For EIGHT DOLLARS, remitted directly to the Publishers, the LIVING AGE will be punctually forwarded for a year, free of postage. Remittances should be made by bank draft or check, or by post-office money-order, if possible. If neither of these can be procured, the money should be sent in a registered letter. All postmasters are obliged to register letters when requested to do so. Drafts, checks, and money-orders should be made payable to the order of LITTELL & Co. Single Numbers of THE LIVING AGE, 18 cents. From Blackwood's Magazine. RECENT CONVERSATIONS IN A STUDIO.* BY W. W. STORY. thought has been given. Before the work is completed, there comes a certain exhaustion of purpose and power. Already the mind is projecting itself beyond into Belton. How pleasant it is to get into a studio! There is always something attrac-forward with illusory promises of higher new conceptions and ideas, which beckon tive to me in its atmosphere. It seems to be a little ideal world in itself, outside the turmoil and confusion of common life, and having different interests and influences. An artist ought to be very happy in his life. His occupation leads him into harmony with nature and man, lifts him into ideal regions and sympathies, and gives to the outward world a peculiar charm and beauty. Mallett. It is a happy life; all other Occupations after art seem flat and tasteless. The world has for the artist a dif ferent aspect from what it wears to the common eye. Beauty starts forth to greet him from the vulgarest corners, and nature shows him new delights of color, light, and form at every turn. He is her lover, and "love lends a precious seeing to the eye.' If art be pursued in a high spirit and pure love, I know nothing more delightful. It gives a new meaning and value to everything. Life is only too short for the wooing. Bel. Is an artist ever in love with his work? Do you recognize any truth in the myth of Pygmalion? Mal. No. I cannot understand how an artist can be enamored of what he has done. He, more than any one, must feel its shortcomings. He knows how inferior it is to his aim and to his conception, and the nearer he comes to the end of it, the less he is contented with it. Even when he succeeds, success is a merely relative term; the thing produced must necessarily be below and within the producer. It is not the victory so much as the battle that delights him. It is not the product, but the producing. There is a certain sadness which comes over one at the end of every work first, from a sense of disappointment that the result is not more satisfactory; and, second, from the loss of a companion and friend of many days, to whom the greater part of his time and * See "Conversations in a Studio" "Maga," April, June, Sept., Dec., 1875, and July, 1876. beauty and fairer accomplishment. The is done. The next combat will be crowned thing to be done will be better than what of promise the present is sad and unwith victory. The future is glad and large satisfied. Bel. This is so with every pursuitwith life itself. The past and the future have a certain consecration which the chant the one; the glories of hope trans. present has not; the mists of memory enfigure the other. Mal. Still, one enjoys the present through the ministrations of art more than by any other means. Every day has its happiness and its work; and it is the union of the mechanical and the poetic — the real and the ideal - which gives it a special charm. The body and mind are working together. Artists are generally long-lived and particularly sculptors for the simple reason that the mind and body are both kept constantly in harmoni ous action. far more than hard work, and this is the Bel. I suppose irritation and worry kill reason why business and commerce use men up so rapidly. Mal. Besides, in art one is always learning, and that begets a kind of cheermind works more easily, and with less fulness, under the influence of which the wear and tear. The labor we delight in work there is no danger of overworking. physics pain, and as long as we enjoy our It is only when we get irritated and worried that work begins to tell on us and us peace. But these days pass, and we get over the trouble; the sun shines again, and all goes well. and delight us with their unattainable splendors and inaccessible despairs. Then, again, in seizing one thing we lose Bel. Do you ever get any hints in your another. What we gain in knowledge dreams which help you? and facility we lose in naïveté and freshness of impression. It is difficult to keep up to the end that sustained enthusiasm which alone holds the keys of success in art; and in proportion as we lose our love we lose our power. Nothing good is done in art by trick or sleight-or-hand. The complete force of the man must be put forth, and his work must be done in absoIlute earnest. Mal. Never! When I dream of my work, it is always going wrong, and I am vainly attempting to put it right. And this arises from the simple fact, I suppose, that it does not occupy my dreaming thoughts unless I have been worried by it or by something else. But I never get anything of value from dreams. Bel. With time and study, at last, suppose you embody your conceptions at once with more ease and with more certainty? But every work must have its own difficulties, however you may have accomplished yourself in the practice of your art. Mal. The beginnings of art are comparatively easy, and we are often surprised to find so little difficulty in achieving a certain result not utterly bad. The friends of every youth who begins to paint or to model see in him the promise of a future Phidias or Raffaelle. But as we train our powers and continue our studies, the difficulties increase - we see more to do, and we are less satisfied with our work. The horizon grows larger and larger at every advance, and we soon begin to feel not only that perfection is impossible, but excellence exceedingly difficult. We labor to attain what is less tangible and more essential. Of course the mere facility in creases enormously, so that at least we do with ease what cost us at first great labor; but we strain ourselves to harder tasks. Nature taunts us, and tempts us, and tries us with her infinite variations and finesses