The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 06, No. 37, November, 1860

Each restoration displaces more of the original and replaces it with the restorer. As the same hands generally have a monopoly of a public gallery, the contents of some are beginning to acquire a strange uniformity of external character, while the old masters in the same degree are vanishing from them. These remarks, however, are more applicable to past than to present systems; for a reform founded on true artistic principles is being everywhere inaugurated.

Oil-paintings gradually deepen in tone; while tempera, if protected from humidity, retain their brilliancy and clearness as long as the material on which they rest endures. The true occupation of the restorer is to put the work given to him in a condition as near as possible to its original state, carefully abstaining from obliterating the legitimate marks of age, and limiting himself to just what is sufficient for the actual conservation of the picture. One of the chief needs of many old pictures is the removal of old repaintings. This done, the less added the better, unless, if a piece be wanting, it can be so harmonized with the original as to escape observation. But this is a special art, and to be done only by those acquainted with the old methods. In perfect condition ancient paintings cannot be. We must receive them for what they are, with the corrodings and changes of time upon them. How interesting in this respect is the Sienese Gallery! Here the restorer has been stayed, and we find the pictures genuine as time itself, and more precious by far to the student than the most glaring and "refreshed" surfaces of those works in other galleries which are the wonder and admiration of superficial observers.

The greatest difficulty of the restorer is to harmonize

permanently

 the new vehicles with the old; for the fresh tints are always liable to assume a different tone from the original, which have already been chemically acted upon by time.

It may be said that the skill which can escape detection in restoration is adequate to successful counterfeiting. This is true only in part; for

mending

 is very different from

creating.

 Instances, however, do occur of such attempts; but they seldom long escape detection, and never impose upon those who have experience in the arts of the restorer. Some years ago a Roman artist for a while successfully passed off his imitations of Claude, Salvator Rosa, and their schools, as originals, at large prices, with the usual guaranties of authenticity. To disarm suspicion, he was accustomed to allow himself to be seen at work only upon cheap, vulgar pictures, pretending he was competent to nothing better. Having sold one of his Claudes for four thousand dollars, the trick being detected, he was threatened with a public prosecution, the fear of which brought on his death.

The favorite field of the early masters was fresco-painting. Unlike painting in oils, it has no resources of transparency, brilliancy, and richness of coloring, but depends for its nobility of effect upon the hardier virtues of art and the more robust genius of the artist. His success lies in strong and eloquent design and composition, with but feeble aid from color. Fresco and tempera paintings were chiefly intended for the interiors of churches or public buildings, whose dim light harmonized their more or less crude and positive tones. It was, however, only through the breadth and freedom of wall-painting that the ambition of the early masters was fully aroused and their powers found ample scope. Out of it they created a world of art unknown and unappreciable by those who cannot view it as it exists in the consecrated localities and amid the solemn associations whence it originated. All over Italy, by the road-side and in the sanctuary, there exists untold treasure of this sort, pure, grand or quaint, telling truth with the earnestness of conviction, and exhaling beauty through aroused feeling and refined sentiment, overflowing with virgin power and exalted efforts. Everywhere untransportable, often in localities untrodden except by the feet of the stolid peasant or the heavy-jawed monk, seen only by enthusiastic seekers, these monuments of a noble art are once more being awakened into vital existence by the piety and taste of a generation whose great joy it is to uncover and restore to the light of day those precious remains which were so often barbarously whitewashed by the clergy of the past two centuries, from no more cogent motive than to give greater light to their churches. Especially in Tuscany every souvenir of ancestral greatness is now cared for with a jealous patriotism honorable alike to the feeling and knowledge of its population. The chief desire of the country is now to reinvest her republican monuments with the character and aspect which best recall her olden freedom and enterprise. And the highest glory that can be bestowed upon these monuments is their careful conservation or restoration as they originally were designed; nothing being added or taken away except to their loss.

Not merely patriotism, but selfish acquisition demands of Italy the strict conservation of art. Her monuments are funds at interest for posterity. Indeed, her livelihood depends in no stinted measure upon her artistic attractions. And nowhere is there a livelier feeling for artistic beauty, greater respect for the past, and a wider-spread knowledge of art. In all times will other peoples come within her borders to enjoy and study that which she can still so lavishly bestow.

