Christ is dead, — dead to your eye as he was to the eye of Mary and of John. Death absolute, hopeless, is written in the faded majesty of that face, peaceful and weary; death in every relaxed muscle. And, surely, in painting this form, some sentiment of reverence and devotion softened into awestruck tenderness that hand commonly so vigorous; for, instead of the almost coarse vitality which usually pervades his manly figures, there is shed over this a spiritualized refinement, not less, but more than human, as if some heavenly voice whispered, “This is the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world!” The figures of the disciples are real and individual in expression. The sorrow is homely, earnest, unpicturesque, and grievously heart broken. The cheek of the kneeling Mary at his feet is wet with tears. You cannot ask yourself whether she is beautiful or not. You only see and sympathize with her sorrow. But the apostle John, who receives into his arms the descending form, is the most wonderful of all. Painters that I have seen represent him too effeminately. They forget the ardent soul whom Jesus rebuked for wishing to bring down fire from heaven on his enemies; they forget that it was John who was called the son of thunder, and that his emblem in the early church was the eagle. From the spiritualized softness of his writings we have formed another picture, forgetting that these are the writings of an aged man, in whom the ardor of existence has been softened by long experience of suffering, and habits of friendship with a suffering Lord.
Rubens’s conception of John is that of a vigorous and plenary manhood, whose rush is like that of a torrent, in the very moment when his great heart is breaking. He had loved his Master with a love like an eternity; he had believed him; heart and soul, mind and strength — all had he given to that kingdom which he was to set up; and he had seen him die — die by lingering torture. And at this moment he feels it all. There is no Christ, no kingdom — nothing! All is over. “We trusted it had been he who should have redeemed Israel.” With that miraculous, lifelike power that only Rubens has, he shows him to us in this moment of suppressed agony; the blood choking his heart, the veins swollen, and every muscle quivering with the grief to which he will not give way. O, for this wonderful and deep conception, this almost divine insight into the mysteries of that hour, one might love Rubens. This picture cannot be engraved. No engraving is more than a diagram, to show the places of the figures. For, besides its mesmeric life, which no artist can reproduce, there is a balancing of colors, a gorgeousness about it, as if he had learned coloring from the great Master himself. Even in the overpowering human effect of this piece, it is impossible not to perceive that every difficulty which artists vaunt themselves on vanquishing has in this piece been conquered with apparently instinctive ease, simply because it was habitual to do so, and without in the least distracting the attention from the great moral. Magical foreshortenings and wonderful effects of color appear to be purely incidental to the expression of a great idea. I left this painting as one should leave the work of a great religious master — thinking more of Jesus and of John than of Rubens.
After this we went through many galleries and churches devoted to his works; for Antwerp is Rubens’s shrine. None of them impressed me, as compared with this. One of his Madonnas, however, I must not forget to describe, it was a conceit so just like him. Instead of the pale, downcast, or upturned faces, which form the general types of Madonna, he gives her to us, in one painting, as a gorgeous Oriental sultana, leaning over a balcony, with full, dark eye and jewelled turban, and rounded outlines, sustaining on her hand a brilliant paroquet. Ludicrous as this conception appears in a scriptural point of view, I liked it because there was life in it; because he had painted it from an internal sympathy, not from a chalky, second-hand tradition.
And now, farewell to Antwerp. Art has satisfied me at last. I have been conquered, and that is enough.
To-morrow for Paris. Adieu.
LETTER XLVIII.
PARIS, Saturday, August 20.
MY DEAR: —
I am seated in my snug little room at M. Belloc’s. The weather is overpoweringly hot, but these Parisian houses seem to have seized and imprisoned coolness. French household ways are delightful. I like their seclusion from the street, by these deep-paved quadrangles. I like these cool, smooth, waxed floors so much that I one day queried with my friends, the C.’s, whether we could not introduce them into America. L., who is a Yankee housekeeper, answered, with spirit, “No, indeed; not while the mistress of the house has every thing to do, as in America; I think I see myself, in addition to all my cares, on my knees, waxing up one of these floors.”
