Self Help - Samuel Smiles (children's ebooks free online TXT) 📗
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devote himself exclusively to study. She had sold the few jewels
she possessed, and refused herself every indulgence, in order to
forward the instruction of her other children. Under such
circumstances, it was natural that Ary should wish to help her; and
by the time he was eighteen years of age he began to paint small
pictures of simple subjects, which met with a ready sale at
moderate prices. He also practised portrait painting, at the same
time gathering experience and earning honest money. He gradually
improved in drawing, colouring, and composition. The ‘Baptism’
marked a new epoch in his career, and from that point he went on
advancing, until his fame culminated in his pictures illustrative
of ‘Faust,’ his ‘Francisca de Rimini,’ ‘Christ the Consoler,’ the
‘Holy Women,’ ‘St. Monica and St. Augustin,’ and many other noble
works.
“The amount of labour, thought, and attention,” says Mrs. Grote,
“which Scheffer brought to the production of the ‘Francisca,’ must
have been enormous. In truth, his technical education having been
so imperfect, he was forced to climb the steep of art by drawing
upon his own resources, and thus, whilst his hand was at work, his
mind was engaged in meditation. He had to try various processes of
handling, and experiments in colouring; to paint and repaint, with
tedious and unremitting assiduity. But Nature had endowed him with
that which proved in some sort an equivalent for shortcomings of a
professional kind. His own elevation of character, and his
profound sensibility, aided him in acting upon the feelings of
others through the medium of the pencil.” {21}
One of the artists whom Scheffer most admired was Flaxman; and he
once said to a friend, “If I have unconsciously borrowed from any
one in the design of the ‘Francisca,’ it must have been from
something I had seen among Flaxman’s drawings.” John Flaxman was
the son of a humble seller of plaster casts in New Street, Covent
Garden. When a child, he was such an invalid that it was his
custom to sit behind his father’s shop counter propped by pillows,
amusing himself with drawing and reading. A benevolent clergyman,
the Rev. Mr. Matthews, calling at the shop one day, saw the boy
trying to read a book, and on inquiring what it was, found it to be
a Cornelius Nepos, which his father had picked up for a few pence
at a bookstall. The gentleman, after some conversation with the
boy, said that was not the proper book for him to read, but that he
would bring him one. The next day he called with translations of
Homer and ‘Don Quixote,’ which the boy proceeded to read with great
avidity. His mind was soon filled with the heroism which breathed
through the pages of the former, and, with the stucco Ajaxes and
Achilleses about him, ranged along the shop shelves, the ambition
took possession of him, that he too would design and embody in
poetic forms those majestic heroes.
Like all youthful efforts, his first designs were crude. The proud
father one day showed some of them to Roubilliac the sculptor, who
turned from them with a contemptuous “pshaw!” But the boy had the
right stuff in him; he had industry and patience; and he continued
to labour incessantly at his books and drawings. He then tried his
young powers in modelling figures in plaster of Paris, wax, and
clay. Some of these early works are still preserved, not because
of their merit, but because they are curious as the first healthy
efforts of patient genius. It was long before the boy could walk,
and he only learnt to do so by hobbling along upon crutches. At
length he became strong enough to walk without them.
The kind Mr. Matthews invited him to his house, where his wife
explained Homer and Milton to him. They helped him also in his
self-culture—giving him lessons in Greek and Latin, the study of
which he prosecuted at home. By dint of patience and perseverance,
his drawing improved so much that he obtained a commission from a
lady, to execute six original drawings in black chalk of subjects
in Homer. His first commission! What an event in the artist’s
life! A surgeon’s first fee, a lawyer’s first retainer, a
legislator’s first speech, a singer’s first appearance behind the
foot-lights, an author’s first book, are not any of them more full
of interest to the aspirant for fame than the artist’s first
commission. The boy at once proceeded to execute the order, and he
was both well praised and well paid for his work.
At fifteen Flaxman entered a pupil at the Royal Academy.
Notwithstanding his retiring disposition, he soon became known
among the students, and great things were expected of him. Nor
were their expectations disappointed: in his fifteenth year he
gained the silver prize, and next year he became a candidate for
the gold one. Everybody prophesied that he would carry off the
medal, for there was none who surpassed him in ability and
industry. Yet he lost it, and the gold medal was adjudged to a
pupil who was not afterwards heard of. This failure on the part of
the youth was really of service to him; for defeats do not long
cast down the resolute-hearted, but only serve to call forth their
real powers. “Give me time,” said he to his father, “and I will
yet produce works that the Academy will be proud to recognise.” He
redoubled his efforts, spared no pains, designed and modelled
incessantly, and made steady if not rapid progress. But meanwhile
poverty threatened his father’s household; the plaster-cast trade
yielded a very bare living; and young Flaxman, with resolute self-denial, curtailed his hours of study, and devoted himself to
helping his father in the humble details of his business. He laid
aside his Homer to take up the plaster-trowel. He was willing to
work in the humblest department of the trade so that his father’s
family might be supported, and the wolf kept from the door. To
this drudgery of his art he served a long apprenticeship; but it
did him good. It familiarised him with steady work, and cultivated
in him the spirit of patience. The discipline may have been hard,
but it was wholesome.