Tourists soundly rate Italians for their sordid indifference to their art, attributing to the people at large the spirit of the mercenary or ignorant class with whom they are most in contact. It is true that others may hear, as we have heard, from a noble marquis, in reply to a question about his family-pictures, "Ask my majordomo; had your question been about horses, I could have told you." They may meet aristocratic personages not above acting the picture-dealer in a covert manner, and, still worse, receive propositions to buy works of art robbed from public places. But such instances are uncommon. The common feeling is an enthusiastic pride in, and profound respect for, the names and the works that have done so much for the good and glory of Italy. Even the spirited deportment of the Signorina Borgherini, as told by Vasari, towards a dealer, who, during the siege of Florence, attempted to get possession of certain paintings belonging to her husband, to speculate upon by sending them to the king of France, may still find its counterpart in feeling, if not in fact, among some of the living daughters of that city.

"How, then," she exclaimed, "dost thou, Giovanni Battista, thou vile broker of frippery, miserable huckster of farthings, dost thou presume to come hither with the intent to lay thy fingers on the ornaments which belong to the chambers of gentlemen,—despoiling, as thou hast long done and art ever doing, our city of the fairest ornaments to embellish strange lands therewith? I prize these pictures from reverence to the memory of my father-in-law, from whom I had them, and from the love I bear to my husband; I mean to defend them, while I have life, with my own blood. Away with thee, then, base creature of nothingness! If again thou shouldest be so bold as to come on a similar errand to this house, thou shalt be taught what is the respect due to the dwelling of a gentleman, and that to thy serious discomfort; make sure of it!"

And so she drove the intriguing bargainer away, with "reproaches of such intolerable bitterness, that the like had never before been hurled at man alive." Be it remembered, too, that Vasari was a good judge of the quality of a Florentine dame's scolding, for he had himself in his younger days passed a painful apprenticeship under the weight of Lucretia Feti's tongue.

Criticism is too often local in its tone, being pledged, as it were, to the admiration of its favorite subjects and a corresponding disregard of those with which it is not familiar. Particularly in Italy, where the municipal feeling has been so strong, the partisans of each school were greatly prejudiced. Each people also very naturally prefers its own to another's art, and does not always question its motives of preference. The Florentines have overlooked the merits of their rivals, the Venetians and Sienese,—who, in turn, have reciprocated; while Italy, as a whole, has had but small regard for the works of other nations. England has been slow to recognize the great merits of the Southern schools; and France, Holland, and Germany are equally in the bondage of local tastes or transitory fashions. But true criticism is cosmopolitan. It tests merit according to the standard of the nature on which it is founded, not overlooking excellence in whatever respect or degree. A truly catholic view of art is the result only of its universal study. The critic may be just to all inspirations, and yet enjoy his own preferences. But, as Blackwood observes, too many "are self-endowed with the capacity to judge all matters relating to the fine arts just in proportion to the extent of their ignorance, because it is not difficult to condemn in general terms and to attain notoriety by shallow pretence." Neither "the narrowness of sect nor the noise of party" should be heard in this matter. As a great gallery should represent all phases of art through their several stages of progress and decay, meeting all wants and tastes, so criticism should be based upon a foundation equally broad,—not proud of its erudition nor dictatorial, but with due humility uttering its opinions, prompt to sustain them, and yet ever ready to listen and learn.

"Old masters" are almost a by-word of doubt or contempt in America, owing to the influx of cheap copies and pseudo-originals of no artistic value whatever. It is the more important, therefore, that they should be represented among us by such characteristic specimens as are still to be procured. Some modern artists are jealous of or indifferent to past genius, and sedulously disparage it in view of their own immediate interests. Bayle St. John, in his "Louvre," relates that he heard an associate of the Royal Academy deliberately and energetically declare, that, if it were in his power, he would slash with his knife all the works of the old masters, and thus compel people to buy modern. This spirit is both ungenerous and impolitic. If neither respect nor care for the works of departed talent be bestowed, what future has the living talent itself to look forward to? Art is best nourished by a general diffusion of aesthetic taste and feeling. There can be no invidious rivalry between the dead and the living. Alfred Tennyson looks not with evil eye upon John Milton. Why should a modern be jealous of a mediaeval artist? The public can love and appreciate both. Nor should it be forgotten that it is precisely in those countries where old art is most appreciated that the modern is most liberally sustained.

'TENTY SCRAN'

"Patience hath borne the bruise, and I the stroke."

"I think she's a-sinkin', Doctor," sobbed old Aunt Rhody, the nurse, as she came out of Mary Scranton's bed-room into the clean kitchen, where Doctor Parker sat before the fire, a hand on either knee, staring at the embers, and looking very grave.

Doctor Parker got up from the creaky chair, and went into the bed-room. It was very small, very clean, and two sticks of wood on the old iron dogs burned away gradually, and softened the cool April air.

