Philip Gilbert Hamerton Part 8

As a scheme of self-training, this seems sufficiently comprehensive, and to this day I feel the good effects of it. My reading was not badly chosen, the drawing gave some initiation into art, and exercise developed physical activity, not yet altogether lost in mature age.

Still, the experienced reader will see at a glance that this was not the training of a young painter who, in a craft of such great technical difficulty and in an age of such intense compet.i.tion, must give himself up more completely to his own special pursuit.

On the first page of this diary I find an entry about an article for the "Westminster Review." I offered two or three papers to the "Westminster," which were declined, and then I wrote to the editor asking him if he would be so good as to explain, for my own benefit and guidance, what were the reasons for their rejection. His answer came, and was both kind and judicious. "An article," he told me, "ought to be an organic whole, with a pre-arranged order and proportion amongst its parts. There ought to be a beginning, a middle, and an end." This was a very good and much-needed lesson, for at that time I had no notion of a synthetic _ordonnance_ of parts. There was, no doubt, another reason, which the editor omitted out of consideration for the feelings of a literary aspirant, who was too young and too insufficiently informed to write anything that could interest readers of the "Westminster."

I worked rather hard at writing English verse, and do not at the present time regret a single hour of that labor. My general habit was to write a poem, sometimes of considerable length, and then destroy it; but I kept some of these compositions, which were afterwards published in a volume.

Verse-writing was good for me at that time for a particular reason. I did not understand the art of prose composition, which is much less obvious than that of poetry; but being already aware that verse-writing was an art, approached it in the right spirit, which is that of ungrudging labor and incessant care. The value or non-value of the result has nothing to do with the matter; the essential point is that verse was to me a discipline, coming just at a time of life when I had much need of a discipline. Besides, the mind of a young man is not ripe enough in reflection or rich enough in knowledge to supply substantial and well-nourished prose; but the freshness and keenness of his feelings may often give life enough to a few stanzas, if not to a longer poem.

It may be objected to this advocacy of verse, that as the poet's gift is excessively rare, the probability is that a youth who writes verse attacks an art that he can never master. No doubt the highest degree of the poetic gift is most rare, and so, according to Christine Nilsson, are the gifts needed to make a _prima donna_, yet many a girl practises singing without hoping to be a Nilsson; and there are many poets in the world whose verses have melody and charm though their brows may never be "cooled with laurel." The objection to verse as a trifling occupation comes really from that general disinclination to read verse which excuses itself by the rarity of genius. Rossetti, who had genius in his own person, was always ready to appreciate good poetical work that had no fame to recommend it. [Footnote: Since the above was written I have met with an address delivered by Mr. Walter Besant, the novelist, in which he recommends the continuous practice of versification as a discipline in the use of language most valuable to writers of prose.]

In the way of art at this time I painted three portraits and some landscapes that were merely studies. It is needless to enumerate these attempts, all of no value, and generally destroyed afterwards.

An important event occurred on March 22,1853. Being in Manchester, I bought the first volume of Ruskin's "Modern Painters." In this way I came under the influence of Mr. Ruskin, and remained under it, more or less, for several years. It was a good influence in two ways, first in literature, as anything that Mr. Ruskin has to say is sure to be well expressed, and after that it was a good influence in directing my attention to certain qualities and beauties in nature; but in art this influence was not merely evil, it was disastrous. I was, however, at that time, just the young man predestined to fall under it, being very fond of reading, and having a strong pa.s.sion for natural beauty. In the course of the year 1853 I corresponded with Mr. Ruskin about my studies, and I have no doubt of the perfect sincerity of his advice and the kindness of intention with which it was given; but it tended directly to encourage the idea that art could be learned from nature, and that is an immense mistake. Nature does not teach art, or anything resembling it; she only provides materials. Art is a product of the human mind, the slow growth of centuries. If you reject this and go to nature, you have to begin all over again, the objection being that one human life is not long enough for that.

As it is possible that some critic may say that Mr. Ruskin's influence was not so much opposed to the tradition of art as I am representing it to be, and considering that I shall be dead when this is published, I quote the following pa.s.sage from a memorandum found amongst the papers of Mr. Leitch, the water-color painter, and printed in his biography:--

"I knew a young man of talent, ardent and energetic, and anxious to be a landscape-painter, who went to Mr. Ruskin and asked his advice as to what he should do, what school he should follow, how he should practise, and what master he should put himself under. I was told that the answer he got was to this effect: 'Have nothing to do with schools; put yourself under no master. Both the one and the other are useless. As soon as you can draw a tree, or a tower, or a rock, in an ordinary drawing-master way, that is sufficient. Take your materials then out to nature, and paint in _her_ school. It is the only school I know of where you can't go wrong.'"

