CHAPTER III.

Self-respect displayed by painters, and consciousness of the dignity of their art; illustrated by anecdotes of Rubens, Titian, Alonso Cano, Ghirlandajo, Salvator Rosa, West, Colleoni, Michael Angelo, Seymour, Vandyck, Nicholas Poussin, Tintoretto, Philippe de Champagne, Pablo de Cespedes, Bacici, De Poindre, Guido, Rubens, Desportes, Henriette Wolters, Angelico da Fiesole, Luis de Vargas, Juan de Joanes, Franck, Juan de las Roelas.

THE dignity of art, and the self-respect proper to its disciples, were never asserted with so much brevity and force as by RUBENS, in his reply to a brother diplomatist, by whom he was discovered working at his easel. "I perceive,” observed the visitor, "that his Excellency amuses himself with painting." "Non," exclaimed the art-ennobled Peter Paul, "Le peintre Rubens s'amuse à être ambassadeur." TITIAN'S estimate of the value and importance of his art, and his determination to uphold it, were conspicuously displayed on more than one occasion. In his youth, he had painted a picture of the Ascension, for the church of Santa Maria dei Frati, and as it exhibited some bolder touches than his paintings of a later date, the brethren sent it back to him, in course of time, for

improvement. He returned it with but one addition, "Titianus fecit fecit." On another occasion, having executed an Annunciation of consummate beauty, the individuals from whom he had received the commission declined receiving it, on the ground that the price demanded (500 crowns) was excessive. The painter resumed possession of this masterpiece of art, refused to part with it at any price; and, in 1537, made a present of it to the Empress Isabella, who showed her appreciation of its merits by the imperial gift of 2000 crowns.

The calm dignity and self-reliance of Titian, under circumstances like these, contrasts advantageously with the intemperate, but not unnatural, burst of indignation, which a similar slight called forth from ALONSO CANO, and the quiet rebuke of the Venetian was doubtless more effectual than the violent out

burst of the Spaniard. Cano was as skilful in sculpture as he was eminent in painting, and having executed an image of St. Anthony of Padua, for a counsellor of Grenada, the penurious lawyer refused to disburse the 100 pistoles which the sculptor demanded as his remuneration. Furthermore, the arithmetical counsellor demonstrated that Cano must have earned at the rate of four pistoles a day by his skill, which was double the amount earned by the lawyer, day by day, despite of the superior talents which he brought to bear upon his legal avocations. "Wretch!" exclaimed the artist, "do

you presume to talk to me of your talents! Do you know that the study of fifty years has been necessary to enable me to complete this statue in five-andtwenty days?" And therewithal he shivered the statue to atoms upon the pavement, while the startled counsellor fled from the house in undisguised dismay.

Vasari tells a pleasant story of GHIRLANDAJO, not wholly unconnected with the subject of our present chapter. Domenico, his brother David, and another artist, were executing certain works in the abbey of Passignano, and were vilely housed and worse fed. They remonstrated with the abbot, and David was especially energetic in the matter, from the just estimation in which he held his brother's genius; but all his remonstrances were treated with neglect. One evening, writes our author, when they were set down to supper, the monk, entrusted with the care of strangers, came as usual with a board, on which were porringers in the customary fashion, and coarse meats fit only for common labourers. Whereupon David rose in a rage, threw the soup over the friar, and seizing the great loaf from the board, he fell upon him therewith, and belaboured him in such a fashion, that he was carried to his cell more dead than alive. The abbot, who had already gone to bed, arose on hearing the clamour, believing the monastery to be falling down, and finding the monk in a bad condition, began to reproach David; but

the latter replied in a fury, bidding him begone from his sight, and declaring the talents of Domenico to be worth more than all the hogs of abbots of his sort that had ever inhabited the monastery. The abbot being thus brought to his senses, did his best from that moment to treat them like honourable men as they were.

SALVATOR ROSA, when fame and liberal recompence had lifted him up from indigence, deeply impressed with the dignity of art (as, indeed, he always had been in the direst extremities of fortune), rigidly sustained its reputation and his own, repelling all dictation as to the choice of his subjects, and resenting any attempt to chaffer with him in regard to the price of his productions. One of his warmest friends and most munificent patrons, Carlo Rossi, the banker, would sometimes endeavour to procure an abatement of the price which Salvator put upon his pictures. But the artist was inflexible, and to prove that no mercenary motive tainted his mind, he would forward the painting, whose value had been disputed, as a present to the opulent banker, who knew the proud spirit of the donor too well to think of returning the gift, or making any further offer of an equivalent. Two anecdotes have been preserved, which so forcibly illustrate the self-respect of Salvator Rosa, and his uncompromising determination to resist every effort directed to the depreciation of his art, that we cannot omit

them from the present chapter: A Roman prince, whose admiration of fine pictures was only equalled by his love of money, sauntering one day in Salvator's gallery, paused before a landscape, and, attracted by its beauty, enquired the lowest price at which it would be sold? "Two hundred scudi,"

His excellency had set

replied the artist carelessly. his heart upon the picture, but he recoiled from paying such a price for it, and presently withdrew. Again returning to Salvator's studio, he repeated the question he had put before. "Three hundred scudi," was the brief reply. The prince vanished, but reappeared next day, and, hoping to find the "quotations" of the picture market somewhat lower, repeated for a third time the question of the previous day. "Four hundred scudi is the price to-day," rejoined Salvator; and, yielding to the indignation that was chafing his spirit, he added, with a burst of anger that caused the prince to make a hasty exit, "The fact is, your excellency would not now obtain this picture from me at any price; yet so little value do I set upon it, that I deem it worthy of no better fate than this." And as he spoke, he snatched the panel from the wall, flung it to the ground, and shivered it to atoms with his foot. The other anecdote is as follows: Among the personal friends of Rosa was the Prince Mario Ghigi, who, while suffering from a severe illness, prevailed upon Salvator to bring his easel to his