Read Ebook: Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54 No. 338 December 1843 by Various

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ndrea del Sarto to have been his copyer, not his imitator. Tibaldi seems to have caught somewhat of his mind. As did Sir Joshua, so does Mr Fuseli mention his Polypheme groping at the mouth of his cave for Ulysses. He expresses his surprise that Michael Angelo was unacquainted with the great talent of Tibaldi, but lavished his assistance on inferior men, Sebastian del Piombo and Daniel of Volterra. We think he does not do fair justice to the merits of these undoubtedly great men. We shall have occasion hereafter to notice his criticism on the great work of Sebastian, in our National Gallery. We are surprised that he should consider Sebastian del Piombo deficient in ideal colour, and that the lines of Daniel of Volterra are meagre and sterile of idea--his celebrated Descent from the Cross being in its lines, as tending to perfect the composition, and to make full his great idea, quite extraordinary. Poor Vasari, who can never find favour with our author, is considered the great depravator of the style of Michael Angelo.

At the too early death of Raffaelle, his style fell into gradual decay. Still Julio Romano, and Polidoro da Carravaggio, "deserted indeed the standard of their master, but with a dignity and magnitude of compass which command respect."

The German schools here come under consideration, which, simultaneously with those of Italy, and without visible communication, spread the principles of art. "Towards the decline of the fifteenth century, the uncouth essays of Martin Sch?n, Michael Wolgemuth, and Albrecht Altorfer, were succeeded by the finer polish and the more dexterous method of Albert Durer." His well-known figure of "Melancholy" would alone entitle him to rank. The breadth and power of his wood engravings are worthy of admiration. Mr Fuseli thinks "his colour went beyond his age, and as far excelled, in truth and breadth of handling, the oil-colour of Raphael, as Raphael excels him in every other quality. His influence was not unfelt in Italy. It is visible in the style of even the imitators of Michael Angelo--Andrea del Sarto, particularly in the angular manner of his draperies. Though Albert Durer had no scholars, he was imitated by the Dutch Lucas of Leyden. Now it was that the style of Michael Angelo, spread by the graver of Giorgio Mantuano, brought to Italy "those caravans of German, Dutch, and Flemish students, who, on their return from Italy, at the courts of Prague and Munich, in Flanders and the Netherlands, introduced the preposterous manner, the bloated excrescence of diseased brains, which, in the form of man, left nothing human; distorted action and gesture with insanity of affectation, and dressed the gewgaws of children in colossal shapes." But though such as Golzius, Spranger, Heyntz, and Abach, "fed on the husks of Tuscan design, they imbibed the colour of Venice, and spread the elements of that excellence which distinguished the succeeding schools of Flanders and of Holland." So it was till the appearance of Rubens and Rembrandt--"both of whom, disdaining to acknowledge the usual laws of admission to the temple of Fame, boldly forged their own keys, entered, and took possession, each of a most conspicuous place, by his own power." Rubens, with many advantages, acquired in his education at Antwerp, and already influenced by the gorgeous pomp of Austrian and Spanish superstition, arrived in Italy rather as the rival than pupil of the masters whom he travelled to study. Whatever he borrowed from the Venetian school--the object of his admiration--he converted into a new manner of florid magnificence. It is just the excellence of Rubens--the completeness, the congruity of his style--that has raised him to the eminence in the temple of fame which he will ever occupy. A little short of Rubens is intolerable: the clumsy forms and improprieties of his imitators are not to be endured. Mr Fuseli excepts Vandyck and Abraham Drepenbeck from the censure passed upon the followers of Rubens. As Drepenbeck is not so well known, we quote the passage respecting him:--"The fancy of Drepenbeck, though not so exuberant, if I be not mistaken, excelled in sublimity the imagination of Rubens. His Bellerophon, Dioscuri, Hippolytus, Ixion, Sisyphus, fear no competitor among the productions of his master." Rembrandt he considers a genius of the first class in all but form. Chiaroscuro and colour were the elements, in fact, in which Rembrandt reveled. In these he was the poet--the maker. He made colour and chiaroscuro throw out ideas of sublimity: that he might throw himself the more into these great elements of his art, and depend solely on their power, he seems purposely not to have neglected form, but to have selected such as, without beauty to attract, should be merely the objects of life, the sensitive beings in his world of mystery. That such was his intention we cannot doubt; because we cannot imagine the beautiful but too attractive figures of the Apollo or the Venus adopted into one of his pictures. Excepting in a few instances, we would not wish Rembrandt's forms other than they are. They appear necessary to his style. Mr Fuseli speaks very favourably of art in Switzerland; but says there are only two painters of name--Holbein, and Francis Mola. The designs of the Passion and Dance of Death of the former, are instanced as works of excellence. Mola, we are surprised to find ranked as Swiss; for he is altogether, in art, Italian. The influence of the school and precepts of the Caracci, produced in France an abundant harvest of mediocrity. In France was the merit of Michael Angelo first questioned. There are, however, names that rescue France from the entire disgrace of the abandonment of the true principles of art: Nicolo Poussin, Le Sueur, Le Brun, Sebastian Bourdon, and Pierre Mignard. The Seven Works of Charity, by Seb. Bourdon, teem with surprising, pathetic, and always novel images; and in the Plague of David, by Pierre Mignard, our sympathy is roused by energies of terror and combinations of woe, which escaped Poussin and Raphael himself." Of Spanish art he says but little, but that "the degree of perfection attained by Diego Velasquez, Joseph Ribera, and Murillo, in pursuing the same object by means as different as successful, impresses us with deep respect for the variety of their powers." Art, as every thing else, has its fashion. The Spanish school have, of later years, been more eagerly sought for; and a strange whim of the day has attached a very extraordinary value to the works of Murillo--a painter in colour generally monotonous, and in form and expression almost always vulgar.

