Longfellow was never a good sight-seer. He was impatient of lingering in picture galleri

ntane in which he stayed, a tablet bearing an inscription giving the date of his visit; as, also, in Via Machella, there is an inscription marking the place where Scott lived during his visit to Rome. Goethe made his memorable tour to

e see about us a finished picture,-forms of every kind and style; palaces and ruins; gardens and wastes; the distant and the near houses; triumphal arches and columns,-often all so close together that they might be sketched on a singl

ter of 1803-4 in Rome, and his pictorial transcriptions of the city and its environs are among the most

pale gold, while their bases and sides were bathed in vapors of violet or purple. Sometimes lovely clouds, like fairy cars, borne along by the evening wind with inimitable grace, recall the mythological tales of the descent of the deities of Olympus. Sometimes old Rome seems to have spread all over the west t

mance, "Corinne," the impressions she received. In the spring of 1817 Lord Byron found

Nations! The

spring in the Seven-hilled City, retiring to Le

use in which Lucrezia Borgia lived, in which is the colossal Moses of Michael Angelo. As it stands, it fails to convey the first design of the great sculptor. Originally intended for the tomb of Pope Julius II, the plan included a massive block of marble (some forty by twenty feet) surmounted by a cornice and having its niches, its columns, and its statues, of which the Moses was to have been one. It would then have been judged relatively to the entire group, while now it is seen alone, and thus out of the proportions that were in the mind of the artist. The entire conception, indeed, was to unite sculpture and architecture into on

llard

t of the figure is inferior to the anatomy of the upper part. Remarkable as the execution of the statue is, the expression is yet more so; for notwithstanding its colossal proportions, its prominent characteristic is the embodiment of intellectual power. It is the great leader and lawgiver of his people that we see, whose voice was command, and whose outstretched arm sustained a nation's infant steps. He looks a

pressions of this majestic scul

might, and myst

of Jehovah'

n's heaven-adv

o's harsh fores

leading from the Piazza Arac?eli to the Capitoline, where the ancient bronze equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius forever keeps guard, is indescribable. The historic statues of Castor and Pollux mark the portals; on either ha

ino, and other artists that could be named equal or exceed Raphael in certain lines, yet as the interpreter of the profoundest thought, and for his philosophic grasp and his power to endow his conceptions with the most brilliant animation, he stands alone. The religious ex

ty of fame. The Academy in Venice holds some of his choicest drawings, and in the Venetian sketch-book

rom 1508 to 1520) Raphael produced these masterpieces which stand unrivalled in the world save by the creations of Michael Angelo in the Capella Sistina. The celebrated "Four Sibyls" of Raphael are not, however, in the stanze of th

ayed being that of Theology, Philosophy, Poetry, and Justice. The splendor of this creation transcends all attempts of interpretation in language. Against a background of gold mosaic are portrayed these typical figures enthroned on clouds where genii flit to and fro bearing tablets with inscriptions. Theology holds in the left hand a book, while the other points to the vision of angels; Poetry, laurel-crowned, is seen seated on a throne with books and lyre; Philosophy wears a diadem, and Justice, with

rcha, Anacreon and Sappho, of Pindar and of Horace are recognized. The great scholars seen in the P

rk of this divine genius. "His paintings reveal no struggle, but seem to have be

effect produced on the student by Raphael, and he cannot

iration

tion cometh

s no

he extension of human activity into that realm of the life more abundant, and with his extraordinary facility of execution he united exquisite refinement and unerring sense of beauty and the masterly power in composition that fairly created for the spectator the visions that his soul beheld. "I say to you," said Mr. Bryce recently in a press interview,-"I say to you, each oncoming tide of life requir

no tide but

ant of T

o time, for

g stars st

scendent masterpieces were approached any power to originate seemed futile by contrast. Imitation rather than creation became the method adopted, resulting in an increased poverty of design and feeble execution. The art of the sixteenth century deteriorated rapidly till

F SAN ANDREA DE

Lorenzo

e that lend to his sculptures an enduring charm, as seen in his "Apollo and Daphne" (a work executed in his eighteenth year) which is now in the Casino of the Villa Borghese. Bernini's name is perpetuated in the colossal statues on the colonnade of St. Peter's, the great bronze angels with their draperies streaming to the winds on the Ponte San

reat and good Canova, with which was united that of Flaxman and of Thorwaldsen. The heavenly messengers are a

s teachers un

me, and ever

ons fitted to

nd; nor gives t

ish rule of o

ART MONUMENT, S

nio

s noble and generous enthusiasms, not less than his genius, have left their record on life as well as on art. When he died (in Venice, Oct. 3, 1822) his work included fifty-nine statues, fourteen gro

gainst copying his own style and constantly urged them to study from the Greeks. He advised them to visit frequently t