Happily, young Flaxman’s skill in design had reached the knowledge
of Josiah Wedgwood, who sought him out for the purpose of employing
him to design improved patterns of china and earthenware. It may
seem a humble department of art for such a genius as Flaxman to
work in; but it really was not so. An artist may be labouring
truly in his vocation while designing a common teapot or water-jug.
Articles in daily use amongst the people, which are before their
eyes at every meal, may be made the vehicles of education to all,
and minister to their highest culture. The most ambitious artist
way thus confer a greater practical benefit on his countrymen than
by executing an elaborate work which he may sell for thousands of
pounds to be placed in some wealthy man’s gallery where it is
hidden away from public sight. Before Wedgwood’s time the designs
which figured upon our china and stoneware were hideous both in
drawing and execution, and he determined to improve both. Flaxman
did his best to carry out the manufacturer’s views. He supplied
him from time to time with models and designs of various pieces of
earthenware, the subjects of which were principally from ancient
verse and history. Many of them are still in existence, and some
are equal in beauty and simplicity to his after designs for marble.
The celebrated Etruscan vases, specimens of which were to be found
in public museums and in the cabinets of the curious, furnished him
with the best examples of form, and these he embellished with his
own elegant devices. Stuart’s ‘Athens,’ then recently published,
furnished him with specimens of the purest-shaped Greek utensils;
of these he adopted the best, and worked them into new shapes of
elegance and beauty. Flaxman then saw that he was labouring in a
great work—no less than the promotion of popular education; and he
was proud, in after life, to allude to his early labours in this
walk, by which he was enabled at the same time to cultivate his
love of the beautiful, to diffuse a taste for art among the people,
and to replenish his own purse, while he promoted the prosperity of
his friend and benefactor.
At length, in the year 1782, when twenty-seven years of age, he
quitted his father’s roof and rented a small house and studio in
Wardour Street, Soho; and what was more, he married—Ann Denman was
the name of his wife—and a cheerful, bright-souled, noble woman
she was. He believed that in marrying her he should be able to
work with an intenser spirit; for, like him, she had a taste for
poetry and art; and besides was an enthusiastic admirer of her
husband’s genius. Yet when Sir Joshua Reynolds—himself a
bachelor—met Flaxman shortly after his marriage, he said to him,
“So, Flaxman, I am told you are married; if so, sir, I tell you you
are ruined for an artist.” Flaxman went straight home, sat down
beside his wife, took her hand in his, and said, “Ann, I am ruined
for an artist.” “How so, John? How has it happened? and who has
done it?” “It happened,” he replied, “in the church, and Ann
Denman has done it.” He then told her of Sir Joshua’s remark—
whose opinion was well known, and had often been expressed, that if
students would excel they must bring the whole powers of their mind
to bear upon their art, from the moment they rose until they went
to bed; and also, that no man could be a GREAT artist unless he
studied the grand works of Raffaelle, Michael Angelo, and others,
at Rome and Florence. “And I,” said Flaxman, drawing up his little
figure to its full height, “I would be a great artist.” “And a
great artist you shall be,” said his wife, “and visit Rome too, if
that be really necessary to make you great.” “But how?” asked
Flaxman. “WORK AND ECONOMISE,” rejoined the brave wife; “I will
never have it said that Ann Denman ruined John Flaxman for an
artist.” And so it was determined by the pair that the journey to
Rome was to be made when their means would admit. “I will go to
Rome,” said Flaxman, “and show the President that wedlock is for a
man’s good rather than his harm; and you, Ann, shall accompany me.”
Patiently and happily the affectionate couple plodded on during
five years in their humble little home in Wardour Street, always
with the long journey to Rome before them. It was never lost sight
of for a moment, and not a penny was uselessly spent that could be
saved towards the necessary expenses. They said no word to any one
about their project; solicited no aid from the Academy; but trusted
only to their own patient labour and love to pursue and achieve
their object. During this time Flaxman exhibited very few works.
He could not afford marble to experiment in original designs; but
he obtained frequent commissions for monuments, by the profits of
which he maintained himself. He still worked for Wedgwood, who was
a prompt paymaster; and, on the whole, he was thriving, happy, and
hopeful. His local respectability was even such as to bring local
honours and local work upon him; for he was elected by the
ratepayers to collect the watch-rate for the Parish of St. Anne,
when he might be seen going about with an ink-bottle suspended from
his button-hole, collecting the money.
At length Flaxman and his wife having accumulated a sufficient
store of savings, set out for
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