Daily evening star. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1852-1854, 1854-03-01


For cannot smile to night;
Gaze into my eyes and view them '
Sending back no answering raw.
Leave me now until the morrow
Aud too will then be CAV st
INCIDENT IN THE HISTORY OF ART.
The Secret of Domenico.
In the days of old, in the days wher
painters lived to paint, not painted to
five-when they were the missionaries O,
art and not its tradesmen, sacrificing for
its sake fortune, friends, country-bravinp
for its sake the curse of parents, the tv.
ranny of despots-in such days Domen.
leo, a pupil of Van Eyck, opened a school
of painting in one of the large towns OF
Italy. Though deficient in the truth,
originality and simplicity of thought that
characterized the earlier masters, yet the
secret of giving permanency anddurabili.
ty to his coloring had raised him far
above all his contemporaries. He alone
knew that mixing oils with his colors
fixed them upon the canvass, and pre-.
served them for posterity, while those Of
every other painter, from their want O,
consistency, either fell off in drops while
wet, or in scales when dry. Conse.
quently, he was the painter most in
vogue, and the best painter of women.
especially of young women, with the full
black eye and rich complexion. This Sc.
cret Domenico had learned from his mas
ter Van Eyck, who had bequeathed it to
him on his death bed, and he had deter.
mined also to reserve the disclosure till
he, too, was at the point of death. Mean
while, every other artist was condemned
to waste in vain efforts genius greater
than his, inspirations more divine. Moth.
ing remained of their sublime creations:
their paintings of the most exquisite
mechanism, of the most perfect designs,
melted away under their hands. Deep
was the notification, terrible the vexa-
ton, that one man in his ayarice and sell
tishness should possess unshared, and
pitilessly engross, the magic power of
uniting forever the canvass and the color
ing. He had, however, from amidst the
numerous pupils, already made his selec-
ton Of the favored mortal who was one
day to receive the precious bequest.
The young Castano possessed a won
derful strength and freedom of the pencil.
and already he needed nothing but his
masters secret to sErpass him, as we'll as
his fellow pupils. Often had he watched
Domenico at work often had he suppli-
Gated him as fervently as he did his God
and pledged to him the devotion of his
whole life, if he would but impart to him
the talisman. But the master was inexo.
rable. At my DEATH" he said, land
not till them And the master was not
much Older than the pupil. He was his
constant associate, and in conversation
he used frequently to tell him that to
carry out his secret to perfection, he had
need to be in full possession of all his
senses that it is all over with a painter
at sixty, coloring being impossible to
eyes dimmed with age. Now, when it is
borne in mind that while he was saving
this he was vigorous as the hardy oak
not one wrinkle, one gray hair, to belle
the hope of life to be prolonged far be-
yond sixty, and that all this was said to
man younger, indeed, but of weaker
constitution, of impetuous feeling, of ar
dent and excitable temperament, can we
wonder that this delay made the promise
seem to him but a mockery of his pas.
sionate impatience? In that fiery ma
ture, curiosity took the form of pas
sion-a passion sanctifed to him by the
love of that art, the progress of which
was, as it were, bound up with its graft.
fication. HencefOrth his every energy,
his every faculty, was concentrated upon
the discovery Of the secret. 1t was his
" thought by day, his dream by nighs -
it seemed to "absorb his whole soul" to
drink up his very life. a..-.
One morning, when all Domenico's pu-
pills were assembled, and discussing. as
was their wont, with more or less show
of reason, their masters secret, Castano
sat by himself in a corner of the paint.
ing room, buried in thought. IL needs
must be some subject of deep and mo-
mentous import that could thus absorb
the whole man. His pencil dropped from
his hand, yet he heard not what was
passing around him. For some time he
had lost his usual fresh color and his &C
customed gaiety. His pale and sunken
cheek, with its premature wrinkles, be-
spoke the fierce struggles that shook his
iamost soul. That morning he seemed
a o than usually agitated; what thoughts
were furrowing that pale brow, and caus-
ing those large dark eyes now to fix upon
the ground, and now to glare SO wildly
around Castano's thoughts were of
himself, and of all his comrades, kept in
obscurity, debarred from fame, By the
selfish reserve Of one to whom they were
for the most part far superior. With this
secret, what far nobler service than he
was capable of, would they have render
ed to the art whose interest Domenico
was thus meanly sacrificing to his own
selfish views. Would not any means be
lawful to wrest the secret from him. and