Self Help - Samuel Smiles (children's ebooks free online TXT) 📗
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handicraft. One day a surgeon entered the shop of Raffaello del
Moro, the goldsmith, to perform an operation on his daughter’s
hand. On looking at the surgeon’s instruments, Cellini, who was
present, found them rude and clumsy, as they usually were in those
days, and he asked the surgeon to proceed no further with the
operation for a quarter of an hour. He then ran to his shop, and
taking a piece of the finest steel, wrought out of it a beautifully
finished knife, with which the operation was successfully
performed.
Among the statues executed by Cellini, the most important are the
silver figure of Jupiter, executed at Paris for Francis I., and the
Perseus, executed in bronze for the Grand Duke Cosmo of Florence.
He also executed statues in marble of Apollo, Hyacinthus,
Narcissus, and Neptune. The extraordinary incidents connected with
the casting of the Perseus were peculiarly illustrative of the
remarkable character of the man.
The Grand Duke having expressed a decided opinion that the model,
when shown to him in wax, could not possibly be cast in bronze,
Cellini was immediately stimulated by the predicted impossibility,
not only to attempt, but to do it. He first made the clay model,
baked it, and covered it with wax, which he shaped into the perfect
form of a statue. Then coating the wax with a sort of earth, he
baked the second covering, during which the wax dissolved and
escaped, leaving the space between the two layers for the reception
of the metal. To avoid disturbance, the latter process was
conducted in a pit dug immediately under the furnace, from which
the liquid metal was to be introduced by pipes and apertures into
the mould prepared for it.
Cellini had purchased and laid in several loads of pine-wood, in
anticipation of the process of casting, which now began. The
furnace was filled with pieces of brass and bronze, and the fire
was lit. The resinous pine-wood was soon in such a furious blaze,
that the shop took fire, and part of the roof was burnt; while at
the same time the wind blowing and the rain filling on the furnace,
kept down the heat, and prevented the metals from melting. For
hours Cellini struggled to keep up the heat, continually throwing
in more wood, until at length he became so exhausted and ill, that
he feared he should die before the statue could be cast. He was
forced to leave to his assistants the pouring in of the metal when
melted, and betook himself to his bed. While those about him were
condoling with him in his distress, a workman suddenly entered the
room, lamenting that “Poor Benvenuto’s work was irretrievably
spoiled!” On hearing this, Cellini immediately sprang from his bed
and rushed to the workshop, where he found the fire so much gone
down that the metal had again become hard.
Sending across to a neighbour for a load of young oak which had
been more than a year in drying, he soon had the fire blazing again
and the metal melting and glittering. The wind was, however, still
blowing with fury, and the rain falling heavily; so, to protect
himself, Cellini had some tables with pieces of tapestry and old
clothes brought to him, behind which he went on hurling the wood
into the furnace. A mass of pewter was thrown in upon the other
metal, and by stirring, sometimes with iron and sometimes with long
poles, the whole soon became completely melted. At this juncture,
when the trying moment was close at hand, a terrible noise as of a
thunderbolt was heard, and a glittering of fire flashed before
Cellini’s eyes. The cover of the furnace had burst, and the metal
began to flow! Finding that it did not run with the proper
velocity, Cellini rushed into the kitchen, bore away every piece of
copper and pewter that it contained—some two hundred porringers,
dishes, and kettles of different kinds—and threw them into the
furnace. Then at length the metal flowed freely, and thus the
splendid statue of Perseus was cast.
The divine fury of genius in which Cellini rushed to his kitchen
and stripped it of its utensils for the purposes of his furnace,
will remind the reader of the like act of Pallissy in breaking up
his furniture for the purpose of baking his earthenware.
Excepting, however, in their enthusiasm, no two men could be less
alike in character. Cellini was an Ishmael against whom, according
to his own account, every man’s hand was turned. But about his
extraordinary skill as a workman, and his genius as an artist,
there cannot be two opinions.
Much less turbulent was the career of Nicolas Poussin, a man as
pure and elevated in his ideas of art as he was in his daily life,
and distinguished alike for his vigour of intellect, his rectitude
of character, and his noble simplicity. He was born in a very
humble station, at Andeleys, near Rouen, where his father kept a
small school. The boy had the benefit of his parent’s instruction,
such as it was, but of that he is said to have been somewhat
negligent, preferring to spend his time in covering his lesson-books and his slate with drawings. A country painter, much pleased
with his sketches, besought his parents not to thwart him in his
tastes. The painter agreed to give Poussin lessons, and he soon
made such progress that his master had nothing more to teach him.
Becoming restless, and desirous of further improving himself,
Poussin, at the age of 18, set out for Paris, painting signboards
on his way for a maintenance.
