Eugene Field, a Study in Heredity and Contradictions — Volume 2 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 293 pages of information about Eugene Field, a Study in Heredity and Contradictions — Volume 2.

Eugene Field, a Study in Heredity and Contradictions — Volume 2 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 293 pages of information about Eugene Field, a Study in Heredity and Contradictions — Volume 2.
it reaches the crest of a hill beneath the sky.  Just at this point the figures of two retreating horsemen are seen.  These are the men who have been trying to kill St. Sebastian, and have left him, as they thought, dead in the depth of the forest.  In the immediate foreground lies the figure of the half dead saint, whose wounds are being dressed by two women.  Hovering immediately above this group, far up among the tree branches, two lovely little angels are seen holding the palm and crown of the martyr.  All the figures are better painted than is usual with Corot, and the angels are very light and delicate, both in color and form.”  Mr. Earned quoted from a celebrated French authority that this was “the most sincerely religious picture of the nineteenth century.”  I leave it to the reader if Mr. Larned’s description conveys any such impression.  To Field’s mind, it only suggested the grotesque, and his reproduction was a chef d’oeuvre, as he was wont to say.  He followed the general outline of the scene as described above, but made the landscape subordinate to the figures.  The retreating ruffians bore an unmistakable resemblance to outlawed American cowboys.  The saint showed carmine ink traces of having been most shamefully abused.  But the chief interest in the picture was divided between a lunch-basket in the foreground, from which protruded a bottle of “St. Jacob’s” oil, and a brace of vividly pink cupids hopping about in the tree-tops, rejoicing over the magical effect of the saintly patent medicine.  His treatment of this picture proved, if it proved anything, that Corot had gone dangerously near the line where the sublime suggests the ridiculous.

In Fortuny’s “Don Quixote” Field found a subject that tickled his fancy and lent itself to his untrammelled sense of the absurd.  According to Mr. Larned, Fortuny’s picture—­a water-color—­in the Walters gallery was one which represents the immortal knight in the somewhat undignified occupation of searching for fleas in his clothing.  He has thrown off his doublet and his under garment is rolled down to his waist, leaving the upper portion of his body nude, excepting the immense helmet which hides his bent-down head.  Both hands grasp the under garment, and the eyes are evidently turned in eager expectancy upon the folds which the hands are clasping, in the hope that the roving tormentor has at last been captured.  “What an astonishing freak of genius!” exclaimed Mr. Larned.  “For genius it certainly is.  The color and the drawing of the figure are simply masterly, and the entire tone of the picture is wonderfully rich; indeed, for a water-color, it is quite marvellous.  This is one of Fortuny’s celebrated pictures, but how the ‘Ecole des Beaux Arts’ would in the old days have held up its hands and closed its eyes in holy horror!  Possibly an earnest disciple of Lessing, even, might have a rather dubious feeling about such a choice of subjects.”

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Eugene Field, a Study in Heredity and Contradictions — Volume 2 from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.