Painting

Don José de Valdivielso, one of the chaplains of the gay Cardinal Infant Ferdinand of Austria, relates the following legend in his paper on the Tax on Pictures, appended to Carducho's Dialogos de la Pintura. A certain young friar was famous amongst his order, for his skill in painting; and he took peculiar delight in drawing the Virgin and the Devil. To heighten the divine beauty of the one, and to devise new and extravagant forms of ugliness for the other, were the chief recreations for his leisure hours.

Dr Kügler, a judicious critic, thus sums up his character as an artist: "The works of Jan Steen imply a free and cheerful view of common life, and he treats it with a careless humor, such as seems to deal with all its daily occurrences, high and low, as a laughable masquerade and a mere scene of perverse absurdity. His treatment of the subjects differed essentially from that adopted by other artists.

This eminent sculptor and famous medalist was in high favor with Clement VII., who took him into his service. During the time of the Spanish invasion, Cellini asked the Pope for absolution for certain homicides which "he believed himself to have committed in the service of the church." The Pope absolved him, and, to save time, he added an absolution in prospectu, "for all the homicides thereafter which the said Benvenuto might commit in the same service." On another occasion, Cellini got into a broil, and committed a homicide that was not in the service of the church.

In Scott's Paris Revisited (A. D. 1815), we have the following interesting particulars of the removal of the celebrated pictures and statues from this famous emporium of the fine arts.

This extraordinary artist was born at Leyden, in 1613. He was the son of a glazier, and early exhibited a passion for the fine arts, which his father encouraged. He received his first instruction in drawing from Dolendo, the engraver. He was afterwards placed with Peter Kowenhoorn, to learn the trade of a glass-stainer or painter; but disliking this business, he became the pupil of Rembrandt when only fifteen years of age, in whose school be continued three years.

Sandrart says that Mieris had a real friendship for Jan Steen, and delighted in his company, though he was by no means fond of drinking as freely as Jan was accustomed to do every evening at the tavern. Notwithstanding this, he often passed whole nights with his friend in a joyous manner, and frequently returned very late to his lodging. One evening, when it was very dark and almost midnight, as Mieris strolled home from the tavern, he unluckily fell into the common sewer, which had been opened for the purpose of cleansing, and the workmen had left unguarded.

The first accents of the "thrilling melody of sweet renown" which ever vibrated to the heart of Salvator Rosa, came to his ear from the kind-hearted Fracanzani, his sister's husband, and a painter of merit. When Salvator returned home from his sketching tours among the mountains, Fracanzani would examine his drawings, and when he saw anything good, he would smilingly pat him on the head and exclaim, "Fruscia, fruscia, Salvatoriello—che va buono" (Go on, go on, Salvator—this is good).

"The removal of the well known horses taken from the church of St. Mark in Venice, was a bitter mortification to the people of Paris. These had been peculiarly the objects of popular pride and admiration. Being exposed to the public view, in one of the most frequented situations of Paris, this was esteemed the noblest trophy belonging to the capital; and there was not a Parisian vender of a pail-full of water who did not look like a hero when the Venetian horses were spoken of.

Douw designed everything from nature, and with such exactness that each object appears as perfect as nature herself. He was incontestibly the most wonderful in his finishing of all the Flemish masters, although the number of artists of that school who have excelled in this particular style are quite large. The pictures he first painted were portraits, and he wrought by the aid of a concave mirror, and sometimes by looking at the object through a frame of many squares of small silk thread.

This eminent painter was born at Utrecht, in 1519.

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