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

was

about sending him away, when Banks overhearing her, himself went

out. The little boy stood at the door with some drawings in his

hand. “What do you want with me?” asked the sculptor. “I want,

sir, if you please, to be admitted to draw at the Academy.” Banks

explained that he himself could not procure his admission, but he

asked to look at the boy’s drawings. Examining them, he said,

“Time enough for the Academy, my little man! go home—mind your

schooling—try to make a better drawing of the Apollo—and in a

month come again and let me see it.” The boy went home—sketched

and worked with redoubled diligence—and, at the end of the month,

called again on the sculptor. The drawing was better; but again

Banks sent him back, with good advice, to work and study. In a

week the boy was again at his door, his drawing much improved; and

Banks bid him be of good cheer, for if spared he would distinguish

himself. The boy was Mulready; and the sculptor’s augury was amply

fulfilled.

 

The fame of Claude Lorraine is partly explained by his

indefatigable industry. Born at Champagne, in Lorraine, of poor

parents, he was first apprenticed to a pastrycook. His brother,

who was a wood-carver, afterwards took him into his shop to learn

that trade. Having there shown indications of artistic skill, a

travelling dealer persuaded the brother to allow Claude to

accompany him to Italy. He assented, and the young man reached

Rome, where he was shortly after engaged by Agostino Tassi, the

landscape painter, as his house-servant. In that capacity Claude

first learnt landscape painting, and in course of time he began to

produce pictures. We next find him making the tour of Italy,

France, and Germany, occasionally resting by the way to paint

landscapes, and thereby replenish his purse. On returning to Rome

he found an increasing demand for his works, and his reputation at

length became European. He was unwearied in the study of nature in

her various aspects. It was his practice to spend a great part of

his time in closely copying buildings, bits of ground, trees,

leaves, and such like, which he finished in detail, keeping the

drawings by him in store for the purpose of introducing them in his

studied landscapes. He also gave close attention to the sky,

watching it for whole days from morning till night, and noting the

various changes occasioned by the passing clouds and the increasing

and waning light. By this constant practice he acquired, although

it is said very slowly, such a mastery of hand and eye as

eventually secured for him the first rank among landscape painters.

 

Turner, who has been styled “the English Claude,” pursued a career

of like laborious industry. He was destined by his father for his

own trade of a barber, which he carried on in London, until one day

the sketch which the boy had made of a coat of arms on a silver

salver having attracted the notice of a customer whom his father

was shaving, the latter was urged to allow his son to follow his

bias, and he was eventually permitted to follow art as a

profession. Like all young artists, Turner had many difficulties

to encounter, and they were all the greater that his circumstances

were so straitened. But he was always willing to work, and to take

pains with his work, no matter how humble it might be. He was glad

to hire himself out at half-a-crown a night to wash in skies in

Indian ink upon other people’s drawings, getting his supper into

the bargain. Thus he earned money and acquired expertness. Then

he took to illustrating guide-books, almanacs, and any sort of

books that wanted cheap frontispieces. “What could I have done

better?” said he afterwards; “it was first-rate practice.” He did

everything carefully and conscientiously, never slurring over his

work because he was ill-remunerated for it. He aimed at learning

as well as living; always doing his best, and never leaving a

drawing without having made a step in advance upon his previous

work. A man who thus laboured was sure to do much; and his growth

in power and grasp of thought was, to use Ruskin’s words, “as

steady as the increasing light of sunrise.” But Turner’s genius

needs no panegyric; his best monument is the noble gallery of

pictures bequeathed by him to the nation, which will ever be the

most lasting memorial of his fame.

 

To reach Rome, the capital of the fine arts, is usually the highest

ambition of the art student. But the journey to Rome is costly,

and the student is often poor. With a will resolute to overcome

difficulties, Rome may however at last be reached. Thus Francois

Perrier, an early French painter, in his eager desire to visit the

Eternal City, consented to act as guide to a blind vagrant. After

long wanderings he reached the Vatican, studied and became famous.

Not less enthusiasm was displayed by Jacques Callot in his

determination to visit Rome. Though opposed by his father in his

wish to be an artist, the boy would not be baulked, but fled from

home to make his way to Italy. Having set out without means, he

was soon reduced to great straits; but falling in with a band of

gipsies, he joined their company, and wandered about with them from

one fair to another, sharing in their numerous adventures. During

this remarkable journey Callot picked up much of that extraordinary

knowledge of figure, feature, and character which he afterwards

reproduced, sometimes in such exaggerated forms, in his wonderful

engravings.

