Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (2131 page)

“I have very little to say about myself. I long to be at work in England. I imagine the materials I have collected may turn to account when I get home, and I have now had enough of the rambling, unsettled life a man necessarily leads when in a foreign country, with such a variety of attractions as are to be met with on the classic ground I am now treading. We think of taking our steps northward, perhaps, shortly; but, if you can find time, write to me as before, — for should I be gone, letters will be sent on to me.

“Pray, when you write, tell me all about your pictures. ‘The Queen’s First Council’ will, of course, be finished for the ensuing Exhibition. Mulready, I hear, has a fine work nearly ready. I suppose the print from ‘John Knox’ will find its way to this benighted land. I long to see it. You don’t condescend to notice any of the prints now in hand, or lately finished, after
‘that once celebrated English painter, so long the ornament, etc., etc.,
but now on a shelf somewhere in the neighbourhood of the Tiber!’ Nor, moreover, although I have asked you and others the question many times, do you tell me, or can I learn from anybody, whether the picture of ‘Sunday Morning’ is yet in your possession, — Mr. Walker having been desired to send it to you.

“I am longing to take lessons at Venice. Tell me when you write, what pictures I ought to
devour,
and what I ought only to
look at
when I get there. Is there much at Bologna? — besides the Correggios, I suppose nothing at Parma. I wrote lately to Rice: I hope he received my communication, for I shall be puzzled to get on without his answer, having written to him to send me two hundred pounds. As it is possible the letter may not have reached him, will you do me the favour to write to him, stating my wants? With kindest regards to your brother and sister, believe me,

“Yours most faithfully,

“WILLIAM COLLINS.”

“To WILLIAM COLLINS, ESQ., R.A.

“Kensington, April 16th, 1838.

“Dear Collins, — Your most obliging and interesting letter has this day been received. Happy we are to hear of all you tell us; and, if possible, everything you request shall be attended to. I was not aware that you had ordered the picture of ‘Sunday Morning’ to be delivered to me. I inquired of Mr. Carpenter, but he had not heard of it. He gave me the agreeable news of having sold your picture of the ‘Rock and Seafowl Scene.’ He was to write to you of this himself.

“The pictures were all sent into the Exhibition last week, the 9th and 10th of April. I sent ‘The Queen’s First Council,’ containing about thirty portraits, which form the interest of the picture, My next was ‘The Bride, dressing at her Toilette;’ and the next, — oh, tell it not in Gath! — was a portrait, in full-length, of that most staunch supporter of Her Majesty’s Ministers, Mr. Daniel O’Connell! — no doubt the ‘very light picture’ you heard I was painting.

“To-day Mr. Rice called, at my request, at the Academy. He says he received your letter, and two or three days after remitted the two hundred pounds as directed. He told Lord de Grey of Wyatt’s model of Hebe; it pleased him much.

“On your return from Rome, could you come as I did, by Foligno, Loretto, Ancona, and Bologna? That coast is beautiful. From Bologna you must pass by Parma, where you should stop some days for the Correggios. At Mantua are some remarkable colossal paintings of Julio Romano. Sir William Knighton saw them, but I did not. Venice is of course well worth a month, if you have it. The Tyrol and Munich also; but you scarce have time for all these, and to be home by the time you mention. Could not you, as I did, pass the summer in Germany, now that your picture of the Seafowl is sold? * * *

“ With high esteem and regard,

“I am, my dear Sir,

“Your very obliged and faithful servant,

“DAVID WILKIE.”

