Self Help

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To reach Rome, the capital of the fine arts, is usually the highest
ambition of the art student. But the journey to Rome is costly,
and the student is often poor. With a will resolute to overcome
difficulties, Rome may however at last be reached. Thus Francois
Perrier, an early French painter, in his eager desire to visit the
Eternal City, consented to act as guide to a blind vagrant. After
long wanderings he reached the Vatican, studied and became famous.
Not less enthusiasm was displayed by Jacques Callot in his
determination to visit Rome. Though opposed by his father in his
wish to be an artist, the boy would not be baulked, but fled from
home to make his way to Italy. Having set out without means, he
was soon reduced to great straits; but falling in with a band of
gipsies, he joined their company, and wandered about with them from
one fair to another, sharing in their numerous adventures. During
this remarkable journey Callot picked up much of that extraordinary
knowledge of figure, feature, and character which he afterwards
reproduced, sometimes in such exaggerated forms, in his wonderful
engravings.

When Callot at length reached Florence, a gentleman, pleased with
his ingenious ardour, placed him with an artist to study; but he
was not satisfied to stop short of Rome, and we find him shortly on
his way thither. At Rome he made the acquaintance of Porigi and
Thomassin, who, on seeing his crayon sketches, predicted for him a
brilliant career as an artist. But a friend of Callot's family
having accidentally encountered him, took steps to compel the
fugitive to return home. By this time he had acquired such a love
of wandering that he could not rest; so he ran away a second time,
and a second time he was brought back by his elder brother, who
caught him at Turin. At last the father, seeing resistance was in
vain, gave his reluctant consent to Callot's prosecuting his
studies at Rome. Thither he went accordingly; and this time he
remained, diligently studying design and engraving for several
years, under competent masters. On his way back to France, he was
encouraged by Cosmo II. to remain at Florence, where he studied and
worked for several years more. On the death of his patron he
returned to his family at Nancy, where, by the use of his burin and
needle, he shortly acquired both wealth and fame. When Nancy was
taken by siege during the civil wars, Callot was requested by
Richelieu to make a design and engraving of the event, but the
artist would not commemorate the disaster which had befallen his
native place, and he refused point-blank. Richelieu could not
shake his resolution, and threw him into prison. There Callot met
with some of his old friends the gipsies, who had relieved his
wants on his first journey to Rome. When Louis XIII. heard of his
imprisonment, he not only released him, but offered to grant him
any favour he might ask. Callot immediately requested that his old
companions, the gipsies, might be set free and permitted to beg in
Paris without molestation. This odd request was granted on
condition that Callot should engrave their portraits, and hence his
curious book of engravings entitled "The Beggars." Louis is said
to have offered Callot a pension of 3000 livres provided he would
not leave Paris; but the artist was now too much of a Bohemian, and
prized his liberty too highly to permit him to accept it; and he
returned to Nancy, where he worked till his death. His industry
may be inferred from the number of his engravings and etchings, of
which he left not fewer than 1600. He was especially fond of
grotesque subjects, which he treated with great skill; his free
etchings, touched with the graver, being executed with especial
delicacy and wonderful minuteness.

Still more romantic and adventurous was the career of Benvenuto
Cellini, the marvellous gold worker, painter, sculptor, engraver,
engineer, and author. His life, as told by himself, is one of the
most extraordinary autobiographies ever written. Giovanni Cellini,
his father, was one of the Court musicians to Lorenzo de Medici at
Florence; and his highest ambition concerning his son Benvenuto was
that he should become an expert player on the flute. But Giovanni
having lost his appointment, found it necessary to send his son to
learn some trade, and he was apprenticed to a goldsmith. The boy
had already displayed a love of drawing and of art; and, applying
himself to his business, he soon became a dexterous workman.
Having got mixed up in a quarrel with some of the townspeople, he
was banished for six months, during which period he worked with a
goldsmith at Sienna, gaining further experience in jewellery and
gold-working.

His father still insisting on his becoming a flute-player,
Benvenuto continued to practise on the instrument, though he
detested it. His chief pleasure was in art, which he pursued with
enthusiasm. Returning to Florence, he carefully studied the
designs of Leonardo da Vinci and Michael Angelo; and, still further
to improve himself in gold-working, he went on foot to Rome, where
he met with a variety of adventures. He returned to Florence with
the reputation of being a most expert worker in the precious
metals, and his skill was soon in great request. But being of an
irascible temper, he was constantly getting into scrapes, and was
frequently under the necessity of flying for his life. Thus he
fled from Florence in the disguise of a friar, again taking refuge
at Sienna, and afterwards at Rome.

During his second residence in Rome, Cellini met with extensive
patronage, and he was taken into the Pope's service in the double
capacity of goldsmith and musician. He was constantly studying and
improving himself by acquaintance with the works of the best
masters. He mounted jewels, finished enamels, engraved seals, and
designed and executed works in gold, silver, and bronze, in such a
style as to excel all other artists. Whenever he heard of a
goldsmith who was famous in any particular branch, he immediately
determined to surpass him. Thus it was that he rivalled the medals
of one, the enamels of another, and the jewellery of a third; in
fact, there was not a branch of his business that he did not feel
impelled to excel in.

Working in this spirit, it is not so wonderful that Cellini should
have been able to accomplish so much. He was a man of
indefatigable activity, and was constantly on the move. At one
time we find him at Florence, at another at Rome; then he is at
Mantua, at Rome, at Naples, and back to Florence again; then at
Venice, and in Paris, making all his long journeys on horseback.
He could not carry much luggage with him; so, wherever he went, he
usually began by making his own tools. He not only designed his
works, but executed them himself,--hammered and carved, and cast
and shaped them with his own hands. Indeed, his works have the
impress of genius so clearly stamped upon them, that they could
never have been designed by one person, and executed by another.
The humblest article--a buckle for a lady's girdle, a seal, a
locket, a brooch, a ring, or a button--became in his hands a
beautiful work of art.

Cellini was remarkable for his readiness and dexterity in
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 mother's means were too limited to permit him to
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.

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