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.
The heat was so great that, as it became more intense, I had to be at Bellucci’s, in the Via Santa Reparata, at eight o’clock instead of 8.30, getting there in the comparative cool of the morning, after a salutary walk into Florence, accompanied by little Majolina, no signorina being at liberty to walk alone. What heat! The sound of the ceaseless hiss of the cicale gave one the impression of the country’s undergoing the ordeal of being frizzled by the sun. I record the appearance of my first fire-fly on the night of May 6th. What more pleasing rest could one have, after the heat and work of the day, than by a stroll through the vineyards in the early night escorted by these little creatures with their golden lamps?
The cloisters were always cool, and I enjoyed my lonely hours there, but the Bellucci studio became at last too much of a furnace. My master had already several times suggested a rest, mopping his brow, when I also began to doze over my work at last, and the model wouldn’t keep his eyes open. I record mine as “rolling in my head.”
I see in memory the blinding street outside, and hear the fretful stamping of some tethered mule teased with the flies. The very Members of Parliament in the Palazzo Vecchio had departed out of the impossible Chamber, and, all things considered, I allowed Bellucci to persuade me to take a little month of rest – “un mesetto di riposo” – at home during part of July and August. That little month of rest was very nice. I did a water colour of the white oxen ploughing in our podere; I helped (?) the contadini to cut the wheat with my sickle, and sketched them while they went through the elaborate process of threshing, enlivened with that rough innocent romping peculiar to young peasants, which gave me delightful groups in movement. I love and respect the Italian peasant. He has high ideas of religion, simplicity of living, honour. I can’t say I feel the same towards his betters (?) in the Italian social scale.
The grapes ripened. The scorched cicale became silent, having, as the country people declared, returned to the earth whence they sprang. The heat had passed even cicala pitch. I went back to the studio when the “little month” had run out and the heat had sensibly cooled, and worked very well there. I find this record of a birthday expedition:
“I suggested a visit to the convent of San Salvi out at the Porta alla Croce, where is to be seen Andrea del Sarto’s ‘Cenacolo.’ This we did in the forenoon, and in the afternoon visited Careggi. Enough isn’t said about Andrea. What volumes of praise have been written, what endless talk goes on, about Raphael, and how little do people seem to appreciate the quiet truth and soberness and subtlety of Andrea. This great fresco is very striking as one enters the vaulted whitewashed refectory and sees it facing the entrance at the further end. The great point in this composition is the wonderful way in which this master has disposed the hands of all those figures as they sit at the long table. In the row of heads Andrea has revelled in his love of variety, and each is stamped, as usual, with strong individuality. This beautifully coloured fresco has impressed me with another great fact, viz., the wonderful value of bright yellow as well as white in a composition to light it up. The second Apostle on our Saviour’s left, who is slightly leaning forward on his elbow and loosely clasping one hand in the other, has his shoulders wrapped round with yellow drapery, the horizontally disposed folds of which are the ne plus ultra of artistic arrangement. There is something very realistic in these figures and their attitudes. Some people are down on me when they hear me going on about the rendering of individual character being the most admirable of artistic qualities.
“At 3.30 we went for such a drive to Careggi, once Lorenzo de’ Medici’s villa – where, indeed, he died – and now belonging to Mr. Sloane, a ‘bloated capitalist’ of distant England. The ‘keepsake’ beauty of the views thence was perfect. A combination of garden kept in English order and lovely Italian landscape is indeed a rich feast for the eye. I was in ecstasies all along. We made a great détour on our return and reached home in the after-glow, which cast a light on the houses as of a second sun.
“October 18th.– Went with Papa and Alice to see Raphael’s ‘Last Supper’ at the Egyptian Museum, long ago a convent. It is not perfectly sure that Raphael painted it, but, be that as it may, its excellence is there, evident to all true artists. It seems to me, considering that it is an early work, that none but one of the first-class men could have painted it. It offers a very instructive contrast with del Sarto’s at San Salvi. The latter immediately strikes the spectator with its effect, and makes him exclaim with admiration at the very first moment – at least, I am speaking for myself. The former (Raphael’s) grew upon me in an extraordinary way after I had come close up to it and dwelt long on the heads, separately; but on entering the room the rigidity and formality of the figures, whose aureoles of solid metal are all on one level, the want of connection of these figures one with the other, and the uniform light over them all had an unprepossessing effect. Artistically considered this fresco is not to be mentioned with Andrea’s, but then del Sarto was a ripe and experienced artist when he painted the San Salvi fresco, whereas they conjecture Raphael to have been only twenty-two when he painted this. There is more spiritual feeling in Raphael’s, more dignity and ideality altogether; no doubt a higher conception, and some feel more satisfied with it than with Andrea’s. The refinement and melancholy look of St. Matthew is a thing to be thought of through life. St. Andrew’s face, with the long, double-peaked white beard, is glorious, and is a contrast to the other old man’s head next to it, St. Peter’s, which is of a harder kind, but not less wonderful. St. Bartholomew, with his dark complexion and black beard, is strongly marked from the others, who are either fair or grey-headed. The profile of St. Philip, with a pointed white beard, gave me great delight, and I wish I could have been left an hour there to solitary contemplation. St. James Major, a beardless youth, is a true Perugino type, a very familiar face. Judas is a miserable little figure, smaller than the others, though on the spectator’s side of the table in the foreground. He seems not to have been taken from life at all.
“On one of the walls of the room are hung some little chalk studies of hands, etc., for the fresco, most exquisitely drawn, and seeming, some of them, better modelled than in the finished work; notably St. Peter’s hand which holds the knife. Is there no Modern who can give us a ‘Last Supper’ to rank with this, Andrea’s and Leonardo’s?”
This entry in my Diary of student days leads my thoughts to poor Leonardo da Vinci. A painter must sympathise with him through his recorded struggles to accomplish, in his “Cenacolo,” what may be called the almost superhuman achievement of worthily representing the Saviour’s face. Had he but been content to use the study which we see in the Brera gallery! But, no! he must try to do better at Santa Maria delle Grazie – and fails. How many sleepless nights and nerve-racking days he must have suffered during this supreme attempt, ending in complete discouragement. I think the Brera study one of the very few satisfactory representations of the divine Countenance left us in art. To me it is supreme in its infinite pathos. But it is always the way with the truly great geniuses; they never feel that they have reached the heights they hoped to win.
Ruskin tells us that Albert Dürer, on finishing one of his own works, felt absolutely satisfied. “It could not be done better,” was the complacent German’s verdict. Ruskin praises him for this, because the verdict was true. So it was, as regarding a piece of mere handicraft. But to return to the Diary.
“We went then to pay a call on Michael Angelo at his apartment in the Via Ghibellina. I do not put it in those words as a silly joke, but because it expresses the feeling I had at the moment. To go to his house, up his staircase to his flat, and ring at his door produced in my mind a vivid impression that he was alive and, living there, would receive us in his drawing-room. Everything is well nigh as it was in his time, but restored and made to look like new, the place being far more as he saw it than if it were half ruinous and going to decay. Even the furniture is the same, but new velveted
