The Banner-Democrat. [volume] (Lake Providence, East Carroll Parish, La.) 1892-current, 1896-11-21
ARTIST AUTHORS.

!
During The Italian Renaissance of
art there lived men so gifted that their
genius name was legion. Raphael,
! Leonardo da Vince. Michael Angelo.
all excelled in two or more Of the tine
arts.
Michael Angelo in especial. was
master of painting. of sculpture, of
poetry. To-day. his Last Judge
ment' and his statues of Night and
Morning on the Medici tomb at Flo.
ence, are scarcely better known than
are his poems addressed to Victoria
Colonna. These verses have been
handed down TO us through many CEN
turtles. but like marble leaf broken
from the capital of Corinthian col
umn that has absorbed the sunlight of
countless Grecian seasons, they acquire
an added tender, grace and beauty
from their antiquity.
We read them. aud become acquaint-
ed, not with the dreadful tragically
earnest artist who night after night
assembled the scafiolding OF the Sistine
Chapel and worked with a consuming
passion on his great picture of human
Sustained creatures fleeing from the
wrath of their outraged God, but with
the man-Michael Angelo. The poems,
we remember, were written in old
age. His soul was like a volcano.
whose fires have burned themselves
out, and whose stony ascent is at last
strewn with faint pink mountain roses
and eglantine.
We fancy that the great man. now
grown old and sad. saw in the pure,
sweet face of Victoria Colonna an
image, as it were, of his own youth.
To him, she represented hope. aspira-
tion-a gentle fearlessness. When she
died. his heart broke. The last ray of
light faded from his life. leaving it all
misty, gray and drear. Above her
grave be sobs.
"Bring back the journeys ta'en SO toll
somely,
So toilsome-sow, to him whose hairs are
white.
Bring back the buried face. once angel
bright
That hides in earth, all comedy things for
me.D
Michael Angelo excelled in many of
the fine art He was one of the few
universal geniuses that the world has
ever known. He lived his life with
an awful intensity For him, in youth,
in maturity, in old age. there was no
relaxation. he accomplished much,
but be accomplished 1t through agony
and bloody sweat.
1t is long lapse between thirteenth
century Italy and ninteenth century
England; but after all, the transition
is easily made. Thackeray and Du
Maurier. like Michael Angelo. were
both artist authors, and the former is
naturally associated in our minds with
the great painter. because we know
that when be first began sending
numerous sketches, both of pen and
pencil, to the London Punch" he
signed bis named Michael Angelo Tit
marsh, thereby showing his admiration
for. the ITALIAN genius
Thaekeray and Du Maurier had SIM
liar lives and simily temperaments.
They were born into good families,
both moved in the first society of
England, both spent their youth in
the studios of the Latin Quarter of
Paris. both began their careers as
artists, and both became famous as
novelsts.
Du Maurier's literary style is an ex-
act and faithful copy Of Thackeray's,
but his ideals OF life are Numerically
opposite. 10 the Epglishman. there is
nothing vague or indefinite about the
moral law-right is right aud wrong is
wrong, and no amount of sophistry
can make black white. To the French
man, personal charm and magn etism
cover multitude of sins.
"Trilby'' and "The Newcomes' are
both extremely subjective books. In
fact, they are almost like authobiogra-
plies.
Thackeray tells of Gives boyish en-
thusiastic love of art and the great fun
be has leading a Bohemian life, there in
the dingy old studies of Paris. with
that charm that an elderly person re-
counts the joys and ambitions of
his youth. In Trilby too, there is the
same pleasing strain of "reminiscences,
the same personal plaintive undertone
that makes one feel as if Du Maurier
had taken her into his confidence. and
was telling the story of his own life, to
her that could sympathize with it and
appreciate it, OF course, Thackeray is
incomparabIy greater novelist than
Du Maurier, just as Du Marier is in
comparably greater artist than
Thackeray, nevertheless, we will try to
mention the points wherein the two
artist authors resemble each other and
those wherein they differ.
Du Maurier describes his characters.
he tells us they are witty, they are
kindly, they are beautiful, they are
noble. Thackeray breathes into his
characters the breath of life, and they
become living creatures, that joke with
each other and fuss, and make love
and get mad and get glad again, and
act in such manner that we all form
different opinions of them just as we
form different opinions of people in
real life; and most probably our esti-
mates of them differ entirely from the
authors estimate.
Thackeray's plots are no plots at all.
Trilby as a whole is artistic. In it there
is preserved the old Greek dramatic law