An Autobiography

I give these extracts just to launch the Memoirs into that student life which was of such importance to me. Till the Easter vacation I did all I could to retrieve what I considered a good deal of leeway in my art training. There were Sketching Club competitions of intense effort on my part, and how joyful I felt at such events as my illustrations to Thackeray’s “Newcomes” coming through marked “Best” by the judges.

“May 9th.—Veni, vidi, vici! My re-entry into the schools after the vacation has been a triumphal one, for my ‘Newcomes’ have been returned ‘The Best.’ The girls were so glad to see me back. I have chosen, as there is not to be a model till next Monday week, a beautiful headpiece of elaborate design on whose surface the red drapery near it is reflected. Some time after lunch Mrs. C. came running to me from the Antique triumphantly waving a bunch of lilac above her head and crying out that my ‘Newcomes’ had won! I jumped up, overjoyed, and went to see the sketches, around which a crowd of students was buzzing. Mr. Denby, who couldn’t help knowing whose the ‘Best’ were, gave me a nod of approbation. I was very happy. Returning to Fulham, I told the glad tidings to Papa, Mamma, Grandpapa and Grandmamma as they each came in. So this has been a charming day indeed.”

Page after page, closely written, describes the student life, than which there cannot be a happier one for a boy or girl; thorough searchings through the Royal Academy rooms for everything I could find for instruction, admiration and criticism. I joined a class in Bolsover Street for the study of the “undraped” female model, and worked very hard there on alternate days. This necessitated long omnibus rides to that dismal locality, but I always managed to post myself near the omnibus door, so as to study the horses in motion in the crowded streets from that coign of vantage. I also joined a painting class in Conduit Street, but that venture was not a success. I went in about the same time for very thorough artistic anatomy at the schools. I gave sketches to nearly all my fellow students – fights round standards, cavalry charges, thundering guns. I wonder where they are all now! I had always had a great liking for the representation of movement, but at the same time a deep well of melancholy existed in my nature, and caused me to draw from its depths some very sad subjects for my sketches and plans for future pictures. How strange it seems that I should have been so impregnated, if I may use the word, with the warrior spirit in art, seeing that we had had no soldiers in either my father’s or mother’s family! My father had a deep admiration for the great captains of war, but my mother detested war, though respecting deeply the heroism of the soldier. Though she and I had much in common, yet, as regards the military idea, we were somewhat far asunder; my dear and devoted mother wished to see me lean towards other phases of art as well, especially the religious phase, and my Italian studies in days to come very much inclined me to sacred subjects. But as time went on circumstances conducted me to the genre militaire, and there I have remained, as regards my principal oil paintings, with few exceptions. My own reading of war – that mysteriously inevitable recurrence throughout the sorrowful history of our world – is that it calls forth the noblest and the basest impulses of human nature. The painter should be careful to keep himself at a distance, lest the ignoble and vile details under his eyes should blind him irretrievably to the noble things that rise beyond. To see the mountain tops we must not approach the base, where the foot-hills mask the summits. Wellington’s answer to enthusiastic artists and writers seeking information concerning the details of his crowning victory was full of meaning: “The best thing you can do for the Battle of Waterloo is to leave it alone.” He had passed along the dreadful foot-hills which blocked his vision of the Alps.

I worked hard at the schools and in the country throughout 1867, and, with many ups and downs, progressed in the Life class. My fellow students were a great delight to me, so enthusiastically did they watch my progress and foretell great things for me. We formed a little club of four or five students – kindred spirits – for mutual help and all sorts of good deeds, the badge being a red cross and the motto “Thorough.” I remember a money-box into which we were, by the rules, to drop what coins we could spare for the Poor. We were to read a chapter of the New Testament every day, and a chapter of Thomas à Kempis, and all our works were to be signed with the red cross and the club monogram. Seeing this little sign in the corner of “The Roll Call” over my name set one of those absurd stories circulating in the Press with which the public was amused in 1874, namely, that I had been a Red Cross nurse in the Crimea. As a counterpoise to this more “copy” was obtained for the papers by paragraphs representing me as an infant prodigy, which I thank my stars I was not!

