Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 by Various

V >> Various >> Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862

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"Thank you, Cousin Carlos, for your promptness. And now to the point.
Did your father, my uncle, get the letter I wrote him about a month
since?"

"He did; and he bade me treat with you about it. It's an abominable
snarl this they have got you into. My father says, your best way is to
come straight to him in France, and abide till things take a better
turn: he is high in favor with the King and can find you a very pretty
place at court, and he takes it upon him in time to reconcile the Pope.
Between you and me, the old Pope has no special spite in the world
against _you_: he merely wants your lands for his son, and as long
as you prowl round and lay claim to them, why, you must stay
excommunicated; but just clear the coast and leave them peaceably and
he will put you back into the True Church, and my father will charge
himself with your success. Popes don't last forever, or there may come
another falling out with the King of France, and either way there will
be a chance of your being one day put back into your rights; meanwhile,
a young fellow might do worse than have a good place in our court."

During this long monologue, which the young speaker uttered with all the
flippant self-sufficiency of worldly people with whom the world is going
well, the face of the young nobleman who listened presented a picture of
many strong contending emotions.

"You speak," he said, "as if man had nothing to do in this world but
seek his own ease and pleasure. What lies nearest my heart is not that
I am plundered of my estates, and my house uprooted, but it is that my
beautiful Rome, the city of my fathers, is a prisoner under the heel of
the tyrant. It is that the glorious religion of Christ, the holy faith
in which my mother died, the faith made venerable by all these saints
around us, is made the tool and instrument of such vileness and cruelty
that one is tempted to doubt whether it were not better to have been
born of heathen in the good old times of the Roman Republic,--God
forgive me for saying so! Does the Most Christian King of France know
that the man who pretends to rule in the name of Christ is not a
believer in the Christian religion,--that he does not believe even in a
God,--that he obtained the holy seat by simony,--that he uses all its
power to enrich a brood of children whose lives are so indecent that it
is a shame to modest lips even to _say_ what they do?"

"Why, of course," said the other, "the King of France is pretty well
informed about all these things. You know old King Charles, when he
marched through Italy, had more than half a mind, they say, to pull the
old Pope out of his place; and he might have done it easily. My father
was in his train at that time, and he says the Pope was frightened
enough. Somehow they made it all up among them, and settled about their
territories, which is the main thing, after all; and now our new King, I
fancy, does not like to meddle with him: between you and me, he has his
eye in another direction here. This gay city would suit him admirably,
and he fancies he can govern it as well as it is governed now. My father
does not visit here with his eyes shut, _I_ can tell you. But as to the
Pope----Well, you see such things are delicate to handle. After all,
my dear Agostino, we are not priests,--our business is with this world;
and, no matter how they came by them, these fellows have the keys of the
kingdom of heaven, and one cannot afford to quarrel with them,--we must
have the ordinances, you know, or what becomes of our souls? Do you
suppose, now, that I should live as gay and easy a life as I do, if I
thought there were any doubt of my salvation? It's a mercy to us sinners
that the ordinances are not vitiated by the sins of the priests; it
would go hard with us, if they were: as it is, if they will live
scandalous lives, it is their affair, not ours."

"And is it nothing," replied the other, "to a true man who has taken the
holy vows of knighthood on him, whether his Lord's religion be defamed
and dishonored and made a scandal and a scoffing? Did not all Europe go
out to save Christ's holy sepulchre from being dishonored by the feet of
the Infidel? and shall we let infidels have the very house of the Lord,
and reign supreme in His holy dwelling-place? There has risen a holy
prophet in Italy, the greatest since the time of Saint Francis, and his
preaching hath stirred all hearts to live more conformably with our
holy faith; and now for his pure life and good works he is under
excommunication of the Pope, and they have seized and imprisoned him,
and threaten his life."

"Oh, you mean Savonarola," said the other. "Yes, we have heard of
him,--a most imprudent, impracticable fellow, who will not take advice
nor be guided. My father, I believe, thought well of him once, and
deemed that in the distracted state of Italy he might prove serviceable
in forwarding some of his plans: but he is wholly wrapt up in his own
notions; he heeds no will but his own."