Before this pretence of a fire sat an elderly woman, with grave, set features, an expression of sense and firmness, but a keen dark eye that raised question of her temper. Miss Lovina Perkins was her style, being half-aunt to the unpleasant-colored baby she now tended, rolled up in a flannel shawl, and permitted to be stupid undisturbedly, since its mother was dying.

Dying, evidently; she had not been conscious for several hours. Her baby had not had its welcome; she knew nothing, cared for nothing, felt nothing but the chill of the blood that stood still in her veins, and the choking of the heart that hardly beat.

Poor child! poor widow! Her head lay on the pillow, white as the linen, but of a different tint,—the indescribable pallor that you know and I know, who have seen it drawn over a dear face,—a tint that is best unknown, that cannot be reproduced by pen or pencil. Yet, for all its pallor, you saw at once that this face was still young, had been lovely, a true New-England beauty, quaint and trim and delicate as the slaty-gray snow-bird, with its white breast, and soft, bright eyes, that haunts the dusky fir-trees and dazzling hill-side slopes when no other bird dare show itself,—a quiet, shy creature, full of innocent trust and endurance, its chirp and low repetition dearer than the gay song of lark or robin, because a wintry song.

But Mary Perkins had never been called handsome in Deerfield; if they said she was "a real pretty girl," it only meant kindly and gentle, in the Connecticut vernacular; and Tom Scranton, the village joiner, was first to find out that the delicate, oval face, with its profuse brown hair, its mild hazel eyes, and smiling mouth, was "jest like a pictur'." So Tom and Mary duly fell in love, got married,—nobody objecting,—went West, and eight months afterward Mary came home with a coffin. Tom had fallen from a ladder, been taken up and brought home dead, and she had travelled back five hundred miles to bury him in Deerfield, beside his father and mother; for he was their only son.

There were about a hundred dollars left for Mary. She could not work now, and she went to board with her half-sister, the Deerfield tailoress.

Mary Scranton was only nineteen; but she did not want to live,—not even for her baby's sake. All her sunshine and her strength went out of this world with Tom, and she had no energy to care to live without him. She did not say so to her sister,—for Miss 'Viny would have scolded her smartly,—nor did she tell Doctor Parker; but she prayed about it, and kept it in her heart all those silent days that she sat sewing baby-clothes, and looking forward to an hour that should, even through a death-agony, take her to Tom. She thought the baby would die, too, and then they should all be together;—for Mary had a positive temperament, without hope, because without imagination; what she had possessed and lost eclipsed with her all uncertainties of the future; and she thought seven times of Tom where she once thought of her child, though she took pains to make its garments ready, and knit its tiny socks, and lay the lumbering old cradle, that she had been rocked in, with soft and warm wrappings, lest, indeed, the child should live longer than its mother. So she sat in Miss 'Viny's bed-room in an old rush-bottomed rocking-chair, sewing and sewing, day after day, the persistent will and intent to die working out its own fulfilling, her white lips growing more and more bloodless, her transparent cheek more wan, and the temples, from which her lustreless hair was carelessly knotted away, getting more hollow and clear and sharp-angled.

And now she lay on the bed, one hand under her cheek, the other picking restlessly at the blanket,—for consciousness was fluttering back.

"Give me the brandy, Aunt Rhody," said Doctor Parker, softly.

He poured a few drops into the spoon she brought, and held it to Mary's lips. The potent fluid stung the nerves into life again, and quickened the flickering circulation; her thin fingers lay quiet, her eyes opened and looked clear and calm at the Doctor. He tried to rouse her with an interest deeper to most women than their own agony or languor.

"You've got a nice little girl, Mary," said he, cheerfully.

The ghost of a smile lit her face.

"I'm content," said she, in a low whisper.

Aunt Rhody brought the baby and laid it on its mother's arm. The child stirred and cried, but Mary took no notice; her eyes were fixed and glazing. Suddenly she smiled a brilliant smile, stretched both arms upward, dropping her baby from its place. Only for one moment that recognizing look defied death and welcomed life; her arms dropped, her jaw fell;—it was over.

"I guess you'd better take the baby into the kitchen, Miss Loviny," said Aunt Rhody; "'tisn't considered lucky to keep 'em round where folks has died."

"Luck a'n't anything," grimly returned Lovina, who had squeezed her tears back, lest the two or three that inclined to fall should spot the baby's blanket; "but I'm goin' to take her out into the kitchen, because I calculate to open the winder in here."

So the baby and Aunt 'Viny went out.