and subtleties. There is never an end. The more we learn the more there remains to learn. The higher we go the more precipitous rise the heights above. The peak that, seen from its base in the valley below, seemed to tower into the sky above, proves, when we have reached its crest, to be but a trivial fragment in a mighty chain of mountains, cliff over cliff rises, towering beyond, and never do we reach a summit that does not dwarf all below, and open the way to loftier heights, to ideal Silberhörner, that dazzle - Bel. It is said that Thorwaldsen, in the latter part of his career, stood before one of his statues which he had just completed, and after looking sadly at it for a time, said: "I see I am growing old, and my powers are failing. This statue satis fies me." Mal. I know not whether the story is true, but the observation was just, and contains a great deal of philosophic truth. In age the temptation is to relax one's efforts, and to rest satisfied with achiev ing a certain excellence, within one's knowledge and power, instead of striving for more. So we see in the later works of distinguished artists more freedom of style and brush, but more carelessness of detail and execution, more mannerism, and but too often mere repetitions of themselves. Art is an imperious mistress, and we must give her all if we are to obtain her utmost favors. Nor is it so alone in art. It is so in everything. Nature never gives. She exacts strict pay for all you take. She does not scatter her largesses to the idle and the careless. She only pays the wages of your work. Worse than that, her highest fruit she puts just beyond your reach to tempt you on to your extremest effort. If you will not strain to your utmost for it, you must be content to go without it; it does not drop into your hands of itself. Bel. Ah! I am afraid I do not quite agree with you. You take no account of genius, with which some few are dowered by nature, and into their hands the fruit sometimes does seem to drop without any pains and struggles on their part. And then, again, there is so great a difference between men in their natural facility. | them. A thousand are pleased with dabSome seem to do with ease what others bling in water-colors and toying with them labor for in vain. as amateurs, to one who earnestly works with the determination to be an artist. After all, there is far greater difference between men in their will than in their talent. What we will to do, despite of obstacles and failures, we generally succeed in doing at last. "Easy writing," says Sheridan, "makes damned hard reading; " and we must make up our minds to Nil sine magno Vita labore dedit mortalibus, says Horace. Mal. True- but the strain comes somewhere with every one. Great natural facility at first is not always, if it be ever, a boon to be coveted by one who seeks to attain great excellence. Somewhere at some time the whole soul must be put into one's work, the whole powers strained to the utmost; and it is perhaps better that this should occur at an early period, other-work if we wish to win success. wise the danger is that we may rest contented with those small achievements which are bounded by our facilities. There is a desperate wall somewhere or other to block our progress. It may be early in our course, when we are bold and fresh and enthusiastic, and then with will and energy we may overleap it; or it may be in the middle of the course, when fatigue has come on, and the mind is jaded, and we have been spoiled by praise, and then we lack the energy to surmount it, and prefer to canter about within the easy lim-"They are perfectly beautiful. How I its we possess. No man ever did his best without laying out all that was in him. There is nothing so dangerous and so tempting as facility, unless it come from hard study and long practice, and even then it is a temptation and a danger. Bel. I remember years ago a little incident which amused me, and illustrates these remarks. An accomplished artist in water-colors in Rome was one day showing his portfolio to an English lady. She was delighted with them, as well she might be, and after many expressions of admiration, she turned to him and said: wish I could paint in this way! Pray, how long do you think it would take me to learn to paint thus?" "I cannot tell," replied the artist, "how long it would take you, but it has taken me all my life." Mal. It is a very common thing to Bel. That is very true. Facility is often hear persons say, How I wish I could do mistaken for genius, but it generally leads this or that thing, but nine times out of to mediocrity. How many a person I have ten it is just the earnestness of wish or known who, with great promise at the be- will that is wanting. The desire has no ginning, soon faltered and then stopped; real root of determination. It is a mowhile others, with no early facility, mentary feeling. Such persons would not strengthened themselves by study and be willing to give laborious hours and will, and passed far beyond them at the days and years to attain the end they end. So many are satisfied with doing covet; but they would like to reach out pretty well what they can do easily, and their hand and pluck the fruit at once want the energy to do very well when it without trouble. I can't do this, means costs labor and struggle. But at least very commonly, I don't choose to do it. four-fifths of genius is an indomitable will. I should like to have it, but I won't pay Mal. Very true. Take Michel Angelo, for it. If they do not succeed at the first for instance; he had not a natural facility trial they are discouraged. A true artist like Raffaelle, but he climbed to far higher must make up his mind to fail a thousand regions by force of will, and an energy times, and never be discouraged, but that ninety years did not tire; while Raf- bravely to try again. I am always surfaelle had passed his culmination at thirty-prised to see how well most people begin, seven, and his last works, young as he and how little way they go. They seem was, are far from being his best. How-to think that to be an artist comes, like ever, we need not go to great examples; reading and writing, as Dogberry has it, common life and every day will furnish by nature. |