登陆注册
15440000000044

第44章 CHAPTER XV AN AESTHETIC COMPANY(1)

On the evening after Miriam's visit to Kenyon's studio, there was an assemblage composed almost entirely of Anglo-Saxons, and chiefly of American artists, with a sprinkling of their English brethren; and some few of the tourists who still lingered in Rome, now that Holy Week was past. Miriam, Hilda, and the sculptor were all three present, and with them Donatello, whose life was so far turned from fits natural bent that, like a pet spaniel, he followed his beloved mistress wherever he could gain admittance.

The place of meeting was in the palatial, but somewhat faded and gloomy apartment of an eminent member of the aesthetic body. It was no more formal an occasion than one of those weekly receptions, common among the foreign residents of Rome, at which pleasant people--or disagreeable ones, as the case may be--encounter one another with little ceremony.

If anywise interested in art, a man must be difficult to please who cannot find fit companionship among a crowd of persons, whose ideas and pursuits all tend towards the general purpose of enlarging the world's stock of beautiful productions.

One of the chief causes that make Rome the favorite residence of artists--their ideal home which they sigh for in advance, and are so loath to migrate from, after once breathing its enchanted air--is, doubtless, that they there find themselves in force, and are numerous enough to create a congenial atmosphere. In every other clime they are isolated strangers; in this land of art, they are free citizens.

Not that, individually, or in the mass, there appears to be any large stock of mutual affection among the brethren of the chisel and the pencil.

On the contrary, it will impress the shrewd observer that the jealousies and petty animosities, which the poets of our day have flung aside, still irritate and gnaw into the hearts of this kindred class of imaginative men.

It is not difficult to suggest reasons why this should be the fact. The public, in whose good graces lie the sculptor's or the painter's prospects of success, is infinitely smaller than the public to which literary men make their appeal. It is composed of a very limited body of wealthy patrons; and these, as the artist well knows, are but blind judges in matters that require the utmost delicacy of perception. Thus, success in art is apt to become partly an affair of intrigue; and it is almost inevitable that even a gifted artist should look askance at his gifted brother's fame, and be chary of the good word that might help him to sell still another statue or picture. You seldom hear a painter heap generous praise on anything in his special line of art; a sculptor never has a favorable eye for any marble but his own.

Nevertheless, in spite of all these professional grudges, artists are conscious of a social warmth from each other's presence and contiguity.

They shiver at the remembrance of their lonely studios in the unsympathizing cities of their native land. For the sake of such brotherhood as they can find, more than for any good that they get from galleries, they linger year after year in Italy, while their originality dies out of them, or is polished away as a barbarism.

The company this evening included several men and women whom the world has heard of, and many others, beyond all question, whom it ought to know. It would be a pleasure to introduce them upon our humble pages, name by name, and had we confidence enough in our own taste--to crown each well-deserving brow according to its deserts. The opportunity is tempting, but not easily manageable, and far too perilous, both in respect to those individuals whom we might bring forward, and the far greater number that must needs be left in the shade. Ink, moreover, is apt to have a corrosive quality, and might chance to raise a blister, instead of any more agreeable titillation, on skins so sensitive as those of artists. We must therefore forego the delight of illuminating this chapter with personal allusions to men whose renown glows richly on canvas, or gleams in the white moonlight of marble.

OtherWise we might point to an artist who has studied Nature with such tender love that she takes him to her intimacy, enabling him to reproduce her in landscapes that seem the reality of a better earth, and yet are but the truth of the very scenes around us, observed by the painter's insight and interpreted for us by his skill. By his magic, the moon throws her light far out of the picture, and the crimson of the summer night absolutely glimmers on the beholder's face. Or we might indicate a poetpainter, whose song has the vividness of picture, and whose canvas is peopled with angels, fairies, and water sprites, done to the ethereal life, because he saw them face to face in his poetic mood. Or we might bow before an artist, who has wrought too sincerely, too religiously, with too earnest a feeling, and too delicate a touch, for the world at once to recognize how much toil and thought are compressed into the stately brow of Prospero, and Miranda's maiden loveliness; or from what a depth within this painter's heart the Angel is leading forth St. Peter.

Thus it would be easy to go on, perpetrating a score of little epigrammatical allusions, like the above, all kindly meant, but none of them quite hitting the mark, and often striking where they were not aimed.

It may be allowable to say, however, that American art is much better represented at Rome in the pictorial than in the sculpturesque department.

Yet the men of marble appear to have more weight with the public than the men of canvas; perhaps on account of the greater density and solid substance of the material in which they work, and the sort of physical advantage which their labors thus acquire over the illusive unreality of color. To be a sculptor seems a distinction in itself; whereas a painter is nothing, unless individually eminent.

