It has been before stated that Vernet's father intended him for an historical painter, but nature formed his genius to imitate her sweetest, as well as most terrible aspect. When he was on his way to Marseilles, he met with so many charming prospects, that he induced his companion to halt so often while he sketched them, that it took them a much longer time to reach that port than it would otherwise have done.
When he first saw the sea from the high hill, called La Viste, near Marseilles, he stood wrapt in admiration. Before him stretched the blue waters of the Mediterranean as far as the eye could reach, while three islands, a few leagues from the shore, seemed to have been placed there on purpose to break the uniformity of the immense expanse of waters, and to gratify the eye; on his right rose a sloping town of country houses, intersected with trees, rising above one another on successive terraces; on his left was the little harbor of Mastigues; in front, innumerable vessels rocked to and fro in the harbor of Marseilles, while the horizon was terminated by the picturesque tower of Bouc, nearly lost, however, in the distance. This scene made a lasting impression on Vernet. Nature seemed not only to invite, but to woo him to paint marine subjects, and from that moment his vocation was decided on. Thus nature frequently instructs men of genius, and leads them on in the true path to excellence and renown. Like the Æolian harp, which waits for a breath of air to produce a sound, so they frequently wait or strive in vain, till nature strikes a sympathetic chord, that vibrates to the soul. Thus Joseph Vernet never thought of his forte till he first stood on La Viste; and after that, he was nothing but a painter of ships and harbors, and tranquil seas, till the day when lashed to the mast, he first beheld the wild sea in such rude commotion, as threatened to engulf the noble ship and all on board at every moment. Then his mind was elevated to the grandeur of the scene; and he recollected forever the minutest incident of the occasion.
"It was on going from Marseilles to Rome," says one of his biographers, M. Pitra, "that Joseph Vernet, on seeing a tempest gathering, when they were off the Island of Sardinia, was seized, not with terror, but with admiration; in the midst of the general alarm, the painter seemed really to relish the peril; his only desire was to face the tempest, and to be, so to say, mixed up with it, in order that, some day or other, he might astonish and frighten others by the terrible effects he would learn to produce; his only fear was that he might lose the sight of a spectacle so new to him. He had himself lashed to the main mast, and while he was tossed about in every direction, saturated with seawater, and excited by this hand-to-hand struggle with his model, he painted the tempest, not on his canvass, but in his memory, which never forgot anything. He saw and remembered all—clouds, waves, and rock, hues and colors, with the motion of the boats and the rocking of the ship, and the accidental light which intersected a slate-colored sky that served as a ground to the whiteness of the sea-foam." But, according to D'Argenville and others, this event occurred in 1752, when he was on his way to Paris, at the invitation of Louis XV. Embarking at Leghorn in a small felucca, he sailed to Marseilles. A violent storm happened on the voyage, which greatly terrified some of the passengers, but Vernet, undaunted, and struck with the grandeur of the scene, requested the sailors to lash him to the mast head, and there he remained, absorbed in admiration, and endeavoring to transfer to his sketch-book, a correct picture of the sublime scene with which he was surrounded. His grandson, Horace Vernet, painted an excellent picture of this scene, which was exhibited in the Louvre in 1816, and attracted a great deal of attention.
VERNET AT ROME.
Vernet arrived at Rome in 1732, and became the scholar of Bernardino Fergioni, then a celebrated marine painter, but Lanzi says, "he was soon eclipsed by Joseph Vernet, who had taken up his abode at Rome." Entirely unknown in that metropolis of art, always swarming with artists, Vernet lived for several years in the greatest poverty, subsisting by the occasional sale of a drawing or picture at any price he could get. He even painted panels for coach builders, which were subsequently sawed out and sold as works of great value. Fiorillo relates that he painted a superb marine for a suit of coarse clothes, which brought 5000 francs at the sale of M. de Julienne. Finding large pictures less saleable, he painted small ones, which he sold for two sequins a-piece, till a Cardinal, one day gave him four louis d'or for a marine. Yet his ardor and enthusiasm were unabated; on the contrary, he studied with the greatest assiduity, striving to perfect himself in his art, and feeling confident that his talents would ultimately command a just reward.
VERNET'S "ALPHABET OF TONES."
It was the custom of Vernet to rise with the lark, and he often walked forth before dawn and spent the whole day in wandering about the surrounding country, to study the ever changing face of nature. He watched the various hues presented by the horizon at different hours of the day. He soon found that with all his powers of observation and pencil, great and impassioned as they were, he could not keep pace with the rapidly changing and evanescent hues of the morning and evening sky. He began to despair of ever being able to represent on canvass the moving harmony of those pictures which nature required so little time to execute in such perfection, and which so quickly passed away. At length, after long contemplating how he could best succeed in catching and transferring these furtive tints to his canvass, bethought himself of a contrivance which he called his Alphabet of tones, and which is described by Renou in his "Art de Peindre."
The various characters of this alphabet are joined together, and correspond to an equal number of different tints; if Vernet saw the sun rise silvery and fresh, or set in the colors of crimson; or if he saw a storm approaching or disappearing, he opened his table and set down the gradations of the tones he admired, as quickly as he could write ten or twelve letters on a piece of paper. After having thus noted down in short hand, the beauties of the sky and the accidental effects of nature, he returned to his studio, and endeavored to make stationary on canvass the moving picture he had just been contemplating. Effects which had long disappeared were thus recomposed in all their charming harmony to delight the eye of every lover of painting.