The picture that I admired most in those days was one of Judith holding up the gory head of Holofernes, in the Pitti Gallery of Paintings. I was seized with a longing to copy it, on my return from my first visit to the Gallery. I seated myself, one evening, before a sheet of drawing-paper, and I tried and tried; but the nose of Holofernes was too much for me. All that I could accomplish was something that resembled an enlarged interrogation mark, and recalled Chinese art, as illustrated on fans. I was disappointed, disgusted—but, above all, surprised: it was my first intimation that “to do” is not “as easy as ’tis to know what ’twere good to do.”
In the midst of my futile efforts, a broad-shouldered, bearded man was announced, who having shaken hands with the grown-ups, came and seated himself beside the little girl, and her paint-box and pencils and care-worn face.
“O Mr. Hart,” I cried, “do make this nose for me!”
Whereupon he made it, giving me many valuable suggestions, meanwhile, as to the effect produced by judicious shading. Still, I was discouraged. It was borne in upon me that this was not my branch of art.
“Mr. Hart,” I said, “I think I would like to make noses your way.”
PALACE IN FLORENCE.
“Would you? Then you shall. Come to my studio to-morrow, and you shall have some clay and a board, and try what you can do.”
So the next day I insisted upon availing myself of this invitation. Mr. Hart was then elaborating his machine for taking portraits in marble, in his studio in the upper part of the city. He had always several busts on hand, excellent likenesses. His workmen would be employed in cutting out the marble, while he molded his original thought out of the plastic clay. There has always been a fascination to me in statuary. Mr. Ruskin tells us that form appealed to the old Greeks more forcibly than color. That was in the youth of the race; possibly, the first stage of art-development is an appreciation of form; in my case, I have not passed into the maturer stage yet. The rounded proportions, curves, and reality of a statue appeal to me as no painting ever did.