Thorwaldsen was most generous to young artists," says Gibson of the great Danish master, "and he freely visited all who required his advice. I profited greatly by the knowledge which this splendid sculptor had of his art. On every occasion when I was modelling a new work he came to me, and corrected whatever he thought amiss. I also often went to his studio and contemplated his glorious works, always in the noblest style, full of pure and sever

for Rome, Thorwaldsen dated his birth from the hour he entered the Eternal City. "Before that day," he exclaimed, "I existed; I did not live." For nearl

all other cities," he says, "has a peculiar influence upon and charm for the real student; he feels himself in the very university of art, where it is the one thing talked about and thought about. Constantly did I feel the presence of this influence. Every morning I rose with the sun, my soul gladdened by a new day of a happy and delightful pursuit; and as I walked to my breakfast at the Caffè Greco and watched with new pleasure the tops

friend Gibs

ds, and heroes of Hellas. . . . In the art of sculpture the Greeks were gods. . . . In the Vati

rnate itself again through the facility of expression of the artists yet to come. To the young men whose steps were turned toward Rome in these early years of the century just passed, how great was the privilege of coming into close range of the influence of such artists as these; to study their methods; to hear the expression of their views on art in familiar meeting and

a servi

y is given

stand unwearied

the hard, slow

that inter

ferent planes o

ensuous, tha

l on still throu

stration. The worl

, and he added: "One grows tired of seeing cultivated people with all their culture cursed by selfishness." To the true idealist-as distinct from the mere emotionalist with ?sthetic tastes-selfishness is an impossible prison. The only spiritual freedom lies in the perpetual sharing of the fuller life. The gift shared

as to whether

d in celes

"the glory and the fr

we take the pains to study what was done five centuries ago in painting, or twenty centuries ago in sculpture, and compare it with the best work o

terial! If we go to the work of wider range, the Campo Santo of Pisa, the Stanze, the Sistine Chapel, the distance becomes an abyss; the simplest fragment of a Greek statue of 450 B.C. shows us that the best sculpture of this century, even the French, is only a happy child-work, not even to be put in si

painters of 1550, however great their work; and if there be but "one living painter" who can treat portrait art

for genius; it is made for men. . . . Let him have wings for the infinite provided he has feet for the earth, and that, after having been seen flying, he is seen walking. Afte

d by the king of Portugal and Raphael by the Pope to create works of great public importance still lingered and exerted over Thorwaldsen, and over all artists susceptible to its subtle influence, a peculiar spell. Its power was reveal

NT XIII, ST.

nio

the soul that is in complete harmony with the divine power. The Holy Father has taken the tiara from his head and it lies before him on the cushion on which he kneels. Although the entire portrayal of the figure reveals that devotion expressed in the solemn and searching words of the church service, "And here we offer and present unto thee, O Lord, ourse

ETAIL FROM TOMB OF CLEME

nio

onified as a female figure holding a cross; the latter sits with his torch reversed. Grief, but no

ne through the

s, notes that the lions typify the firmness and the force and the courage, "la fortezza dell'anima," that so signally characterized Clement XIII. There is pro

vidly pictures all this old Rome when he speaks of the "narrow, crooked, intricate streets, so uncomfortably paved with little squares of lava that to tread over them is a penitential pilgrimage; so indescribably ugly, moreover; so cold, so alley-like, into which the sun never falls and where a chill wind forces its deadly breath into our lungs; the immense seven-storied, yellow-washed hovels, or call them palaces, where all that is dreary in domestic life seems magnified and multiplied; those staircases which ascend from a ground floor of cook shops and cobblers' stalls, stables and regiments of cavalry, to a middle region of princes, cardinals, and ambassadors, and an upper tier of artists just beneath the unattainable sky: . . . in which the visitor becomes sick at heart of Italian trickery, which has uprooted whatever faith in man's integrity had till then endured;" the city "crushed down in spirit by the desolation of her ruin and the hopelessness of her future;" one recalls these words when passing through the unspeakable gloom and horror and desolation and squalor of ancient Rome. In these surroundings one's cab stops at "No. 44," and ringing the bell the door is open, whether by super-normal age