We are surprised that, in this summary history of art, no notice has been taken of Van Eyck, and the influence of his discovery on art. Nor are we less surprised that so important a branch as landscape painting should have been omitted; Claude and Gaspar Poussin not mentioned; yet, in the English school, Wilson is spoken of, whose sole merit rested upon his landscape. He should more distinctly have stated his purpose to treat only of high and historical art.

It is with diffidence that we would suggest any thing upon a work that has so nearly exhausted criticism; but we will venture an observation, and if we are correct, the glory of the subject is heightened by its adoption. It has ever appeared to us to have purposed showing at one view, humanity in its highest, its divinely perfected state, the manhood taken into Godhead; and humanity in its lowest, its most forlorn, most degraded state, in the person of a demoniac: and this contrast seems acknowledged--abhorrently felt, by the reluctant spirit within the sufferer, whose attitude, starting from the effulgence and the power which is yet to heal him, being the strong action of the lower part of the picture, and one of suffering, throws the eye and mind of the spectator at once and permanently from earth to the heavenly vision, to ascending prophets, and that bright and central majesty, "whose countenance," Mr. Fuseli observes, "is the only one we know expressive of his superhuman nature." This idea of transformation to a higher nature is likewise kept up in the figures of the ascending prophets, and the apostles below.

The Fourth Lecture is in continuation of the subject--Invention; but we have left little space for further remarks. In another number of Maga we shall resume our review of the lectures.

FOOTNOTES:

SOMETHING ABOUT MUSIC.

But it could not be accomplished. We made several awkward attempts, so little like, that their only result was our being threatened with a policeman it we made any more disturbance; so, after a hasty glance round had assured us of the impracticability of making our escape in any more everyday style, we sat down with a stern resolution of endurance--lips firmly compressed, eyes fixed in a stony gaze on the orchestra, whence issued by turns groans, shrieks, and screams, from sundry foully-abused instruments of music; accompanied by equally appalling sounds from flat, shrill signorinas, quavering to distraction, backed by gigantic "basses," who, with voices like the "seven devils" of the old Grecian, bellowed out divers sentimentalisms about dying for love, when assuredly their most proximate danger was of apoplexy.

Well, the affair came to an end, as, it is to be hoped, will every other evil in this wicked world; in a spasm of thankfulness we extricated ourselves from the crush, and reached our home, where, under the genial influence of quiet and a cup of coffee, we can afford to laugh at the past, and ruminate calmly on the "how" and the "why" of the nuisance, which appears to us as well worthy of being put down by act of parliament, as the ringing of muffin bells and crying "sweep!"

