Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects and Curiosities of Art (Vol. 3 of 3) by S. Spooner (best ebook reader under 100 TXT) 📖
- Author: S. Spooner
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That they came as Apollyon himself had been there,
To pay their respects to their king.
Every child on beholding it, shivered with dread,
And screamed, as he turned away quick;
Not an old woman saw it, but raising her head,
Dropp'd a bead, made a cross on her wrinkles, and said,
"God help me from ugly old Nick!"
What the Painter so earnestly thought on by day,
He sometimes would dream of by night;
But once he was started as sleeping he lay,
'Twas no fancy, no dream--he could plainly survey
That the devil himself was in sight.
"You rascally dauber," old Beelzebub cries,
"Take heed how you wrong me, again!
Though your caricatures for myself I despise,
Make me handsomer now in the multitude's eyes,
Or see if I threaten in vain."
Now the painter was bold and religious beside,
And on faith he had certain reliance,
So earnestly he all his countenance eyed,
And thanked him for sitting with Catholic pride,
And sturdily bid him defiance.
Betimes in the morning, the Painter arose,
He is ready as soon as 'tis light;
Every look, every line, every feature he knows,
'Twas fresh to his eye, to his labor he goes,
And he has the wicked old one quite.
Happy man, he is sure the resemblance can't fail,
The tip of his nose is red hot,
There's his grin and his fangs, his skin cover'd with scales
And that--the identical curl of the tail,
Not a mark--not a claw is forgot.
He looks and retouches again with delight;
'Tis a portrait complete to his mind!
He touches again, and again feeds his sight,
He looks around for applause, and he sees with affright,
The original standing behind.
"Fool! idiot!" old Beelzebub grinned as he spoke,
And stamp'd on the scaffold in ire;
The painter grew pale, for he knew it no joke,
'Twas a terrible height, and the scaffolding broke;
And the devil could wish it no higher.
"Help! help me, O Mary," he cried in alarm,
As the scaffold sank under his feet,
From the canvas the Virgin extended her arm,
She caught the good painter, she saved him from harm,
There were thousands who saw in the street.
The old dragon fled when the wonder he spied,
And curs'd his own fruitless endeavor:
While the Painter called after, his rage to deride,
Shook his palette and brushes in triumph, and cried,
"Now I'll paint thee more ugly than ever!"
LEGEND OF THE PAINTER-FRIAR, THE DEVIL AND THE VIRGIN.
Don José de Valdivielso, one of the chaplains of the gay Cardinal Infant
Ferdinand of Austria, relates the following legend in his paper on the
Tax on Pictures, appended to Carducho's Dialogos de la Pintura. A
certain young friar was famous amongst his order, for his skill in
painting; and he took peculiar delight in drawing the Virgin and the
Devil. To heighten the divine beauty of the one, and to devise new and
extravagant forms of ugliness for the other, were the chief recreations
for his leisure hours. Vexed at last by the variety and vigor of his
sketches, Beelzebub, to be revenged, assumed the form of a lovely
maiden, and crossed under this guise the path of the friar, who being of
an amorous disposition, fell at once into the trap. The seeming damsel
smiled on her shaven wooer, but though nothing loth to be won, would not
surrender her charms at a less price than certain reliquaries and jewels
in the convent treasury--a price which the friar in an evil hour
consented to pay. He admitted her at midnight within the convent walls,
and leading her to the sacristy, took from its antique cabinet the
things for which she had asked. Then came the moment of vengeance.
Passing in their return through the moonlit cloister as the friar stole
along, embracing the booty with one arm, and his false Duessa with the
other, the demon-lady suddenly cried out "Thieves!" with diabolical
energy, and instantly vanished. The snoring monks rushed disordered from
their cells and detected their unlucky brother making off with their
plate. Excuse being impossible, they tied the culprit to a column, and
leaving him till matins, when his punishment was to be determined, went
back to their slumbers. When all was quiet, the Devil reappeared, but
this time in his most hideous shape. Half dead with cold and terror, the
discomfited caricaturist stood shivering at his column, while his
tormentor made unmercifully merry with him; twitting him with his
amorous overtures, mocking his stammered prayers, and irreverently
suggesting an appeal for aid to the beauty he so loved to delineate. The
penitent wretch at last took the advice thus jeeringly given--when lo!
the Virgin descended, radiant in heavenly loveliness, loosened his
cords, and bade him bind the Evil One to the column in his place--an
order which he obeyed through her strength, with no less alacrity than
astonishment. She further ordered him to appear among the other monks at
table, and charged herself with the task of restoring the stolen plate
to its place. Thus the tables were suddenly turned. The friar presented
himself among his brethren in the morning, to their no small
astonishment, and voted with much contrition for his own condemnation--a
sentence which was reversed when they came to examine the contents of
the sacristy, and found everything correct. As to the Devil, who
remained fast bound to the pillar, he was soundly flogged, and so fell
into the pit which he had digged for another. His dupe, on the other
hand, gathered new strength from his fall, and became not only a wiser
and a better man, but also an abler artist; for the experience of that
terrible night had supplied all that was wanting to complete the ideal
of his favorite subjects. Thenceforth, he followed no more after
enticing damsels, but remained in his cloister, painting the Madonna
more serenely beautiful, and the Arch Enemy more curiously appalling
than ever.