ACCADéMIA DI

do

he hair, that it is almost inevitably mistaken for that of a woman. Guido's graceful "Fortuna" is represented as a female figure flying through

town is th

Luk

is hi

sipp

d th

, controller

tandest tho

always

ast thou wings

like t

arest thou a razor

n that I am sharp

st thou thy hai

seized by him wh

nd thou art

sed with my winged feet n

housand volumes. The sculpture gallery is now closed and can only be entered by special permission. This is the more to b

cally considered, closely followed by Thomas Crawford, who was but eight years his junior, and by Horatio Greenough, who was also born in the same year as Powers, and who preceded him in Italy, but whose work has less artistic value. Mr. Greenough has left a colossal (if not an artistic) monument to his gifts in stately shaft marking Bunker Hill which he designed. Problematic in their claim to artistic excellence as are his "Washington"-a seated figure in the grounds of the Capitol in Washington-and his group in relief called "The Rescue" in the portico of the Capitol, his name lives by his personality as a man of liberal culture and noble char

trait busts Powers was especially successful; and his "Greek Slave," his "Fisher Boy," "Il Penseroso," and "Proserpine" im

hich is in the beautiful white and gold interior of Symphony Hall, in Boston; and his "Orp

renunciation; resisting the approaches alike of indolence and despondency. His strength of character and force of will would have earned distinction for powers inferior to his. Nothing was given to self-indulgence; nothing to vague dreams; nothing to

as William Parsons wrote a memoria

what memo

ford's na

riends for wh

h of Had

e no mor

rpheus felt, s

husband, fat

name, that

ore my sorr

e, and I must

Massachusetts; his "Christ Blessing Little Children," and many other historic and ideal sculptures, that seem endowed with his beautiful and winning spirit as well as with his rare gifts. Larkin G. Mead chose Florence rather than Rome for his home and work. His noble "River God," placed at the head of the Mississippi near St. Paul, as well as other interesting creations, link his name with that of his native land.

her than Paul Akers's. Though Hawthorne in his romance saw fit to lay the scene in the rooms once

re he had made under his supervision copies in marble of many of the famous works of the Vatican and the Capitol. The largest collection of these was a commission from Mr. Edward

*

rament shown by the nervous and rather thin face. He has succeeded admirably. It is the very head of the Vatican, yet without the scars of envious time, and sits gracefully on human shoulders, instead of being rolled awkwardly back upon a shelf.' This bust is unlike the portrait which so long passed for Cicero's, but has been identified by means of a medal which was struck

slept he kept bot

, and about the waist is a net containing pearl-bearing shells for which he has risked his life. There is no trace of suffering; all is subdued to beauty. It is death represented as the ancients conceived it, t

studio that Mr. Aker

wise seems discordant. Milton was so great a musician that there could have been no fault in sound in his compositions. He looked over my books; said my edition of Shelley was one which he had corrected for the press, not from a knowledge of the original MS., but from his internal evidence that so it must have been; said Poe was a wonderful man; spoke of Tennyson in the warmest terms. Took up a copy of his own poems published in the United States, and remarked that it was better than the English edition, yet had some awful blunders, and wished me to allow him to correct a copy for me. My head of the 'Drowned

, of Longfellow and of Samuel Appleton. Of his bust

er the tomb in Greyfriar's Church, the original miniatures and pictures wherever to be found, had mingled each its special truth in this one work-wherein likewise by long perusal and deep love of 'Paradise Lost,' the 'Comus,' the 'Lycidas,' and 'L'Allegro,'

ed a fine portrait bust of Charlotte Cushman; and Anne Whitney, whose statues of Samuel Adams and of Leif Ericson adorn public grounds in Boston; whose life-size statue of Harriet Mar