It is a perfect puzzle to us by what process the standard of music has become so lowered, as to make what is ordinarily served up under that name be received as the legitimate descendant of the harmony divine which erst broke on the ear of the listening world, when "the morning stars sang together;" and, in the first freshness of its creation--teeming with melody--angels deigned to visit this terrestrial paradise, nor turned an exile's gaze to that heaven whose strains were chanted in glad accordance with the murmuring stream, and music of the waving forest--which, in its greenness and beauty, seemed but "a little lower" than its celestial archetype, for

But it is even so. There is but one step from the sublime to the ridiculous, and this entrancing art, it seems, has taken it; sorely dislocating its graceful limbs, and injuring its goodly proportions in the unseemly escapade. There--we have played over a simple air, one that thrills through our heart of hearts; and as the notes die on our ears, soothing though the strain be, we feel our indignation increase, and glow still more fiercely against this--music, as it is by courtesy called, for Heaven knows it has no legitimate claim to the name!--till it reaches the crusading point, and we rush headlong to a war of extermination against bars, rests, crotchets, quavers--undaunted even by "staves," and formidable inflated semibreves.

We hate your crashing, clumsy chords, and utterly spit at and defy chromatic passages from one end of the instrument to the other, and back again; flats, sharps, and most appropriate "naturals," splattered all over the page. The essential spirit of discord seems let loose on our modern music, tainted, as it were, with the moral infection that has seized the land; it is music for a democracy, not the stately, solemn measure of imperial majesty. Music to soothe! the idea is obsolete, buried with the ruffs and farthingales of our great-grandmothers; or, to speak more soberly, with the powdered wigs and hoops of their daughters. There is music to excite, much to irritate one, and much more to drive a really musical soul stark mad; but none to soothe, save that which is drawn from the hiding-places of the past.

"Like the far-off dreams of paradise,"

mingling their chaste melancholy with musings of a still subdued, though more cheerful character. How many glad hearts in the olden time have rejoiced in these songs of praise--how many sorrowful ones sighed out their complaints in those plaintive notes, that steal sadly, yet sweetly, on the ear--hearts that, now cold in death, are laid to rest around that sacred fane, within whose walls they had so often swelled with emotion! Tell us not of neatly trimmed "cemeteries," redolent of staring sunflowers, priggish shrubs, and all the modern coxcombry of the tomb; with nicely swept gravel walks, lest the mourner should get "wet on's feet," and vaults numbered like warehouses, where "parties may bring their own minister," and be buried with any form, or no form, if they like it better. No, give us the village churchyard with its sombre yew-trees, among which

"The dial, hid by weeds and flowers, Hath told, by none beheld, the solitary hours;"

its grassy hillocks, and mouldering grave-stones, where haply all record is obliterated, and nought but a solitary "resurgam" meets the enquiring eye; its white-robed priest reverently committing "earth to earth," in sure and certain hope "of a joyful resurrection" to the slumbering clay, that was wont to worship within the grey and time-stained walls, whence the mournful train have now borne him to his last rest; while on the ivy-clad tower fall the slanting golden beams of an autumnal sun, that, in its declining glory, seems to whisper of hope and consolation to the sorrowful ones, reminding them that the night of the tomb shall not endure for ever, but that, so surely as the great orb of day shall return on the wings of the morning to chase away the tears of the lamenting earth, so surely shall the dust, strewed around that temple, scattered though it may be to the winds of heaven, "rise again" in the morning of the Resurrection, when death "shall be swallowed up in victory."

"'Tis fit his trophies should be rife Around the place where he's subdued; The gate of death leads forth to life."

But we are wandering sadly from our subject; it is perhaps quite as well that we have done so, for we should have become dangerous had we dwelt much longer on it. We were on the point of wishing that our popular professors of the tuneful art had but one neck, that we might exterminate them at a blow, or hang them with one gigantic fiddle-string; but now, thanks to our episode, our exacerbated feelings are so far mollified, that we will be content with wishing them sentenced to grind knives on oil-less stones with creaking axles, till the sufferings of their own shall have taught them consideration for the ears of other people.