同类推荐
热门推荐
  • 残玉之求仙路

    残玉之求仙路

    家传千年的神秘残玉,穿越幻想中的真实世界
  • 超级怪兽走起

    超级怪兽走起

    2016年7月,口袋妖怪走起游戏火爆全球,苦于大华夏区没有开放,吕游下载了一款名叫超级怪兽走起的游戏。当游戏下载好的那一刻起,整个世界都被改变了!怪兽不断出现,作为整个世界的唯一游戏玩家,吕游需要满世界的去捕捉和消灭怪兽。
  • 鬼手小厨娘

    鬼手小厨娘

    闻暖从小是个乖乖女,万万没想到在买菜回家的路上车祸穿越。鬼手天医说捡来自己,用了很多名贵稀世药材,闻暖不得不卖身为“厨”,什么你要收我为徒?出师了,被鬼手天医踢出谷,然后...遇上真爱走上人生巅峰?
  • 幻之本源

    幻之本源

    本源大陆,九大家族。人族主宰,震慑万族。幻之本源,如幻如实。幻族崛起,势不可挡。大陆之难,命数已尽。献祭遮天,万年咒誓。一步之错,步步皆错。生死离别,送你轮回。
  • 极道独尊

    极道独尊

    一个孤儿,在一次机缘巧合下从无名的小岛被随机传送出去,面对全新的世界面对全新的人生,原本一无是处的却在这里被认为修炼的天才,他一路攀升,以不可预知的速度超越常人。天修炼天才加上取之不尽的灵源,这些都成为的修炼道路上的强大资本。当屠刀割开眼前的生命,当阴谋撕碎心中的希望,强者为尊的世界让他激起心中那久违的激情,龙则遨游天地,虫则自卧泥潭,且看他如何开始他的修炼之旅。
  • 小猫儿的邪恶大人

    小猫儿的邪恶大人

    五年前的夏夜,女子在蔷薇花架下救了一个男子,亦不知道他的身份,突如其来的未婚妻,被盗走的画,她对他的爱意已被恨意所蒙蔽。消失五年后,再次见面的两个人。在家族的利益纷争中,被挖掘出的一切肮脏的交易,和依旧相爱的两人。早已不是年少的少男少女,青葱岁月,爱过的记忆,女子的承诺,他们又该何去何从。
  • 三份痴心:迷茫的清晰

    三份痴心:迷茫的清晰

    迷茫的雾中,指引你走出去的,未必是心声。迷茫的人里,与你白头到老的,未必是心人。迷茫的情里,最终透彻清晰的,未必是自己。也许,你只是差了一点却足矣让别、人,有了篡夺的机会。
  • 战地花开

    战地花开

    彼岸花一种奇特非常的花,有花不见叶,叶生不见花,生生世世,花叶两相错,注定此生不相见,因此,彼岸花让人们想到永别。《战地花开》是一个关于彼岸花的动人传说,是一个关于几个战地女护士在长沙会战中抒写出的荡气回肠的感人故事。虽然她们没有《乱世佳人》中斯嘉丽对待爱情奔放的热情、高傲与倔强,但她们却拥有对爱情的执著、追求和反抗;虽然她们没有《这里的黎明静悄悄》里俄罗斯女兵们投身战场的那种赤裸裸的浪漫,但她们有救死扶伤的果敢和坚韧的毅力;虽然她们没有《珍珠港》里伊芙琳在炮火中演绎的史诗般的战地恋情,但她们同样拥有刻骨铭心、可歌可泣的情谊。她们就是盛开在战场上的彼岸花,纵然是战争和死亡,因为有了她们的至真、
  • 所修不是仙

    所修不是仙

    >死后奇遇记!>吉尼斯纪录小说版!大开你脑洞!>治愈系玄幻小说!>玄幻推理悬疑大剧!欢迎各界奇葩参与破解!“李澈抽出腰间的短剑,反复擦拭,只见剑身锋锐、夺目逼人,李澈抬起头来,又将短剑收回剑鞘,他擦剑不是为了用它,只是觉得擦了它之后,自己仿佛也不一样了,夺目的不只是剑,而是他自己,剑不在他的腰间,剑就是他自己!“这是一个真实的故事……其中的奥秘,我一步步为你破解!(有脑爽文,所修不是仙)
  • 降天大陆

    降天大陆

    降天大陆上,有个叫杳兽的动物。它们由人释放出来,因人而异,每个人都有自己的杳兽。哈!快来看吧!书友:3494434290