The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862

THE BEARDS OF ART

'Can you tell me,' said Uncle Bill Browne to Rocjean, with the air of a man about to ask a hard conundrum, 'why beards, long hair, and art, always go together?'

'Of course, art draws out beards along with talent; paints and bristles must go together; but high-art drives the hair of the head in, and clinches it. Among artists first and last there have been men with giant minds, and they have known it was their duty to show their mental power: the beard is the index.'

'But the beard points downward,' suggested Caper, 'and not upward.'

'That depends–'

'On pomade Hongroise—or beeswax,' interrupted Caper.

'Exactly; but let me answer Uncle Bill. To begin, we may safely assert that an artist's life—here in Rome, for instance—is about as independent a one as society will tolerate; its laws, as to shaving especially, he ignores, and caring very little for the Rules of the Toilette, as duly published by the—bon ton journals, uses his razor for mending lead-pencils, and permits his beard to enjoy long vacation rambles. Again: those who first set the example of long beards, Leonardo da Vinci, for example, who painted his own portrait with a full beard a foot long, were men who moved from principle, and I have the belief that were Leonardo alive to-day, he would say:

"My son, and well-beloved Rocjean, zitto! and let ME talk. Know, then, that I did permit my beard luxuriant length—for a reason. Thou dost not know, but I do, that among the ancient Egyptians they worshiped in their deity the male and female principle combined; so the exponents of this belief, the Egyptian priests, endeavored in their attire to show a mingling of the male and female sex; they wore long garments like women, vergogna! they wore long hair, guai! and they SHAVED THEIR FACES! It pains me to say, that their indecent example is followed even to this day, by the priests of what should be a purer and better religion.

"Silenzio! I have not yet said my say. Among Eastern nations, their proverbs, and what is better, their customs, show a powerful protest against this impure old faith. You have seen the flowing beards of the Mohammedans, especially the Turks, and their short-shaved heads of hair, and you may have heard of their words of wisdom:

"'Long hair, little brain.'

"And that eloquent sentence:

"'Who has no beard has no authority.'

"They have other sayings, which I can not approve of; for instance:

"'Do not buy a red-haired person, do not sell one, either; if you have any in the house, drive them away.'

"I say I do not approve of this, for the majority of the English have red heads, and people who want to buy my pictures I never would drive out of my house, mai!"

'Come,' said Caper, 'Leonardo no longer speaks when there is a question of buying or selling. Assume the first person.'

'Another excellent reason for artists in Rome to wear beards is, that where their foreign names can not be pronounced, they are often called by the size, color, or shape, of this face-drapery. This is particularly the case in the Café Greco, where the waiters, who have to charge for coffee, etc., when the artist does not happen to have the change about him, are compelled to give him a name on their books, and in more than one instance, I know that they are called from their beards, I have a memorandum of these nicknames: I am called Barbone, or Big-bearded; and you, Caper, are down as Sbarbato Inglese, the Shaved Englishman.'

'Hm!' spoke Caper, 'I an't an Englishman, and I don't shave; my beard has to come yet.'

'What is my name?' asked Uncle Bill.

'Puga Sempre, or He Pays Always. A countryman of mine is called Baffi Rici, or Big Moustache; another one, Barbetta, Little Beard; another, Barbáccia, Shabby Beard; another, Barba Nera, Black Beard; and, of course, there is a Barba Rossa, or Red Beard. Some of the other names are funny enough, and would by no means please their owners. There is Zoppo Francese, the Lame Frenchman; Scapiglione, the Rowdy; Pappagallo, the Parrot; Milordo; Furioso; and one friend of ours is known, whenever he forgets to pay two baiocchi for his coffee, as San Pietro!'

'Well,' said Uncle Bill, 'I'll tell you why I thought you artists wore long beards: that when you were hard up, and couldn't buy brushes, you might have the material ready to make your own.'

'You're wrong, Uncle,' remarked Caper; 'when we can't buy them, we get trusted for them—that's our way of having a brush with the enemy.'

'That will do, Jim, that will do; say no more. None of the artists' beards here, can compare with one belonging to a buffalo-and-prairie painter who lives out in St. Louis—it is so long he ties the ends together and uses it for a boot-jack. Good-night, boys, good-night!'

