Visits and Sketches at Home and Abroad with Tales and Miscellanies Now First Collected Volume I Part 7

MEDON.

But Dannecker must have been poor in spirit as in pocket--simple, indeed, if he did not profit by the opportunities which Paris afforded of studying human nature, noting the pa.s.sions and their physiognomy, and gaining other experiences most useful to an artist.

ALDA.

There I differ from you. Would you send a young artist--more particularly a young sculptor--to study the human nature of London or Paris?--to seek the ideal among shop-girls and opera-dancers? Or the sublime and beautiful among the frivolous and degraded of one s.e.x, the money-making or the brutalized of the other? Is it from the man who has steeped his youthful prime in vulgar dissipation, by way of "seeing life," as it is called, who has courted patronage at the convivial board, that you shall require that union of lofty enthusiasm and patient industry, which are necessary, first to conceive the grand and the poetical, then consume long years in shaping out his creation in the everlasting marble?

MEDON.

But how is the sculptor himself to live during those long years? It must needs be a hard struggle. I have heard young artists say, that they have been forced on a dissipated life merely as a means of "getting on in the world," as the phrase is.

ALDA.

So have I. It is so base a plea, that when I hear it, I generally regard it as the excuse for dispositions already perverted. The men who talk thus are doomed: they will either creep through life in mediocrity and dependence to their grave; or, at the best, if they have parts, as well as cunning and a.s.surance, they may make themselves the fas.h.i.+on, and make their fortune; they may be clever portrait-painters and bust-makers, but when they attempt to soar into the historical and ideal department of their art, they move the laughter of G.o.ds and men; to them the higher, holier fountains of inspiration are thenceforth sealed.

MEDON.

But think of the temptations of society!

ALDA.

I think of those who have overcome them. "Great men have been among us,"

though they be rare. Have we not had a Flaxman? But the artist must choose where he will wors.h.i.+p. He cannot serve G.o.d and Mammon. That man of genius who thinks he can tamper with his glorious gifts, and for a season indulge in social excesses, stoop from his high calling to the dregs of earth, abandon himself to the stream of common life, and trust to his native powers to bring him up again;--O believe it, he plays a desperate game!--one that in nearly ninety-nine cases out of a hundred is fatal.

MEDON.

I begin to see your drift; but you would find it difficult to prove that the men who executed those works, on which we now look with wonder and despair, lived like anchorites, or were unexceptionable moral characters.

ALDA.

Will you not allow that they worked in a different spirit? Or do you suppose that it was by the possession of some sleight-of-hand that these things were performed?--That it was by some knack of chiselling, some secret of colouring now lost, that a Phidias or a Correggio still remain unapproached, and, as people will tell you, unapproachable?

MEDON.

They had a different nature to work from.

ALDA.

A different modification of nature, but not a different nature. Nature and truth are one, and immutable, and inseparable as beauty and love.

I do maintain that, in these latter times, we have artists, who in genius, in the power of looking at nature, and in manual skill, are not beneath the great ancients, but their works are found wanting in comparison; they have fallen short of the models their early ambition set before them; and why?--because, having genius, they want the moral grandeur that should accompany it, and have neglected the training of their own minds from necessity, or from dissipation or from pride, so that having imagination and skill, they have yet wanted the materials out of which to work. Recollect that the great artists of old were not mere painters or mere sculptors, who were nothing except with the pencil or the chisel in their hand. They were philosophers, scholars, poets, musicians, n.o.ble beings, whose eyes were not ever on themselves, but who looked above, before, and after. Our modern artists turn c.o.xcombs, and then fancy themselves like Rafaelle; or they are greedy of present praise, or greedy of gain; or they will not pay the price for immortality; or they have sold their glorious birthright of fame for a mess of pottage.

