CANOVA AND THE BELLO IDEALE.
Doubtless nature is the foundation of art, as beauty is its object; and to forget either one or the other is to fall into error. If we kept these two cardinal points in our mind, and made them both subjects of study in our works, all our discussions and disputes would cease. But it too often happens that the Academicians, holding too strongly to the beautiful as the end to be attained, forget that its foundation is in the truth or nature; while the Realists, blindly trusting to nature, which when it is not subjected to selection is a bad foundation, lose sight of the true end, which is beauty. Now in the works of Canova we see a constant endeavour to harmonise the beautiful with nature; but as the cry of bello ideale (a magic phrase invented at that time) was then loved, with the painter David leading the chorus, and the imperial cannon sounding the accompaniment, the interior voices and protests of the Christian artificers were either drowned or lifted to the hundred pagan deities whom the epicurean philosophy of the time demanded, and to whom they burned their incense. But the genius which nature had given to this great artist triumphed over the tendencies of his time, over the cry of pedants and the imperial favours; and the Pope Rezzonico, and Pius VI., and the Magdalen, are there to demonstrate the singular force of that genius which alone battled against the torrent of the schools and the tyranny and customs of his age. These works of his are rays of that light which first illuminated the mind of this great artist, when, still young and free in his inspirations, and unbiassed by rules, counsel, and praise, he conceived and executed that wonderful group of Icarus.
In this careful spirit of examination and reasoning I again reviewed and studied the masterpieces of ancient and modern art, and many of the judgments which had been distorted by my poor brain during my first visit were afterwards rectified. I became attached with reverent friendship to Minardi, Tenerani, and Overbeck; and although all three followed the school of the mystical ideal, which was far from conformable to the rich and inexhaustible variety of nature, I admired in them their profound conviction in the excellence of their school; and although Tenerani united to his mysticism the graces of antique form, still it seemed to me that precisely on this account he was often a timid friend to nature. When, however, he was not dominated by a preconceived idea—I mean in his portraits—he was really and incontestably true to nature. His Count Orloff, though inspired by the statues of the philosophers in the Vatican, is not inconsistent with this opinion; and his Pellegrino Rossi and his Maria of Russia are perfectly original, and show no preoccupation of his mind except with nature. And it then seemed to me strange, as it still seems, that an artist, in portraying a fact or a personage, however ideal, should attempt to draw it purely from an idea, and not from living nature; for his idea is for the most part only a remembrance of what he has seen. The two processes are quite different; for the idea reaches out for the source of truth or nature, which is infinitely varied, while the memory retains types and figures of other works of so small a scale in variety that its extreme ends soon meet each other.
TENERANI AND OVERBECK.
Overbeck was more ideal and mystical than Tenerani. He placed all the charm of art in the conception alone, and rarely or never used a model. One day he said to me, in a tone of the most absolute conviction, that models (or nature) destroyed the idea. This theory, which is eminently false as a general proposition, has a certain truth when applied to sacred subjects and representations of divinity, and specially in regard to those artists who in painting a Madonna make a portrait of a model. The imitation of life is certainly necessary even in sacred subjects; but it is difficult so to select and portray them that the religious idea does not become obscured, as well on account of the vulgarity as of the excessive realism and expression of the model. The expression it is absolutely necessary that the artist should create, if he has it in him,—and only so far as this Overbeck was right. Then, indeed, is the opportunity for the bello ideale, which is so ill understood and ill treated; for the ideal is in substance nothing else but the idea of the truth in nature, and diffused over all creation, as well in the material as in the intellectual world. And every artist of heart and just perceptions feels it and sees it, and recomposes its scattered parts by means of long study and great love.
MINARDI AND HIS SCHOOL.
Minardi, the father, so to speak, of all the artistic youths of his day, strove to reform them in taste and composition, founding himself on the works and the canons of the Cinquecentisti. This recognition is all the more due to him when we remember that precisely at this time, when he was endeavouring to carry out this reform, he had before him Camuccini and all his school in full vigour, and that now Minardi's school is flourishing and strengthened as much by the conquests he has made in variety of imitation from nature as in mastery of colour. I have said that Minardi was like a father; and so he was. He treated his young pupils as if they were his children, kept them in his own studio, and I have seen three—Consoni, Mariani, Marianecci—and many others around him gaily jesting with their venerable master. His portfolios and albums were always open to all, and he delighted to show them, and, while looking over their studies and compositions, to add those words of explanation, counsel, and warning which are so useful to young artists. I seem to see him now in that great studio of his, which was somewhat in disorder, and encumbered with easels, drawings, cartoons, books, prints, and antique furniture—the air filled with clouds of tobacco-smoke which issued from the pipe he had always in his mouth, and he himself always working or talking, reading or writing. He was affable, gracious, and eloquent, and, with those little eyes looking through his spectacles, he seemed to read into your soul; and if he found it sad, he threw out a word, and awakened it again to life and courage. One day, seeing me more than ordinarily melancholy, he rose from his work, took me by the hands, and puffing from his pipe a larger volume of smoke than usual, asked what was troubling me; and when I had made a clean breast of it to him, he laid his pipe down, and embracing me, said, "Cheer up, my son! drive away from your head all those whims: go back to Florence, take up your work again with courage, and have more faith in yourself and in your powers. It is an old man who is speaking to you, who neither can nor will deceive you." The words of the excellent master went straight to my heart, and filled it with courage, hope, and peace.
ROMAN AND FLORENTINE MODELS.
In this way, with studying the ancient monuments, and going about among the living artists, I passed several days in Rome. The models, and particularly those of the artists I have named, I found more robust and rounded than our Florentine models, which are for the most part slender and lymphatic. Among our girls you will not find, though you should pay a million, such necks, so firm and robust, and at the same time so soft and flexible, and like the examples which Greek and Roman art has left us. So it seems that, without seeking for the cause of the contradiction between the living nature I had found in Florence, and that which was represented in antique art, I had come to the conclusion that the Greeks and Romans worked purely from ideas, and corrected nature according to that established rule which we call convention. Nothing is more erroneous than this notion, and the proof of it I found in Rome itself, as I shall now tell.
A ROMAN MODEL.