Puslapio vaizdai
PDF
„ePub“

ART AND MUSIC

A

NOTES ON ART AND ARCHAEOLOGY

RATHER sensational event in the art world is the purchase and disappearance from Rome of a famous picture-a "Madonna and Child" by Sandro Botticelli. It represents the Virgin Mary with the infant Christ on her knees, to whom an angel offers grapes and ears of grain. The picture belonged to the Chigi collection and was one of the gems of the gallery. A number of competitors were anxious to secure it, and between them an auction was held, the painting being finally knocked down to an agent-of the Rothschilds, it is supposed-for the sum of $63,000. As yet no trace of the purchaser has been found, at least so Professor Rudolfo Lanciani affirms. and he is the authority for the story. According to Italian law all works of ancient art to be exported must pass through the hands of government officials, and the government reserves the right of purchase at an appraised value, thus preventing the loss to Italy of her most important art-productions. The works that are allowed to cross the frontier are subject to export duty. In the present instance there was danger that the government would claim its right of precedence in purchase, but, even if it had not done so, the export duty would have been heavy. While the officials were slowly coming to a decision the picture disappeared. A system of secret exportation of works of ancient art has been in operation for many years, in order to avoid these liabilities, and has been taken advantage of, as some Americans know, to enrich private and public collections in the United States. Precious works of art are smuggled out of Italy by this underground system, which has evidently benefited the real or feigned purchaser of the Botticelli picture. To increase the mystery of the transaction a fictitious name and address were given, and thus far the smuggler has eluded discovery.

Florence is to be congratulated on having had the æsthetic energy and wisdom to establish an "Association for the Protection of An. cient Florence," under the presidency of Prince Corsini. It is to be deplored that societies of this kind are usually born of despair, and do not take form until after vandalism has been active in its work of destruction. In this case it has not come in time to save the numerous records, historic and artistic, of which speculators have denuded the heart of the city. But there is still much to be accomplished, and the

programme of the society seems far-reaching and practical. Everything connected with the ancient culture of Florence falls within its scope. It will strive to prevent the demolition, transformation, or dispersion of all historic and artistic treasures of every age and every kind. Monuments both sacred and secular will be preserved, and restored after the best artistic standards. And-a course that could be followed with profit in other countries - the society urges the value of harmonizing as far as possible the architecture of all future public buildings with the style of historic Florentine It also strenuously advises that in new private houses there shall be a return to the old Florentine standards, and that in the restoration of ancient private palaces the inscriptions, coats of arms, and memorial tablets shall remain in their original places.

art.

I wish that on some points we could follow the example of this Florentine society. Our societies of Colonial Dames and Daughters of the Revolution are doing invaluable service in preserving historie buildings. But we have no society of architects or committee of men of taste to urge the value of congruity and harmony in public and domestic architecture. Especially is such a society needed in our rural towns, where modern crimes against artistic taste are appalling, and in university centres, which ought to be centres of taste as well as of culture and learning.

In the field of discovery, news comes from Italy of a wonderful find of so-called Etruscan jewellery at Vetulonia, a city of ancient Etruria. During excavations in the necropolis, or burialground, carried on under the auspices of the Ministry of Public Instruction, the so-called "lictor's tomb» was opened. The skeleton of the deceased lay in a deep chamber covered over with great stone slabs. Near the body was found a small bundle, wrapped in gold leaf, containing a number of exquisitely wrought gold ornaments. Remains of lead, close by, showed that the treasure had originally been deposited in a metal jewel-box. The collection consists of seven gold brooches or fibula, four bracelets, a large ornamental hairpin, and a necklace, all of gold. Three of the brooches are of unusual size, about eight inches in length, and are identical in design and workmanship. Everyone is familiar with the shape of the fibula, the typical Etruscan brooch or clasp, made on the same principle as a

[ocr errors][merged small]

modern safety-pin, with its long ornamental body ending in a decorative head, underneath which is attached the slender pointed pin and the coil that serves as a spring. In the three large fibula the decorative motive is a series of conventional animals with human heads worked in relief, the rows of figures being divided by a design of lotus leaves.

