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

readiness and dexterity in

handicraft. One day a surgeon entered the shop of Raffaello del

Moro, the goldsmith, to perform an operation on his daughter’s

hand. On looking at the surgeon’s instruments, Cellini, who was

present, found them rude and clumsy, as they usually were in those

days, and he asked the surgeon to proceed no further with the

operation for a quarter of an hour. He then ran to his shop, and

taking a piece of the finest steel, wrought out of it a beautifully

finished knife, with which the operation was successfully

performed.

 

Among the statues executed by Cellini, the most important are the

silver figure of Jupiter, executed at Paris for Francis I., and the

Perseus, executed in bronze for the Grand Duke Cosmo of Florence.

He also executed statues in marble of Apollo, Hyacinthus,

Narcissus, and Neptune. The extraordinary incidents connected with

the casting of the Perseus were peculiarly illustrative of the

remarkable character of the man.

 

The Grand Duke having expressed a decided opinion that the model,

when shown to him in wax, could not possibly be cast in bronze,

Cellini was immediately stimulated by the predicted impossibility,

not only to attempt, but to do it. He first made the clay model,

baked it, and covered it with wax, which he shaped into the perfect

form of a statue. Then coating the wax with a sort of earth, he

baked the second covering, during which the wax dissolved and

escaped, leaving the space between the two layers for the reception

of the metal. To avoid disturbance, the latter process was

conducted in a pit dug immediately under the furnace, from which

the liquid metal was to be introduced by pipes and apertures into

the mould prepared for it.

 

Cellini had purchased and laid in several loads of pine-wood, in

anticipation of the process of casting, which now began. The

furnace was filled with pieces of brass and bronze, and the fire

was lit. The resinous pine-wood was soon in such a furious blaze,

that the shop took fire, and part of the roof was burnt; while at

the same time the wind blowing and the rain filling on the furnace,

kept down the heat, and prevented the metals from melting. For

hours Cellini struggled to keep up the heat, continually throwing

in more wood, until at length he became so exhausted and ill, that

he feared he should die before the statue could be cast. He was

forced to leave to his assistants the pouring in of the metal when

melted, and betook himself to his bed. While those about him were

condoling with him in his distress, a workman suddenly entered the

room, lamenting that “Poor Benvenuto’s work was irretrievably

spoiled!” On hearing this, Cellini immediately sprang from his bed

and rushed to the workshop, where he found the fire so much gone

down that the metal had again become hard.

 

Sending across to a neighbour for a load of young oak which had

been more than a year in drying, he soon had the fire blazing again

and the metal melting and glittering. The wind was, however, still

blowing with fury, and the rain falling heavily; so, to protect

himself, Cellini had some tables with pieces of tapestry and old

clothes brought to him, behind which he went on hurling the wood

into the furnace. A mass of pewter was thrown in upon the other

metal, and by stirring, sometimes with iron and sometimes with long

poles, the whole soon became completely melted. At this juncture,

when the trying moment was close at hand, a terrible noise as of a

thunderbolt was heard, and a glittering of fire flashed before

Cellini’s eyes. The cover of the furnace had burst, and the metal

began to flow! Finding that it did not run with the proper

velocity, Cellini rushed into the kitchen, bore away every piece of

copper and pewter that it contained—some two hundred porringers,

dishes, and kettles of different kinds—and threw them into the

furnace. Then at length the metal flowed freely, and thus the

splendid statue of Perseus was cast.

 

The divine fury of genius in which Cellini rushed to his kitchen

and stripped it of its utensils for the purposes of his furnace,

will remind the reader of the like act of Pallissy in breaking up

his furniture for the purpose of baking his earthenware.

Excepting, however, in their enthusiasm, no two men could be less

alike in character. Cellini was an Ishmael against whom, according

to his own account, every man’s hand was turned. But about his

extraordinary skill as a workman, and his genius as an artist,

there cannot be two opinions.

 

Much less turbulent was the career of Nicolas Poussin, a man as

pure and elevated in his ideas of art as he was in his daily life,

and distinguished alike for his vigour of intellect, his rectitude

of character, and his noble simplicity. He was born in a very

humble station, at Andeleys, near Rouen, where his father kept a

small school. The boy had the benefit of his parent’s instruction,

such as it was, but of that he is said to have been somewhat

negligent, preferring to spend his time in covering his lesson-books and his slate with drawings. A country painter, much pleased

with his sketches, besought his parents not to thwart him in his

tastes. The painter agreed to give Poussin lessons, and he soon

made such progress that his master had nothing more to teach him.

Becoming restless, and desirous of further improving himself,

Poussin, at the age of 18, set out for Paris, painting signboards

on his way for a maintenance.

 

At Paris a new world of art opened before him, exciting his wonder

and stimulating his emulation. He worked diligently in many

studios, drawing, copying, and painting pictures. After a time, he

resolved, if possible, to visit Rome, and set out on his journey;

but he only succeeded in getting as far as Florence, and again

returned to Paris. A second attempt which he made to reach Rome

was even less successful; for this time he only got as far as

Lyons. He was, nevertheless, careful to take advantage of all

opportunities for improvement which came in his way, and continued

as sedulous as before in studying and working.

