When, now many years ago, Vela and others of the Milanese school taught a new and totally different way of looking at and treating drapery, flesh, and more especially hair, they would never have believed, I think, that their imitators would have gone to such lengths, and have so exaggerated that method as to have rendered it supremely false, ridiculous, and incomprehensible. In fact, things have got to such a pass to-day that hair looks like anything but hair—more like stalactites or beehives, salad or whipped cream; and this last the hair made by some of the imitators and exaggerators of that peculiar way of seeing nature particularly resembles. At the great exhibition at Paris one saw both master and scholars; or it would be better to say, the initiator and the imitators. Vela with his sobriety of purpose, full of life, here and there with rough-and-ready touches as art and taste counsel, and nature and harmony teach—the others, with little taste, great self-reliance, and equal audacity, striving their best to muddle up everything together in a topsy-turvy fashion. Taste, which is an individual sentiment, was reduced to a system, or rather a manner; sobriety was transformed into hardness, and a studied neglect of certain parts, exchanged for a systematic and excessive carelessness; and on the contrary, as if in contrast, an affected imitation of little folds, bands, lace, and polished beads and necklaces, the delight and admiration of women and children, little and big.
FRIVOLOUS AND AFFECTED ART.
At the exhibition in Paris, amongst the fops and the milliners this alluring kind of work was received with enthusiasm, because a novelty always makes a greater impression on the frivolous; but serious people of good taste, as well as the judges, did not allow themselves to be attracted by such superficiality. It is true, however, that they were too severe with works of merit, and if it had not been that the limited number of prizes prevented them from being more liberal, the jury that I belonged to would have been to blame. But it is not requisite for me to repeat here what I said on sculpture, and what I wrote officially on that exhibition.
I became acquainted at that time with the best French artists, and they showed me almost brotherly kindness. I sat at their meetings at the Academy, of which I had been a member since 1863, and was afterwards raised to the rank of corresponding member, which is the highest honour the Academy can confer. Although unworthy to do so, I had Giovacchino Rossini's seat.
ROSSINI'S HOUSE IN PARIS.
Rossini's house was the genial meeting-place of all there was of most distinguished then in Paris, not only of the musical class, but of the artistic and literary. He had music, and often sat down to the piano and accompanied his inedited songs. I remember two of singular beauty; one most sad in subject, words, and notes, of a father from whom his little son had been stolen. It was a lament, refined, delicate, and touching, and at the end of every verse came the ritornello—"Chi l'avesse trovato il mio piccino!" The words, I was told, were by Castellani of Rome. The other song was brilliant, strong, thrilling. It was an outburst of love, where a Tyrolese jodel was interpolated and sung by that brilliant imaginative genius Gustave Doré. Here one met with choice conversation, fruitful, instructive, amiable, and vivacious, from which one came forth with the mind more elevated and a greater warmth at heart; but....
To that exhibition I sent a plaster cast of my bas-relief representing the "Triumph of the Cross," the marble group of the "Pietà," and the model for the base of the Egyptian Vase. For these works the great medal of honour was conferred upon me. In painting, Professor Ussi had the same great medal for his picture "La Cacciata del Duca d'Atene." Domenico Morelli for his "Torquato Tasso," and Vincenzo Vela for his "Dying Napoleon," obtained the first-class gold medal, but they also deserved to have had the great medal.
A fine genius is Domenico Morelli, as well as a loyal and generous friend, for he greatly rejoiced when Ussi obtained the great prize for Italian painting; and I remember that he said, "As long as there is the great prize, be it awarded to myself, Ussi, or any one else, it is of small consequence as long as Italy does not fall behind. Long live Art and Italy!"
INFLUENCE OF THE PARIS EXHIBITION.
For the matter of that, one art (I speak of painting) was most worthily represented, and brought forward a virgin element—subject to discussion and confirmation, it is true, yet fruitful of good result, such as recalling art to its fundamental principle, which is the imitation of nature, and relieving young men from the conventional trammels learnt on the benches of the Academy (I wish I could say learnt in the past), making them breathe a more ventilated, healthy air, placing before their eyes that infinite variety and beauty of which nature is composed in all its parts, in all its effects, and in all its forms—in the heavens, in the sea, on the hills, in the plains, in the forests, in the animals and in men—and every one of these things always varying according to light, according to the quietness or the emotions of nature, according to temperament, to the habits of animals and men; all of which things are so well taught by nature to those holding a constant firm will to study her. This element, I say, appeared with but slight deviations at the world's exhibition in Paris, and did good. It rejuvenated art, and lifted it out of some conventionalities, whilst it placed others in bad repute. But enough of this for the present; let us speak of something else.