The most beautiful fibula of the collection is the smallest one, measuring about three inches in length. The head represents a winged sphinx in the act of flying, and the body is covered with a design of animals, all the ornamentation being in incrusted gold. The work is of the most exquisite delicacy and finish, and that it should be the product of an art that flourished more than twenty-five hundred years ago seems almost impossible, so perfect is its state of preservation. Another fibula, about six and a half inches in length, is also in very perfect condition, and is decorated with a conventional design of animals and scrolls in incrusted work. Like the previous one it is of pale gold of great beauty. The other two fibula are of plain gold without ornamentation. Of the four bracelets two are composed of a number of round gold bands attached to a flat piece which forms the clasp. The whole surface is covered with the most delicate incrustations of gold representing animals in flight. It is a rare thing to find gold hairpins in Etruscan tombs, and the specimen belonging to the Vetulonia collection is one of unusual beauty in design and workmanship. The ball of the pin, which forms the head, is covered with an ornamentation of animals, birds, and scroll-work in three zones of incrusted gold. The incrustations are also carried down the staff of the pin for quite a distance. The necklace is of simpler execution, and is composed of a hundred and thirty gold beads strung in a double row. These female ornaments placed in the tomb of a man-evidently a soldier, judging by the remains of a sword lying at his side can be accounted for as tributes of affection, all the glory of a past life offered in sorrow and in token of endless mourning at the grave of a beloved one. The examples of jewellery discovered in ancient Etruria show that the goldsmith's art was carried to surpassing perfection, and outstripped all modern productions in beauty of design and in the truly exquisite delicacy of its finish. That it was a product of Etruscan art may be doubted. Some of our public museums possess collections of so-called Etruscan jewellery of great value and beauty. Such a collection, containing fibula, bracelets, and a coronet of marvellous workmanship, was purchased in Italy about two years ago as a projected gift to the new Museum of Art in Philadelphia, one wing of which is completed and is to be opened this autumn.

A number of interesting sculptures have come to light during excavations, or by chance diggings, in different parts of Italy. It is almost

impossible to turn up the earth without throwing up some antiquities along with it. Last spring, at Pozzuoli, near Naples, on the coast of southern Italy, farm work was in progress on the broad acres belonging to Cavaliere Migliaresi. A large field was being ploughed, ready for planting. The great oxen lumbered slowly over the heavy ground, while the peasants guided the plough. Suddenly the plough struck against something larger than usual; the oxen gave a hard tug, and a marble statue rolled out of the earth. As the work went on, other figures came to light, and the proprietor found himself in possession of a collection of decorative Roman sculptures. Tradition tells us that from the time of Cicero the bay of Pozzuoli was a favorite summer resort of the wealthy and luxurious families of ancient Rome. Many beautiful villas crowned the hill that rises abruptly and overlooks the bay. It was on the slope of this hill that the sculptures were found; they probably formed part of the architectural decoration of one of these sumptuous villas, and on the destruction of the house the figures rolled part way down the hill and were gradually covered with the accumulations of successive centuries. Two of the groups represent the familiar figure of Bacchus. In the most frequently recurring type of the wine-god he is depicted as overcome by the effects of deep libations, and is supported by an attendant figure. The statues of Pozzuoli belong to a less common type, in which the god is still master of himself; he is represented before the bacchanalia instead of after, and the attendant figure stands apart, while the god assumes a selfreliant attitude.

The first group shows Bacchus standing in a natural and graceful posture between small figures of Pan and the panther. A wreath of grapes and vine-leaves crowns the head of the god, his forehead is encircled with a broad band, and two locks of curling hair hang down to his shoulders on either side. His face is pleasing and not wanting in dignity. On his right is the figure of the panther. On his left Pan is represented, of small stature, with the head of an old satyr and the legs and hoofs of a goat. He is looking up at the god with a leer on his face. This group is considerably damaged in the extremities, as is also the second group of the same subject. Here Bacchus is standing in a stronger and more manly attitude. With his left foot he tramples upon a serpent, and in his left hand, which originally was raised, he probably held a bunch of grapes. In other respects this group, including the panther and the bearded Pan, is similar to the first. The third statue of the collection is a draped figure of Fortune. She is standing in an easy pose, holding in her left hand a cornucopia filled with fruit, and her head is covered with a long falling mantle. The features are realistic, but the face strikes one as not being a portrait. The general treatment, which is broad though

somewhat cold, is well suited to the purposes of architectural decoration for which these statues were evidently intended.