Poor Dannecker found his mess of pottage bitter now and then, as you shall hear. He set off for Italy, in 1783, with his pension raised to four hundred florins a year, that is, about thirty pounds: he reached Rome, on foot, and he told me that, for some months after his arrival, he suffered from a terrible depression of spirits, and a painful sense of loneliness: like Thorwaldson, when he too visited that city some years afterwards, a friendless youth, he was often home-sick and heart-sick. At this time he used to wander about among the ruins and relics of almighty Rome, lost in the sense of their grandeur, depressed by his own vague aspirations--ignorant, and without courage to apply himself. Luckily for him, Herder and Goethe were then residing at Rome; he became known to them, and their conversation directed him to higher sources of inspiration in his art than he had yet contemplated--to the very well-heads and mother-streams of poetry. They showed him the distinction between the _spirit_ and the _form_ of ancient art. Dannecker felt, and afterwards applied some of the grand revelations of these men, who were at once profound critics and inspired poets. He might have grasped at more, but that his early nurture was here against him, and his subsequent destinies as a court sculptor seldom left him sufficient freedom of thought or action to follow out his own conceptions. While at Rome he also became acquainted with Canova, who, although only one year older than himself, had already achieved great things. He was now at work on the monument of the Pope Ganganelli. The courteous, kind-hearted Italian would sometimes visit the poor German in his studio, and cheer him by his remarks and encouragement.

Dannecker remained five years at Rome; he was then ordered to return to Stuttgard. As he had already greatly distinguished himself, the Duke of Wurtemburg received him with much kindness, and promised him his protection. Now, the protection and the patronage which a sovereign accords to an artist generally amounts to this: he begins by carving or painting the portrait of his patron, and of some of the various members of his patron's family. If these are approved of, he is allowed to stick a ribbon in his b.u.t.ton-hole, and is appointed professor of fine arts, with a certain stipend, and thenceforth his time, his labour, and his genius belong as entirely to his master as those of a hired servant; his path is marked out for him. It was thus with Dannecker; he received a pension of eight hundred florins a year and his professors.h.i.+p, and upon the strength of this he married Henrietta Rapp. From this period his life has pa.s.sed in a course of tranquil and uninterrupted occupation, yet, though constantly employed, his works are not numerous; almost every moment being taken up with the duties of his professors.h.i.+p, in trying to teach what no man of genius can teach, and in making drawings and designs after the fancies of the Grand Duke. He was required to compose a ba.s.so-relievo for the duke's private cabinet. The subject which he chose was as appropriate as it was beautifully treated--Alexander pressing his seal upon the lips of Parmenio. He modelled this in bas-relief, and the best judges p.r.o.nounced it exquisite; but it did not please the duke, and instead of receiving an order to finish it in marble, he was obliged to throw it aside, and to execute some design dictated by his master. The original model remained for many years in his studio; but a short time before my last visit to him he had presented it as a birth-day gift to a friend. The first great work which gave him celebrity as a sculptor, was the mausoleum of Count Zeppelin, the duke's favourite, in which the figure of Friends.h.i.+p has much simplicity and grace: this is now at Louisberg. While he was modelling this beautiful figure, the first idea of the Ariadne was suggested to his fancy, but some years elapsed before it came into form. At this time he was much employed in executing busts, for which his fine eye for living nature and manly simplicity of taste peculiarly fitted him. In this particular department of his art he has neither equal nor rival, except our Chantrey. The best I have seen are those of Schiller, Gluck, and Lavater. Never are the fine arts, never are great artists, better employed than when they serve to ill.u.s.trate and to immortalize each other! About the year 1808, Dannecker was considered, beyond dispute, the first sculptor in Germany; for as yet Rauch, Tieck, and Schwanthaler had not worked their way up to their present high celebrity. He received, in 1811, an intimation, that if he would enter the service of the king of Bavaria, he should be placed at the head of the school of sculpture at Munich, with a salary three times the amount of that which he at present enjoyed.--

MEDON.

Which Dannecker declined?

ALDA.

He did.

MEDON.

I could have sworn to it--_extempore_! What is more touching in the history of men of genius than that deep and constant attachment they have shown to their early patrons! Not to go back to the days of Horace and Mecaenas, nor even to those of Ariosto and Ta.s.so and the family of Este, or Cellini and the Duke of Florence, or Lucas Kranach, and the Elector John Frederic--[16] do you remember Mozart's exclamation, when he was offered the most magnificent remuneration if he would quit the service of Joseph II. for that of the Elector of Saxony--"Shall I leave my good Emperor?" In the same manner Metastasio rejected every inducement to quit the service of Maria Theresa,----

ALDA.