“Ah,” says Caroline, “the thing is managed better in Paris; the frotteur comes in before we are up in the morning, shod with great brushes, and dances over the floors till they shine.”
“I am sure,” said I, “here is Fourrier’s system in one particular. We enjoy the floors, and the man enjoys the dancing.”
Madame Belloc had fitted up my room with the most thoughtful care. A large bouquet adorns the table; fancy writing materials are displayed; and a waiter, with sirups and an extempore soda fount, one of Parisian household refinements, stands just at my elbow. Above all, my walls are hung with beautiful engravings from Claude and Zuccarelli.
This house pertains to the government, and is held by M. Belloc in virtue of his situation as director of the Imperial School of Design, to which institution about one half of it is devoted. A public examination is at hand, in preparing for which M. Belloc is heart and soul engaged. This school is a government provision for the gratuitous instruction of the working classes in art. I went into the rooms where the works of the scholars are arranged for the inspection of the judges. The course of instruction is excellent — commencing with the study of nature. Around the room various plants are growing, which serve for models, interspersed with imitations in drawing or modelling, by the pupils. I noticed a hollyhock and thistle, modelled with singular accuracy. As some pupils can come only at evening, M. Belloc has prepared a set of casts of plants, which he says are plaster daguerreotypes. By pouring warm gelatine upon a leaf, a delicate mould is made, from which these casts are taken. He showed me bunches of leaves, and branches of the vine, executed by them, which were beautiful. In like manner the pupil commences the study of the human figure, with the skeleton, which he copies bone by bone. Gutta percha muscles are added in succession, till finally he has the whole form. Besides, each student has particular objects given him to study for a certain period, after which he copies them from memory. The same course is pursued with prints and engravings.
When an accurate knowledge of forms is gained, the pupil receives lessons in combination. Such subjects as these are given: a vase of flowers, a mediæval or classic vase, shields, Helmets, escutcheons, &c., of different styles. The first prize composition was a hunting frieze, modelled, in which were introduced fanciful combinations of leaf and scroll work, dogs, hunters, and children. Figures of almost every animal and plant were modelled; the drawings and modellings from memory were wonderful, and showed, in their combination, great richness of fancy. Scattered about the room were casts of the best classic figures of the Louvre, placed there, as M. Belloc gracefully remarked, not as models, but as inspirations, to cultivate the sense of beauty.
I was shown, moreover, their books of mathematical studies, which looked intricate and learned, but of which I appreciated only the delicate chirography. “And where,” said I, “are these young mechanics taught to read and write?” “In the brothers’ schools,” he said. Paris is divided into regular parishes, centring round different churches, and connected with each church is a parochial school, for boys and girls, taught by ecclesiastics and nuns.
With such thorough training of the sense of beauty, it may be easily seen that the facility of French enthusiasm in aesthetics is not, as often imagined, superficial pretence. The nerves of beauty are so exquisitely tuned and strung that they must thrill at every touch.
One sees this, in French life, to the very foundation of society. A poor family will giv
e, cheerfully, a part of their bread money to buy a flower. The idea of artistic symmetry pervades every thing, from the arrangement of the simplest room to the composition of a picture. At the chateau of Madame V. the whiteheaded butler begged madame to apologize for the central flower basket on the table. He “had not had time to study the composition.”
The English and Americans, seeing the French so serious and intent on matters of beauty, fancy it to be mere affectation. To be serious on a barrel of flour, or a bushel of potatoes, we can well understand; but to be equally earnest in the adorning of a room or the “composition” of a bouquet seems ridiculous. But did not He who made the appetite for food make also that for beauty? and while the former will perish with the body, is not the latter immortal? With all New England’s earnestness and practical efficiency, there is a long withering of the soul’s more ethereal part, — a crushing out of the beautiful, — which is horrible. Children are born there with a sense of beauty equally delicate with any in the world, in whom it dies a lingering death of smothered desire and pining, weary starvation. I know, because I have felt it. — One in whom this sense has long been repressed, in coming into Paris, feels a rustling and a waking within him, as if the soul were trying to unfold her wings, long unused and mildewed. Instead of scorning, then, the lighthearted, mobile, beauty-loving French, would that we might exchange instructions with them — imparting our severer discipline in religious lore, accepting their thorough methods in art; and, teaching and taught, study together under the great Master of all.