ition which tramples no one down." Master and pupil were akin in their unwearied devotion to art. Of Gibson, whose absence of mind regarding all the details of life made him almost helpless in travel and affairs, Miss Hosmer used gleefully to say that he "was a god in his studio, but God help him out of it!" This glancing sprite of a girl, frightening her friends by her daring and venturous horseback riding; gravitating by instinct to offer some generous, tender aid to the sick, the destitute, or the helpless; the life and light of gay dinners and of social evenings; working from six in the morning till night in her studio, "with an absence of pretension," says Mrs. Browning, "and simplicity of manners which accord rather with the childish dimples in her rosy cheeks than with her broad forehead and high aims," had the magic gift that merged her visitors and patrons into enthusiastic friends; and Mrs. Browning has chronicled the pretty scene when Lady Marion Alford, the daughter of the Earl of Northumberland, knelt before the girl artist and slipped on her finger a ring-a precious ruby set with diamonds-as a token of her devotion. Reading Miss Hosme

tatue of "Beatrice Cenci," representing her as she lay in her cell in Castel San Angelo the night before her execut

ry-sculptor, musician, poet and painter, jurist and man of letters,

s and wa

's sunlit

nd to musi

icably

y attractive forms of art rather than the supreme attraction; and it was the stimulus of the given work that determined him as a sculptor, rather than his determination to be a sculptor that determined the work. Among the goddesses of life Destiny must, perhaps, be allowed a place. At all events, after Mr. Story's initial glance at Italy, he sought Rome again a year later, and this time it was his choice for life, however unrevealed to his eye were the resplendent years that lay before him. He had fallen under the spell of the Magic Land. In a letter to Lowell, Mr. Story had questioned how he should ever endure again "the restraint and bonda

accompany the Holy Father to the Papal Palace. The superb state carriages conveyed princes and foreign ambassadors and great nobles. From the Piazza San Giovanni to St. Peter's every house was illuminated, and the

man days, too, appeared Mr. Cropsey, of poetic landscape fame, and here, too, was Margaret Fuller. Mazzini was then a leading figure in the Chamber of Deputies,-"the prophet not only of modern Italy, but of the modern world." He found Italy "utilitarian and materialistic, permeated by French ideas, and weakened by her reliance on French initiative. He was filled with hope that Italy might not only achieve her own unity, but might once more accomplish, as she had in the Rome of the C?sars and the Rome of the Church, the unity of the Western world. 'On

the 1850-60 decade, living in the old port by the Tiber nearly opposite to the new and splendid building of the law courts. Near the Tarpeian Rock Frederika Bremer had perched, in a tiny room of which she took all the frugal care, even to washing the blue cups and plates when she invited the Hawthornes to a tea of a simplicity that suggested, indeed, the utmost degree of "light" housekeeping. Thomas Buchanan Read was one of the hosts and guests of this social group, and it was at a dinner he gave that Hawthorne met Gibson, whose conversational talents were evidently (upon that occasion) chiefly employed in contemning the pre-Raphaelite school of painters and emphasizing the need

a concert given in the splendid, spacious hall of the Palazzo Colonna where she was the prima donna of the occasion. There were also musicals at the house of Mrs. Sartoris, where the guests met her famous sister, Fanny Kemble. Mrs. Browning was fond of both the sisters, and said of them that their social brilliancy was their least distinction. She found them both "noble and sympathetic," and her "dear Mr. Page" and "Hatty" (Miss Hosmer) "an immense favorite with us both," she said

inartistic. His famous painted Venus she called "pretty," but only as a wax doll might be, not as a work of genuine art. Then Thackeray and

ssisi, studying the rich art of Cimabue and Giotto in the church of the great Franciscan monastery. Mrs. Browning visited studios in Rome and found that of Mr. Crawford more interesting to her than Mr. Gibson's, but no artist is "as near" to her, a

ind. Mrs. Browning will sit buried up in a large easy-chair listening and talking very quietly and pleasantly. Very unaffected is she. . . . I have hundreds of statues in my head, but they are in the future tense. Powers I knew very well in Florence. He is a man of great mechanical talent and natural strength of perception, but with no poetry in his composition, and I think no creative power. . . . I have been to hear

rminable winding stairs, where on one landing Thorwaldsen's lion lies before the great doors decorated with the arms of Popes and princes. Here the old Cardinal Barberini lived his stormy life; here are the gallery and the library,-the latter stored with infinite treasures of ancient documents, ol

