BARTOLINI REFUSES A RECONCILIATION.
"No matter," replied he; "you understand—each one for himself," and this he said in French. Because you must know, that when he was excited he preferred that language either for speaking or writing.
Notwithstanding this, the next year, as I wished for a reconciliation,—having made the model in clay of the Giotto, which I wanted to try in the niche of the Uffizi, to hear the opinion of my friends about it, and to correct it where it was necessary, before its execution in marble,—I wrote to Bartolini begging him to come to see my statue in its place to give me his authoritative opinion. He replied in a manner specially his own—I might almost say with his own brutal sincerity,—that which distinguished him from his sugared and often hypocritical contemporaries. He could not deceive; he held me in aversion, and he wished me to know it, not by his silence, but by a letter. Here it is: "Dearest, the thing which above all things I like in this world is to see the races in the Cascine; but as I have so much work which prevents me, just imagine if I shall come to see your statue?"
Observe, I do not say that I expected precisely such a reply, and I was a little stung by it; but I understood him, and really liked it better than if he had made an excuse and told a lie. All men should be true to themselves. Bartolini was still angry with me, as I found out afterwards, because, in the discussion about the hunchback, my name being brought forward, I did not enter into its defence. In fact, if a similar discussion were now to arise on this subject, it would seem to me cowardly to draw back and not clear up a point of controversy of the greatest importance; but then, being young and a beginner, how could I presume to offer my support to Bartolini? Would it not appear pretentious in me even to assume to be the defender of so great a master? It seemed to me so then, and it seems so now. Let it not be thought that I did not do this while arguing with my artist friends; it was quite otherwise, and this was the way in which I drew upon myself their ill feeling and dislike. And the defence of the Bartolini system which I then made was in a much more absolute sense than that which I now make; for while I see that Bartolini was right in carrying back art to its first source—that is (and we should thank him for that), to the imitation of nature—he went beyond bounds in proposing a deformed person as a model. It is very true that Bartolini never affirmed, as his enemies assert, that a hunchback was beautiful. He said that it was as difficult to copy a hunchback well as a well-formed person, and that a youth ought to copy as faithfully the one as the other; and when the eye had been educated to discover the most minute differences in the infinite variety of nature, and the hand able to portray them, then, but only then, was the time to speak, and select from nature the most perfect, which others called the bello ideale, and he the bello naturale. But that blessed hunchback still remains, who, in the strict sense of the word, is not the real truth; for in what is deformed there is something deficient, which removes it from the truth, however natural it may be. It is a defect in nature, and therefore not true to nature.
BELLO IDEALE—BELLO NATURALE.
But it happened then as it happens always: the reform of Bartolini and the dogmas of the academicians never came to an end. They might have confined themselves to the indisputable principle that one should imitate life in its infinite scale of variety, avoiding always deformity. But once they had begun with the meagre child, the adipose old man, the lean or flabby youth, they went on through thick and thin. It would not have been so bad had they really appreciated what Bartolini meant to say, and that is, that copying anything was very well as a mere exercise and means of learning one's art—or, to use his expression, of "holding the reins of art"; but the misfortune was, that some took the means for the end, and so went wrong.
COPYING OF ANTIQUE STATUES.
But nevertheless, this Bartolinian reform was of great advantage. Let us remember how sculpture was then studied. The teaching of Ricci was only a long and tedious exercise of copying wholesale the antique statues, good and bad; and what was worse, the criterion of Greek art was carried into the study of nude life—the characteristic forms of the antique statues supplanting those of the living model. The outlines were added to and cut away with a calm superiority, which was even comical. The abdominal muscles were widened, the base of the pelvis narrowed, in order to give strength and elegance to the figure. The model was never copied; the head was kept smaller, and the neck fuller, so that, although the general effect was more slender and more robust, the character was falsified, and was always the same, and always conventional. This restriction of nature to a single type led directly to conventionality; and once this direction was taken, and this habit of working from memory, following always a pre-established type, the artist gradually disregarded the beautiful variety of nature, and not only did not notice it, but held it in suspicion, believing that nature is always defective, and that it is absolutely necessary to correct it; and in this, they said, lies the secret of Art. And yet Bartolini cried aloud, and, so to speak, strained his voice to make himself understood, and stood up on a table and beat his drum for the hunchback. But as soon as a sufficient number of people is collected to make a respectable audience, one must lay aside the great drum and begin to speak seriously. And this is just what the maestro did: he gave up the hunchback, inculcated the imitation of beautiful nature in all its varieties of sex, age, and temperament. But, in the ears of the greater number of persons the beat of the great drum still sounded, and the words of Bartolini were not understood. From that time to this there have been no more statues of Apollo, Jove, and Minerva. Chased from this earth, they returned to their place on Olympus—and there they still remain.
HOW FAR NATURE IS TO BE COPIED.
Still the seed of deformity had been sown, and struck strong roots. There are some men who grub in filth and dirt with pure delight, and have for the ugly and evil a special predilection, because, as they say, these are as true representatives of nature as what is beautiful and good, and are in fact a particular phase of that truth which, as a whole, constitutes the truly beautiful. And reasoning thus, this school, or rather this coterie, has given us, and still gives us, the most strange and repulsive productions, improper and lascivious in subject, and in form a servile copy of such offensively ugly models as Mother Nature produces when she is not well. What would you say, dear reader, if you were ever to see a hideous little baby, crying with his ugly mouth wide open, because his bowl of pap has fallen out of his hand? or an infamous and bestial man, with the gesticulations expressive of the lowest and most vicious desires? or a woman vomiting under a cherry-tree because she has eaten too much? or other similar filthinesses of subject and imitation, which are disgusting even to describe? For myself, I am not a fanatic for ancient Art: on the contrary, I detest the academic and conventional; but I confess that, rather than these horrors, I should prefer to welcome Cupid, and Venus, and Minerva, and the Graces, and in a word all Olympus. But, good heavens! is there no possibility of confining one's self within limits? And if we abandon Olympus and its deities, is it necessary to root and grub in the filth of the Mercato Vecchio and in the brothel?