I had asked Mr. Ruskin to recommend me some landscape-painter in London with whom I could study for six months. His answer was: "There is no artist in London capable of teaching you and at the same time willing to give lessons. All those who teach, teach mere tricks with the brush, not true art, far less true nature." He then recommended me to "go to William Turner, of Oxford, not for six months, but for six weeks." I was prevented from following this advice by a technical difficulty. Turner of Oxford was a water-color painter. I had learned water-color with two masters, but had never liked it or felt the slightest impulse to continue it. One man is naturally const.i.tuted for one process, another for another. There is something in my idiosyncrasy repugnant to the practice of water-color and favorable to oil, and this in spite of the greater convenience of water-color, and the facility with which it may be left off and instantaneously resumed. In after-life I learned water-color a third time with a very able artist, and now I am able to paint studies in that medium from nature which are truthful enough, and people seem to like them; but hitherto I have had no enjoyment whatever in the work. The reader will please understand that this implies no want of appreciation of the art when it is skilfully practised by others.

There are certain instruments of music that one may listen to with pleasure without having the slightest desire to perform upon them.

[Footnote: My estimate of the rank of water-color amongst the fine arts has steadily risen as the true technical relations of the graphic arts have become clearer to me. Water-color is quite as great an art as fresco, whilst it is incomparably more convenient.]

This being so, the reader will understand how I felt about going to William Turner of Oxford. Hour for hour, I would as willingly have read Greek as practise water-color washes. Not to trouble Mr. Ruskin, however, any further with my affairs, I tried to induce several well-known oil-painters to accept me as a pupil, but always met with the same answer, that they "did not teach." It was rather a matter of pride in those days for a successful painter to decline to give lessons; it proved him to be above the grade of a drawing-master.

On March 29, 1853, a little event occurred which was one of the numerous causes that turned me aside from the steady practice of art. One of our friends called about the impending establishment of the militia, and offered to use his influence with Colonel Towneley to get a commission for me in the 5th Royal Lancas.h.i.+re, the regiment that was to have its headquarters at Burnley. My guardian much wished me to accept, and I did so to please her, as I had not been able to please her by going to Oxford. There was nothing in a military life, even for a short time every year, that had the slightest attraction for me. The notion of rendering a patriotic service did not occur to me, for n.o.body in those days looked upon the militia seriously. We were only laughed at for our pains, and we had a great deal of trouble and hard work in getting the regiment, including ourselves, into something distantly resembling military order. Before we were called up for training I got some initiation with a line regiment.

Our colonel was the representative of a very old Catholic family, the Towneleys of Towneley. This family had been, skilful enough to avoid s.h.i.+pwreck during the contests that attended the establishment of Protestantism in England. It had survived in increasing wealth and prosperity, and had now reached the calm haven of a civilized age, with tolerant and liberal inst.i.tutions. Everything promised a long continuance. The head of the family had no male heir, but his brother John, who was a major in our regiment, had one son, a cousin of Roger Tichborne, and on this son the hopes of continuance rested. Those hopes have not been realized. The young man died in his youth; his father and his uncle also died; the property is divided amongst three heiresses, and now for the first time, since surnames were invented, there is no longer a Towneley of Towneley.

The colonel was a man of the kindest disposition and the most gentle manners, without much confidence in himself. For all regimental matters he trusted the adjutant, Captain Fenton, an officer who had seen much active service in India. Fenton had by nature the gifts of a ruler of men. When not on duty he was as gentle as a lady, a pleasant and amiable talker, but on the parade-ground he ruled us all like a Napoleon. He had lost one eye; people always believed in battle, but in fact, the loss had occurred in a tennis-court since his return from India. The other eye seemed to have gained, in consequence, a supernatural degree of penetration. It looked you through! One day, on the parade-ground, that eye glared at me in such a manner that I was quite intimidated, and said what I had to say in rather a low tone of voice. "Speak up, sir! can't you?" thundered the adjutant. "Mister Hamerton, I tell you to speak up!"