"Have you heard anything," said Agostino, "of a letter which he wrote to
the King of France lately, stirring him up to call a General Council of
the Christian Church to consider what is to be done about the scandals
at Rome?"

"Then he has written one, has he?" replied the young man; "then the
story that I have heard whispered about here must be true. A man who
certainly is in a condition to know told me day before yesterday that
the Duke had arrested a courier with some such letter, and sent it on to
the Pope: it is likely, for the Duke hates Savonarola. If that be true,
it will go hard with him yet; for the Pope has a long arm for an enemy."

"And so," said Agostino, with an expression of deep concern, "that
letter, from which the good man hoped so much, and which was so
powerful, will only go to increase his danger!"

"The more fool he!--he might have known that it was of no use. Who was
going to take his part against the Pope?"

"The city of Florence has stood by him until lately," said
Agostino,--"and would again, with a little help."

"Oh, no! never think it, my dear Agostino! Depend upon it, it will end
as such things always do, and the man is only a madman that undertakes
it. Hark ye, cousin, what have _you_ to do with this man? Why do you
attach yourself to the side that is _sure_ to lose? I cannot conceive
what you would be at. This is no way to mend your fortunes. Come
to-night to my father's palace: the Duke has appointed us princely
lodgings, and treats us with great hospitality, and my father has plans
for your advantage. Between us, there is a fair young ward of his, of
large estates and noble blood, whom he designs for you. So you see, if
you turn your attention in this channel, there may come a reinforcement
of the family property, which will enable you to hold out until the Pope
dies, or some prince or other gets into a quarrel with him, which is
always happening, and then a move may be made for you. My father, I'll
promise you, is shrewd enough, and always keeps his eye open to see
where there is a joint in the harness, and have a trusty dagger-blade
all whetted to stick under. Of course, he means to see you righted; he
has the family interest at heart, and feels as indignant as you could at
the rascality which has been perpetrated; but I am quite sure he will
tell you that the way is not to come out openly against the Pope and
join this fanatical party."

Agostino stood silent, with the melancholy air of a man who has much to
say, and is deeply moved by considerations which he perceives it would
be utterly idle and useless to attempt to explain. If the easy theology
of his friend were indeed true,--if the treasures of the heavenly
kingdom, glory, honor, and immortality, could indeed be placed in unholy
hands to be bought and sold and traded in,--if holiness of heart
and life, and all those nobler modes of living and being which were
witnessed in the histories of the thousand saints around him, were
indeed but a secondary thing in the strife for worldly place and
territory,--what, then, remained for the man of ideas, of aspirations?
In such a state of society, his track must be like that of the dove in
sacred history who found no rest for the sole of her foot.

Agostino folded his arms and sighed deeply, and then made answer
mechanically, as one whose thoughts are afar off.

"Present my duty," he said, "to my uncle, your father, and say to him
that I will wait on him to-night."

"Even so," said the young man, picking up his cloak and folding it about
him. "And now, you know, I must go. Don't be discouraged; keep up a good
heart; you shall see what it is to have powerful friends to stand by
you; all will be right yet. Come, will you go with me now?"

"Thank you," said Agostino, "I think I would be alone a little while. My
head is confused, and I would fain think over matters a little quietly."

"Well, _au revoir_, then. I must leave you to the company of the saints.
But be sure and come early."

So saying, he threw his cloak over his shoulder and sauntered carelessly
down the marble steps, humming again the gay air with which he had
ascended.

Left alone, Agostino once more cast a glance on the strangely solemn
and impressive scene around him. He was standing on a platform of the
central tower which overlooked the whole building. The round, full moon
had now risen in the horizon, displacing by her solemn brightness
the glow of twilight; and her beams were reflected by the delicate
frost-work of the myriad pinnacles which rose in a bewildering maze
at his feet. It might seem to be some strange enchanted garden of
fairy-land, where a luxuriant and freakish growth of Nature had been
suddenly arrested and frozen into eternal stillness. Around in the
shadows at the foot of the Cathedral the lights of the great gay city
twinkled and danced and veered and fluttered like fire-flies in the
damp, dewy shadows of some moist meadow in summer. The sound of
clattering hoofs and rumbling wheels, of tinkling guitars and gay
roundelays, rose out of that obscure distance, seeming far off and
plaintive like the dream of a life that is past. The great church seemed
a vast world; the long aisles of statued pinnacles with their pure
floorings of white marble appeared as if they might be the corridors of
heaven; and it seemed as if the crowned and sceptred saints in their
white marriage-garments might come down and walk there, without ever a
spot of earth on their unsullied whiteness.