I went with M. Belloc into the gallery of antique sculpture. How wonderful these old Greeks I What set them out on such a course, I wonder — anymore, for instance, than the Sandwich Islanders? This reminds me to tell you that in the Berlin Museum, which the King of Prussia is now finishing in high style, I saw what is said to be the most complete Egyptian collection in the world; a whole Egyptian temple, word for word — pillars, paintings, and all; numberless sarcophagi, and mummies ad nauseam! They are no more fragrant than the eleven thousand virgins, these mummies! and my stomach revolts equally from the odor of sanctity and of science.
I saw there a mummy of a little baby; and though it was black as my shoe, and a disgusting, dry thing, nevertheless the little head was covered with fine, soft, auburn hair. Four thousand years ago, some mother thought the poor little thing a beauty. Also I saw mummies of cats, crocodiles, the ibis, and all the other religious bijouterie of Egypt, with many cases of their domestic utensils, ornaments, &c.
The whole view impressed me with quite an idea of barbarism; much more so than the Assyrian collection. About the winged bulls there is a solemn and imposing grandeur; they have a mountainous and majestic nature. These Egyptian things give one an idea of inexpressible ungainliness. They had a clumsy, elephantine character of mind, these Egyptians. There was not wanting grace, but they seemed to pick it up accidentally; because among all possible forms some must be graceful. They had a kind of grand, mammoth civilization, gloomy and goblin. They seem to have floundered up out of Nile mud, like that old, slimy, pre-Adamite brood, the what’s-their-name — megalosaurus, ichthyosaurus, pterodactyle, iguanodon, and other misshapen abominations, with now and then wreaths of lotus and water lilies round their tusks.
The human face, as represented in Assyrian sculptures, is a higher type of face than even the Greek: it is noble and princely; the Egyptian faces are broad, flat, and clumsy. If Egypt gave birth to Greece, with her beautiful arts, then truly this immense, clumsy roc’s egg hatched a miraculous nest of loves and graces.
Among the antiques here, my two favorites are Venus de Milon, which I have described to you, and the Diane Chasseresse: this goddess is represented by the side of a stag; and so completely is the marble made alive, that one seems to perceive that a tread so airy would not bend a flower. Every side of the statue is almost equally graceful. The small, proud head is thrown back with the freedom of a stag; there is a gay, haughty self-reliance, an airy defiance, a rejoicing fulness of health and immortal youth in the whole figure. You see before you the whole Greek conception of an immortal — a creature full of intellect, full of the sparkle and elixir of existence, in whom the principle of life seems to be crystallized and concentrated with a dazzling abundance; light, airy, incapable alike of love and of sympathy; living for self, and self only. Alas for poor souls, who, in the heavy anguish of life, had only such goddesses to go to! How far in advance is even the idolatry of Christianity! how different the idea of Mary from the Diana!
Yet, as I walked up and down among these remains of Greek art, I could not but wonder at the spectacle of their civilization: no modern development reproduces it, nor ever can or will. It is well to cherish and make much of that ethereal past, as a specimen of one phase of humanity, for it is past forever. Those isles of Greece, with their gold and purple haze of light and shadow, their exquisite, half-spiritual, half-bodily formation — islands where flesh and blood became semi-spiritual, and where the sense of beauty was an existence — have passed as a vision of glory, never to return. One scarcely realizes how full of poetry was their mythology; all successive ages have drawn on it for images of beauty without exhausting it; and painters and artists, to this day, are fettered and repressed by vain efforts to reproduce it. But as a religion for the soul and the heart, all this is vain and void; all powerless to give repose or comfort. One who should seek repose on the bosom of such a mythology is as one who seeks to pillow himself on the many-tinted clouds of evening; soft and beautiful as they are, there is nothing real to them but their dampness and coldness.