One day in this year 1867 I had, with great trepidation, asked Mr. Burchett to accept two pen and ink illustrations I had made to Morris’s poem, “Riding together.” Great commotion amongst the students. Some preferred the drawing for the gay and happy first verse:

Our spears stood bright and thick together,Straight out the banners streamed behind,As we galloped on in the sunny weather,With our faces turned towards the wind.

and others the tragic sequel:

They bound my blood-stained hands together,They bound his corpse to nod by my side,Then on we rode in the bright March weather,With clash of cymbal did we ride.

The Diary says: “Mr. Burchett, surrounded by my dear fellow red crosses, Va., B., and Vy., talked about the drawings in a way which pleased me very much. When he was gone, Va. and B. disappeared and soon reappeared, Va. with a crown of leaves to crown me with and B. with a comb and some paper on which to play ‘See the Conquering Hero comes’ whilst Va. and Vy. should carry me along the great corridor in a dandy chair. They had great trouble to crown me, and then to get me to mount. It was a most uncomfortable triumphal progress, Vy. being nearly six foot and Va. rather short. They just put me down in time, for, had we gone an inch further on, we should have confronted Miss Truelock,3 who swooped round the corner. I cannot describe the homage these three pay me, Va.’s in particular – Vy.’s is measured, and not humble like Va.’s or radiantly enthusiastic like B.’s. I am glad that I stand proof against all this, but it is hard to do so, as I know it is so thoroughly sincere, and that they say even more out of my hearing than to my face.”

The Sultan Abdul Aziz and the Khedive Ismail paid a visit to London that year. We were in the midst of the festivities; and such church-bell ringing, fireworks, musical uproar, especially at the Crystal Palace, where the “Hallelujah,” “Moses in Egypt,” and other Biblical choruses vied with the cheering of the crowds in expressions of exultation, seldom had London known. This fills pages and pages of the Diary. As we looked on from Willis and Sotheran’s shop window, out of which all the books had been cleared for us, in Trafalgar Square, at the arrival of the “Father of the Faithful,” it seemed a strange thing for the bells of our churches to be pealing forth their joyous welcome. But how vain all these political doings appear as time goes by! What sort of reception would we give the present Sultan I wonder? We have even abolished Khedives. Much more reasonable and sane was the mob’s welcome to the Belgian volunteers, who were also England’s guests that year. We English were very courteous to the Belgians. Papa took us to the great Belgian ball, where we appeared wearing red, black, and yellow sashes. He offered to hold a Belgian officer’s sword for him while he (the Belgian) waltzed me round the hall. A silver medal was struck to commemorate this visit, and every Belgian was presented with this decoration. On it were engraved the words “Vive La Belge.” No one could tell who the lady was.

This year saw my meek beginning in the showing of an oil picture (“Horses in Sunshine”) at the Women Artists’ Exhibition, and then followed a water colour, “Bavarian Artillery going into Action,” at the Dudley Gallery – that delightful gallery which is now no more and which The Times designated the “nursery of young reputations.” I continued exhibiting water colours and black-and-whites for some years there. I had the rare sensation of walking on air when my father, meeting me on parting with Tom Taylor, the critic of The Times, told me the latter had just come from the Dudley’s press view and seen my “Bavarian Artillery” on its walls. I had begun!

In the latter part of this year’s work at South Kensington Mr. Burchett stirred us up by giving us “time” and “memory” drawing to do from the antique, and many things which required quickness, imagination and concentration, all of which suited me well. Charcoal studies on tinted paper delighted me. I was always at home in such things. We often had “time” drawings to do on very rough paper, using charcoal with the hog’s hair paint brush. What a good change from the dawdling chalk work formerly in vogue when I joined. I had by this time painted my way in oils through many models, male and female, with all the ups and downs recorded elaborately, the encouragements and depressions, and the happy, though slow, progress in the management of the brush. I had won a medal for two life-size female heads in oils, and through all the ups and downs the devotion of my dear “Red Cross” fellow students never fluctuated.

