Self Help by Samuel Smiles (desktop ebook reader txt) 📖

of a noble statue. Every skilled touch

of the artist’s brush or chisel, though guided by genius, is the

product of unremitting study.

 

Sir Joshua Reynolds was such a believer in the force of industry,

that he held that artistic excellence, “however expressed by

genius, taste, or the gift of heaven, may be acquired.” Writing to

Barry he said, “Whoever is resolved to excel in painting, or indeed

any other art, must bring all his mind to bear upon that one object

from the moment that he rises till he goes to bed.” And on another

occasion he said, “Those who are resolved to excel must go to their

work, willing or unwilling, morning, noon, and night: they will

find it no play, but very hard labour.” But although diligent

application is no doubt absolutely necessary for the achievement of

the highest distinction in art, it is equally true that without the

inborn genius, no amount of mere industry, however well applied,

will make an artist. The gift comes by nature, but is perfected by

self-culture, which is of more avail than all the imparted

education of the schools.

 

Some of the greatest artists have had to force their way upward in

the face of poverty and manifold obstructions. Illustrious

instances will at once flash upon the reader’s mind. Claude

Lorraine, the pastrycook; Tintoretto, the dyer; the two

Caravaggios, the one a colour-grinder, the other a mortar-carrier

at the Vatican; Salvator Rosa, the associate of bandits; Giotto,

the peasant boy; Zingaro, the gipsy; Cavedone, turned out of doors

to beg by his father; Canova, the stone-cutter; these, and many

other well-known artists, succeeded in achieving distinction by

severe study and labour, under circumstances the most adverse.

 

Nor have the most distinguished artists of our own country been

born in a position of life more than ordinarily favourable to the

culture of artistic genius. Gainsborough and Bacon were the sons

of clothworkers; Barry was an Irish sailor boy, and Maclise a

banker’s apprentice at Cork; Opie and Romney, like Inigo Jones,

were carpenters; West was the son of a small Quaker farmer in

Pennsylvania; Northcote was a watchmaker, Jackson a tailor, and

Etty a printer; Reynolds, Wilson, and Wilkie, were the sons of

clergymen; Lawrence was the son of a publican, and Turner of a

barber. Several of our painters, it is true, originally had some

connection with art, though in a very humble way,—such as Flaxman,

whose father sold plaster casts; Bird, who ornamented tea-trays;

Martin, who was a coach-painter; Wright and Gilpin, who were ship-painters; Chantrey, who was a carver and gilder; and David Cox,

Stanfield, and Roberts, who were scene-painters.

 

It was not by luck or accident that these men achieved distinction,

but by sheer industry and hard work. Though some achieved wealth,

yet this was rarely, if ever, the ruling motive. Indeed, no mere

love of money could sustain the efforts of the artist in his early

career of self-denial and application. The pleasure of the pursuit

has always been its best reward; the wealth which followed but an

accident. Many noble-minded artists have preferred following the

bent of their genius, to chaffering with the public for terms.

Spagnoletto verified in his life the beautiful fiction of Xenophon,

and after he had acquired the means of luxury, preferred

withdrawing himself from their influence, and voluntarily returned

to poverty and labour. When Michael Angelo was asked his opinion

respecting a work which a painter had taken great pains to exhibit

for profit, he said, “I think that he will be a poor fellow so long

as he shows such an extreme eagerness to become rich.”

 

Like Sir Joshua Reynolds, Michael Angelo was a great believer in

the force of labour; and he held that there was nothing which the

imagination conceived, that could not be embodied in marble, if the

hand were made vigorously to obey the mind. He was himself one of

the most indefatigable of workers; and he attributed his power of

studying for a greater number of hours than most of his

contemporaries, to his spare habits of living. A little bread and

wine was all he required for the chief part of the day when

employed at his work; and very frequently he rose in the middle of

the night to resume his labours. On these occasions, it was his

practice to fix the candle, by the light of which he chiselled, on

the summit of a pasteboard cap which he wore. Sometimes he was

too wearied to undress, and he slept in his clothes, ready to

spring to his work so soon as refreshed by sleep. He had a

favourite device of an old man in a go-cart, with an hour-glass

upon it bearing the inscription, Ancora imparo! Still I am

learning.

 

Titian, also, was an indefatigable worker. His celebrated “Pietro

Martire” was eight years in hand, and his “Last Supper” seven. In

his letter to Charles V. he said, “I send your Majesty the ‘Last

Supper’ after working at it almost daily for seven years—dopo

sette anni lavorandovi quasi continuamente.” Few think of the

patient labour and long training involved in the greatest works of

the artist. They seem easy and quickly accomplished, yet with how

great difficulty has this ease been acquired. “You charge me fifty

sequins,” said the Venetian nobleman to the sculptor, “for a bust

that cost you only ten days’ labour.” “You forget,” said the

artist, “that I have been thirty years learning to make that bust

in ten days.” Once when Domenichino was blamed for his slowness in

finishing a picture which was bespoken, he made answer, “I am

continually painting it within myself.” It was eminently

characteristic of the industry of the late Sir Augustus Callcott,

that he made not fewer than forty separate sketches in the

composition of his famous picture of “Rochester.” This constant

repetition is one of the main conditions of success in art, as in

life itself.