Poor old man! we see him now, with his unruly troop of Sunday scholars singing, bawling we should say, out of time and tune, to the utter discomfiture of his irritable temper, and the bringing down on their unlucky heads a smart tap with the bow of his violin, which led the harmony. There they stood with their brown cheeks and white heads, fine specimens of the agricultural interest; each one of them looking as if he could bolt a poor, half-starved factory child at a mouthful--but certainly no singers. It was beyond the power even of the accomplished old clerk himself to make then such--an oyster, with its mouth full of sand, would have sung quite as well; but still he laboured on with might and main--with closed eyes, and open mouth--delightedly beating time with his head, as long as matters went on not intolerably; for David's musical soul supplied the deficiency in the sounds that entered his unwearied ears. And then he sang so loud himself, that he certainly could hear no one else, his voice being as monopolizing as the drone of a bagpipe--or as a violent advocate for free trade! Happy urchins when this was the case! for they were sure to be dismissed with the most flattering encomiums on their vocal powers, when, if truth must be told, the good old man had not heard a note.

"Only the actions of the just Smell sweet in death, and blossom in the dust."

But surely of all instruments, the violin, first-rately played, is the most--yes, we will say it--heavenly. Hark! to the clear, vocal melody, now rapturously rising in one soul-exalting strain, anon melting away in the saddest, tenderest lament, as though the soft summer breeze sighed forth a requiem over the dying graces of its favourite flower; then bursting forth in haughty, triumphant notes, swept in gusts from the impassioned strings, as though instinct with life, and glowing with disdain. Any one may see that painters are no musicians, else had they furnished their angels not with harps--beautiful and sparkling as the sea-foam, as are their most graceful chords--but with this, of all instruments the most musical, whose tones admit of more variety than any, and whose delicious long-drawn notes must entrance every one not absolutely soulless. Oh, they are excruciatingly delightful! And yet you shall hear this identical violin, in the hands of an everyday performer, emit such squeals and screams as shall set your teeth on edge for a twelvemonth, curdle your whole frame, and make you vehemently anathematize all benevolent institutions for the relief of deafness.

Verily your violin is an exclusive instrument, and approachable by none but the eldest born of Apollo, who, in all the majesty of hereditary prerogative, calmly sway the dominions of their sire; while usurpers are plunged in utter confusion and ruin.

Good night, dearest reader. Can you find your way in the dark?

M. J.

THE PURPLE CLOAK; OR, THE RETURN OF SYLOSON TO SAMOS.

The king sat on his lofty throne in Susa's palace fair, And many a stately Persian lord, and satrap proud, was there: Among his councillors he sat, and justice did to all-- No supplicant e'er went unredrest from Susa's palace-hall.

There came a slave and louted low before Darius' throne, "A wayworn suppliant waits without--he is poor and all alone, And he craves a boon of thee, oh king! for he saith that he has done Good service, in the olden time, to Hystaspes' royal son."

"Now lead him hither," quoth the king; "no suppliant e'er shall wait, While I am lord in Susa's halls, unheeded at the gate; And speak thy name, thou wanderer poor, pray thee let me know To whom the king of Persia's land this ancient debt doth owe."

The stranger bow'd before the king--and thus began to speak-- Full well, I ween, his garb was worn, and with sorrow pale his cheek, But his air was free and noble, and proudly flash'd his eye, As he stood unknown in that high hall, and thus he made reply--

"From Samos came I, mighty king, and Syloson my name; My brother was Polycrates, a chief well known to fame; That brother drove me from my home--a wanderer forth I went-- And since that hour my weary soul has never known content!

"Methinks I need not tell to thee my brother's mournful fate; He lies within his bloody grave--a churl usurps his state-- Moeandrius lords it o'er the land, my brother's base born slave; Restore me to that throne, oh king! this, this, the boon I crave.

"Remember'st not, oh king! the day when, in old Memphis town, Upon the night ye won the fight, thou wast pacing up and down? The costly cloak that then I wore, its colours charm'd thy eye-- In sooth it was a gorgeous robe, of purple Tyrian dye--

"Let base-born peasants buy and sell, I gave that cloak to thee! And for that gift on thee bestow'd, grant thou this boon to me-- I ask not silver, ask not gold--I ask of thee to stand A prince once more on Samos' shore--my own ancestral land!"