In a few moments Father Antonio had glided back to the side of the young
man, whom he found so lost in reverie that not till he laid his hand
upon his arm did he awaken from his meditations.

"Ah!" he said, with a start, "my father, is it you?"

"Yes, my son. What of your conference? Have you learned anything?"

"Father, I have learned far more than I wished to know."

"What is it, my son? Speak it at once."

"Well, then, I fear that the letter of our holy father to the King of
France has been intercepted here in Milan, and sent to the Pope."

"What makes you think so?" said the monk, with an eagerness that showed
how much he felt the intelligence.

"My cousin tells me that a person of consideration in the Duke's
household, who is supposed to be in a position to know, told him that it
was so."

Agostino felt the light grasp which the monk had laid upon his arm
gradually closing with a convulsive pressure, and that he was trembling
with intense feeling.

"Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight!" he said, after a
few moments of silence.

"It is discouraging," said Agostino, "to see how little these princes
care for the true interests of religion and the service of God,--how
little real fealty there is to our Lord Jesus."

"Yes," said the monk, "all seek their own, and not the things that are
Christ's. It is well written, 'Put not your trust in princes.'"

"And what prospect, what hope do you see for him?" said Agostino. "Will
Florence stand firm?"

"I could have thought so once," said the monk,--"in those days when I
have seen counsellors and nobles and women of the highest degree all
humbly craving to hear the word of God from his lips, and seeming to
seek nothing so much as to purify their houses, their hands, and their
hearts, that they might be worthy citizens of that commonwealth which
has chosen the Lord Jesus for its gonfalonier. I have seen the very
children thronging to kiss the hem of his robe, as he walked through the
streets; but, oh, my friend, did not Jerusalem bring palms and spread
its garments in the way of Christ only four days before he was
crucified?"

The monk's voice here faltered. He turned away and seemed to wrestle
with a tempest of suppressed sobbing. A moment more, he looked
heavenward and pointed up with a smile.

"Son," he said, "you ask _what hope there is_. I answer, There is hope
of such crowns as these wear who came out of great tribulation and now
reign with Christ in glory."

OUR ARTISTS IN ITALY.

LANDSCAPE ART.

A representation of Nature, in order to be a true landscape, must be
organic. It must not present itself as an aggregation, but as a growth.
It must manifest obedience to laws which are peculiarly its own, and
through the operation of which it has developed from the moment of
inception to that of maturity. And, moreover, that inception must have
been near a human heart, that development must have been nourished by
vitality derived from human life, and that maturity must be that of the
divine unity to which tend all the mysterious operations of organizing
energies.

We hold this to be the first essential condition of Landscape Art, the
condition without which no rendering of Nature can be Art. Other
points of excellence may be unattained. Let this be evident, that the
production is an offspring of humanity, and it shall be perceived also
that it partakes of whatever immortality the human heart inherits.
Herein is concealed the whole secret of the value of pre-Raphaelite Art,
and not, as we have been assured, in the faithfulness of its followers
to the exact representation of the individual details of Nature. Each
wrought from the love of Nature, consciously giving what truth he
possessed, unconsciously giving of his own interior life. Each picture
was the child of the painter. Yet, however much the ancient artist may
have failed in rendering the specific truths of the external world,
we can never attribute his failure to any disregard for the true.
His picture never gives the impression of falsehood; and in the most
erroneous record of the external there is ever the promise of more
truth, and this promise is not that of the man, but of the principle
governing the character of his picture.

We think that all works of Art may be divided into two distinct classes:
those which are the result of a man's whole nature, involving the
affectional, religious, and intellectual, and those which are the
productions of the intellect, and from the will. The first class
comprises those results of Art which are vital,--which come to
us through processes of growth, and impress us with a sense
of organization. The second includes those works which are
constructed,--which present an accumulation of objects mechanically
combined, parts skilfully joined through scientific means.