PIAZZA TRINITà

opposite height of Monte Mario, and to the left the Janiculum, now crowned with the magnificent equestrian statue of Garibaldi, which is in evidence from almost every part of Rome. As far as the eye can see the Campagna stretches away, infinite as the sea-a very Campagna Mystica. The luminous air, the faint, misty blue

y until churches and palaces seemed to swim in a sea of silver. Or in the morning, when the rose-red of dawn was aglow, there seemed to hover over the city that wr

orted by six Ionic columns. Entering the church one finds an interior of three aisles divided by colossal columns of Oriental granite. In the middle aisle, on both sides the galleries, are fresco paintings illustrating the martyrdom of St. Lawrence and of St. Stephen, one series on the right and the other on the left. One of these paintings, especially, of the life of St. Lawrence, is strangely haunting to the imagination. It represents the youthful, slender figure, nude, save for slight drapery, laid on the gridiron while the fire is being kindled under it and the fagots shovelled in. The physical shrinking of the flesh-of every nerve-from the torture, the spiritual strength and invincible energy of the countenance, are won

SAN LORENZO (FUO

placed in a simple tomb, according to his own instructions; but the chapel is ve

ecious stones of fabulous value. This interior is perhaps the richest in the world in its decoration. San Lorenzo is a patriarchal church, and

On the left is the Pincian Hill (Monte Pincio), with its rich terraces, balustrades, its beautiful porticos filled with statuary, its groves of cypress and ilex trees; a classic vision rising on the sight and enchanting the imaginati

as widened and decorated by Pius VII. It is formed by two semicircles, adorned with fountains and statues, and terminated by four symmetrical ed

e places, the hieroglyphics are still legible. This obelisk was first erected in Egypt as a part of the Temple of the Sun at Heliopolis, in a period preceding that of Rameses II. After the battle of Actium, Augustus transported it to Rome, and it was first placed in the Circus Maximu

ntiff, twelve times Emperor, eleven times Consul, fourteen times T

scription is

giously consecrated to the Sun by the great Augustus, in the great Circus, where it lay

ception" is by Maratta, the "Martyrdom of St. Lawrence" by Morandi, and the "St. Catherine" by Volterra. The "Visitation" was sculptured by Bernini in 1679. The third chapel is painted by Pinturicchio (1513), and the fourth has an interesting bas-relief of the fifteenth century. The picture of the Virgin, on the high altar, is one of those attributed to St. Luke; the paintings on the vault

nd the statues of Jonah and Elijah were done by Lorenzetto (1541), from designs by Raphael. Outside this chapel is the monument of Princess Odescalchi Chigi (1771), by Paolo Posi. The stained windows of the choir

Rome. An appeal was made to the Virgin, who declared that the crows were demons who kept watch over the ashes of Nero, and ordered the tree to be cut down and burned, th

The view of the terraced hillside from the Piazz

r ranges of art and philosophy." Mr. Story had modelled the busts of both Mr. and Mrs. Browning during their sojourns in Rome; in 1853 Harriet Hosmer had made the cast of the "clasped hands" of the poets, the model having since been cast in bronze; Mr. Page had, as already noted, pain

ra" and the "Sibyl" became famous. Whether they would produce so strong an effect at the present stage of twentieth-century life is a problem, but one that need not press for solution. Mr. Story was singularly fortunate in certain conditions that grouped themselves ab

is own st

*

angels, are, f

dows that wal

thing of that overruling destiny that every though

lame the w

ver hath

bravest

strate life

ck of favo

ithe on ot

asionall

time, and

ved one al

and of the intellectual appreciation that enabled him to select interesting ideal subjects to portray in the plastic art. These appealed to the special interest of his literary friends and were widely discussed in the press and periodicals of the day. It is a bonmot of contemporary studio life that Hawthorne rather than Story created the "Cleopatra," and one ingenious spirit suggests that as Mr. Story put nothing of expression or significance into his statues, the beholder could read into them anything he pleased; finding an empty mould, so to speak, into which to pour whatever image or embodiment he might conjure up from the infinite realm of i

tic, the leisurely atmosphere of Mr. Story's time, is yet not without a keen flashlight of truth. Painting had its reactionary crisis from the pre-Raphaelite ideals and the intransigeants have had their own conflicts in which they survived, or disappeared, according to the d

sailor, burie

ou set

llant ship, wh

red th

himself, "too literary,"-too largely a question of classic titles which appealed to the mid-nineteenth-century authors whose judgment of art the twentieth century finds particularly amusing. Henry James has somewhere held up to ridicule the early Beacon Hill Boston for its impassioned devotion to the "attenuated outlines" of Flaxman's art. But the work of Story will survive all transient variations of opinion, even of the present realistic age; for is not true realism, after all, to be found in the eternal

