The greater number of artists have sprung from humble life. If they had been born rich, they would probably never have been artists. They have had to work their way from one position to another; and to strengthen their nature by conquering difficulty. Hogarth began his career by engraving shop-bills. William Sharp began by engraving door-plates. Tassie the sculptor and medallist, began life as a stone-cutter. Having accidentally seen a collection of pictures, he aspired to become an artist and entered an academy to learn the elements of drawing. He continued to work at his old trade until he was able to maintain himself by his new one. He used his labour as the means of cultivating his skill in his more refined and elevated profession.
Chantry of Sheffield, was an economist both of time and money. He saved fifty pounds out of his earnings as a carver and gilder; paid the money to his master, and cancelled his indentures. Then he came up to London, and found employment as a journeyman carver; he proceeded to paint portraits and model busts, and at length worked his way to the first position as a sculptor.
Canova was a stone-cutter, like his father and his grandfather; and through stone-cutting he worked his way to sculpture. After leaving the quarry, he went to Venice, and gave his services to an artist, from whom he received but little recompense for his work. "I laboured," said he, "for a mere pittance, but it was sufficient. It was the fruit of my own resolution; and, as I then flattered myself, the foretaste of more honourable rewards,—for I never thought of wealth." He pursued his studies,—in drawing and modelling; in languages, poetry, history, antiquity, and the Greek and Roman classics. A long time elapsed before his talents were recognised, and then he suddenly became famous.
Lough, the English sculptor, is another instance of self-denial and hard work. When a boy, he was fond of drawing. At school, he made drawings of horses, dogs, cows, and men, for pins: that was his first pay; and he used to go home with his jacket sleeve stuck full of them. He and his brothers next made figures in clay. Pope's Homer lay on his father's window. The boys were so delighted with it, that they made thousands of models—one taking the Greeks, and the other the Trojans. An odd volume of Gibbon gave an account of the Coliseum. After the family were in bed, the brothers made a model of the Coliseum, and filled it with fighting gladiators. As the boys grew up, they were sent to their usual outdoor work, following the plough and doing the usual agricultural labour; but still adhering to their modelling at leisure hours. At Christmas-time, Lough was very much in demand. Everybody wanted him to make models in pastry for Christmas pies,—the neighbouring farmers especially, "It was capital practice," he afterwards said.
At length Lough went from Newcastle to London, to push his way in the world of art. He obtained a passage in a collier, the skipper of which he knew. When he reached London, he slept on board the collier as long as it remained in the Thames. He was so great a favourite with the men, that they all urged him to go back. He had no friends, no patronage, no money; What could he do with everything against him? But, having already gone so far, he determined to proceed. He would not go back—at least, not yet. The men all wept when he took farewell of them. He was alone in London; under the shadow of St. Paul's.
His next step was to take a lodging in an obscure first floor in Burleigh Street, over a greengrocer's shop; and there he began to model his grand statue of Milo. He had to take the roof off to let Milo's head out. There Haydon found him, and was delighted with his genius. "I went," he says, "to young Lough, the sculptor, who has just burst out, and has produced a great effect. His Milo is really the most extraordinary thing, considering all the circumstances, in modern sculpture. It is another proof of the efficacy of inherent genius." [1] That Lough must have been poor enough at this time, is evident from the fact that, during the execution of his Milo, he did not eat meat for three months; and when Peter Coxe found him out, he was tearing up his shirt to make wet rags for his figure, to keep the clay moist. He had a bushel and a half of coals during the whole winter; and he used to lie down by the side of his clay model of the immortal figure, damp as it was, and shiver for hours till he fell asleep.
[Footnote 1: Haydon's Autobiography, vol. ii., p, 155.]
Chantrey once said to Haydon, "When I have made money enough, I will devote myself to high art." But busts engrossed Chantrey's time. He was munificently paid for them, and never raised himself above the money-making part of his profession. When Haydon next saw Chantrey at Brighton, he said to him, "Here is a young man from the country, who has come to London; and he is doing precisely what you have so long been dreaming of doing."
The exhibition of Milo was a great success. The Duke of Wellington went to see it, and ordered a statue. Sir Matthew White Eidley was much struck by the genius of young Lough, and became one of his greatest patrons. The sculptor determined to strike out a new path for himself. He thought the Greeks had exhausted the Pantheistic, and that heathen gods had been overdone. Lough began and pursued the study of lyric sculpture: he would illustrate the great English poets. But there was the obvious difficulty of telling the story of a figure by a single attitude. It was like a flash of thought. "The true artist," he said, "must plant his feet firmly on the earth, and sweep the heavens with his pencil. I mean," he added, "that the soul must be combined with the body, the ideal with the real, the heavens with the earth."
It is not necessary to describe the success of Mr. Lough as a sculptor. His statue of "The Mourners" is known all over the world. He has illustrated Shakespeare and Milton. His Puck, Titania, and other great works, are extensively known, and their genius universally admired. But it may be mentioned that his noble statue of Milo was not cast in bronze until 1862, when it was exhibited at the International Exhibition of that year.