The plans for a homeward route which now engaged Mr. Collins’s attention, and which are hinted at in the preceding letters, underwent some alteration before he quitted Rome. Attending to Sir David Wilkie’s recommendation, to allow himself more time for the remainder of his journey than he had at first intended to devote to it, he determined to resign the attempt to reach England in time for the Royal Academy Exhibition of 1838; and thereby to procure the means of making a longer stay at many places of interest he had yet to visit, at Venice especially, than he had hitherto contemplated. Hearing, also, that the scenery of the Tyrol was in many respects quite as fine as that of Switzerland, and was far less hackneyed by painters and tourists, he resolved to quit Italy by that route, leaving the snows of Mont Blanc and the Lake of Geneva for a separate tour at some future period. The difficulty of deciding on his homeward route was not, however, his only embarrassment during the latter part of his stay at Rome; the safest method of conveying to England the large collection of sketches he had now accumulated being a question of quite as much importance as ascertaining the most convenient manner of reaching home himself. Startling stories were related by some of his friends, of the Vandalic contempt for the Arts entertained by the Austrian Custom-house officers in Northern Italy, who were in the habit not only of treating sketches as roughly as shirts and dressing-gowns in the course of an official search, but even of detaining them from their owners if they happened to be unfurnished with a government “permit,” providing for their free passage through the Austrian dominions, as works which could by no possibility be considered the property of the Austrian government. The only plan proposed as obviating any inconvenience of this nature was, that Mr. Collins should entrust his sketches to the English banker at Rome, to be sent to England by ship. Finding that his collection of studies was too bulky to be taken entirely under his own charge without the greatest trouble and difficulty, and yet unwilling to trust it altogether out of his own hands, he determined to pursue “a middle course,” by sending one- half of his sketches by sea, and, after procuring the necessary permit, by taking the other with him at all risks. His note of the packages of his works sent by ship-carriage only, is worth inserting, as showing the numerical importance of the preparations for future labour which his indefatigable industry had now accumulated. It runs thus:

“April 28th, 1838. — Sent to Messrs. Freeborn and Jones, a parcel, comprising a blue portfolio with fifty drawings, and twenty-three sketches in oil, (principally made in the neighbourhood of Naples,) and a packet containing sundry drawings and slight sketches, — about three hundred. Also, a tin case, containing fourteen oil sketches, — figures done in Rome.”

Having completed these arrangements, having lingered in Rome for a second view of the splendid ceremonies of the “Holy Week,” and having largely increased his varied store of materials for the illustration of Italian scenery and Italian life, Mr. Collins quitted the scene of those delightful labours and vivid impressions which had given a new zest to his life and a fresh employment to his thoughts, and started, on the 30th of April, for a second visit to Florence, on his way to Venice.

The route he followed to Florence, was that by Perugia. The three old churches at Assisi, built quaintly one above another, and adorned by the frescoes of Cimabue and Giotto — the sublime waterfalls at Terni — the lovely shores of the Lake Thrasimene were prominent among the varied attractions on the road, now made doubly delightful by the warm sunlight that shone over them all. When the painter re-entered Florence, the streets, which he only remembered as covered with snow and darkened by wintry clouds, were now displayed before him in all their architectural grandeur, under the dazzling summer atmosphere that poured on them from above. Taking advantage of weather thus favourable for country excursions, he visited as much of the beautiful scenery in the environs of Florence, as the short stay he designed to make there enabled him to see. The Royal farms, or “Cascini,” near the city; and the exquisitely varied and fertile scenery around the picturesque village of Fiesole, particularly excited his admiration. Among the pictures in the different galleries of Florence, which, on a second view, more remarkably impressed him, may be mentioned the portraits by Titian and Rubens, in the Pitti Palace. Like the Durazzo and Doria pictures, at Genoa and Rome, these great works led him to deplore the retrograde tendency of modern portraiture, and to lament that its professors did not — like Sir Joshua Reynolds — devote themselves to the study of the masterpieces of the old painters; and, beholding their perfect freedom from conventionality, their propriety of repose, their dignity and singleness of treatment — learn, even if they could not rival them in colour and nature, to abstain at least from distracting attention from the face portrayed, by abandoning all those combinations of tawdry accessories, introduced by modern bad taste into portrait Art.