The year 1868 saw me steadily working away at the Schools and doing a great many drawings for sketching clubs and various competitions during this period, till we were off once more to Italy in October. On March 19th of that year I wrote in the Diary: “Ruskin has invited himself to tea here on Monday!!!” Then: “Memorable Monday. On thee I was introduced to Ruskin! Punctually at six came the great man. If I had been disposed to be nervous with him, his cold formal bow and closing of the eyes, his somewhat supercilious under-lip and sensitive nostrils would not have put me at my ease. But, fortunately, I felt quite normal – unlike Mamma and Alice, the latter of whom had reason for quaking, seeing that one of her young poems, sent him by a friend, had been scanned by that eye and pondered by that greatest of living minds.

“He sat talking a little, not commonplaces at all; on the contrary, he immediately began on great topics, Mamma and he coinciding all through, particularly on the subject of modern ugliness, railways, factory chimneys, backs of English houses, sash windows, etc., etc. Then he directed his talk to me, and we sat talking together about art, of course, and I showed him two life studies, which he expressed himself as exceedingly pleased with in a very emphatic manner. But here we went down to tea. After tea I showed him my imaginative drawings, which he criticised a good deal. He said there was no reason why I should not become a great artist (!), that I was ‘destined to do great things.’ But he remarked, after this too kindly beginning, that it was evident I had not studied enough from nature in those drawings, the light and shade being incorrect and the relations of tones, etc., etc. He told me to beware of sensational subjects, as yet, à propos of the Lancelot and Guinevere drawing; that such were dangerous, leading me to think I had quite succeeded by virtue of the strength of my subject and to overlook the consideration of minor points. He said, ‘Do fewer of these things, but what you do do right and never mind the subject.’ I did not like that; my great idea is that an artist should choose a worthy subject and concentrate his attention on the chief point. But Ruskin is a lover of landscape art and loves to see every blade of grass in a foreground lovingly dwelt upon. I cannot write down all he said as he and I leant over the piano where my drawings were. But it was with my artillery water colour, ‘The Crest of the Hill,’ that he was most pleased. He knelt down before it where it hung low down and held a candle before it the better to see it, and exclaimed ‘Wonderful!’ two or three times, and said it had ‘immense power.’ Thank you, Dudley Gallery, for not hanging it where Ruskin would never have seen it!

“He listened to Mamma’s playing and Alice’s singing of Mamma’s ‘Ave Maria’ with perfectly absorbed attention, and seemed to enjoy the lovely sounds. He had many kind things to say to Alice about her poem, saying that he knew she was forced to write it; but was she always obliged to write so sadly? Then he spied out Mamma’s pictures, and insisted on seeing lots of her water colours, which I know he must have enjoyed more than my imaginative things, seeing with what humble lovingness Mamma paints her landscapes. In fact, we showed him our paces all the evening. Papa says he (P.) was like the circus man, standing in the middle with the long whip, touching us up as we were trotted out before the great man. He seems, by the by, to have a great contempt for the modern French school, as I expected.”

Daily records follow of steady work, much more to the purpose than in the humdrum old days. Mr. Burchett continued the new system with increasing energy. He seemed to have taken it up in our Life class with real pleasure latterly. In July the session ended, and I was not to re-enter the schools till after my Italian art training had brought me a long way forward.

CHAPTER V

STUDY IN FLORENCE

ITALY once more! Again the old palazzo at Albaro and the old friends surrounding us! My work never relaxed, for I set up a little studio and went in for life-size heads, and got more and more facility with the brush. The kindly peasants let me paint them, and I victimised my obliging friends and had professional models out from Genoa. That was a very greatly enjoyed autumn, winter and spring, and the gaieties of the English Colony, the private theatricals, the concerts at Villa Novello – all those things did me good. The childish carnival revels had still power over me – yea, more– though I was grown up, and, to tell the truth, I got all the fun out of them that was possible within bounds. “The Red Cross Sketch Book,” which I filled with illustrations of our journey out and of life at Genoa, I dedicated to the club and sent to them when we left for Florence.

We found Genoa just as we had left it, still the brilliantly picturesque city of the sea, its populace brightly clad in their Ligurian national dress, the women still wearing the pezzotto, and the men the red cap I loved; the port all delightful with oriental character, its shouting muleteers and facchini, its fruit and flower sellers in the narrow streets and entrances to the palaces – all the old local colour. Alas! I was there only the other day, and found all the local charm had gone – modernised away!