 

No matter how generous nature has been in bestowing the gift of

genius, the pursuit of art is nevertheless a long and continuous

labour. Many artists have been precocious, but without diligence

their precocity would have come to nothing. The anecdote related

of West is well known. When only seven years old, struck with the

beauty of the sleeping infant of his eldest sister whilst watching

by its cradle, he ran to seek some paper and forthwith drew its

portrait in red and black ink. The little incident revealed the

artist in him, and it was found impossible to draw him from his

bent. West might have been a greater painter, had he not been

injured by too early success: his fame, though great, was not

purchased by study, trials, and difficulties, and it has not been

enduring.

 

Richard Wilson, when a mere child, indulged himself with tracing

figures of men and animals on the walls of his father’s house, with

a burnt stick. He first directed his attention to portrait

painting; but when in Italy, calling one day at the house of

Zucarelli, and growing weary with waiting, he began painting the

scene on which his friend’s chamber window looked. When Zucarelli

arrived, he was so charmed with the picture, that he asked if

Wilson had not studied landscape, to which he replied that he had

not. “Then, I advise you,” said the other, “to try; for you are

sure of great success.” Wilson adopted the advice, studied and

worked hard, and became our first great English landscape painter.

 

Sir Joshua Reynolds, when a boy, forgot his lessons, and took

pleasure only in drawing, for which his father was accustomed to

rebuke him. The boy was destined for the profession of physic, but

his strong instinct for art could not be repressed, and he became a

painter. Gainsborough went sketching, when a schoolboy, in the

woods of Sudbury; and at twelve he was a confirmed artist: he was

a keen observer and a hard worker,—no picturesque feature of any

scene he had once looked upon, escaping his diligent pencil.

William Blake, a hosier’s son, employed himself in drawing designs

on the backs of his father’s shop-bills, and making sketches on the

counter. Edward Bird, when a child only three or four years old,

would mount a chair and draw figures on the walls, which he called

French and English soldiers. A box of colours was purchased for

him, and his father, desirous of turning his love of art to

account, put him apprentice to a maker of tea-trays! Out of this

trade he gradually raised himself, by study and labour, to the rank

of a Royal Academician.

 

Hogarth, though a very dull boy at his lessons, took pleasure in

making drawings of the letters of the alphabet, and his school

exercises were more remarkable for the ornaments with which he

embellished them, than for the matter of the exercises themselves.

In the latter respect he was beaten by all the blockheads of the

school, but in his adornments he stood alone. His father put him

apprentice to a silversmith, where he learnt to draw, and also to

engrave spoons and forks with crests and ciphers. From silver-chasing, he went on to teach himself engraving on copper,

principally griffins and monsters of heraldry, in the course of

which practice he became ambitious to delineate the varieties of

human character. The singular excellence which he reached in this

art, was mainly the result of careful observation and study. He

had the gift, which he sedulously cultivated, of committing to

memory the precise features of any remarkable face, and afterwards

reproducing them on paper; but if any singularly fantastic form or

outre face came in his way, he would make a sketch of it on the

spot, upon his thumb-nail, and carry it home to expand at his

leisure. Everything fantastical and original had a powerful

attraction for him, and he wandered into many out-of-the-way places

for the purpose of meeting with character. By this careful storing

of his mind, he was afterwards enabled to crowd an immense amount

of thought and treasured observation into his works. Hence it is

that Hogarth’s pictures are so truthful a memorial of the

character, the manners, and even the very thoughts of the times in

which he lived. True painting, he himself observed, can only be

learnt in one school, and that is kept by Nature. But he was not a

highly cultivated man, except in his own walk. His school

education had been of the slenderest kind, scarcely even perfecting

him in the art of spelling; his self-culture did the rest. For a

long time he was in very straitened circumstances, but nevertheless

worked on with a cheerful heart. Poor though he was, he contrived

to live within his small means, and he boasted, with becoming

pride, that he was “a punctual paymaster.” When he had conquered

all his difficulties and become a famous and thriving man, he loved

to dwell upon his early labours and privations, and to fight over

again the battle which ended so honourably to him as a man and so

gloriously as an artist. “I remember the time,” said he on one

occasion, “when I have gone moping into the city with scarce a

shilling, but as soon as I have received ten guineas there for a

plate, I have returned home, put on my sword, and sallied out with

all the confidence of a man who had thousands in his pockets.”

 

“Industry and perseverance” was the motto of the sculptor Banks,

which he acted on himself, and strongly recommended to others. His

well-known kindness induced many aspiring youths to call upon him

and ask for his advice and assistance; and it is related that one

day a boy called at his door to see him with this object, but the

servant, angry at the loud knock he had given, scolded him, and