At the close of his stay at Florence, my father was enabled — by the introduction of a friend — to gratify his enthusiasm for Michael Angelo, by visiting a gentleman who was a lineal descendant of the great master. At his house he beheld pictures illustrative of the life of Michael Angelo, painted by his contemporaries; various interesting domestic possessions that had belonged to the illustrious painter, and the original manuscript of his sonnets, in his own hand- writing. The sight of such relics as these, was in Mr. Collins’s estimation, scarcely inferior as a privilege, to his first view of the immortal master’s frescoes, in the Sistine Chapel at Rome.

In the midst however of his pilgrimages to the different shrines of Nature and Art at Florence, it became necessary for the painter to fix on his plan of departure; which, after a nine days’ sojourn in the Tuscan capital, admitted — if the proposed limits of his time on his homeward route were still to be observed — of no further delay. By the advice of his friends, and in accordance with his own inclinations, he resolved to travel to Venice, by Bologna, Parma, Verona, and Padua, stopping on his way, at each of those cities, to examine the works of Art that they contained. On the 14th of May, he and his travelling companions quitted Florence, to enter upon the journey as thus arranged.

Bologna, with its fine pictures by the Carracci — its celebrated St. Cecilia, by Raphael; its noble palaces; and its long streets of colonnades; attractively delayed the painter on the second day of his journey. Modena also had in its pictures and churches, a welcome claim to his attention: but it was at Parma, among the renowned Correggios in that city, that his admiration rose to the highest pitch of enthusiasm. These wondrous pictures, he declared far exceeded everything he had ever anticipated from them. Not satisfied with seeing them in the same way as other travellers, he bribed the people entrusted with their care, to allow him to mount tables and ladders, and examine minutely all those that might happen to be hung above the level of the eye. The portrait of Correggio, by himself, (the features of which, he said, bore a striking resemblance to those of Sir Thomas Lawrence) the Madonna di S. Girolamo; the “Flight into Egypt;” and another Madonna, surrounded by saints, were the pictures of the master which he principally studied, during his short stay at Parma. His next halting-place was Mantua. Here occurred the dreaded examination of luggage by the Austrian Custom-house officers; but the “permit” that he had taken care to obtain, to ensure the safe passage of his sketches, was found to be as all-powerful in its protecting influence, as an amulet in a fairy tale; and he crossed the Po, on his northward way, with his drawing-cases and portfolios safe and undisturbed. Verona was the next city at which he stopped — its fine old streets and its grand Roman amphitheatre — its surrounding mountain country, and its picturesque inhabitants, impressed him as peculiarly adapted for the most interesting pictorial illustration. Time only allowed him, however, after he had seen the pictures there, to make a few hasty sketches, ere it was necessary to depart for Padua; whence — after having examined with deep interest the beautiful, but much-defaced frescoes by Giotto, in that city — he proceeded to the little town of Mestrè. Here the gondolas by the water side, and the distant view of Venice, informed him that his land journey was over, and that he had reached his last place of sojourn on Italian ground.

Mr. Collins’s own account of his impressions of Venice and its pictures, in the following letter to Sir David Wilkie — although written towards the close of his residence there will be given before any relation of that residence is attempted, in order that it may serve as a test, by which to estimate the correctness of any description of his opinions on Venetian Art, which may occur in the narrative of this period of his continental journey:

“To SIR DAVID WILKIE, R.A.

“Venice, June 21st, 1838.

“Dear Wilkie, — At length, one of my great objects has been obtained, and I find myself surrounded by works belonging to that class which my own feelings have long led me to appreciate. With the pictures here I am perfectly satisfied — indeed, I knew them both by prints and by the many copies I have seen from time to time in England; so that they could hardly be said to be new to me. With Venice, however, which I also seemed to know equally well, I cannot say I was at first so much pleased. An air of melancholy in the more than deserted palaces, on the right hand and on the left; and the hearse-like gondolas, on our entrance from Mestrè, saddened the whole scene. This effect, although not entirely worn off, is much changed; and now our time of departure draws nigh, our melancholy is that of parting with a valued friend.