At Pompeii was found a small head of glazed porcelain, greenish in color. It is a charming little head, not a portrait apparently, but the ideal head of a woman. The hair is parted in the middle, turned back over the low forehead, and gathered into a loose knot low down in the neck. The ears are pierced, and were doubtless originally adorned with earrings; and the eyes, which are now empty, were probably filled with a colored substance. The features are clean-cut, and the mouth and chin quite beautiful. The chief interest of the head lies in its technique; it is the largest piece hitherto found of this particular order of work.

At Pompeii has also been found a beautiful mosaic pavement which formed the centre of the flooring of a small bedroom, evidently the room of the mistress of the house. The border of the pavement was made of common flags, then came a rectangle of mosaic-work composed of small squares of different kinds of

Un

stones. In the centre of this flooring was placed a beautiful little mosaic picture, framed in a narrow border of travertine, and representing the head and bust of a woman. doubtedly it is the portrait of the mistress of the house. She is a young woman of matronly appearance, and wears her black wavy hair in a large coil at the back of her head, bound around with a wide black ribbon. In her ears are pearl earrings set in gold, and around her neck is a rich pearl necklace with a gold clasp set with emeralds. Her dark dress is open in the neck, and shows a white veil or fichu embroidered in gold. Deep, black eyes, full of expression and half-veiled, look out from under long eyelashes; the small mouth, half-opened with a smile, shows white teeth between the red lips. All this is done in very small mosaic cubes. The preservation of this important mosaic is almost perfect, the execution is remarkably good, and, what is of especial value, it is a portrait from life.

PRINCETON, N.J.

JESSIE P. FROTHINGHAM.

F

SCHUBERT'S MUSIC TO GOETHE'S "ERL-KING"

We

RANZ SCHUBERT was but nineteen years of age when he composed his wonderful music to Goethe's "Erl-King." Critics of our day can scarcely believe that fact, though it has been proven beyond dispute by Robert Schumann, Franz Liszt, Robert Franz, and a host of other musical personages. know of no musician or critic who does not hold this composition to be the sublimest dramatic descriptive setting of these wild, weird stanzas that tone-poet ever conceived. «Schubert received harmony direct from heaven," said his teacher to one of Schubert's friends, when he found that he could teach the boy nothing; and the more students analyze and play his works the more are they impressed with the truth of

that statement.

The

The music to this famous poem of Goethe's was composed in a singular way,-dashed off, in fact, just as Schubert read the poem. musical equivalent of the words, formed in his mind as he read them, was quickly jotted down, sketched out, and then perfected. Schubert never seemed to have labored for an inspiration, or to have waited for the humor to visit him. Like Heinrich Heine, he did not possess himself of ideas, but was possessed by them. His soul was a rare melodic flower-garden. Thousands of fresh and beautiful songs grew and blossomed there; some most delicately tinted, others rich with strong dramatic color, all of which were creations full of power and character. These melodic flowers grew in such large quantities that Schubert was careless of them. He scattered them about so heed

lessly that he was charged by his contemporaries with squandering them,-with needlessly wasting his blossom-themes, in fact.

The "Erl-King" contains Schubert's intensest dramatic writing. Strange to relate, Goethe did not like the music and spoke disparagingly of it at first. It is presumed that Schubert's novel and original setting of the poem mystified Goethe, as it did all other critics at that time. After many years, however, Goethe saw the pictorial beauty of the work and grew to like it. About that time, too, other critics began to feel those powerful, sublime touches with which the tone-poet had invested the music. It was not until after Schubert's death that this composition, together with hundreds of his other songs, became really famous; and not till then did the world know that one of the greatest musicians of the age, one of the loveliest and most refined of poetic souls, had passed away.

Schubert's treatment of the "Erl-King » caused critics to shake their heads dubiously. They seemed to have recognized in him a new power, but were uncertain whether to praise or censure the composer. They satisfied themselves with mercilessly attacking the novel discords in the work. But their criticism had no effect on Schubert. He never saw fit to alter a note of the music complained of.