When we left Genoa in April my father tried to get a vetturino to take us as far as Pisa by road on our way to Florence, for auld lang syne, but Antonio – he who used to drive us into Genoa in the old days – said that was now impossible on account of the railway – “Non ci conviene, signore!” – but he would take us as far as Spezzia. So, to our delight, we were able once more to experience the pleasures of the road and avoid that truly horrible series of suffocating tunnels that tries us so much on that portion of the coastline. At Sestri Levante I wrote: “I sit down at this pleasant hotel, with the silent sea glimmering in the early night before me outside the open window, to note down our journey thus far. The day has been truly glorious, the sea without even the thinnest rim of white along the coast, and such exquisite combinations of clouds. We left Villa Quartara at ten, with Madame Vittorina and the servants in tears. Majolina comes with us; she is such a good little maid. We had three good horses, but for the Bracco Pass we shall have an extra one. There is no way of travelling like this, in an open carriage; it is so placid; there is no hurrying to catch trains and struggling in crowds, no waiting in dismal salles d’attente. And then compare the entry into the towns by the high road and through the principal streets, perhaps through a city gate, the horse’s hoofs clattering and the whip cracking so merrily and the people standing about in groups watching us pass, to sneaking into a station, one of which is just like the other, which hasn’t the slightest couleur locale about it, and is sure to have unsightly surroundings.

“Away we went merrily, I feeling very jolly. The colour all along was ravishing, as may be imagined, seeing what a perfect day it was and that this is the loveliest season of the year. We dined at dear old Ruta, where also the horses had a good rest and where I was able to sketch something down. From Ruta to Sestri I rode by Majolina on the box, by far the best position of all, and didn’t I enjoy it! The horses’ bells jingled so cheerily and those three sturdy horses took us along so well. Rapallo and Chiavari! Dear old friends, what delicious picturesqueness they had, what lovely approaches to them by roads bordered with trees! The views were simply distracting. Sestri is a gem. Why don’t water-colour painters come here in shoals? What colouring the mountains had at sunset, and I had only a pencil and wretched little sketch book.

“Spezzia, April 28th, 1869.– A repetition of yesterday in point of weather. I feel as though I had been steeped all day in some balmy liquid of gold, purple, and blue. I have a Titianesque feeling hovering about me produced by the style of landscape we have passed through and the faces of the people who are working in the patches of cultivation under the mulberries and vines, and that intense, deep blue sky with massive white clouds floating over it. We exclaimed as much at the beauty of the women as at the purple of the mountains and the green of the budding mulberries and poplars. And the men and boys; what perfect types; such fine figures and handsome faces, such healthy colour! We left the hotel at Sestri, with its avenue of orange trees in flower, at ten o’clock, and, of course, crossed the Bracco to-day. We dined at a little place called Bogliasco, in whose street, under our windows, handsome youths with bare legs and arms were playing at a game of ball which called forth fine action. I did not know at first whether to look well at them all or sketch them down one by one, but did both, and I hope to make a regular drawing of the group from the sketch I took and from memory. We stopped at the top of the hill, from which is seen La Spezzia lying below, with its beautiful bay and the Carara Mountains beyond. Here ends our drive, for to-morrow we take the train for Florence.