"Oh! best and noblest," quoth the king, "thou ne'er shalt rue the day, When to Cambyses' spearman poor thou gav'st thy cloak away; The faithless eye each well-known form and feature may forget, But the deeds of generous kindness done--the heart remembers yet.

"To-day thou art a wanderer sad, but thou shalt sit, erelong, Within thy fair ancestral hall, and hear the minstrel's song; To-day thou art a homeless man--to-morrow thou shalt stand-- A conqueror and a sceptred king--upon thy native land.

"A cloud is on thy brow to-day--thy lot is poor and low, To all who gaze on thee thou seem'st a man of want and wo; But thou shalt drain the bowl erelong within thy own bright isle, A wreath of roses round thy head, and on thy brow a smile."

And he called the proud Otanes, one of the seven was he Who laid the Magian traitor low, and set their country free; And he bade him man a gallant fleet, and sail without delay, To the pleasant isle of Samos, in the fair Icarian bay.

"To place yon chief on Samos' throne, Otanes, be thy care, But bloodless let thy victory be, his Samian people spare!" For thus the generous chieftain said, when he made his high demand, "I had rather still an exile roam, than waste my native land."

Oh, "monarchs' arms are wondrous long!" their power is wondrous great, But not to them 'tis given to stem the rushing tide of fate. A king may man a gallant fleet, an island fair may give, But can he blunt the sword's sharp edge, or bid the dead to live?

They leave the strand, that gallant band, their ships are in the bay, It was a glorious sight, I ween, to view that proud array; And there, amid the Persian chiefs, himself he holds the helm, Sits lovely Samos' future lord--he comes to claim his realm!

Moeandrius saw the Persian fleet come sailing proudly down, And his troops he knew were all too few to guard a leaguer'd town; So he laid his crown and sceptre down, his recreant life to save-- Who thus resigns a kingdom fair deserves to be a slave.

He calls his band--he seeks the strand--they grant him passage free-- "And shall they then," his brother cried, "have a bloodless victory? No--grant me but those spears of thine, and I soon to them shall show, There yet are men in Samos left to face the Persian foe."

The traitor heard his brother's word, and he gave the youth his way; "An empty land, proud Syloson, shall lie beneath thy sway." That youth has arm'd those spearmen stout--three hundred men in all-- And on the Persian chiefs they fell, before the city's wall.

The Persian lords before the wall were sitting all in state, They deem'd the island was at peace--they reck'd not of their fate; When on them came the fiery youth--with desperate charge he came-- And soon lay weltering in his gore full many a chief of fame.

The outrage rude Otanes view'd, and fury fired his breast-- And to the winds the chieftain cast his monarch's high behest. He gave the word, that angry lord--"War, war unto the death!" Then many a scimitar flash'd forth impatient from its sheath.

Through Samos wide, from side to side, the carnage is begun, And ne'er a mother there is seen, but mourns a slaughter'd son; From side to side, through Samos wide, Otanes hurls his prey, Few, few, are left in that fair isle, their monarch to obey!

The new-made monarch sits in state in his loved ancestral bow'rs, And he bids his minstrel strike the lyre, and he crowns his head with flow'rs; But still a cloud is on his brow--where is the promised smile? And yet he sits a sceptred king--in his own dear native isle.

Oh! Samos dear, my native land! I tread thy courts again-- But where are they, thy gallant sons? I gaze upon the slain-- "A dreary kingdom mine, I ween," the mournful monarch said, "Where are my subjects good and true? I reign but o'er the dead!

"Ah! woe is me--I would that I had ne'er to Susa gone, To ask that fatal boon of thee, Hystaspes' generous son. Oh, deadly fight! oh, woeful sight! to greet a monarch's eyes! All desolate--my native land, reft of her children, lies!"

Thus mourn'd the chief--and no relief his regal state could bring. O'er such a drear unpeopled waste, oh! who would be a king? And still, when desolate a land, and her sons all swept away, "The waste domain of Syloson," 'tis call'd unto this day!

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