A Young Dutchman Views Post-Civil War America: Diary of Claude August Crommelin
208
A Young Dutchman Views Post-Civil War America: Diary of Claude August Crommelin
208Hardcover
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Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780253356093 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Indiana University Press |
| Publication date: | 03/28/2011 |
| Pages: | 208 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.30(w) x 9.20(h) x 0.80(d) |
| Age Range: | 18 Years |
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A Young Dutchman Views Post-Civil War America
Diary of Claude August Crommelin
By Claude August Crommelin, Augustus J. Veenendaal Jr., H. Roger Grant
Indiana University Press
Copyright © 2011 Indiana University PressAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-253-35609-3
CHAPTER 1
From Amsterdam through Belgium and Great Britain to New York
April–May 1866
Tuesday 17 April 1866
Amsterdam to Brussels. Stopped at Delft at 3 pm to see Adr. Huet and his drawings of machinery. Big wall spreads drawn in color, but also simple black and white drawings. His favorites, however, are big drawings in color of American steam engines, especially machinery for ships and railway locomotives, the bigger the better. Illustrated catalogs, monographs about machines, issues of journals and magazines, also photographs of machines and their details.
Wednesday 18 April 1866
Brussels, Hotel de Flandre. City Museum; Dutch and Flemish painters well represented, the Italians less so, although they have a few good ones by Paul Veronese and Guido. Excellent Jan Steens, one a very big one, probably depicting the winning of a wager: one man is seen coming in while dancing with a herring in his hand; another is a Twelfth Day, perfect. A large Rembrandt, a beautiful Nicolaes Maes, a woman eating, with very good light effects, but darkened by age and dirt at the edges, as with most others. Two small Karl Dujardins, one, a herd of cows driven along a road, was very good. A large number of Rubenses, most very crowded with too many personages and therefore confusing. Panels by Van Eyck.
Burial of Baron van der Lynden d'Hooghvorst, général-en-chef de toutes les gardes civiques de Belgique, former member of the provisional government of 1830. I didn't see much of it because of the crowd. Pallbearers were Rogier, Van den Peereboom, Chasal, and one other dignitary.
In the afternoon a session of the Chamber of Representatives, reports and minor laws, nothing of any importance. Bara spoke, but — at least for me — unintelligible. The interest from the side of the public seems to be greater here than with us. Even on a day such as this with few interesting things being discussed, both public galleries were packed.
In the evening at the Urbans and a little excursion to the Théatre du Parc: Le supplice d'un homme, a parody of the play by De Girardin, a good performance, well played and most amusing.
Thursday 19 April 1866
Spent the day with the Urbans, dinner with Adam Becquet and his wife and a certain monsieur Gausset, a typical old bachelor.
Friday 20 April 1866
Started for London at 7.15 am. Calais-Dover in two hours, with a lot of movement of the ship. Traveled Dover-London in the company of an American, an Englishman, and a regular braggart. [The latter] came from the races, and boasted about his acquaintance with Lord Stamford. He talked like this: "Jim, Lord Stamford said to me, for he knows me well, I say do this or that" etc. He then produced a deck of cards and immediately cheated our American companion out of 20 or 25 shillings. After that and until our arrival in London my three companions played a game of shortwhist, but I was wise enough to keep out of that. I couldn't get a room in Charing Cross Hotel, so I went to De Keyzer's Royal Hotel, Blackfriars.
Saturday 21 April 1866
To Morris, Prevost & Co., and fairly well received by one of the younger partners. The others were all out. Saw the Houses of Parliament, and they made the same impression on me as ten years ago. The St. Stephen's Crypt under the old St. Stephen's Chapel has been restored magnificently. Dinner at Simpson's, Hyde Park. To Her Majesty's, £1 — 1 sh. for an orchestra stall. Fidelio performed by Titien and Gardoni. The first named I liked much but didn't think she is a real great star of the first rank. The second still had a very lovely voice and is clearly a most experienced singer, but without any power left; in one word he is old. Her Majesty's is built with boxes all around, in places six stories over each other, and provided with yellow curtains. They are all counted as most fashionable. Hardly any lovely face among the audience, wherever I looked, and not that freshness that is so often mentioned. Many scarlet 'sorties' with blue gowns, after the latest fashion.
Sunday 22 April 1866
To Hampton Court, by the 10:30 am from Waterloo station. Arrived around 11:15 and was pleasantly surprised by a notice: "The rooms are opened at two. You may take a walk in the park first." In the park no smoking allowed. Beautiful lanes with elms leading through vast lawns, but everything fenced off with a very long and expensive iron railing. All accessible grounds are well kept and neat. Pretty yew trees, some old ones changed into ivy trees that have killed off the original tree. The views of the Thames from the long terrace are lovely, especially on a day as this, with real English Spring weather, a bit hazy. The river full of gigs, typically English, willows, glassy pools, beautiful meadows, etc. Vinery, but prettier glyditzia, pert girls behind a fence, stroll in Bushy Park with its beautiful chestnut lanes. At two the rooms opened at long last, but a new deception. Awful lighting, horribly neglected paintings, and the cartoons gone to South Kensington Museum, I was told by a guard. There were a few good pieces, however, a couple of Denners (Age and Youth), Murillo, a fine Rembrandt, but the large number of older Italians, Pordenone, Palma, etc., hardly ever arouse my admiration. Dinner at the King's Arms: "Notice the seven splendid elms before the gate." Back by train: "No smoking on the platform, Sir."