The setting, as we have said, is most dramatically descriptive. The introduction begins and rushes fitfully along, ominous, awful, sublime, ghostly, weird, tempestuous. After fifteen allegro common-time measures of triplets

in octaves on the minor key-note in the treble, and a sudden, rushing, significant figure reiterated in the bass, the voice begins

"Who hurries so late through tempest wild?
It is a man with his darling child.
The boy is firmly clutched by the arm

And pressed beside him to keep him warm.”* The ghostly, ominous, haunting figure in the bass forces itself through the misty atmosphere of treble accompaniment. It grows into awful outline above the melody. The harmonies begin to throb with excitement. Figures of a horse and rider galloping wildly through the night, the rider clutching a boy with eyes unnaturally bright, flutters into the imagination. The boy's face suddenly pales and grows livid with fright, and the perplexed father asks —

"My son, why blanches thy red cheek with fear?" There is powerful descriptive art in the pianissimo harmonies that color the timid and feverish child's reply:

"Oh, father, look, the Erl-King is there.

Dost thou not see him, with crown and train?» The ghostly figure in the bass still haunts the rushing treble triplets for a few measures. Then comes a lull. The figure fades from sight, and the father tries to soothe the frightened lad thus:

"My son, the mist deludes thy brain."

Steadier and softer grows the wild rush of descriptive music, and through it all begins to float a mysteriously seductive melody. It is the coaxing song of the Erl-King:

"Thou lovely boy, come, dwell with me, And I will play fond games with thee. The flowers are blooming in every fold, And my mother keeps a robe of gold." Then begins the music that startled the critics of that time. The frightened shrieks of the boy are almost realistically imitated by a clash of semi-tones between voice and accomThe discords accompany these

paniment.

words

"My father, my father, dost thou not hear The Erl-King's promises tender and clear?" The father seems to make an effort to calm the frightened child, cleverly indicated in the music by a change of key and strong harmonies that have a humor of protection in them; but he no sooner sings,—

"My darling, heed not fancies like these;

The breathing night-wind rustles the leaves,”—

- when, depicted in a sudden, onrushing crescendo, the boy's feverish imagination bursts forth, and again he hears the alluring song of the Erl-King rising above the din of the gallop. The melody is even more seductively sweet.

*The translation given here does not do the original text justice. Students are recommended to read it in the German.

"Wilt thou go with me, my charming boy?
All my girls will wait on thy steps with joy.
They'll dance and sing where the bright stars peep,
And rock thee and soothe thy tired senses to sleep."

Inviting as the melody is, there lurks within it a grimness that frightens the boy more than before, and again the discordant clash of semitones between voice and accompaniment occurs, but this time a degree higher in the scale, and, of course, with greater dramatic effect. The wonderfully inventive mind of Schubert is nowhere else shown to greater advantage than in the working out of this dramatic idea. The boy exclaims:

"My father, my father, do you not see

The Erl-King's daughters are beckoning me?» The father affects calmness. That there are thoughts of ghostly significance, throbs of agony, feelings ominous with forebodings of death in his heart, is made known by the mysterious tonal transitions, and that thunderous, frantic, terrifying crescendo, in which he replies:

"My son, my son, I see very well

The gray willows wave beside yonder dell. » Then the ghostly figure in the bass, by sheer strength, lifts itself out of the noise. It is the Erl-King, the death-spirit of Danish mythology, in which the superstitious people of north Germany also believe. He nears the boy and stretches out his hand as if to tear him away from his parent, singing at the same time a phrase beginning with the most tender expressions of love, and ending with a dire threat, both of which sentiments are fittingly portrayed in the music. Thus he sings:

"My dearest, I love thee, and if thou delay

My strong arms shall tear thee from father away."

Then comes the climax. The shrieking dissonances reach their highest point of dramatic intensity. They are the child's death-cries, and all the terror that the imagination of this great tone-poet could conceive was put into that wild outburst, at the point where the Erl-King seizes the boy:

"My father, my father, he seizes me now. Erl-King has frozen my burning brow." Terrified by this last outburst of the child, the father's reason gives way for the time being, and he becomes subjective to the superstitious thoughts or imaginations of the child. He urges his steed on faster than ever through the night, believing that the Erl-King is really pursuing him and his child. It was to illustrate this that Schubert continued the rushing triplets and the same ghostly figure in the bass. The remainder of the text describes the tragic outcome of the wild ride, and ends the poem.