Add Goethe and the Duke of Weimar, and a hundred other instances. The difficulty would be to find _one_, in which the patronage of the great has not been repaid ten thousand fold in grat.i.tude and fame. Dannecker's love for his native city, and his native princes, prevailed over his self-interest; his decision was honourable to his heart; but it is not less certain that at Munich he would have found more enlightened patronage, and a wider scope for his talents. Frederic, the late king of Wurtemburg, who had married our princess royal, was a man of a coa.r.s.e mind and profligate habits. Napoleon had gratified his vulgar ambition by making him a king, and thereupon he stuck a huge, tawdry gilt crown on the top of his palace, the impudent sign of his subservient _majesty_. I never looked at it without thinking of an overgrown child and its new toy; he also, to commemorate the acquisition of his kingly t.i.tles, inst.i.tuted the order of the Wurtemburg crown, and Dannecker was gratified by this new order of merit, and a bit of ribbon in his b.u.t.ton-hole.

But in the mean time the model of the Ariadne remained in his studio, and it was not till the year 1809 that he could afford to purchase a block of marble, and begin the statue on speculation. It occupied him for seven years, but in the interval he completed other beautiful works.

The king ordered him to execute a Cupid in marble, for which he gave him the design. It was a design which displeased the pure mind and high taste of Dannecker; he would not so desecrate his divine art: "c'etait travailler pour le diable!" said he to me, in telling the story. He therefore only half fulfilled his commission; and changing the purpose and sentiment of the figure, he represented the Greek Cupid at the moment that he is waked by the drop of burning oil from Psyche's lamp.

An English general, I believe Sir John Murray, saw this charming statue, in 1814, and immediately commanded a work from the sculptor's hands: he wished, but did not absolutely require, a duplicate of the statue he so admired. Dannecker, instead of repeating himself, produced his Psyche, whom he has represented--not as the Greek allegorical Psyche, the bride of Cupid, "with lucent fans, fluttering"--but as the abstract personification of the human soul; or, to use Dannecker's own words, "Ein rein, sittlich, sinniges Wesen,"--a pure, moral, intellectual being. As he had an idea that Love had become moral and sentimental after he had been waked by the drop of burning oil, so I could not help asking him whether this was Psyche, grown reasonable after she had beheld the wings of Love? He has not in this beautiful statue quite accomplished his own idea. It has much girlish grace and simplicity, but it wants elevation; it is not sufficiently ideal, and will not stand a comparison either with the Psyche of Westmacott, or that of Canova. The Ariadne was finished in 1816, but the sculptor was disappointed in his hope that this, his masterpiece, would adorn his native city. The king showed no desire to possess it, and it was purchased by M. Bethmann, of Frankfort, for a sum equal to about one thousand pounds. Soon after the Ariadne was finished, Dannecker conceived, in a moment of pious enthusiasm, his famous statue of the Redeemer, which has caused a great deal of discussion in Germany. This was standing in his work-room when we paid our first visit to him. He told me what I had often heard, that the figure had visited him in a dream three several times; and the good old man firmly believed that he had been divinely inspired, and predestined to the work. While the visionary image was fresh in his imagination, he first executed a small clay model, and placed it before a child of five or six years old;--there were none of the usual emblematical accompaniments--no cross--no crown of thorns to a.s.sist the fancy--nothing but the simple figure roughly modelled; yet the child immediately exclaimed, "The Redeemer!" and Dannecker was confirmed in his design. Gradually the completion of this statue became the one engrossing idea of his enthusiastic mind: for eight years it was his dream by night, his thought by day; all things else, all the affairs and duties of life, merged into this. He told me that he frequently felt as if pursued, excited by some strong, irresistible power, which would even visit him in sleep, and impel him to rise from his bed and work. He explained to me some of the difficulties he encountered, and which he was persuaded that he had perfectly overcome only through divine aid, and the constant study of the Scriptures. They were not few nor trifling.

Physical power, majesty, and beauty, formed no part of the character of the Saviour of the world: the glory that was around him was not of this earth, nor visible to the eye; "there was nothing in him that he should be desired;" therefore to throw into the impersonation of exceeding humility and benignity a superhuman grace, and from material elements work out a manifestation of abstract moral grandeur--this was surely not only a new and difficult, but a bold and sublime enterprize.

You remember Michael Angelo's statue of Christ in the church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva at Rome?

MEDON.

Perfectly; and I never looked at it without thinking of Neptune and his trident.

ALDA.

The same thought occurred to me, and must inevitably have occurred to others. Dannecker is not certainly so great a man as Michael Angelo, but here he has surpa.s.sed him. Instead of emulating the antique models, he has worked in the antique spirit--the spirit of faith and enthusiasm.

