A different modification of nature, but not a different nature. Nature and truth are one, and immutable, and inseparable as beauty and love. I do maintain that, in these latter times, we have artists, who in genius, in the power of looking at nature, and in manual skill, are not beneath the great ancients, but their works are found wanting in comparison; they have fallen short of the models their early ambition set before them; and why?—because, having genius, they want the moral grandeur that should accompany it, and have neglected the training of their own minds from necessity, or from dissipation or from pride, so that having imagination and skill, they have yet wanted the materials out of which to work. Recollect that the great artists of old were not mere painters or mere sculptors, who were nothing except with the pencil or the chisel in their hand. They were philosophers, scholars, poets, musicians, noble beings, whose eyes were not ever on themselves, but who looked above, before, and after. Our modern artists turn coxcombs, and then fancy themselves like Rafaelle; or they are greedy of present praise, or greedy of gain; or they will not pay the price for immortality; or they have sold their glorious birthright of fame for a mess of pottage.
Poor Dannecker found his mess of pottage bitter now and then, as you shall hear. He set off for Italy, in 1783, with his pension raised to four hundred florins a year, that is, about thirty pounds: he reached Rome, on foot, and he told me that, for some months after his arrival, he suffered from a terrible depression of spirits, and a painful sense of loneliness: like Thorwaldson, when he too visited that city some years afterwards, a friendless youth, he was often home-sick and heart-sick. At this time he used to wander about among the ruins and relics of almighty Rome, lost in the sense of their grandeur, depressed by his own vague aspirations—ignorant, and without courage to apply himself. Luckily for him, Herder and Goethe were then residing at Rome; he became known to them, and their conversation directed him to higher sources of inspiration in his art than he had yet contemplated—to the very well-heads and mother-streams of poetry. They showed him the distinction between the spirit and the form of ancient art. Dannecker felt, and afterwards applied some of the grand revelations of these men, who were at once profound critics and inspired poets. He might have grasped at more, but that his early nurture was here against him, and his subsequent destinies as a court sculptor seldom left him sufficient freedom of thought or action to follow out his own conceptions. While at Rome he also became acquainted with Canova, who, although only one year older than himself, had already achieved great things. He was now at work on the monument of the Pope Ganganelli. The courteous, kind-hearted Italian would sometimes visit the poor German in his studio, and cheer him by his remarks and encouragement.
Dannecker remained five years at Rome; he was then ordered to return to Stuttgard. As he had already greatly distinguished himself, the Duke of Wurtemburg received him with much kindness, and promised him his protection. Now, the protection and the patronage which a sovereign accords to an artist generally amounts to this: he begins by carving or painting the portrait of his patron, and of some of the various members of his patron's family. If these are approved of, he is allowed to stick a ribbon in his button-hole, and is appointed professor of fine arts, with a certain stipend, and thenceforth his time, his labour, and his genius belong as entirely to his master as those of a hired servant; his path is marked out for him. It was thus with Dannecker; he received a pension of eight hundred florins a year and his professorship, and upon the strength of this he married Henrietta Rapp. From this period his life has passed in a course of tranquil and uninterrupted occupation, yet, though constantly employed, his works are not numerous; almost every moment being taken up with the duties of his professorship, in trying to teach what no man of genius can teach, and in making drawings and designs after the fancies of the Grand Duke. He was required to compose a basso-relievo for the duke's private cabinet. The subject which he chose was as appropriate as it was beautifully treated—Alexander pressing his seal upon the lips of Parmenio. He modelled this in bas-relief, and the best judges pronounced it exquisite; but it did not please the duke, and instead of receiving an order to finish it in marble, he was obliged to throw it aside, and to execute some design dictated by his master. The original model remained for many years in his studio; but a short time before my last visit to him he had presented it as a birth-day gift to a friend. The first great work which gave him celebrity as a sculptor, was the mausoleum of Count Zeppelin, the duke's favourite, in which the figure of Friendship has much simplicity and grace: this is now at Louisberg. While he was modelling this beautiful figure, the first idea of the Ariadne was suggested to his fancy, but some years elapsed before it came into form. At this time he was much employed in executing busts, for which his fine eye for living nature and manly simplicity of taste peculiarly fitted him. In this particular department of his art he has neither equal nor rival, except our Chantrey. The best I have seen are those of Schiller, Gluck, and Lavater. Never are the fine arts, never are great artists, better employed than when they serve to illustrate and to immortalize each other! About the year 1808, Dannecker was considered, beyond dispute, the first sculptor in Germany; for as yet Rauch, Tieck, and Schwanthaler had not worked their way up to their present high celebrity. He received, in 1811, an intimation, that if he would enter the service of the king of Bavaria, he should be placed at the head of the school of sculpture at Munich, with a salary three times the amount of that which he at present enjoyed.—
MEDON.
Which Dannecker declined?
ALDA.
He did.
MEDON.
I could have sworn to it—extempore! What is more touching in the history of men of genius than that deep and constant attachment they have shown to their early patrons! Not to go back to the days of Horace and Mecænas, nor even to those of Ariosto and Tasso and the family of Este, or Cellini and the Duke of Florence, or Lucas Kranach, and the Elector John Frederic—[ 16] do you remember Mozart's exclamation, when he was offered the most magnificent remuneration if he would quit the service of Joseph II. for that of the Elector of Saxony—"Shall I leave my good Emperor?" In the same manner Metastasio rejected every inducement to quit the service of Maria Theresa,——
ALDA.