Earnestness and the definite purpose which is its sign, love which drew
the soul into sweetest communion with our mother Nature, giving to him
who thus came revelations of the harmonies possible between her and her
children, and devotion to his art mightier than ever inspired the Hindoo
devotee in self-sacrifice, characterized those who have given all that
pure Art which has been alluded to as the true: and such were the
majority of those artists who preceded Raphael.

True, all of those who were devoted to Landscape Art, or who made it a
part of their practice to introduce this element into their pictures,
often failed in attaining truth; but, by some strange power with
which they have invested their landscapes, an impulse is given to the
perception, and the essential truth, feebly hinted at, perhaps, is
recognized. But as the record comes down through the years, each
new picture approximates more nearly to the character of the scene
attempted, with, occasionally, (as in the works of Masaccio,) touches of
truth absolutely perfect, until at last appeared that man altogether at
one with Nature, who reproduced Nature in all its glory, pomp, freedom,
and life, as might an archangel. Titian brought to perfection the first
great class of Landscape Art, and, of course, in doing so, perfected
that department which was the only one as yet developed, and which
remains a distinct branch, subject to its own peculiar laws. We refer to
the rendering of natural scenery, beginning in the merely and completely
subordinate accessory, and ending, with Titian, in the perfectly
dignified and noble companionship of the visible universe with man.

We speak of this Art perfected far back, because we feel assured that
landscape, as accessory to the historical, has an ideal altogether
distinct from that of pure landscape.

It would not be just, perhaps, to regard the law which necessitates this
ideal as a law of subordination, although that condition prevails up to
the time of Titian. Nature, to the true man, never presents itself as
subordinate, but as correspondently ever equal with man, ever ready with
possibilities to match his own. So true is this, that a man's universe,
that of which his vision takes possession, is a part of himself, subject
to his sorrows and joys, his hope and his despair: to him, the violets,
the mountains, and the far-away worlds, throbbing in unison with his own
heart-beat, are in some wise the signs or the manifestations of his own
soul's possibilities. And he is right. That of the flower which is its
beauty, that of the mountains which is their magnificent grandeur, that
of the stars which is their ineffable glory and sublimity, is his, is
within him, is a part of his soul's life, waxing or waning so in unison
with its richness or poverty that wise men mark the soul's stature by
the part of it which is akin to the violets, the hills, or the infinite
sky.

"The world is as large as a man's head." In that there is a fine hint
of a great truth, but beyond that is _the_ truth. It is not the mere
knowledge of Alcyone that necessitates the sublime. After that comes the
wonder. The world is as large as is a man, and its relation to him
is marked by a sympathy which acts and reacts with the certainty and
precision of law.

The ideal of Landscape Art, used in alliance with representations of
the human figure, must, then, be founded upon this immutable sympathy
between the landscape world and the human. Thus, in the painting alluded
to in the article on Mr. Page, "The Entombment" of the Louvre, the
landscape is charged with the solemnity of the hour. No blade of grass
or shadow of leaf but seems conscious of the great event, and the sky
reveals, by its heavenly tenderness, that there all is known.

How different in expression, yet how similar in strength, is the
landscape of that seeming miracle, "The Presentation in the Temple"!
It is clear, confident day,--so pure and perfect a day abroad over the
happy earth, that all things lure forth into an atmosphere so unsullied
that to breathe it is life and joy,--over an earth youthful with spring,
fresh with morning; and hither have come the people to see confirmed the
future mother of Christ, now the child Mary. As the maiden ascends the
steps of the Temple, a halo surrounds her,--not her head alone, but all
the form,--and far away a fainter halo rests upon the hills. Her youth,
its purity and half-recognized promise, seem sweetly imaged in the
morning freshness and spring-life of the landscape.

We can remember no landscape by Titian which is not in full sympathy
with the motives which actuate his groups. It is the unison of scene and
act that gives his pictures a unity and completeness never or rarely
found elsewhere.