It was a new thing and a hard thing for Lovina Perkins to have a baby on her hands; she would rather have charged herself with the care of a farm, or the building of a house; she could work, she could order, plan, regulate, and execute; but what to do with a baby? There it lay, helpless, soft, incapable, not to be scolded, or worked, or made responsible in any way, the most impracticable creature possible: a kitten she could have put into a basket at night, and set in the shed; a puppy she could and would have drowned; but a baby, an unlucky, red, screeching creature, with a soul, was worse than all other evils. However, she couldn't let it die; so she went after some milk, and, with Aunt Rhody's help, after much patient disgust, taught the child how to live, and it lived.

Mary Scranton was buried next to Tom, and the June grass grew over both their graves, and people thought no more about it; only every now and then Doctor Parker came to Miss Perkins's house to ask after "baby," who grew daily fat and fair and smiling; and on one of these occasions he met the minister, Parson Goodyear, who had come, as Miss 'Viny expressed it, "o' purpose to take me to do, because I ha'n't presented the child for baptism."

"Fact is," continued she, "I ha'n't an idea what

to

 call her. I don't favor callin' of her Mary, because that was her mother's name, and I couldn't think of two on 'em at once; and Scripter names are generally rather ha'sh. Miss Parker, Doctor, kind of favored her bein' called Aribelly, because there was one of that name rather come over in the Mayflower; but I think it's too mighty for a child that's got to work;—what do you say?"

"I think you're right, Miss 'Viny," said the Doctor, as gravely as he could.

"I don't believe in fine names myself. I should think you might do worse than to call the baby Content;—that was your own mother's name, wasn't it? and it was the last word Mary spoke."

"Well, now, that's quite an idea, Doctor! I guess I will."

"And you will present her on the first Sabbath in May?" said Parson Goodyear.

"Well, yes, if I'm spared," said Aunt 'Viny; and, being spared, on that sweet May-Sunday she carried the smiling little child up the aisle of the meeting-house, and had it baptized Content.

Strange to say,—yet not all strange,—before it was a year old, the baby had found its way quite down into the middle of Aunt 'Viny's heart. To be sure, it was a deal of trouble; it would ache and cry in a reasonless way, when nobody could tell what ailed it; it would take a great amount of caring-for with ungrateful silence and utter want of demonstration for a long time;—but then it was so helpless! —irresistible plea to a woman!—and under all Miss 'Viny's rough exterior, her heart was as sweet as the kernel of a butternut, though about as hard to discover. True, she was hard of feature, and of speech, as hundreds of New-England women are. Their lives are hard, their husbands are harder and stonier than the fields they half-reclaim to raise their daily bread from, their existence is labor and endurance; no grace, no beauty, no soft leisure or tender caress mitigates the life that wears itself away on wash-tubs, cheese-presses, churns, cooking-stoves, and poultry; but truth and strength and purity lie clear in these rocky basins, and love lurks like a jewel at the bottom,—visible only when some divine sun-ray lights it up,—love as true and deep and healthy as it is silent and unknown.

So Miss 'Viny's hardness gave way before "baby." She could not feel unmoved the tiny groping hands about her in the night, the soft beatings of the little heart against her arm, the round downy head that would nestle on her neck to be rocked asleep; she could not resist that exquisite delight of miserable, exacting, feminine nature,—the knowledge that one thing in the world loved her better than anybody else. Sorry am I to betray this weakness of Aunt 'Viny's,—sorry to know how many strong-minded, intellectual, highly educated and refined women will object to this mean and jealous sentiment in a woman of like passions with themselves. I know, myself, that a lofty love will regard the good of the beloved object first, and itself last,—that jealousy is a paltry and sinful emotion; but, my dear creatures, I can't help it,—so it was. And if any one of you can, with a serene countenance and calm mind, see your husband devote himself to a much prettier, more agreeable, younger woman than yourself,—or hear your own baby scream to go from you to somebody else,—or even behold your precious female friend, your "congenial soul," as the Rosa Matilda literature hath it, fascinated by a young woman or young man to the neglect of yourself,—although in one and all of these instances the beloved object seeks his or her best good,—then let that superhuman female throw a stone at Aunt 'Viny;—but for the present she will not be lapidated.