A CALICO-PAINTER

Rocjean was finishing his after-dinnerical coffee and cigar, when looking up from Las Novedades, containing the latest news from Madrid, and in which he had just read en Roma es donde hay mas mendigos, Rome, is where most beggars are found; London, where most engineers, lost women, and rat-terriers, abound; Brussels, where women who smoke, are all round—looking up from this interesting reading, he saw opposite him a young man, whose acquaintance he knew at a glance, was worth making. Refinement, common-sense, and energy were to be read plainly in his face. When he left the café, Rocjean asked an artist, with long hair, who was fast smoking himself to the color of the descendants of Ham, if he knew the man?'

'No-o-oo, I believe he's some kind of a calico-painter.'

'What?'

'Oh! a feller that makes designs for a calico-mill.'

Not long afterward Rocjean was introduced to him, and found him, as first impressions taught him he would—a man well worth knowing. Ho was making a holiday-visit to Rome, his settled residence being in Paris, where his occupation was designer of patterns for a large calico-mill in the United States. A New-Yorker by birth, consequently more of a cosmopolitan than the provincial life of our other American cities will tolerate or can create in their children, Charles Gordon was every inch a man, and a bitter foe to every liar and thief. He was well informed, for he had, as a boy, been solidly instructed; he was polite, refined, for he had been well educated. His life was a story often told: mercantile parent, very wealthy; son sent to college; talent for art, developed at the expense of trigonometry and morning-prayers; mercantile parent fails, and falls from Fifth avenue to Brooklyn, preparatory to embarking for the land of those who have failed and fallen—wherever that is. Son wears long hair, and believes he looks like the painter who was killed by a baker's daughter, writes trashy verses about a man who was wronged, and went off and howled himself to a long repose, sick of this vale of tears, et cetera. Finally, in the midst of his despair, long hair, bad poetry and painting, an enterprising friend, who sees he has an eye for color, its harmonies and contrasts, raises him with a strong hand into the clear atmosphere of exertion for a useful and definite end—makes him a 'calico-painter.'

It was a great scandal for the Bohemians of art to find this calico-painter received every where in refined and intelligent society, while they, with all their airs, long hairs, and shares of impudence, could not enter—they, the creators of Medoras, Magdalens, Our Ladies of Lorette, Brigands' Brides, Madame not In, Captive Knights, Mandoline Players, Grecian Mothers, Love in Repose, Love in Sadness, Moonlight on the Waves, Last Tears, Resignation, Broken Lutes, Dutch Flutes, and other mock-sentimental-titled paintings.

'God save me from being a gazelle!' said the monkey.

'God save us from being utility calico-painters!' cried the high-minded, dirty cavaliers who were not cavaliers, as they once more rolled over in their smoke-house.

'In 1854,' said Gordon, one day, to Rocjean, after their acquaintance had ripened into friendship, 'I was indeed in sad circumstances, and was passing through a phase of life when bad tobacco, acting on an empty stomach, gave me a glimpse of the Land of the Grumblers. One long year, and all that was changed; then I woke up to reality and practical life in a 'Calico-Mill;' then I wrote the lines you have asked me about. Take them for what they are worth.

REDIVIVUS

MDCCCLVI

 
'He sat in a garret in Fifty-four,
To welcome Fifty-five.
'God knows,' said he, 'if another year
Will find this man alive.
I was born for love, I live in song,
Yet loveless and songless I'm passing along,
And the world?—Hurrah!
Great soul, sing on!
 
 
'He sat in the dark, in Fifty-four,
To welcome Fifty-five.
'God knows,' said he, 'if another year
I'll any better thrive.
I was born for light, I live in the sun,
Yet in, darkness, and sunless, I'm passing on,
And the world?—Hurrah!
Great soul, shine on!'
 
 
'He sat in the cold, in Fifty-four,
To welcome Fifty-five.
'God knows,' said he, 'I'm fond of fire,
From warmth great joy derive.
I was born warm-hearted, and oh! it's wrong
For them all to coldly pass along:
And the world?—Hurrah!
Great soul, burn on!'
 