Here M. and Madame Belloc entered, and as he wanted my opinion of the Diane, I let her read this part of the letter to him in French. You ought to have seen M. Belloc, with tears in his eyes, defending the old Greeks, and expounding to me, with all manner of rainbow illustrations, the religious meanings of Greek mythology, and the morale of Greek tragedy. Such a whole souled devotion to a nation dead and gone could never be found but in France.
Madame Belloc was the translator of Maria Edgeworth by that lady’s desire; corresponded with her for years, and still has many of her letters. Her translation of Uncle Tom has to me all the merit and all the interest of an original composition. In perusing it I enjoy the pleasure of reading the story with scarce any consciousness of its ever having been mine. In the evening Mr. and Mrs. S. C. Hall called. They are admirably matched — he artist, she author. The one writes stories, the other illustrates them. Madame M. also called. English by birth, she is a true Parisienne, or, rather, seems to have both minds, as she speaks both languages, perfectly. Her husband being a learned Oriental scholar, she, like some other women enjoying similar privileges, has picked up a deal of information, which she tosses about in conversation, in a gay, piquant manner, much as a kitten plays with a pin ball.
Madame remembers Mesdames Recamier and De Stael, and told me several funny anecdotes of the former. Madame R., she said, was always coquetting with her own funeral; conversed with different artists on the arrangements of its details, and tempting now one, now another, with the brilliant hope of the “composition” of the scene. Madame M. offered me her services as cicerone to Paris, and so to-day out we went — first to the Pantheon, of which, in her gay and piquant style, she gave me the history.
Begun first in the time of Louis XVI. as a church, in the revolution its destination was altered, and it was to be a temple to the manes of great men, and accordingly Rousseau, Voltaire, and many more are buried here. Well, after the revolution, the Bourbons said it should not be a temple for great men, it should be a church. The next popular upset tipped it back to the great men again; and it staid under their jurisdiction until Louis Napoleon, who is very pious, restored it to the church. It is not possible to say how much further this very characteristic rivalry between great men and their Creator is going to extend. All I have to say is, that I should not think the church much of an acquisition to either party. He that sitteth in the heavens must laugh sometimes at what m
an calls worship. This Pantheon is, as one might suppose from its history, a hybrid between a church and a theatre, and of course good for neither — purposeless and aimless. The Madeleine is another of these hybrid churches, begun by D’Ivry as a church, completed as a temple to victory by Napoleon, and on second thoughts, re-dedicated to God.
After strolling about a while, the sexton, or some official of the church, asked us if we did not want to go down into the vaults below. As a large party seemed to be going to do the same, I said, “0, yes, by all means; let us see it out.” Our guide, with his cocked hat and lantern, walked ahead, apparently in a now of excellent spirits. These caverns and tombs appeared to be his particular forte, and he magnified his office in showing them. Down stairs we went, none of us knowing what we wanted to see, or why. Our guide steps forth, unlocks the gate? of Hades, and we enter a dark vault with a particularly earthy smell. Bang! he shuts the door after him. Clash! he locks it; now we are in for it! and elevating his lantern, he commences a deafening proclamation of some general fact concerning the very unsavory place in which we find ourselves. Of said proclamation I hear only the thundering “Voilà” at the commencement. Next he proceeds to open the doors of certain stone vaulted chambers, where the great men are buried, between whose claims and their Creator’s there seems to be such an uncertainty in France. Well, here they were, sure enough, maintaining their claim by right of possession.
“Voilà le tombeau de Rousseau!” says the guide. All walked in piously, and stood to see a wooden tomb painted red. At one end the tomb is made in the likeness of little doors, which stand half open, and a hand is coming out of them holding a flambeau, by which it is intimated, I suppose, that Rousseau in his grave is enlightening the world. After a short proclamation here, we were shown into another stone chamber with “Voilà le tombeau de Voltaire!” This was of wood also, very nicely speckled and painted to resemble some kind of marble. Each corner of the tomb had a tragic mask on it, with that captivating expression of countenance which belongs to the tragic masks generally. There was in the room a marble statue of Voltaire, with that wiry, sharp, keen, yet somewhat spiteful expression which his busts commonly have.
Complete Works of Harriet Beecher Stowe Page 795