ian does the

?olian har

hurdy-gurdy

st musician

ntury, shall substitute for the ?olian harp the mere hornpipe and hurdy-gurdy of the hou

poet flings at

l may trample

die a song that'

were more than m

f all the ages" preceding; but it cannot be affirmed that

are qualities of beauty, strength, and profound significance in the art of Story that must insure their permanent recognition. Still, it remains true that Mr. Story owes his fame in an incalculable degree to the friendly pens of Hawthorne and others of his immediate circle,

ion that the limits of the English language allow to praise his work, none of whose marshalled force was too poor to do him reverence.

th that without the gifts and grace to attract about him an eminent circle of choic

his ow

of this fundamental truth, it is, not unfrequently, the mysterious spirit

ustrate lif

ck of favo

ithe on ot

s truth. With what unrivalled power and pathos has he expres

e Conquered, who fell

the beaten, who died ov

f the victors, for whom

n chorus, whose brows w

and the humble, the we

*

r on its branches, whose

prize they had grasped at,

their life all a

et, sculptor, painter, or writer of prose; in no other form of exp

nd on the fi

who are fallen, and woun

*

elpless, and whisper, '

ht, and have vanquished the

h unseduced by the prize th

cause to suffer, resist, f

e its own immortalit

erary work-in his contributions of essays and poems to the Atlantic Monthly; in his published works, the "Roba di Roma," "Conversations in a

their home, are American by parentage and ancestry; and Mr. Waldo Story succeeds his father in pursuing the art of sculpture in the beautiful studios in the Via San Martino built by the elder Story. In 1902 Charles Walter Stetson,

s he, and times wit

f Rome uninter

E OF THE

u Ve

e world forces, advancing stealthily in the shadows of a dusky twilight; the Fates, under brilliant skies, gathering in the stars; oracles and supernatural coincidences that lurk in undreamed-of days; the Pleiades dancing in a light that never was on sea or land; unknown Shapes that meet outside space and time and question each other's identity; the dead that come forth from their graves and glide, silent and spectral, through a crowd, unseen by any one; the prayer of the celestial powers poured forth in the utter solitude of the vast desert,-it

use ca

ast, what

eb that's

ign to phrase his thoug

be done i

n in m

uin in his blindness has refused to buy. The Rome that lies buried under the ages rises for Vedder. His art cannot be catalogued under any known division of portrait, landscape, marine, or genre, but it is simply-the art of Vedder. It stands alone and absolutely unrivalled. The pictorial creations of Vedder are as wholly without prece

ny interrogation of his concep

eker of

gem of

land, or w

o only je

*

owing, yet

pause not i

artist and poet so blended in one as in Vedder's wonderful illustrations for this poem. It has nothing in common with what we ordinarily call an illustrated work. It is a great treasure o

ovely head to ta

Angel of th

ight in the di

e who from that

in her own lovel

ong enemies w

olden youth her

f Sorrow's thr

ief found out

in to go where

welcome, Ange

onward with th

no man loves, n

is, makes welcom

rial interpretation all form one beau

hose natural expression is pictorial, but who is a man as well as a painter; who has lived as well as painted, who has speculated, pondered, and felt much. . . . It is this,

and awe-inspiring; the tares represent the foe of the church-money; they are sown at the foot of the cross-the symbol of the church.

s that seem to discern things not seen by mortals; the sinister face of Doubt at the left, the serene, inspiring countenance of Faith at the right. It is a magical pic

e of the best examples of his art. It is pervaded by the classic influences in which he has lived. The studios of Mr. Ezekiel, in the ruins of the old Baths of Caracalla, are very picturesq

shrubs and broken statues, make the place alluring to dreamer and poet. In these rooms may be seen many of the elder Story's finest statues in cast or marble, the "Libyan Sibyl," "Nemesis," "Sappho," the "Christ," "Into the Silent Land

y designed as a Galatea (in bronze), standing in a marble shell that is drawn by Nereids and attended by Cupids. The happy blending of marble and bronze gives to this

also exalts this actuality of the hour to the universality of the vision. In the creation of portrait busts and of the statues and monumental memorials of great men he infuses into them the indefinable quality of extended relation which relegates his work to the realm of the universal and, therefore, to the immortality of art, rather than restricting it to th

