The passive Master lent his hand
To the vast soul that o'er him planned.
The execution of a great design is also inspired, like the conception, and is, therefore, inimitable. It is doubtful whether Raphael himself could have copied one of his great pictures; and if he could not, could an inferior artist? The copyist looks at a painting, sees what he can, from the outside, and copies what he sees with such skill and fidelity as he may possess; but the master painted the vision that had flashed upon the "inward eye," illuminated by the light that was never on sea or land. Every line, every touch of color, was placed on the canvas in obedience to the impulse of inspiration. How can all this be imitated? It cannot be.
It is true that some pictures can be copied with a greater amount of truthfulness than others; but only the meanest and most common-place can be copied with entire fidelity. A circus clown can mimic the squealing of a pig to perfection, but not the warble of a skylark. The pots and pans and cabbage-heads of a Dutch painter can be reproduced with servile accuracy, but not the Madonnas of Raphael.
And yet no pictures are more frequently copied than Raphael's Madonnas. How absurd, when we think of it! Raphael was the Evangelist of "our Lady," and drew and painted by the inspiration of God. He alone among artists has painted the true Mary, in her twofold character of mother and saint. Correggio's Madonna in the Dresden Gallery, is indeed a most beautiful picture, unexcelled for grace and poetic feeling; but it makes the impression of a scene in fairy land. It is romantic and poetic, not religious. Yet this is among the best of the few representations of the Madonna that deserve to be named in the same breath with Raphael's. Even Michael Angelo never painted a true Mary. His Madonnas look like Amazons. He lacked the tenderness and refinement of heart that enabled Raphael to look into the very soul of the "Queen of heaven" and of women; and as for the crowd of Madonnas to be found in every European gallery, they are generally pretty women with nothing of Mary but the name. These might be copied without injustice to the originals; but our copyists despise small game, and the more impossible it is to copy a picture, the greater their eagerness to show how badly they can fail at it. There are in this country many copies of the Madonna di San Sisto (painted mainly from engravings), which no one should look at who wants to keep his perceptions of the original untainted. When I stood for the first time in the presence of this glorious creation, I first realized to the full, the impotence, the utter worthlessness of art at second hand. I shrink from setting down in words the impression it made on me, lest I should be accused of uncritical enthusiasm; but from that time I have felt that to look for an instant at a copy of this divine painting would be like backsliding from Christianity to idolatry.
Next to Raphael's Madonnas, Titian's Venuses are favorites with copyists. There is always a struggle for the possession of them in the Florence Gallery. The only man who has ever made a passable copy of either is an American, Page. One day I saw two or three copyists at work from one of these inimitable paintings, and each produced a copy totally unlike the original, and very unlike the other's work. Fine idea of Titian such copies will give!
The moral of all this is, if you want pictures buy original modern works. Don't spend money for "old masters," because there are none for sale; nor for copies of them, because these are worthless. And, in general, it is safer and better to buy the works of American than those of foreign artists. Many pictures bought by Americans in Europe as originals are either duplicates or studies, the real pictures having been sold to European collectors. No one need go out of New York to find beautiful paintings. If native art be preferred, he can have his choice in the studios; if his taste runs to foreign styles, he can secure the finest and most costly specimens of French and German art through the agency of such well-known and reliable picture dealers as Schaus, Knoedler, and Weissman & Langenfeld. He has no excuse for buying "old masters" or copies of any sort, and if he gets taken in with any shams of either sort he has no one to blame for it but himself. S. S. C.