Fenton had an extremely pretty little bay horse, that had been in a circus, so when he rode past the companies on parade, and the band struck up, the horse used to begin dancing, keeping time beautifully, and indeed danced all the way from company to company. This used to put Fenton out of temper, and as soon as ever military usages permitted it, he would stop the band with a gesture, even in the middle of a tune; in fact, no matter at what moment. To such of us as had a musical disposition, this was perhaps as difficult to hear as the dancing of Fenton's horse could be to him. [Footnote: We had a major who did not much like the band, and when he could stop it, he would say, "Tell that band to hold its tongue."]

During our first training there were not billets enough in Burnley to lodge all our men, so one company had to be sent to Padiham, and mine was selected. I was a lieutenant, and had neither captain nor ensign, being quite alone as a commissioned officer, but we possessed an excellent old sergeant, who had seen active service, and, of, course, he taught me what to do. My "mess" consisted of a solitary dinner in the inn at Padiham, sufficient, but not luxurious. My guardian had wished me to go into the militia to live rather more with young gentlemen, and my only society was that of the old sergeant, who punctiliously observed the difference of rank. On account of the distance from Padiham to Burnley (rather more than three miles), we were excused the early parade, but went through the two others. The consequence was, that at the end of the training, although we had marched more than the other companies, we had had only two-thirds of their drill, and when the grand inspection by a general took place, it was thought advisable to hide my company and another, that was also weak in drill, though for a different reason. Luckily, there was a sort of dell in the parade-ground, and we were ordered to march down into it. There we stood patiently in line during the whole time of the review, and the inspecting general never looked at us, which was what the colonel desired. Being dest.i.tute of military ambition, I was quite contented to remain down in the hollow.

The most modest and obscure positions are sometimes the most agreeable.

We had a major who had been a colonel in the Guards. It was whispered that he did not know very much about drill, having probably forgotten his acquirements. One day, however, he commanded the regiment, and I ventured to ask him a question. He answered with a good-humored smile, that the commanding officer was like the Grand Llama of Thibet,--he could not be approached directly, but only through the adjutant. My belief was, and is, that my question puzzled him, for he was far too good-natured not to have answered it at once if he had been able. I told the story to my brother officers, who were amused by the comparison with the Grand Llama, and we sometimes called the major by that high-sounding t.i.tle afterwards.

As a perfectly inexperienced young officer, without anybody but an old, over-worked and used-up sergeant to help him, and a number of drunken Irishmen in the company to vex and trouble him by day and by night, I had as much to do during the first training as could be expected of a youth in my situation. The last day of the training I committed the blunder of advancing small sums of money to a number of men, who, of course, immediately got drunk. My ignorance of popular manners and customs had made me unable to realize the lamentable fact that if you pay five s.h.i.+llings to a man in the improvident cla.s.s he will at once invest it in five s.h.i.+llings' worth of intoxication. I was still in Padiham at two in the afternoon, finis.h.i.+ng accounts, and I had to be in Burnley with my men in time to get them off by the evening trains. When we started many of them were so drunk that they could not walk, and I requisitioned a number of empty carts, and so got the drunken portion of the company to headquarters. Then there came the final settlement of more than eighty separate accounts. Without the adjutant, Fenton, I should never have got through it. He was a methodical man, who understood the business. He got a quant.i.ty of small change, piled it in separate heaps upon a table, had each man brought up before him, and said authoritatively, "So much is owing to you--there it is!" In this way we got through the payments, and the drunken men were lodged in prison for the night.

I was glad to get back to my quiet literary and artistic occupations, and my country home. We had been so busy during our first training, and I had been so much separated from the other officers by my duty at Padiham, that so far as society was concerned, I might almost as well have been on the top of Pendle Hill. Besides that, Englishmen are slow to a.s.sociate--they are shy, and they look at each other a long time before getting really acquainted.

CHAPTER XVIII.

1853.

A project for studying in Paris.--Reading.--A healthy life.--Quinsy.

--My most intimate friend.

If there is any good in an autobiography it ought to be as an example or a warning to others; so at the risk of seeming to moralize, which, however, is far from my intention, I will say something in this place about my manner of life in those days.

First with regard to art, it was not my fault if all the painters I had applied to said that they did not take pupils. There was a young gentleman in our neighborhood who, though a rich man's son, worked seriously at painting, and put himself every year under the direction of a French artist in Paris, where he studied in an atelier. I had an idea of joining him, but my guardian (who with all her sweetness of disposition could be authoritative when she liked) put a stop to the project by saying that she refused her consent to any plan involving absence from England before the expiration of my minority. She had the usual English idea that Paris is a more immoral place than London.