At Paris a new world of art opened before him, exciting his wonder
and stimulating his emulation. He worked diligently in many
studios, drawing, copying, and painting pictures. After a time, he
resolved, if possible, to visit Rome, and set out on his journey;
but he only succeeded in getting as far as Florence, and again
returned to Paris. A second attempt which he made to reach Rome
was even less successful; for this time he only got as far as
Lyons. He was, nevertheless, careful to take advantage of all
opportunities for improvement which came in his way, and continued
as sedulous as before in studying and working.
Thus twelve years passed, years of obscurity and toil, of failures
and disappointments, and probably of privations. At length Poussin
succeeded in reaching Rome. There he diligently studied the old
masters, and especially the ancient statues, with whose perfection
he was greatly impressed. For some time he lived with the sculptor
Duquesnoi, as poor as himself, and assisted him in modelling
figures after the antique. With him he carefully measured some of
the most celebrated statues in Rome, more particularly the
‘Antinous:’ and it is supposed that this practice exercised
considerable influence on the formation of his future style. At
the same time he studied anatomy, practised drawing from the life,
and made a great store of sketches of postures and attitudes of
people whom he met, carefully reading at his leisure such standard
books on art as he could borrow from his friends.
During all this time he remained very poor, satisfied to be
continually improving himself. He was glad to sell his pictures
for whatever they would bring. One, of a prophet, he sold for
eight livres; and another, the ‘Plague of the Philistines,’ he sold
for 60 crowns—a picture afterwards bought by Cardinal de Richelieu
for a thousand. To add to his troubles, he was stricken by a cruel
malady, during the helplessness occasioned by which the Chevalier
del Posso assisted him with money. For this gentleman Poussin
afterwards painted the ‘Rest in the Desert,’ a fine picture, which
far more than repaid the advances made during his illness.
The brave man went on toiling and learning through suffering.
Still aiming at higher things, he went to Florence and Venice,
enlarging the range of his studies. The fruits of his
conscientious labour at length appeared in the series of great
pictures which he now began to produce,—his ‘Death of Germanicus,’
followed by ‘Extreme Unction,’ the ‘Testament of Eudamidas,’ the
‘Manna,’ and the ‘Abduction of the Sabines.’
The reputation of Poussin, however, grew but slowly. He was of a
retiring disposition and shunned society. People gave him credit
for being a thinker much more than a painter. When not actually
employed in painting, he took long solitary walks in the country,
meditating the designs of future pictures. One of his few friends
while at Rome was Claude Lorraine, with whom he spent many hours at
a time on the terrace of La Trinite-du-Mont, conversing about art
and antiquarianism. The monotony and the quiet of Rome were suited
to his taste, and, provided he could earn a moderate living by his
brush, he had no wish to leave it.
But his fame now extended beyond Rome, and repeated invitations
were sent him to return to Paris. He was offered the appointment
of principal painter to the King. At first he hesitated; quoted
the Italian proverb, Chi sta bene non si muove; said he had lived
fifteen years in Rome, married a wife there, and looked forward to
dying and being buried there. Urged again, he consented, and
returned to Paris. But his appearance there awakened much
professional jealousy, and he soon wished himself back in Rome
again. While in Paris he painted some of his greatest works—his
‘Saint Xavier,’ the ‘Baptism,’ and the ‘Last Supper.’ He was kept
constantly at work. At first he did whatever he was asked to do,
such as designing frontispieces for the royal books, more
particularly a Bible and a Virgil, cartoons for the Louvre, and
designs for tapestry; but at length he expostulated:- “It is
impossible for me,” he said to M. de Chanteloup, “to work at the
same time at frontispieces for books, at a Virgin, at a picture of
the Congregation of St. Louis, at the various designs for the
gallery, and, finally, at designs for the royal tapestry. I have
only one pair of hands and a feeble head, and can neither be helped
nor can my labours be lightened by another.”
Annoyed by the enemies his success had provoked and whom he was
unable to conciliate, he determined, at the end of less than two
years’ labour in Paris, to return to Rome. Again settled there in
his humble dwelling on Mont Pincio, he employed himself diligently
in the practice of his art during the remaining years of his life,
living in great simplicity and privacy. Though suffering much from
the disease which afflicted him, he solaced himself by study,
always striving after excellence. “In growing old,” he said, “I
feel myself becoming more and more inflamed with the desire of
surpassing myself and reaching the highest degree of perfection.”
Thus toiling, struggling, and suffering, Poussin spent his later
years. He had no children; his wife died before him; all his
friends were gone: so that in his old age he was left absolutely
alone in Rome, so full of tombs, and died there in 1665,
bequeathing to his relatives at Andeleys the savings of his life,
amounting to about 1000 crowns; and leaving behind him, as a legacy
to his race, the great works of his genius.
The career of Ary Scheffer furnishes one of the best examples in
modern times of a like high-minded devotion to art. Born at
Dordrecht, the son of a German artist, he early manifested an
aptitude for drawing and painting, which his parents encouraged.
His father dying while he was still young, his mother resolved,
though her means were but small, to remove the family to Paris, in
order that her son might obtain the best opportunities for
instruction. There young Scheffer was placed with Guerin the
painter. But his
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