 
'He sat in a home, in Fifty-five,
To welcome Fifty-six.
'Throw open the doors!' he cried aloud,
'To all whom Fortune kicks!
I was born for love, I was born for song,
And great-hearted MEN my halls shall throng.
And the world?—Hurrah!
Great soul, sing on!'
 
 
'He sat in bright light, in Fifty-five,
To welcome Fifty-six.
'More lights!' he cried out with joyous shout,
'Night ne'er with day should mix.
I was born for light, I live in the sun,
In the joy of others my life's begun.
And the world?—Hurrah!
Great soul, shine on!'
 
 
'He sat in great warmth, in Fifty-five,
To welcome Fifty-six,
In a glad and merry company
Of brave, true-hearted Bricks!
'I was born for warmth, I was born for love,
I've found them all, thank GOD above!
And the world?—Ah! bah!
Great soul, move on!''
 

A PATRON OF ART

The Roman season was nearly over: travelers were making preparations to fly out of one gate as the Malaria should enter by the other; for, according to popular report, this fearful disease enters, the last day of April, at midnight, and is in full possession of the city on the first day of May. Rocjean, not having any fears of it, was preparing not only to meet it, but to go out and spend the summer with it; it costs something, however, to keep company with La Malaria, and our artist had but little money: he must sell some paintings. Now it was unfortunate for him that though a good painter, he was a bad salesman; he never kept a list of all the arrivals of his wealthy countrymen or other strangers who bought paintings; he never ran after them, laid them under obligations with drinks, dinners, and drives; for he had neither the inclination nor that capital which is so important for a picture-merchant to possess in order to drive—a heavy trade, and achieve success—such as it is. Rocjean had friends, and warm ones; so that whenever they judged his finances were in an embarrassed state, they voluntarily sent wealthy sensible as well as wealthy insensible patrons of art to his aid, the latter going as Dutch galliots laden with doubloons might go to the relief of a poor, graceful felucca, thrown on her beam-ends by a squall.

One morning there glowed in Rocjean's studio the portly forms of Mr. and Mrs. Cyrus Shodd, together with the tall, fragile figure of Miss Tillie Shodd, daughter and heiress apparent and transparent. Rocjean welcomed them as he would have manna in the desert, for he judged by the air and manner of the head of the family, that he was on picture-buying bent. He even gayly smiled when Miss Shodd, pointing out to her father, with her parasol, some beauty in a painting on the easel, run its point along the canvas, causing a green streak from the top of a stone pine to extend from the tree same miles into the distant mountains of the Abruzzi-the paint was not dry!

She made several hysterical shouts of horror after committing this little act, and then seating herself in an arm-chair, proceeded to take a mental inventory of the articles of furniture in the studio.

Mr. Shodd explained to Rocjean that he was a plain man:

This was apparent at sight.

That he was an uneducated man:

This asserted itself to the eyes and ears.

After which self-denial, he commenced 'pumping' the artist on various subjects, assuming an ignorance of things which, to a casual observer, made him appear like a fool; to a thoughtful person, a knave: the whole done in order, perhaps, to learn about some trifle which a plain, straightforward question would have elicited at once. Rocjean saw his man, and led him a fearful gallop in order to thoroughly examine his action and style.

Spite of his commercial life, Mr. Shodd had found time to 'self-educate' himself—he meant self-instruct—and having a retentive memory, and a not always strict regard for truth, was looked up to by the humble-ignorant as a very columbiad in argument, the only fault to be found with which gun was, that when it was drawn from its quiescent state into action, its effective force was comparatively nothing, one half the charge escaping through the large touch-hole of untruth. Discipline was entirely wanting in Mr. Shodd's composition. A man who undertakes to be his own teacher rarely punishes his scholar, rarely checks him with rules and practice, or accustoms him to order and subordination. Mr. Shodd, therefore, was—undisciplined: a raw recruit, not a soldier.

Of course, his conversation was all contradictory. In one breath, on the self-abnegation principle, he would say, 'I don't know any thing about paintings;' in the next breath, his overweening egotism would make him loudly proclaim: 'There never was but one painter in this world, and his name is Hockskins; he lives in my town, and he knows more than any of your 'old masters'! I ought to know!' Or, 'I am an uneducated man,' meaning uninstructed; immediately following it with the assertion: 'All teachers, scholars, and colleges are useless folly, and all education is worthless, except self-education.'