Perhaps it may be, but great capitals such as Paris, London, and Vienna have this in common, that you may be moral in them, or immoral, as you like; and if we are to avoid a town because immorality is practised there, we must avoid all the great and most of the smaller centres of intelligence.

For the present I worked from nature, but not with sufficient energy or regularity. I had not found my path, and was always dissatisfied with my studies. In literature my reading was abundant, and included the best English poets and essayists. I had entirely given up reading Latin and Greek at that time, and was not just then studying any modern language in their place. Young men both over-estimate and under-estimate their own gifts,--they do not know themselves, as indeed how should they? I had an impression that Nature had not endowed me with a gift for languages. This impression was not only erroneous, but the exact contrary of the truth, for I am a born linguist.

My life in general was healthy and active. It included a great deal of walking exercise, sometimes five hours in a day. This, with bathing, kept me in fair health, though I never had what is called robust health, that which allows its possessor to commit great imprudences with impunity. I was once near losing life altogether by an odd result from a small accident. My horse, which was a heavy and large animal, put his foot accidentally on mine. The accident did not prevent me from riding out on the moors, but when I got there the pain became so violent that I held my foot in a cold rivulet. During the night the pain returned, and then I foolishly plunged the foot into a cold bath. The result was that the inflammation flew to the throat, and I had a quinsy which nearly carried me off. I remember asking for everything by writing on a slate, and the intense longing I had for lemonade.

My most intimate friend in those days was a young solicitor in Burnley, a man of remarkable ability and naturally polished manners. His professional duties did not leave him very much time for reading, but he had a mind far above the common Philistinism that cannot appreciate literature. I must have wearied him sadly sometimes by reading my own verses,--always a most foolish thing to do, and at this day quite remote from my notions of an author's dignity. Handsley was wisely indifferent to literary fame, and never wrote anything himself except his letters, which were those of a clear-headed man of business. He took upon himself great labors and great responsibilities, which ripened his faculties at a very early age, and he bore them with uncommon firmness and prudence. I never met with his superior in the practical sense that seizes upon opportunities, and in the energy which arrives in time.

"Opportunity is kind," said George Eliot, "but only to the industrious."

Handsley was always one of those to whom Opportunity is kind. If his career had been in Parliament I am convinced that he would have risen high. His merits were exactly those that are most valued in an English Cabinet Minister. At the present time he has under his management some of the largest collieries in Lancas.h.i.+re, and has been for many years one of the most influential men in the neighborhood.

CHAPTER XIX.

1853.

London again.--Accurate habits in employment of time.--Studies with Mr.

Pett.i.tt.--Some account of my new master.--His method of technical teaching.--Simplicity of his philosophy of art.--Incidents of his life.--Rapid progress under Pett.i.tt's direction.

On August 8, 1853, the writer of this book, who had promised and vowed never to visit London again, went there to see the Royal Academy Exhibition, and of course found it closed. If any one could have seen me before the closed doors, knowing that I had come all the way from Lancas.h.i.+re in the expectation of finding them open, he might have derived some innocent mirth from my disappointment.

The Royal Academy being no longer accessible, I turned into the National Gallery, and at once began to take notes in a pocket-book. This seems to have been my habit at that time. I took notes about everything--about painting, architecture, and even the Royal Mews. The notes are copious and wordy. Though dest.i.tute of literary merit, they certainly serve their purpose, for they recall things vividly enough, even in detail.

Nothing of any importance is omitted.

Although notes of that kind are unreadable, they are very useful afterwards for reference, and my time could scarcely have been better spent. I find I gave five hundred words to the description of Turner's "Building of Carthage," and other pictures are treated with equal liberality. I carried the same laborious system of note-making even into exhibitions. In later life one learns the art of doing such work more briefly.

Having purchased a few prints for study, I returned to Lancas.h.i.+re and resumed my strict division of time. Four hours a day were given to practical drawing, but not invariably the entry is sometimes three or two only. When art lost an hour, literature gained it, either in study or practical writing. I was curiously accurate in my accounts of time, and knew to half-an-hour what was spent on this pursuit or that. Here is an extract in evidence of this tendency:--

"Thursday, August 13, 1853. Determined to-day to study the copper Albert Durer 80 hours, having given 83 to the wood-cuts. I have already given the copper 101/2 hours, so that I have 691/2 to devote to it yet. I shall also give 40 hours to Kreutzer's violin studies, and have already practised them 24, which leaves 16. I shall now commence a course of poetical reading, beginning with 50 hours of Chaucer, and as I gave him 11/2 last night it leaves me exactly 481/2."