“Florence, April 29th.– Magnificent, cloudless weather. But, oh! what a wearisome journey we had, the train crawling from one station to another and stopping at each such a time, whilst we baked in the cushioned carriage and couldn’t even have lovely things to look at, surrounded by the usual railway eyesores. We passed close by the Pisan Campo Santo, and had a very good view of the Leaning Tower and the Duomo. Such hurrying and struggling at the Pisa station to get into the train for Florence, having, of course, to carry all our small baggage ourselves. Railway travelling in Italy is odious. It was very lovely to see Florence in the distance, with those domes and towers I know so well by heart from pictures, but we were very limp indeed, the wearisome train having taken all our enthusiasm away. Everything as we arrived struck us as small, and I am still so dazzled by the splendour of Genoa that my eyes cannot, as it were, comprehend the brown, grey and white tones of this quiet-coloured little city. I must Florentine myself as fast as I can. This hotel is on the Lung’ Arno, and charming was it to look out of the windows in the lovely evening and see the river below and the dome of the Carmine and tower of Santo Spirito against the clear sky with, further off, the hills with their convents (alas! empty now) and clusters of cypresses. No greater contrast to Genoa could be than Florence in every way. Oh! may this city of the arts see me begin (and finish) my first regular picture. April 30th.– I and Papa strolled about the streets to get a general impression of ‘Firenze la gentile,’ and looked into the Duomo, which is indeed bare and sad-coloured inside except in its delicious painted windows over the altars, the harmonious richness of which I should think could not be exceeded by any earthly means. The outside is very gay and cheerful, but some of the marble has browned itself into an appearance of wood. Oh! dear Giotto’s Tower, could elegance go beyond this? Is not this an example of the complete savoir faire of those true-born artists of old? And the ‘Gates of Paradise’! The delight of seeing these from the street is great, instead of in a museum. But Michael Angelo’s enthusiastic exclamation in their praise rather makes one smile, for we know that it must have been in admiration of their purely technical beauties, as the gates are by no means large and grand as gates, and the bronze is rather dark for an entrance into Paradise! I reverently saluted the Palazzo Vecchio, and am quite ready to get very much attached to the brown stone of Florence in time.

“Villa Lamporecchi, May 1st.– We two and Papa had a good spell at the Uffizi in the morning, and in the afternoon we took possession of this pleasing house, which is so cool and has far-spreading views, one of Florence from a terrace leading out of what I shall make my studio. A garden and vineyards sloping down to the valley where Brunelleschi’s brown dome shows above the olives.”

Our mother did many lovely water colours, one especially exquisite one of Fiesole seen in a shimmering blue midsummer light. That, and one done on the Lung’ Arno, to which Shelley’s line

“The purple noon’s transparent might”

could justly be applied, are treasured by me. She understood sunshine and how to paint it.

“May 3rd.– I already feel Florence growing upon me. I begin to understand the love English people of culture and taste get for this most interesting and gentle city. The ground one treads on is all historic, but it is in the artistic side of its history that I naturally feel the greatest interest, and it is a delightful thing to go about those streets and be reminded at every turn of the great Painters, Architects, Sculptors I have read so much of. Here a palace designed by Raphael, there a glorious row of windows carved by Michael Angelo, there some exquisite ironwork wrought by some other born genius. I think the style of architecture of the Strozzi Palace, the Ricardi, and others, is perfection in its way, though at first, with the brilliant whites, yellows and pinks of Genoa still in my eye, I felt rather depressed by the uniform brown of the huge stones of which they are built. No wonder I haunt the well-known gallery which runs over the Ponte Vecchio, lined with the sketches, studies, and first thoughts of most of the great masters. One delights almost more in these than in many of the finished pictures. They bring one much more in contact, as it were, with the great dead, and make one familiar with their methods of work. One sees what little slips they made, how they modified their first thoughts, over and over again, before finally fixing their choice. Very encouraging to the struggling beginner to see these evidences of their troubles!

“I have never, before I came here where so many of them have lived, realised the old masters as our comrades; I have never been so near them and felt them to be mortals exactly like ourselves. This city and its environs are so little changed, the greater part of them not at all, since those grand old Michael Angelesque days that one feels brought quite close to the old painters, seeing what they saw and walking on the very same old pavement as they walked on, passing the houses where they lived, and so forth.”

I was at that time bent on achieving my first “great picture,” to be taken from Keats’s poem “The Pot of Basil”; Lorenzo riding to his death between the two brothers:

So the two brothers and their murdered manRode past fair Florence,

but, fortunately, I resolved instead to put in further training before attacking such a canvas, and I became the pupil of a very fine academic draughtsman, though no great colourist, Giuseppe Bellucci. On alternate days to those spent in his studio I copied in careful pencil some of the exquisite figures in Andrea del Sarto’s frescoes in the cloisters of the SS. Annunziata.