Unfortunately, self-education is too often only education of self!

After carefully examining all Rocjean's pictures, he settled his attention on a sunset view over the Campagna, leaving Mrs. Shodd to talk with our artist. You have seen—all have seen—more than one Mrs. Shodd; by nature and innate refinement, ladies; (the 'Little Dorrits' Dickens shows to his beloved countrymen, to prove to them that not all nobility is nobly born—a very mild lesson, which they refuse to regard;) Mrs. Shodds who, married to Mr. Shodds, pass a life of silent protest against brutal words and boorish actions. With but few opportunities to add acquirable graces to natural ease and self-possession, there was that in her kindly tone of voice and gentle manner winning the heart of a gentleman to respect her as he would his mother. It was her mission to atone for her husband's sins, and she fulfilled her duty; more could not be asked of her, for his sins were many. The daughter was a copy of the father, in crinoline; taking to affectation—which is vulgarity in its most offensive form—as a duck takes to water. Even her dress was marked, not by that neatness which shows refinement, but by precision, which in dress is vulgar. One glance, and you saw the woman who in another age would have thrown her glove to the tiger for her lover to pick up!

Among Rocjean's paintings was the portrait of a very beautiful woman, made by him years before, when he first became an artist, and long before he had been induced to abandon portrait-painting for landscape. It was never shown to studio-visitors, and was placed with its face against the wall, behind other paintings. In moving one of these to place it in a good light on the easel, it fell with the others to the floor, face uppermost; and while Rocjean, with a painting in his hands, could not stoop at once to replace it, Miss Shodd's sharp eyes discovered the beautiful face, and, her curiosity being excited, nothing would do but it must be placed on the easel. Unwilling to refuse a request from the daughter of a Patron of Art in perspective, Rocjean complied, and, when the portrait was placed, glancing toward Mrs. Shodd, had the satisfaction of reading in her eyes true admiration for the startlingly lovely face looking out so womanly from the canvas.

'Hm!' said Shodd the father, 'quite a fancy head.'

'Oh! it is an exact portrait of Julia Ting; if she had sat for her likeness, it couldn't have been better. I must have the painting, pa, for Julia's sake. I must. It's a naughty word, isn't it, Mr. Rocjean? but it is so expressive!'

'Unfortunately, the portrait is not for sale; I placed it on the easel only in order not to refuse your request.'

Mr. Shodd saw the road open to an argument. He was in ecstasy; a long argument—an argument full of churlish flings and boorish slurs, which he fondly believed passed for polished satire and keen irony. He did not know Rocjean; he never could know a man like him; he never could learn the truth that confidence will overpower strength; only at last, when through his hide and bristles entered the flashing steel, did he, tottering backwards, open his eyes to the fact that he had found his master—that, too, in a poor devil of an artist.

The landscapes were all thrown aside; Shodd must have that portrait. His daughter had set her heart on having it, he said, and could a gentleman refuse a lady any thing?

'It is on this very account I refuse to part with it,' answered Rocjean.

It instantly penetrated Shodd's head that all this refusal was only design on the part of the artist, to obtain a higher price for the work than he could otherwise hope for; and so, with what he believed was a master-stroke of policy, he at once ceased importuning the artist, and shortly departed from the studio, preceding his wife with his daughter on his arm, leaving the consoler, and by all means his best half, to atone, by a few kind words at parting with the artist, for her husband's sins.

'And there,' thought Rocjean, as the door closed, 'goes 'a patron of art'—and by no means the worst pattern. I hope he will meet with Chapin, and buy an Orphan and an Enterprise statue; once in his house, they will prove to every observant man the owner's taste.'

Mr. Shodd, having a point to gain, went about it with elephantine grace and dexterity. The portrait he had seen at Rocjean's studio he was determined to have. He invited the artist to dine with him—the artist sent his regrets; to accompany him, 'with the ladies,' in his carriage to Tivoli—the artist politely declined the invitation; to a conversazione, the invitation from Mrs. Shodd—a previous engagement prevented the artist's acceptance.

