Excursions in Art and Letters

by William Wetmore Story

Even to enumerate the other figures would require more time and space than can now be given. But we cannot pass over in silence the wonderful series illustrative of Biblical history which form the centre of the ceiling, beginning with Chaos struggling into form, and ending with Lot and his children. Here in succession are the division of light from darkness—the Spirit of God moving over the face of the waters (an extraordinary conception, which Raffaelle strove in vain to reproduce in another form in the Loggie of the Vatican); the wonderful creation of Adam; the temptation of the serpent, and the expulsion from Paradise, so beautiful in composition and feeling; the sacrifice to God; and finally the Flood.

Besides these are the grand nude figures of the decoration, which have never been equaled; and many Biblical stories, which, in the richness and multitude of greater things, are lost, but which in themselves would suffice to make any artist famous: as, for instance, the group called Rehoboam, a female figure bending forward and resting her hand upon her face, with the child leaning against her knee—a lovely sculptural group, admirably composed, and full of pathos; and the stern, despairing figure entitled Jesse, looking straight out into the distance before him—like Fate.

Here is no attempt at scenic effect, no effort for the picturesque, no literal desire for realism, no pictorial graces. A sombre, noble tone of color pervades them,—harmonizing with their grand design, but seeking nothing for itself, and sternly subjected and restrained to these powerful conceptions. Nature silently withdraws and looks on, awed by these mighty presences.

Only a tremendous energy and will could have enabled Michel Angelo to conceive and execute these works. The spirit in which he worked is heroic: oppressed as he was by trouble and want, he never lost courage or faith. Here is a fragment of a letter he wrote to his brother while employed on this work, which will show the temper and character of the man. It is truly in the spirit of the Stoics of old:—

“Make no friendship nor intimacies with any one but the Almighty alone. Speak neither good nor evil of any one, because the end of these things cannot yet be known. Attend only to your own affairs. I must tell you I have no money.” (He says this in answer to constant applications from his unworthy brother for pecuniary assistance.) “I am, I may say, shoeless and naked. I cannot receive the balance of my pay till I have finished this work, and I suffer much from discomfort and fatigue. Therefore, when you also have trouble to endure, do not make useless complaints, but try to help yourself.”

The names of Raffaelle and Michel Angelo are so associated, that that of one always rises in the mind when the other is mentioned. Their geniuses are as absolutely opposite as are their characters. Each is the antithesis of the other. In the ancient days we have the same kind of difference between Homer and Virgil, Demosthenes and Cicero, Æschylus and Euripides; in later days, Molière and Racine, Rousseau and Voltaire, Shakespeare and Sir Philip Sidney, Beethoven and Mozart, Dante and Ariosto, Victor Hugo and Lamartine; or to take our own age, Delacroix and Ary Scheffer, Browning and Tennyson. To the one belongs the sphere of power, to the other that of charm. One fights his way to immortality, the other woos it.

Raffaelle was of the latter class—sweet of nature, gentle of disposition, gifted with a rare sense of grace, a facile talent of design, and a refinement of feeling which, if it sometimes degenerated into weakness, never utterly lost its enchantment. He was exceedingly impressionable, reflected by turns the spirit of his masters,—was first Perugino, and afterwards modified his style to that of Fra Bartolommeo, and again, under the influence of Michel Angelo, strove to tread in his footsteps. He was not of a deep nature nor of a powerful character. There was nothing torrential in his genius, bursting its way through obstacles and sweeping all before it. It was rather that of the calm river, flowing at its own sweet will, and reflecting peacefully the passing figures of life. He painted as the bird sings. He was an artist because nature made him one—not because he had vowed himself to art, and was willing to struggle and fight for its smile. He was gentle and friendly—a pleasant companion—a superficial lover—handsome of person and pleasing of address—who always went surrounded by a corona of followers, who disliked work and left the execution of his designs in great measure to his pupils, while he toyed with the Fornarina. I do not mean to undervalue him in what he did. His works are charming—his invention was lively. He had the happy art of telling his story in outline, better, perhaps, than any one else of his age. His highest reach was the Madonna di S. Sisto, and this certainly is full of that large sweetness and spiritual sensibility which entitles him to the common epithet of “Divino.” But when he died at the early age of thirty-seven, he had come to his full development, and there is no reason to suppose that he would ever have attained a greater height. Indeed, during his latter years he was tired of his art, neglected his work, became more and more academic, and preferred to bask in the sunshine of his fame on its broad levels, to girding up his loins to struggle up precipitous ascents to loftier peaks. The world already began to blame him for this neglect, and to say that he had forgotten how to paint himself, and gave his designs only to his students to execute. Moved by these rumors, he determined alone to execute a work in fresco, and this work was the famous Galatea of the Palazzo Farnese. He was far advanced in it, when, during his absence one morning, a dark, short, stern-looking man called to see him. In the absence of Raffaelle, this man gazed attentively at the Galatea for a long time, and then taking a piece of charcoal, he ascended a ladder which stood in the corner of the vast room, and drew offhand on the wall a colossal male head. Then he came down and went away, saying to the attendant, “If Signore Raffaelle wishes to know who came to see him, show him my card there on the wall.” When Raffaelle returned, the assistant told him of his visitor, and showed him the head. “That is Michel Angelo,” he said, “or the devil.”

And Michel Angelo it was. Raffaelle well knew what that powerful and colossal head meant, and he felt the terrible truth of its silent criticism on his own work. It meant, Your fresco is too small for the room—your style is too pleasing and trivial. Make something grand and colossal. Brace your mind to higher purpose, train your hand to nobler design. I say that Raffaelle felt this stern criticism, because he worked no more there, and only carried out this one design. Raffaelle’s disposition was sweet and attractive, and he was beloved by all his friends. Vasari says of him, that he was as much distinguished by his amorevolezza ed umanità, his affectionate and sympathetic nature, as by his excellence as an artist; and another contemporary speaks of him as of summæ bonitatis, perfect sweetness of character. All this one sees in his face, which, turning, gazes dreamily at us over his shoulder, with dark, soft eyes, long hair, and smooth, unsuffering cheeks where Time has ploughed no furrows—easy, charming, graceful, refined, and somewhat feminine of character.

Michel Angelo was made of sterner stuff than this. His temper was violent, his bearing haughty, his character impetuous. He had none of the personal graces of his great rival. His face was, as it were, hammered sternly out by fate; his brow corrugated by care, his cheeks worn by thought, his hair and beard stiffly curled and bull-like; his expression sad and intense, with a weary longing in his deep-set eyes. Doubtless, at times, they flamed with indignation and passion—for he was very irascible, and suffered no liberties to be taken with him. He could not “sport with Amaryllis in the shade, or with the tangles of Neæra’s hair.” Art was his mistress, and a stern mistress she was, urging him ever onward to greater heights. He loved her with a passion of the intellect; there was nothing he would not sacrifice for her. He was willing to be poor, almost to starve, to labor with incessant zeal, grudging even the time that sleep demanded, only to win her favor. He could not have been a pleasant companion, and he was never a lover of woman. His friendship with Vittoria Colonna was worlds away from the senses,—worlds away from such a connection as that of Raffaelle with the Fornarina. They walked together in the higher fields of thought and feeling, in the region of ideas and aspirations. Their conversation was of art, and poesy, and religion, and the mysteries of life. They read to each other their poems, and discoursed on high themes of religion, and fate, and foreknowledge. The sonnets he addressed to her were in no trivial vein of human passion or sentiment.