Monday 23 April 1866
To Morris, Prevost & Co., who told me laconically that it would be impossible this week to obtain a pass for Parliament and that they were not going to try to get me one. I hope that they will get me passes for the bank and the docks, but they are slow and not very cooperative. At their place I also understood that Buckingham Palace is not open to the public at the moment. Always these disappointments! Bridgewater Gallery closed too, "the countess being dead in the house." They are stricter anyhow, because a Van der Velde was stolen there last year. Buckingham Palace is always open to the public when the queen is out of town, only not now. The same happened to me twice in Brussels with the Musée Wiertz and Arenberg [Galeries], out of luck every time. The other galleries in London are open only with permission of the owners, and these permissions are hard to get, of course.
From there to the South Kensington Museum, only partly open because of a major rebuilding and everything only on view in temporary locations. There are several sections, and the chief aim of the museum is the development of the artistic sense of the people, and to apply this sense first of all in the field of industry. The same intentions as those of the Société des Beaux Arts appliqués à l'Industrie in Paris. Many art classes have been set up by the South Kensington Museum all over the country and with good results.
What interested me most was the painting gallery, with one exception all of English artists. One is able to get a good understanding of painters like Sir Joshua Reynolds, West, Sir Thomas Lawrence, Sir David Wilkie, Landseer, and others with many different works of them. I liked Sir Joshua Reynolds very much; his well-known young Samuel is a pretty piece of work, as are others such as The Age of Innocence. But most of them are in a terrible condition, yellowed and cracked and badly preserved; a couple by Sir Lawrence are in the same condition. Study of Lady Hamilton as a Bacchante by Romney. Lee's landscapes are very good and many portraits by Lawrence excellent. I liked Wilkie too, especially his Parish Beadle. But generally these genre paintings give me little satisfaction, although the English seem to be mad about them. Moreover, many are hard to see as they are behind glass. Apparently someone is trying with an excess of care to make good the many years of neglect.
The greatest treasures of the museum, however, are the cartoons by Raphael, transferred here from Hampton Court last year to get them out of the bad lighting there. They are too well known to describe them here, and too beautiful to dwell long upon them. Only this: the drawing is here very broad and powerful as with Michelangelo, while Raphael, as far as I have seen his works, usually excels in softness and round shapes. The same is visible in his Transfiguration. Does this show the characteristics of his third style?
Walked around a bit in Pall Mall and St. James Park, bought some photographs of Mrs. Cameron at Colnaghi's, dined at Simpson's, and then home.
Tuesday 24 April 1866
Visited with Dalmeyer, chiefly to see the beautiful photographs by Robinson that he has in his possession. Bringing Home the May, a composition by Robinson, is a real work of art, not only from the photographic point of view, but also as a composition, really worth a painter! I saw so many good examples of the work of the New Group Lens that I think that I will bring some of their products home on my way back.
After that I went to Thomas Baring's Picture Gallery. I had obtained a very friendly worded permission from him and I was amazed that, contrary to what I had expected, I was left alone in most of the rooms, something that surprised me in London. Did I have to thank my name for this? The mansion is lovely, particularly a back room with a view of a conservatory with nice statues. The paintings were a bit disappointing, but a Both over the fireplace in the back room, two Jan Steens, one a guitar playing man and the other a sick woman in bed with the doctor prescribing his drugs, while a child is playing with the symbol of the apothecaries, are very good. A beautiful Metsu, a bride just getting into bed while her husband is entering the room. But best of all were three Greuzes, especially one, a girl's head, a thing to steal.
Zoological Gardens; the refreshment room pleased me most. To H. P. Robinson, the famous photographer, 68 Winwood House, Canonbury Park South. He received me very friendly, had been in business in Leamington in the old days, but was now retired. I saw a lot of beautiful things at his place.
Wednesday 25 April 1866
British Museum. The Elgin Marbles and the Assyrian monuments are the most interesting.
Thursday 26 April 1866
Visited the bank. The exterior of such an institution has little character of its own, but impresses the passerby nevertheless, a nice thought.
Dulwich Gallery in Dulwich. The situation of Dulwich, in the midst of parks and beautiful country houses, is most pleasant. The gallery of paintings, collected for the last king of Poland, but never delivered because of the partition of that country and left in the hands of the collector and later donated to Dulwich College, contains a large number of excellent works. I thought the best piece to be Saint John the Baptist by Guido Reni, an excellent work in every respect. Power, truth, the expression in the eyes of the subject, superb drawing, everything is there. I was especially struck by the freshness of the colors, a thing most unusual for Guido Reni. In all his other works the coloring of human flesh resembles a deadly pallor, something I have always thought to be discoloration caused by age, but this Saint John has given me food for doubt. The S. Sabastiano after his usual manner, is as far as I know, a copy of the one in the Louvre. Two Murillos, one a flower girl, the other two Spanish boys, both excellent, well conceived, graciously executed, with a fine tone and pleasant lighting. Also a very pretty waterfall by Ruysdael, fine Van der Veldes, and last but not least a servant girl by Rembrandt himself, certainly one of his best works.