This is carrying exactness to excess, and it is not given as an example to be followed, but it had the advantage of letting me know how my time expenditure was running. In this way it became clear that if I intended to be an artist the time given to practical work was insufficient. As no painter of eminence would take a pupil I bethought me of Mr. Pett.i.tt, who had given me lessons at Keswick. He consented to take me, but said that he had left the north of England for London. In the Lake District he had been earning a small income; in London he earned twice as much, but his expenses increased in proportion. The change, however, was a disappointment to me, as it would have been more profitable to study from nature under my master's direction, than to copy pictures in a London studio.

My new London life began at the end of December, 1853. It has always been, in my case, an effort little short of heroic to go and stay in a town at all. My dislike to towns increases in exact mathematical proportion to their size. The notion of going to London to study landscape-painting seemed against nature. The negotiations with Mr.

Pett.i.tt had been begun with the hope of a return to Derwent.w.a.ter.

However, one dark and drizzly evening in December I found myself seeking the number my new master had given me, in Percy Street. He was not there, that was his studio only; the house was in the suburbs. We met on the following morning in the studio, where stood an enormous picture of Nebuchadnezzar and the Golden Image. This was conceived on the principles of John Martin, with prodigious perspectives of impossible architecture, and the price was a thousand pounds. The labor involved was endless, but the whole enterprise was vain and futile from beginning to end. Pett.i.tt could work honestly and laboriously from nature,--indeed, he never stinted labor in anything,--but such a large undertaking as this piece of mingled archaeology and art was alike beyond his knowledge and outside the range of his imagination. He was not to blame, except for an error of judgment. The demand for his work was feeble and uncertain, so he thought it necessary to attract attention by a sensation picture. To finish the history of this work without recurring to it, I have only to add that it proved in all ways, financially and otherwise, a failure.

Mr. Pett.i.tt was a most devoted student of nature, and his best pictures had the character of faithful studies. He would sit down in some rocky dell by the side of a stream in Wales, and paint rocks and trees month after month with indefatigable perseverance; but he had no education, either literary or artistic, and very little imaginative power. His only safety was in that work from nature, and he would have stuck to it most resolutely had there been any regularity in the encouragement he received; but his income, like that of all painters who are not celebrated, was very uncertain, and he could not quietly settle down to the tranquil studies that he loved. Anxiety had made him imprudent; it had driven him to try for notoriety. The Nebuchadnezzar picture, and other mistakes of a like magnitude, were the struggles of a disquieted mind. Pett.i.tt had a very large family to maintain, and did nothing but paint, paint from morning till night, except for half-an-hour after his light lunch, when he read the "Times." As the great picture did not advance very rapidly, he worked by gaslight after the short London winter day, and often pursued his terrible task till the early hours of the morning, when exhausted nature could resist no longer, and be fell asleep on a little iron bed in the studio. There were days when he told me he had worked twenty hours out of the twenty-four. All this was a perfectly gratuitous expenditure of time and health that could not possibly lead to any advantage whatever.

Pett.i.tt was a very kind and attentive teacher, and his method was this: He would begin a picture in my presence, give me two white canvases exactly the same size, and then tell me to copy his hour's work twice over. Whilst he painted I watched; whilst I painted he did not look over me, but went on with his own work. He was always ready to answer any question and to help me over any difficulty. In this way he soon initiated me into the processes of oil-painting so far as I required any initiation, for most of them were familiar to me already. Unfortunately, Pett.i.tt had no conception of art. This needs a short explanation, as the reader may allowably ask how a man without any conception of art could be even a moderately successful artist.

The answer is that men like Mr. Pett.i.tt regard painting simply as a representation of nature, and their pictures are really nothing but large and laborious studies. Pett.i.tt was a most sincere lover of nature, but that was all; he knew little or nothing of those necessities and conditions that make art a different thing from nature. The tendency of his teaching was, therefore, to lead me to nature instead of leading me to art, and this was a great misfortune for me, as my instincts were only too much in the same direction already. I could get nature in the country, and that in endless abundance; what I needed at that time was some guidance into the realm of art.