After Titian came painters--among them, mighty ones--who, like
Tintoretto, wrought from the external. The elements of the landscape
were treated with knowledge and power, but not often with feeling, and
very seldom with a recognition of its central significance. One example
is so marvellous, however, that we cannot forbear referring to it. Its
truthfulness is the more remarkable from the fact that the painter's
conceptions rarely were such that any true landscape could be found
capable of harmony with their character. In this picture, "The
Temptation of Saint Anthony," one of the Pitti Palace Gallery, Salvator
has wrought marvellously like a demon. The horizon and the sky near it
are charged with a sense of demoniacal conflict for human souls, and
forebodings of defeat and woe.

Yet within this, mantling the remotest depths, there is a sheen of
light, a gleam of hope and faith.

In our own times there is little to refer to illustrative of excellence
in this branch of Art. Overbeck makes frequent use of natural scenery,
and his delicate yet firm outlines repeat, hill and valley and clouds,
the sentiment of peace and purity which pervades his noble productions.

Not that there are not produced frequently, and especially in France,
works remarkable for truth and power. But, too often, the truths are
redundant, and the power vanquishes the sentiments of the group.

One artist in France, Rosa Bonheur, has, however, embodied conceptions
so noble, so in unison with the finest Nature, that its most glorious
and most significant scenery, rendered with a handling akin to the old
mastership, is alone adequate to sympathize with and sustain them. I
need but refer to the wonderful view of the Pyrenees in the picture of
"The Muleteers," the tender morning spirit of that heathery scene in the
Highlands, and that miracle of representation, the near ground, crisp
and frosty, of Mr. Belmont's "Hunters in Early Morning."

American Art, as represented in Italy, has few examples of excellence in
this branch of painting. Its followers have wrought more persistently
in other directions, toward the expression of a class of ideals rarely
involving the one which we have attempted to analyze. Yet, occasionally,
an artist has appeared, making Rome or Florence his home long enough to
win a place, which, when he has departed, is not quickly filled, who has
ideas of history and events calling for the record of the palette;
or there has been wrought in the studio of some resident painter a
composition in which landscape has been employed as accessory.

In many instances there have been produced works which reflect the
highest honor upon our country. As it is foreign to the purpose of
the present paper to deal with other than the different phases of
landscape-painting, we forbear to speak as their merits suggest of the
figure portions of the works of Mr. Rothermel, the result of his brief
sojourn in Italy. In any passage of scenery, and particularly in sky
forms and tones, the expression and character are always such as
support vigorously the action of his group. We say vigorously; for Mr.
Rothermel, in his Italian pictures, revealed an artistic nature related
to humanity in its most agitated moods, as in the "Lear," and in the
"Saint Agnese,"--this beautiful picture being, however, a higher
conception, inasmuch as in it the spirit might find some rest in the
stillness of the maiden Agnese, already saint and about to be martyr,
and in the deep blue sky, on whose field linger white clouds, like lambs
"shepherded by the slow unwilling winds."

Brief mention was made, in our allusion to Mr. Page's picture of the
"Flight into Egypt," to its landscape. This work was executed in Rome,
and its peculiar tone excited much interest among the friends of Mr.
Field, its fortunate possessor. A beautiful, yet not altogether original
idea, finds expression in the foreground group, where Mary, poised upon
the back of the ass, folds the child in her arms, the animal snatches at
a wayside weed, Joseph, drawing tightly the long rope by which he
leads, bends away into the desert with weird energy. In all other
representations of this subject the accessory landscape has usually been
living with full-foliaged trees, abundant herbage, and copious streams.
To indicate the Egyptian phase of its character, palms have been
introduced, as in the beautiful picture by Claude in the Doria Gallery,
and almost invariably the scene has been one of luxury and peace.
But with the event itself all this conflicts. In it were sorrow and
apprehension and death. The fugitives saw not then the safety, nor
anticipated the victory. In this picture, beyond and before the hurrying
group, stretches the immeasurable, hungry sand. A sad golden-brown
haze--such as sometimes comes in our Indian summer, when the hectic
autumn rests silent, mournful and hopeless, in the arms of Nature--
pervades the plain; while on the horizon far away,--an infinite distance
it seems, so strangely spectral are they,--rise the Pyramids, just those
awful ghosts against the ominous sky!

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