s native city, Portland, was appropriately the work of Mr. Simmons as a native of the same state; the portrait statues of General Grant, Gov. William King, Roger Williams, and Francis H. Pierrepont, all in Statuary Hall in the Capitol in

his genius impressed itself by its dignity of conception and an unusual power of sympathetic interpretation. He modelled the bust of Grant while he was the General's guest in camp, taking advantage of whatever spare minutes General Grant could give for sittings in the midst of his pressing responsibilities; and it is perhaps due to this unusually intimate i

ious relation, as one of the potent leaders and directive powers in an age of tumultuous activities; an age of strife and carnage, whose goal was peace; of adverse conditions and reactions, whose manifest outcome was yet prosperity and national greatness and splendid moral triumph. All these must be suggested in the atmosphere, so to speak, of the artist's work; and no sculptor who was not also an American-not merely by ancestry and activity, but one in mind and heart only; one who was an intense patriot and identified with national ideas-could ever have produced such a work as that of the Logan monument. So unrivalled does it stand, unique among all the equestrian art of this country, that it enchants the art student and lover with its indefinable spell. When this colossal work was cast in bronze, in Rome, the event was considered important. The king and the Royal family visited the studio of Mr. Simmons to see the great group, and so powerfully did its excellence appeal to King Umberto that he knighted Mr. Simmons, making him Cavaliere of the Crown of Italy. Nor was Mr. Simmons the prophet who was not without honor save in his own country, for his alma mater gave him the degree of M.A. in 1867; Colby College honored him with the Master's degree in 1885, and in 1888 Bowdoin bestowed upon this eminent Maine artist the same degree. In 1892 Mr. Simmons married the Baroness von Jeinsen, a brilliant and beautiful w

AND H

NAVAL MONUME

lin S

at follows temporary defeat. Those who died that the nation might live, are seen in the perpetual illumination of immortality. Not only has Mr. Simmons here perpetuated the suffering, the sacrifices of the Civil War, but that sublime and eternal truth of victory after defeat, of peace and sere

don, three busts of distinguished Americans,-those of Alexander Hamilton, Chief Justice Chase, and Hon. James G. Blaine, which Mr. Reid, in visiting the Roman

ng exceptional in portrait art. It has a matchless dignity and serene poise. The bust of Chief Justice Chase is a faithful and speaking reproduction of the very presence of its subject, instinct with vitality; and the fire and force and brilliancy of the bust of Hon.

he has modelled over one hundred portrait busts and statues. His industry has kept step with his genius. The latest success of Mr. Simmons in the line of monumental art is the statue (in bronze) of Alexander Hamilton, which was

PROGRESS LEAD

lin S

tion, the motif being that of the spirits Life and Light beating down and driving out the spirits of darkness and evil; "The Angel of the Resurrection," with its glad, triumphant assertion of the power of the immortal life; the poetry and sacredness of maternity as typified in the "Mother of Moses;" the statues of the "Galatea" and the "M

ER OF

lin S

on, into which has entered a hint of pathos and wistfulness in the dawning wonder as to whether, after all, Ulysses will return. The classic beauty of the pose; the exquisite modelling of the bust and arms and hands, every curve

nd"; the face tells its own story of all she has passed through,-the trials, the sadness, the obstacles to be overcome; but now she sees the fulfilment of her hopes and dreams. It is a most interest

ht it gleams,-t

n sifts through

eariness and

from her som

den, and trans

med-of sense o

and the ec

alities tha

dawn, nor ever

oul to its im

great gift has s

profoundest t

the spirit p

ision of the

LEY

lin S

ysterious way recognized only in its result; all that unparalleled epoch of tragic intensity and sublime triumph lives again in this work

t the

eet th

ver th

rly s

he mou

man f

ll ar

g to

d the

environment most stimulating to his dawning power, who accepted with unfailing courage the inc

his back, but marc

ed clouds w

e artist must always give to the world and that leads humanity to the crowning

on of the apostle condenses the most

eath; but to be spiritually

his lofty message of the triumph of spirituality, his reward shall appear, not in the praise of men, but in the effect on chara

ay not go near the Forum for a month, or even a season, but the knowledge that one may find it and the wonderful Palatine Hill any hour of any day is a perpetual delight. The Vatican galleries, with their great masterpieces; the Sistine Chapel, the state