 

When Callot at length reached Florence, a gentleman, pleased with

his ingenious ardour, placed him with an artist to study; but he

was not satisfied to stop short of Rome, and we find him shortly on

his way thither. At Rome he made the acquaintance of Porigi and

Thomassin, who, on seeing his crayon sketches, predicted for him a

brilliant career as an artist. But a friend of Callot’s family

having accidentally encountered him, took steps to compel the

fugitive to return home. By this time he had acquired such a love

of wandering that he could not rest; so he ran away a second time,

and a second time he was brought back by his elder brother, who

caught him at Turin. At last the father, seeing resistance was in

vain, gave his reluctant consent to Callot’s prosecuting his

studies at Rome. Thither he went accordingly; and this time he

remained, diligently studying design and engraving for several

years, under competent masters. On his way back to France, he was

encouraged by Cosmo II. to remain at Florence, where he studied and

worked for several years more. On the death of his patron he

returned to his family at Nancy, where, by the use of his burin and

needle, he shortly acquired both wealth and fame. When Nancy was

taken by siege during the civil wars, Callot was requested by

Richelieu to make a design and engraving of the event, but the

artist would not commemorate the disaster which had befallen his

native place, and he refused point-blank. Richelieu could not

shake his resolution, and threw him into prison. There Callot met

with some of his old friends the gipsies, who had relieved his

wants on his first journey to Rome. When Louis XIII. heard of his

imprisonment, he not only released him, but offered to grant him

any favour he might ask. Callot immediately requested that his old

companions, the gipsies, might be set free and permitted to beg in

Paris without molestation. This odd request was granted on

condition that Callot should engrave their portraits, and hence his

curious book of engravings entitled “The Beggars.” Louis is said

to have offered Callot a pension of 3000 livres provided he would

not leave Paris; but the artist was now too much of a Bohemian, and

prized his liberty too highly to permit him to accept it; and he

returned to Nancy, where he worked till his death. His industry

may be inferred from the number of his engravings and etchings, of

which he left not fewer than 1600. He was especially fond of

grotesque subjects, which he treated with great skill; his free

etchings, touched with the graver, being executed with especial

delicacy and wonderful minuteness.

 

Still more romantic and adventurous was the career of Benvenuto

Cellini, the marvellous gold worker, painter, sculptor, engraver,

engineer, and author. His life, as told by himself, is one of the

most extraordinary autobiographies ever written. Giovanni Cellini,

his father, was one of the Court musicians to Lorenzo de Medici at

Florence; and his highest ambition concerning his son Benvenuto was

that he should become an expert player on the flute. But Giovanni

having lost his appointment, found it necessary to send his son to

learn some trade, and he was apprenticed to a goldsmith. The boy

had already displayed a love of drawing and of art; and, applying

himself to his business, he soon became a dexterous workman.

Having got mixed up in a quarrel with some of the townspeople, he

was banished for six months, during which period he worked with a

goldsmith at Sienna, gaining further experience in jewellery and

gold-working.

 

His father still insisting on his becoming a flute-player,

Benvenuto continued to practise on the instrument, though he

detested it. His chief pleasure was in art, which he pursued with

enthusiasm. Returning to Florence, he carefully studied the

designs of Leonardo da Vinci and Michael Angelo; and, still further

to improve himself in gold-working, he went on foot to Rome, where

he met with a variety of adventures. He returned to Florence with

the reputation of being a most expert worker in the precious

metals, and his skill was soon in great request. But being of an

irascible temper, he was constantly getting into scrapes, and was

frequently under the necessity of flying for his life. Thus he

fled from Florence in the disguise of a friar, again taking refuge

at Sienna, and afterwards at Rome.

 

During his second residence in Rome, Cellini met with extensive

patronage, and he was taken into the Pope’s service in the double

capacity of goldsmith and musician. He was constantly studying and

improving himself by acquaintance with the works of the best

masters. He mounted jewels, finished enamels, engraved seals, and

designed and executed works in gold, silver, and bronze, in such a

style as to excel all other artists. Whenever he heard of a

goldsmith who was famous in any particular branch, he immediately

determined to surpass him. Thus it was that he rivalled the medals

of one, the enamels of another, and the jewellery of a third; in

fact, there was not a branch of his business that he did not feel

impelled to excel in.

 

Working in this spirit, it is not so wonderful that Cellini should

have been able to accomplish so much. He was a man of

indefatigable activity, and was constantly on the move. At one

time we find him at Florence, at another at Rome; then he is at

Mantua, at Rome, at Naples, and back to Florence again; then at

Venice, and in Paris, making all his long journeys on horseback.

He could not carry much luggage with him; so, wherever he went, he

usually began by making his own tools. He not only designed his

works, but executed them himself,—hammered and carved, and cast

and shaped them with his own hands. Indeed, his works have the

impress of genius so clearly stamped upon them, that they could

never have been designed by one person, and executed by another.

The humblest article—a buckle for a lady’s girdle, a seal, a

locket, a brooch, a ring, or a button—became in his hands a

beautiful work of art.

 

Cellini was remarkable for his