Never, indeed, had she been quite as happy as now. Her life had been a routine of hard work. Love and marriage had never looked over the palings at her; and—to tell the truth—she had not suffered by their neglect, in her own estimation. She was one of those supernumerary women who are meant to do other people's work in life: servants, nurses, consolers; accepting their part with unconscious humility as a matter of course; quite as good as the Santas and Santissimas of legend and chronicle, and not nearly so intrusive. So this new phase had its own sweetness and special charm for Aunt 'Viny; the happiest hour in her day lying between daylight and dark, when waistcoats and jackets and trousers were laid aside, the dim light forbidding her to sew, and economy delaying the lamp,—so she could with a clear conscience spare half an hour, while the tea-kettle boiled, for undressing "baby," rubbing the little creature down,—much as a groom might have done, only with a loving touch not kept for horses,—enduing it with a long night-gown, and toasting its shell-pink feet at the fire, till, between the luxury of ease and warmth and tending, "baby" cooed herself to sleep, and lay along Miss 'Viny's lap like a petted kitten, the firelight playing soft lights over its fair head, sealed eyelids, and parted lips, tinting the relaxed arm and funny dimpled fist with a rosy glow, while Aunt 'Viny's face took on a tender brooding gleam that nobody who had seen her in church on Sunday, severely crunching fennel, or looking daggers at naughty boys, could have believed possible. But this expression is an odd wonder-worker. I saw but the other day a bad-eyed, bronzed, "hard-favored" Yankee, with a head all angles, a dirty face, the air of a terrified calf, and the habiliments of a poor farmer; I looked at him aristocratically, and thanked the Lord for my mind, my person, and my manners, in true Pharisaic triumph,—when his little blue-eyed daughter came round the corner and pulled at the tail of his ragged coat. Why, the man was transfigured! I wondered he was willing to shake hands with me when I left him; I knew before that his hands were brown and big and dirty, and mine were little and white and soap-scented; but I thought afterwards I'd as lief have been Peter as myself just then,—and I think so still. Wherefore, young ladies all, learn from this that the true cestus, fabled–No! I shall make an essay on that matter some day; I will not inflict it here.

So, by dint of hard work, Aunt 'Viny brought up her dead sister's child in the way it should go, nor ever for one moment grudged her labor or her time. Neither did she spoil Content by over-indulgence; her good sense kept the child unharmed, taught her hardy and self-reliant habits, made her useful all the time, and, even if Nature had not been beforehand with her, would have made her happy. But 'Tenty had her father's firm and sunny character; she never cried but for good reason, and then screamed lustily and was over with it; fretting was out of the question,—she did not know how; her special faults were a strong will and a dogged obstinacy,—faults Miss 'Viny trained, instead of eradicating; so that 'Tenty emerged from district-school into the "'Cademy's" higher honors as healthy and happy an individual as ever arrived at the goodly age of fourteen without a silk dress or a French shoe to peacock herself withal. Every morning, rain or shine, she carried her tin pail to Doctor Parker's for milk, hung on the tea-kettle, set the table, wiped the dishes, weeded a bit of the prolific onion-bed, then washed her hands and brushed her hair, put on the green sun-bonnet or the blue hood, as the weather pleased, and trotted off to school, where she plodded over fractions, and wearied herself out with American history, and crammed geography, and wrote copies, for a whole year, when Aunt 'Viny thought she might learn her trade, being a stout girl of fifteen, and the 'Cademy knew her no more.

There is but little incident in a New-England village of the Deerfield style and size,—full of commonplace people, who live commonplace lives, in the same white and brown and red houses they were born in, and die respectably in their beds, and are quietly buried among the mulleins and dewberry-vines in the hill-side graveyard. Mary Scranton's life and death, though they possessed the elements of a tragedy, were divested of their tragic interest by this calm and pensive New-England atmosphere. Nothing so romantic had happened there for many years, or did occur again for more; yet nobody knew a romance had come and gone. People in Deerfield lived their lives with a view to this world and the next, after the old Puritanic fashion somewhat modified, and so preserved the equilibrium. No special beauty of the town attracted summer-visitors. It was a village of one street, intended to be straight, crossing a decorous brook that turned the mill, and parting itself just below the church and the "store," to accommodate a small "green," where the geese waddled, hissed, and nibbled Mayweed all summer, and the boys played ball sometimes after school. There was a post-office in the "store," beside boots, sugar, hams, tape, rake-tails, ploughs, St. Croix molasses, lemons, calico, cheese, flour, straw hats, candles, lamp-oil, crackers, and rum,—a good assortment of needles and thread, a shelf of school-books, a seed-drawer, tinware strung from the ceiling, apples in a barrel, coffee-mills and brooms in the windows, and hanging over the counter, framed and glazed, the following remarkable placard, copied out in a running hand:—

No

Credit Will be Given

in

This Store after

This Date

Under no circumstances whatever

My Reasons

I cannot buy goods or do business without cash, and as the bulk of my capital is now trusted out with the promise to pay which that promise has never been full filled I deem it a duty to myself and my Cash paying customers to sell goods for cash at the lowest market price.

I s