Walked to the Crystal Palace, but was disappointed; it didn't impress me as much as it had done in 1856. The lack of height in the building is something I don't like. Home by train.
Friday 27 April 1866
I had planned to visit the National Gallery as the last item on my sightseeing list for London, but to my great disappointment it turned out that today it was open only to artists. I had to find something else to do in the oppressive spring heat, so I walked to Westminster Abbey. Here I was not disappointed; it is a beautiful gothic edifice, very imposing because of its sheer height when compared to its width. Henry VII's chapel, built in perpendicular style according to my Baedeker, struck me most. The walls are vertical and carry a heavy stone roof, which lies flat and square on the top without any supporting arch to speak of. The roof itself is made up completely of finely chiseled rosettes, most of them with a central pendant. How such a weight can be carried in this way is incomprehensible. A very bold style, but yet it gives an impression of lightness and grace. The monuments didn't strike me much. Curiosities such as these may look nice from a distance, but close by I don't feel anything or hardly anything for them. In the past I liked them better, maybe too much at an early age, and that may be the cause that they don't move me anymore. Or is it that I don't know enough of the persons or places depicted? Who knows?
In the evening to the Lyceum, where I saw Fechter as Hamlet, that is, in the first three parts, because I had to leave early. I don't believe that Hamlet can ever be performed better and more dignified. Here the figure of Hamlet is very different from the usual personality. Fechter is heavily built, with long blonde, almost reddish, hair, and he has nothing of the gushing, almost ecstatic character that is so often seen in Hamlet. Generally, I am inclined to say, he is more simple, less histrionic than most others who venture to impersonate Hamlet. In masterly style he manages to avoid the stressing of those universally known lines that always arouse so many bravos in the audience. His emphasis is always different, and by that he even changes the sentence now and then. I would compare him to Ristori, and the others whom I saw, for instance Davison and Devrient, can be put together in league with Rachel. It has been said of her that her real art was visible in a few lines only, and that she treated the rest of her text lightly, but that Ristori paid attention to every small detail and thereby achieved a more complete work of art, close to the essential elements of a play. Fechter changed and rearranged a lot in his Hamlet, and I can't explain why an English audience has approved of that. The entry of Hamlet, for instance, when the king lies on his knees in prayer, was completely left out. The settings were very well done and beautiful, but the other actors less so. Ophelia was too fat and not very pleasing.
Saturday 28 April 1866
While I had been looking forward to enjoying the fine spring weather outside the London hustle and smoke, I was very disappointed to see the dark skies and feel the first few raindrops coming down on the day of my departure. Shortly after leaving Paddington Station it really started to rain in earnest, it got colder and colder, and I had the doubtful pleasure to understand that all my ideas of spending some beautiful spring days in the lush English countryside of Derbyshire and Warwickshire had just been illusions. In driving rain I got out of the train at Oxford, and under heavy showers I crisscrossed through that old university town, "very disconsolately." As my visit was on a Saturday afternoon, I had entertained visions of young men rowing or playing cricket, but today everybody was inside, and only now and then I had a glimpse of some tutor or undergraduate crossing a quadrangle. Everything was grey and gloomy, with only a six-man gig and a lone rower in a wherry on the river. I admired the latter, for braving the rain with seven men is something, but all alone, brrr!
With nothing better to do, but also moved by some interest, I went to the Cathedral at 4 pm. This is also the chapel of Christchurch College and it was a real High Church service. Dr. Pusey is one of the deans of Christchurch. Everything was being sung by a choir; even the parts read were set to the tune of psalms and chanted with vigor, with the result that I couldn't understand a single word. Continuous kneeling and standing up, much more so than I remembered from earlier services I attended. With the Credo the congregation turned to the right making all to face the altar, bowing deep at some stages in the prayer. Isn't that popery in its most complete form?
(Continues...)
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Table of Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction 1
1 From Amsterdam through Belgium and Great Britain to New York: April-May 1866 18
2 In New York City and Westward to Chicago: May 1866 29
3 From Chicago through Illinois and Northward to Minnesota: May-June 1866 37
4 In Chicago and by way of Cincinnati and Washington, D.C., to Philadelphia: June-July 1866 49
5 New York City, Albany, Niagara Falls, Pennsylvania Oil, and Canada: July-August 1866 56
6 In Boston and New England: August-September 1866 61
7 In New York City, New Jersey, and Troy, New York: September-October 1866 71
8 In Boston, Providence, Albany, and back to New York City: October-December 1866 76
9 In the South: Charleston and Savannah: December 1866 88
10 In Georgia and Virginia: December 1866 103
11 To Baltimore and Washington, D.C.: December 1866-January 1867 111
12 In New York City: January 1867 120
13 In New York City and Boston and Salem, Massachusetts: January-February 1867 132
Notes 139
Index 175
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