Гарриет Бичер-Стоу - Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands, Volume 2

By the by, the fishing ground of Izaak Walton is one of the localities connected with Windsor.

The ride was done all too soon. One should not whirl through such a choice bit of England in the cars; one should rather wish to amble over the way after a sleepy, contemplative old horse, as we used to make rural excursions in New England ere yet railroads were. However, all that's bright must fade, and this among the rest.

About eleven o'clock we found ourselves going up the old stone steps to the castle. It was the last day of a fair which had been holden in this part of the country, and crowds of the common people were flocking to the castle, men, women, and children pattering up the stairs before and after us.

We went first through the state apartments. The principal thing that interested me was the ball room, which was a perfect gallery of Vandyke's paintings. Here was certainly an opportunity to know what Vandyke is. I should call him a true court painter—a master of splendid conventionalities, whose portraits of kings are the most powerful arguments for the divine right I know of. Nevertheless, beyond conventionality and outward magnificence, his ideas have no range. He suggests nothing to the moral and ideal part of us. Here again was the picture of King Charles on horseback, which had interested me at Warwick. It had, however, a peculiar and romantic charm from its position at the end of that long, dim corridor, vis-a-vis with the masque of Cromwell, which did not accompany it here, where it was but one among a set of pictures.

There was another, presenting the front side and three quarters face of the same sovereign, painted by Vandyke for Benini to make a bust from. There were no less than five portraits of his wife, Henrietta Maria, in different dresses and attitudes, and two pictures of their children. No sovereign is so profusely and perseveringly represented.

The queen's audience chamber is hung with tapestry representing scenes from the book of Esther. This tapestry made a very great impression upon me. A knowledge of the difficulties to be overcome in the material part of painting is undoubtedly an unsuspected element of much of the pleasure we derive from it; and for this reason, probably, this tapestry appeared to us better than paintings executed with equal spirit in oils. We admired it exceedingly, entirely careless what critics might think of us if they knew it.

Another room was hung with Gobelin tapestry representing the whole of the tragedy of Medea. First you have Jason cutting down the golden fleece, while the dragon lies slain, and Medea is looking on in admiration. In another he pledges his love to Medea. In a third, the men sprung from the dragon's teeth are seen contending with each other. In another the unfaithful lover espouses Creusa. In the next Creusa is seen burning in the poisoned shirt, given her by Medea. In another Medea is seen in a car drawn by dragons, bearing her two children by Jason, whom she has stabbed in revenge for his desertion. Nothing can exceed the ghastly reality of death, as shown in the stiffened limbs and sharpened features of those dead children. The whole drawing and grouping is exceedingly spirited and lifelike, and has great power of impression.

I was charmed also by nine landscapes of Zuccarelli, which adorn the state drawing room. Zuccarelli was a follower of Claude, and these pictures far exceed in effect any of Claude's I have yet seen. The charm of them does not lie merely in the atmospheric tints and effects, as those of Cuyp, but in the rich and fanciful combination of objects. In this respect they perform in painting what the first part of the Castle of Indolence, or Tennyson's Lotus Eaters, do in poetry— evoke a fairyland. There was something peculiar about their charm for me.

Who can decide how much in a picture belongs to the idiosyncrasies and associations of the person who looks upon it. Artists undoubtedly powerful and fine may have nothing in them which touches the nervous sympathies and tastes of some persons: who, therefore, shall establish any authoritative canon of taste? who shall say that Claude is finer than Zuccarelli, or Zuccarelli than Claude? A man might as well say that the woman who enchants him is the only true Venus for the world.

Then, again, how much in painting or in poetry depends upon the frame of mind in which we see or hear! Whoever looks on these pictures, or reads the Lotus Eaters or Castle of Indolence, at a time when soul and body are weary, and longing for retirement and rest, will receive an impression from them such as could never be made on the strong nerves of our more healthful and hilarious seasons.

Certainly no emotions so rigidly reject critical restraints, and disdain to be bound by rule, as those excited by the fine arts. A man unimpressible and incapable of moods and tenses, is for that reason an incompetent critic; and the sensitive, excitable man, how can he know that he does not impose his peculiar mood as a general rule?

From the state rooms we were taken to the top of the Hound Tower, where we gained a magnificent view of the Park of Windsor, with its regal avenue, miles in length, of ancient oaks; its sweeps of greensward; clumps of trees; its old Herne oak, of classic memory; in short, all that constitutes the idea of a perfect English landscape. The English tree is shorter and stouter than ours; its foliage dense and deep, lying with a full, rounding outline against the sky. Every thing here conveys the idea of concentrated vitality, but without that rank luxuriance seen in our American growth. Having unfortunately exhausted the English language on the subject of grass, I will not repeat any ecstasies upon that topic.

After descending from the tower we filed off to the proper quarter, to show our orders for the private rooms. The state apartments, which we had been looking at, are open at all times, but the private apartments can only be seen in the queen's absence, and by a special permission, which had been procured for us on this occasion by the kindness of the Duchess of Sutherland.

One of the first objects that attracted my attention when entering the vestibule was a baby's wicker wagon, standing in one corner; it was much such a carriage as all mothers are familiar with; such as figures largely in the history of almost every family. It had neat curtains and cushions of green merino, and was not royal, only maternal. I mused over the little thing with a good deal of interest. It is to my mind one of the providential signs of our times, that, at this stormy and most critical period of the world's history, the sovereignty of the most powerful nation on earth is represented by a woman and a mother. How many humanizing, gentle, and pacific influences constantly emanate from this centre!

One of the most interesting apartments was a long corridor, hung with paintings and garnished along the sides with objects of art and virtu . Here C. and I renewed a dispute which had for some time been pending, in respect to Canaletto's paintings. This Canaletto was a Venetian painter, who was born about 1697, and died in London in 1768, and was greatly in vogue with the upper circles in those days. He delighted in architectural paintings, which he represents with the accuracy of a daguerreotype, and a management of perspective, chiaro oscuro, and all the other mysteries of art, such as make his paintings amount to about the same as the reality.

Well, here, in this corridor, we had him in full force. Here was Venice served up to order—its streets, palaces, churches, bridges, canals, and gondolas made as real to our eye as if we were looking at them out of a window. I admired them very warmly, but I could not go into the raptures that C. did, who kept calling me from every thing else that I wanted to see to come and look at this Canaletto. "Well, I see it," said I; "it is good—it is perfect—it cannot be bettered; but what then? There is the same difference between these and a landscape of Zuccarelli as there is between a neatly-arranged statistical treatise and a poem. The latter suggests a thousand images, the former gives you only information."