centre of artistic resort, and his personal life is one of distinc

was herself a musical artist, with impassioned devotion to music; and her rare personal charm and distinction of presence drew around her a most interesting circle. Her receptions were for many years a noted feature of Roman society. The social life in Rome is very brilliant, interesting, and fascinating. The sight-seeing is a

several figures, called "Music." An idyllic scene of a festa amid the ilex trees-with the Italian sky and the golden sunshine pervading a luminous atmosphere, while the joyous abandon of the dancers appeals to all who love Italy-is one of the many beautiful pictorial scenes of Mr. Stetson which enchant the eye and haunt the i

ideal sculpture elevated the general public taste to a high degree of appreciation. The standards were not ingeniously adjusted to mere spectacular methods whose sole appeal wa

o love

h it lower to s

to sell his soul for a mess of pottage. He may, to be sure, need the pottage, but the p

can

l's life withou

in heaven ins

ok to it-I am

he leader and the creator of the popular taste; only when i

ers and sculptors, have yet, in many ways, been a demoralizing influence in their insidious temptation to produce pictures or plastic art calculated to arrest immediate attention, thus putting a premium on the spectacular, the sensational, on that which makes the most immediate and direct appeal to the se

ted to form an inclosure for the statue, rather than that the statue was created as an adornment for the temple. The greatest gifts were consecrated to the service of art, and under these stimulating influences it is little wonder that artistic creation achieved that vital potency which has thrilled all succeeding centuries and has communicated to them something of the divine air of that remote period. With the Renaissance in Italy art culminated in the immortal work of Raphael and Michael Angelo. In the Sistine Chapel, where that sublime grouping of prophets and sibyls speaks of the very miracle of art in their impassioned fire and glo

," ST. PE

ael

e of Canova and Thorwa

hich is now being erected in Rome to stand near the Capitol and the Palace of the Quirinale. Great art has always been closely associated with great devotion to religious ideals. The artist was the servant of the Lord, and it was his supreme purpose to embody the aspirations of the age and render his works a full and complete symbol of those true realities of life which have their being in the spiritual universe rather than in the changing temporal world of the outer universe. The so-called realism of the day is based on a

ls. The artist is, by virtue of his high calling, a co-worker with God. An English wit has declared that life copies art rather than that art copies life. In this he expresses a truth rather than a merely clever epigram. It is the artist's business to lead, not to follow. Only as he leads does he fulfil his divinely appointed destiny. "I maintain that life is not a form of energy," writes Sir Oliver Lodge; "that it is not included in our present physical categories; that its explanation is still to be sought. And it appears to me to belong to a separate order of existence, which interacts with this material frame of things, and while here exerts guidance and control on the energy which already here exists; for although they alter the quantity of energy no whit, and though they merely utilize available energy like any oth

autiful creation of Mr. Simmons shows a woman of exquisite delicacy and loveliness sitting, slightly bending forward, holding her baby to her breast. The modelling of the draped figure with the bare arms and neck revealing the tender curves, the yielding delicacy of the flesh and that inscrutable light upon the beautiful countenance, whose expression suggests that she is looking far into the future of the infant whom she holds in her arms, are a wonderful portrayal of the mystery and the sacredness of motherhood. The one statue degrades maternity; the other ennobles and exalts. The one embodies a pernicious and a false ideal; the other embodies the ideal

ill inspire the artist of to-day with the absolute r

ver a retros

ms and corn

us a glimpse

ldiers fac

ory of the medi?val art of Italy owed its greatness to religion. Cimabue and Giotto were directly inspired by that spring of a diviner life given to Italy and later to the world of that "sweet saint," Francis of Assisi. In an age of cruelty and terror he brought the new message that man is dear to God; that the soul is ceaselessly joyful; that man, created in the divine image, is a part of the divine life, and that only when he lives in this response and recognition does he truly live at all. In this restatement

f the material by a period of great art that humanity is bro

omen make

heart make

Bro

memories m

tance of tim

scene come

things uncha

we cannot

we cannot

souls to t

emembere

gfe

d the heart asks, Why should that be a legend? Why should that be a projection of a morbid and devout imagination? Why should it not have been the clairvoyance of supernatural ecstasy opening the world of spirits? It was no unreality when the angel of God, with his sword drawn in his hand, withstood the prophet Balaam. It was no morbid imagination when the angel of God smote with the edge of the sword the first-born of the land of Egypt. It was no im

e Archdeacon

nster

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