Mr. Shodd changed his tactics. He discovered at his banker's one day a keen, communicative, wiry, shrewd, etc., etc., enterprising, etc., 'made a hundred thousand dollars' sort of a little man, named Briggs, who was traveling in order to travel, and grumble. Mr. Shodd 'came the ignorant game' over this Briggs; pumped him, without obtaining any information, and finally turned the conversation on artists, denouncing the entire body as a set of the keenest swindlers, and citing the instance of one he knew who had a painting which he believed it would be impossible for any man to buy, simply because the artist, knowing that he (Shodd) wished it, would not set a price on it, so as to have a very high one offered (!) Mr. Briggs instantly was deeply interested. Here was a chance for him to display before Shodd of Shoddsville his shrewdness, keenness, and so forth. He volunteered to buy the painting.

In Rome, an artist's studio may be his castle, or it may be an Exchange. To have it the first, you must affix a notice to your studio-door announcing that all entrance of visitors to the studio is forbidden except on, say, 'Monday from twelve A.M. to three P.M. This is the baronial manner. But the artist who is not wealthy or has not made a name, must keep an Exchange, and receive all visitors who choose to come, at almost any hours—model hours excepted. So Briggs, learning from Shodd, by careful cross-questioning, the artist's name, address, and a description of the painting, walked there at once, introduced himself to Rocjean, shook his hand as if it were the handle of a pump upon which he had serious intentions, and then began examining the paintings. He looked at them all, but there was no portrait. He asked Rocjean if he painted portraits; he found out that he did not. Finally, he told the artist that he had heard some one say—he did not remember who—that he had seen a very pretty head in his studio, and asked Rocjean if he would show it to him.

'You have seen Mr. Shodd lately, I should think?' said the artist, looking into the eyes of Mr. Briggs.

A suggestion of a clean brick-bat passed under a sheet of yellow tissue-paper was observable in the hard cheeks of Mr. Briggs, that being the final remnant of all appearance of modesty left in the sharp man, in the shape of a blush.

'Oh! yes; every body knows Shodd—man of great talent—generous,' said Briggs.

'Mr. Shodd may be very well known,' remarked Rocjean measuredly, 'but the portrait he saw is not well known; he and his family are the only ones who have seen it. Perhaps it may save you trouble to know that the portrait I have several times refused to sell him will never be sold while I live. The common opinion that an artist, like a Jew, will sell the old clo' from his back for money, is erroneous.'

Mr. Briggs shortly after this left the studio, slightly at a discount, and as if he had been measured, as he said to himself; and then and there determined to say nothing to Shodd about his failing in his mission to the savage artist. But Shodd found it all out in the first conversation he made with Briggs; and very bitter were his feelings when he learnt that a poor devil of an artist dared possess any thing he could not buy, and moreover had a quiet moral strength which the vulgar man feared. In his anger, Shodd, with his disregard for truth, commenced a fearful series of attacks against the artist, regaling every one he dared to with the coarsest slanders, in the vilest language, against the painter's character. A very few days sufficed to circulate them, so that they reached Rocjean's ears; a very few minutes passed before the artist presented himself to the eyes of Shodd, and, fortunately finding him alone, told him in four words, 'You are a slanderer;' mentioning to him, beside, that if he ever uttered another slander against his name, he should compel him to give him instantaneous satisfaction, and that, as an American, Shodd knew what that meant.

It is needless to say that a liar and slanderer is a coward; consequently Mr. Shodd, with the consequences before his eyes, never again alluded to Rocjean, and shortly left the city for Naples, to bestow the light of his countenance there in his great character of Art Patron.

'It is a heart-touching face,' said Caper, as one morning, while hauling over his paintings, Rocjean brought the portrait to light which the cunning Shodd had so longed to possess for cupidity's sake.

'I should feel as if I had thrown Psyche to the Gnomes to be torn to pieces, if I had given such a face to Shodd. If I had sold it to him, I should have been degraded; for the women loved by man should be kept sacred in memory. She was a girl I knew in Prague, and, I think, with six or eight exceptions, the loveliest one I ever met. Some night, at sunset, I shall walk over the old bridge, and meet her as we parted; apropos of which meeting, I once wrote some words. Hand me that portfolio, will you? Thank you. Oh! yes; here they are. Now, read them, Caper; out with them!