He has taken a new form in which to clothe a grand poetical conception.

Whether the being he has represented be a fit subject for the plastic art, has been disputed; but it appears to me that Dannecker has more nearly approached the christian ideal than any of his predecessors; there is nothing to be compared to it, except t.i.tian's Christo della Moneta, and that is a head merely. The sentiment chosen by the sculptor is expressed in the inscription on the pedestal: "Through me, to the Father." The proportions of the figure are exceedingly slender and delicate; the att.i.tude a little drooping; one hand is pressed on the bosom, the other extended; the lips are unclosed as in the act to speak.

In the head and facial line, by carefully throwing out every indication of the animal propensities, and giving added importance and development to all that indicates the moral and intellectual faculties, he has succeeded in embodying a species of ideal, of which there is no other example in art. I have heard, (not from Dannecker himself,) that when the head of the Jupiter Tonans was placed beside the Christ, the merely physical grandeur of the former, compared with the purely intellectual expression of the latter, reminded every one present of a lion's head erect and humanized.

MEDON.

But what were your own impressions? After all this eulogium, which I believe to be just, tell me frankly, were you satisfied yourself?

ALDA.

No--not quite. The expression of the mouth in the last finished statue (he has repeated the subject three times) is not so fine as in the model, and the simplicity of the whole bordered on meagreness. This, I think, is a general fault in all Dannecker's works. He has of course avoided nudity, but the flowing robe, which completely envelopes the figure, is so managed as to disclose the exact form of the limbs. One little circ.u.mstance will give you an idea of the attention and accuracy with which he seized and embodied every touch of individual character conveyed in Holy Writ. In the original model he had made the beard rather full and thick, and a little curled, expressing the prime of manhood; but recollecting that in the gospel the Saviour is represented as sinking under the weight of the cross, which the first man they met accidentally was able to carry, he immediately altered his first conception, and gave to the beard that soft, flowing, downy texture which is supposed to indicate a feeble and delicate temperament.

I shall not easily forget the countenance of the good and gifted old man, as, leaning on the pedestal, with his cap in his hand, and his long grey hair waving round his face, he looked up at his work with a mixture of reverence and exultation, saying, in his imperfect and scarce intelligible French, "Oui, quand on a fait comme cela, on reste sur la terre!" meaning, I suppose, that this statue had ensured his immortality on earth. He added, "They ask me often where are the models after which I worked? and I answer, _here_, and _here_;" laying his hand first on his head, then on his heart.

I remember that when we first entered his room he was at work on one of the figures for the tomb of the late Queen Catherine of Wurtemburg. You perhaps recollect her in England when only d.u.c.h.ess of Oldenburg?

MEDON.

Yes; I remember, as a youngster, joining the mob who shouted before the windows of the Pulteney-hotel, and hailed her and her brother Alexander as if they had been a newly descended Jupiter and Juno! O verily, times are changed!

ALDA.

But in that woman there were the elements of a fine nature. She had the talents, the strength of mind, and far-reaching ambition of her grandmother, Catherine of Russia, but was not so perverted. During her short reign as Queen of Wurtemburg, the influence of her active mind was felt through the whole government. She founded, among other inst.i.tutions, a school for the daughters of the n.o.bility connected with the court,--in plain English, a charity-school for the n.o.bility of Wurtemburg, who are among the most indigent and most ignorant of Germany. There are a few, very few, brilliant exceptions. One lady of rank said to me, "As to an English governess, _that_ is an advantage I can never hope to have for my daughters. The princesses have an English governess, but _we_ cannot dream of such a thing." The late queen really deserved the regrets of her people. The king, whose sluggish mind she ruled or stimulated, is now devoted to his stables and hunting. He has married another wife, but he has erected to the honour of Catherine a splendid mausoleum, on the peak of a high hill, which can be seen from almost every part of the city; and on the summer evenings when the red sun-set falls upon its white columns it is a beautiful object. The figure on which Dannecker was occupied, represented Prayer, or what he called, "La triomphe de la Priere;" it recalled to my mind Flaxman's lovely statue of the same subject,--the "Our Father which art in Heaven," but suffered by the involuntary comparison. On the rough base of the statue he had tried to spell the name of Chantrey, but not very successfully. I took up a bit of chalk and wrote underneath, in distinct characters, FRANCIS CHANTREY.