GERARD DOUW.
This extraordinary artist was born at Leyden, in 1613. He was the son of
a glazier, and early exhibited a passion for the fine arts, which his
father encouraged. He received his first instruction in drawing from
Dolendo, the engraver. He was afterwards placed with Peter Kowenhoorn,
to learn the trade of a glass-stainer or painter; but disliking this
business, he became the pupil of Rembrandt when only fifteen years of
age, in whose school be continued three years. From Rembrandt he learned
the true principles of coloring, to which he added a delicacy of
pencilling, and a patience in working up his pictures to the highest
degree of neatness and finish, superior to any other master. He was more
pleased with the earlier and more finished works of Rembrandt, than with
his later productions, executed with more boldness and freedom of
pencilling; he therefore conceived the project of combining the rich and
glowing colors of that master with the polish and suavity of extreme
finishing, and he adopted the method of uniting the powerful tunes and
the magical light and shadow of his instructor with a minuteness and
precision of pencilling that so nearly approached nature as to become
perfect illusion. But though his manner appears so totally different
from that of Rembrandt, yet it was to him he owed that excellence of
coloring which enabled him to triumph over all the artists of his time.
His pictures are usually of small size, with figures so exquisitely
touched, and with a coloring so harmonious, transparent, and delicate,
as to excite the astonishment and admiration of the beholder. Although
his pictures are wrought up beyond the works of any other artist, there
is still discoverable a spirited and characteristic touch that evinces
the hand of a consummate master, and a breadth of light and shadow which
is only to be found in the works of the greatest masters of the art of
chiaro-scuro. The fame acquired by Douw is a crowning proof that
excellence is not confined to any particular style or manner, and had
he attempted to arrive at distinction by a bolder and less finished
pencil, it is highly probable that his fame would not have been so
great. It has been truly said that there are no positive rules by which
genius must be bounded to arrive at excellence. Every intermediate
style, from the grand and daring handling of Michael Angelo to the
laborious and patient finishing of Douw, may conduct the painter to
distinction, provided he adapts his manner to the character of the
subjects he treats.
DOUW'S STYLE.
Douw designed everything from nature, and with such exactness that each
object appears as perfect as nature herself. He was incontestibly the
most wonderful in his finishing of all the Flemish masters, although the
number of artists of that school who have excelled in this particular
style are quite large. The pictures he first painted were portraits, and
he wrought by the aid of a concave mirror, and sometimes by looking at
the object through a frame of many squares of small silk thread. He
spent so much time in these works that, notwithstanding they were
extremely admired, his sitters became disgusted, and he was obliged to
abandon portrait painting entirely, and devote his attention to fancy
subjects, in the execution of which he could devote as much time as he
pleased. This will not appear surprising, when Sandrart informs us that,
on one occasion, in company with Peter de Laer, he visited Douw, and
found him at work on a picture, which they could not forbear admiring
for its extraordinary neatness, and on taking particular notice of a
broom, and expressing their surprise that he could devote so much time
in finishing so minute an object, Douw informed them that he should work
on it three days more before he should think it complete. The same
author also says that in a family picture of Mrs. Spiering, that lady
sat five days for the finishing of one of her hands, supporting it on
the arm of a chair.
DOUW'S METHOD OF PAINTING.
His mind was naturally turned to precision and exactness, and it is
evident that he would have shown this quality in any other profession,
had he practiced another. Methodical and regular in all his habits, he
prepared and ground his own colors, and made his own brushes of a
peculiar shape, and he kept them locked up in a case made for the
purpose, that they might be free from soil. He permitted no one to enter
his studio, save a very few friends, and when he entered himself, he
went as softly as he could tread, so as not to raise the dust, and after
taking his seat, waited some time till the air was settled before he
opened his box and went to work; scarcely a breath of air was allowed to
ventilate his painting-room.
BOOK 1,pg.3
DOUW'S WORKS.
Everything that came from his pencil was precious, even in his
life-time. Houbraken says that his great patron, Mr. Spiering the
banker, allowed him one thousand guilders a year, and paid besides
whatever sum he pleased to ask for his pictures, some of which he
purchased for their weight in silver; but Sandrart informs us, with more
probability, that the thousand guilders were paid to Douw by Spiering on
condition that the artist should give him the choice of all the pictures
he painted. The following description of one of Gerhard's most capital
pictures, for a long time in the possession of the family of Van Hoek,
at Amsterdam, will serve to give a good idea of his method of treating
his subjects. The picture is much larger than his usual size, being
three feet long by two feet six inches wide, inside the frame. The room
is divided into two apartments by a curtain of curiously wrought
tapestry. In one apartment sits a woman giving suck to her child; at her
side is a cradle, and a table covered with tapestry, on which is placed
a gilt lamp which lights the room. In the second apartment is a surgeon
performing an operation upon a countryman, and by his side stands
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