The father hurries, and fear lends him speed,
Through brook and meadow, o'er mountain and mead,
He reaches home through danger dread,
But on his bosom the boy is dead."

[blocks in formation]

Prof. Saintsbury Recent, comparatively, as is

on Matthew Arnold

Matthew Arnold's death, it cannot be said that the time has not come to write an appreciation of him or to comment on the influence he has had upon his age. We say this from no fear that Mr. Arnold's writings have as yet lost their hold upon the literary thought of the time, but from a dread that not a little of his prose at least will fail to interest a new generation, unfamiliar as it must be with much of the religious and literary controversy of Philistia, in which Arnold unprofitably, as we think, took part. But whether or not much of Arnold's work will survive—and we exempt his poetry from any doubt of that-there is no question that he is an interesting as well as influential figure in the literary thought of the past half-century and fully merits the compliment of being made the subject of Prof. Saintsbury's monograph in the new series of "Modern English Writers. Admitting the justice of Arnold's claim to the honor of a biography, we could have wished, however, that the theme had fallen to other and more sympathetic hands than has been the case, though we are not blind to the faults which Prof. Saintsbury exposes in much of Arnold's work. It is perhaps a fit retribution that a great critic should himself be criticised, and that he who was fond of laying on the lash should in turn be himself flagellated. This Nemesis fate will, however, be disconcerting to Arnold's admirers, who will hardly admit the "sweet reasonableness” of Mr. Saintsbury's many qualifying estimates, or the "urbanity that is only half-concealed under his occasional detraction.

[ocr errors]

From a critical point of view, and speaking dispassionately, there is little question that much of Mr. Saintsbury's censure is just. Arnold was in manner often provoking, and there was not a little in his "grand style » cleverness that, while it amused, was flippant and sometimes trifling, and, to those who loved the man and admired his gifts, an unpardonable waste of critical powers. Aside from this, however, it is unquestionably worth while to know more of Matthew Arnold. True, as a writer and censor of his age, he had his conceits and his vanities, and there was not a little about him that savored of intellectual coxcombry. But, with all that, he was an inspiring and stimulating force in his way, awaking the age out of its insufferable commonplace ideas, philistinism, and respectable dullness. Over religious

*New York: Dodd, Mead, and Company, 1899.

controversy he but wasted his time and made enemies by his partisan laudation of the English national church and his girdings at Dissent. Nor were his excursions into the field of Biblical criticism always profitable, orthodox as he was after his own fashion, and little in sympathy with either the works or the attitude of agnosticism. In the educational field, however, he did yeoman service, and in literature proper, despite his mannerisms, he did fine though not tonic work. His chief merit is that he wrote at a time when culture was a desideratum and when the graces and the high ideals of life were at a discount. What Arnold's career was, and what his general literary position is, Prof. Saintsbury amply and on the whole fairly sets forth. He praises much of his poetry, expresses admiration for his prose style, and is appreciative of his work as a critic as well as of his scholarly ideals and tastes. But he is at times unpleasantly censorious and not infrequently captious. Occasionally, it is true, Arnold is himself to blame; for, despite the delightful quality of his work and the frequent humor which lights it up, he has many defects and not a few manifest weaknesses. This is shown chiefly in the comparatively trivial or transient topics which for the most part occupied his pen. Addressing, for the most part, the English middle class, his cry was that they had a "defective type of religion, a narrow range of intellect and knowledge, a stinted sense of beauty, and a low type of manners.» The charge is not without its admonition to us of the New World, for we ourselves, it will be admitted, have something to learn from the jibes and scornings of this high priest of culture, whom perhaps we have deemed too finicky and dilettante for our prosaic and materialistic Western world. Are we not also to be found among the Philistines-scorning culture and scholarship, making light of rare gifts and high ideas, and deeply indifferent to that depth and breadth of intellectual attainment which makes for the true equipment of the all-round, perfect man? G. M. A.

[ocr errors][merged small][merged small]
« AnkstesnisTęsti »