 

Thus twelve years passed, years of obscurity and toil, of failures

and disappointments, and probably of privations. At length Poussin

succeeded in reaching Rome. There he diligently studied the old

masters, and especially the ancient statues, with whose perfection

he was greatly impressed. For some time he lived with the sculptor

Duquesnoi, as poor as himself, and assisted him in modelling

figures after the antique. With him he carefully measured some of

the most celebrated statues in Rome, more particularly the

‘Antinous:’ and it is supposed that this practice exercised

considerable influence on the formation of his future style. At

the same time he studied anatomy, practised drawing from the life,

and made a great store of sketches of postures and attitudes of

people whom he met, carefully reading at his leisure such standard

books on art as he could borrow from his friends.

 

During all this time he remained very poor, satisfied to be

continually improving himself. He was glad to sell his pictures

for whatever they would bring. One, of a prophet, he sold for

eight livres; and another, the ‘Plague of the Philistines,’ he sold

for 60 crowns—a picture afterwards bought by Cardinal de Richelieu

for a thousand. To add to his troubles, he was stricken by a cruel

malady, during the helplessness occasioned by which the Chevalier

del Posso assisted him with money. For this gentleman Poussin

afterwards painted the ‘Rest in the Desert,’ a fine picture, which

far more than repaid the advances made during his illness.

 

The brave man went on toiling and learning through suffering.

Still aiming at higher things, he went to Florence and Venice,

enlarging the range of his studies. The fruits of his

conscientious labour at length appeared in the series of great

pictures which he now began to produce,—his ‘Death of Germanicus,’

followed by ‘Extreme Unction,’ the ‘Testament of Eudamidas,’ the

‘Manna,’ and the ‘Abduction of the Sabines.’

 

The reputation of Poussin, however, grew but slowly. He was of a

retiring disposition and shunned society. People gave him credit

for being a thinker much more than a painter. When not actually

employed in painting, he took long solitary walks in the country,

meditating the designs of future pictures. One of his few friends

while at Rome was Claude Lorraine, with whom he spent many hours at

a time on the terrace of La Trinite-du-Mont, conversing about art

and antiquarianism. The monotony and the quiet of Rome were suited

to his taste, and, provided he could earn a moderate living by his

brush, he had no wish to leave it.

 

But his fame now extended beyond Rome, and repeated invitations

were sent him to return to Paris. He was offered the appointment

of principal painter to the King. At first he hesitated; quoted

the Italian proverb, Chi sta bene non si muove; said he had lived

fifteen years in Rome, married a wife there, and looked forward to

dying and being buried there. Urged again, he consented, and

returned to Paris. But his appearance there awakened much

professional jealousy, and he soon wished himself back in Rome

again. While in Paris he painted some of his greatest works—his

‘Saint Xavier,’ the ‘Baptism,’ and the ‘Last Supper.’ He was kept

constantly at work. At first he did whatever he was asked to do,

such as designing frontispieces for the royal books, more

particularly a Bible and a Virgil, cartoons for the Louvre, and

designs for tapestry; but at length he expostulated:- “It is

impossible for me,” he said to M. de Chanteloup, “to work at the

same time at frontispieces for books, at a Virgin, at a picture of

the Congregation of St. Louis, at the various designs for the

gallery, and, finally, at designs for the royal tapestry. I have

only one pair of hands and a feeble head, and can neither be helped

nor can my labours be lightened by another.”

 

Annoyed by the enemies his success had provoked and whom he was

unable to conciliate, he determined, at the end of less than two

years’ labour in Paris, to return to Rome. Again settled there in

his humble dwelling on Mont Pincio, he employed himself diligently

in the practice of his art during the remaining years of his life,

living in great simplicity and privacy. Though suffering much from

the disease which afflicted him, he solaced himself by study,

always striving after excellence. “In growing old,” he said, “I

feel myself becoming more and more inflamed with the desire of

surpassing myself and reaching the highest degree of perfection.”

Thus toiling, struggling, and suffering, Poussin spent his later

years. He had no children; his wife died before him; all his

friends were gone: so that in his old age he was left absolutely

alone in Rome, so full of tombs, and died there in 1665,

bequeathing to his relatives at Andeleys the savings of his life,

amounting to about 1000 crowns; and leaving behind him, as a legacy

to his race, the great works of his genius.

 

The career of Ary Scheffer furnishes one of the best examples in

modern times of a like high-minded devotion to art. Born at

Dordrecht, the son of a German artist, he early manifested an

aptitude for drawing and painting, which his parents encouraged.

His father dying while he was still young, his mother resolved,

though her means were but small, to remove the family to Paris, in

order that her son might obtain the best opportunities for

instruction. There young Scheffer was placed with Guerin the

painter. But his