Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 69, No. 425, March, 1851

Between Vasco Fernandez of Vizeu and any legitimate successor to his supremacy as a Portuguese artist, the interregnum is far longer than the duration of the Spanish tyranny. After the death of Sebastian, no Portuguese painter of any recognised eminence appears for nearly a century and a half. During all that time, producers of pictures were numerous; there was plenty of artists, but little or no art. At last, about 1715, John V., the mighty builder, willing to hope that his projected temples and palaces were destined to be worthily adorned by native talent, if stimulated by the best models, sent several youths to the schools of art in Italy; herein repeating the experiment of the old kings of the race of Avis, but without much success. The only very distinguished painter of this reign and the next, "O Insigne Pintor," Vieira Lusitano, owed his opportunities Of professional instruction at Rome to the patronage of a nobleman rather than to that of the King himself, though he was afterwards much employed both by John V. and his successor Joseph.

The story of Francisco Vieira, popularly called the Lusitanian, and self-styled "The Admirable," is one of the most curious on record. It is an autobiography in verse, a lyrical poem in quatrains without rhyme. His self-esteem is immense, as may be inferred from his title-page, Viera the Lusitanian, the famous Painter and faithful Husband. In the preface he loads himself with honour; through the fourteen cantos, six hundred pages, of his poem (which is but a portion of what he intended to give to the world, though it was published three years before his death, and he died at the age of eighty-four,) he puffs his own praises with all the simple untiring energy of a boy blowing bubbles; yet it is as clear that he was no fool as that he was a prodigious coxcomb. Measureless vanity does sometimes co-exist with vigorous ability. There is no doubt whatever of the genuineness of the production, for it was published in his lifetime, and he signed his name to the dedication. Being the hero of his own story, he speaks of himself all through in the third person; and it was perhaps his intention, when he composed the work, to publish it anonymously, and let the public suppose that it was written by some friend. But he no doubt thought himself the præclarus vates as well as the pictor insignis, and could not finally make up his mind to lose the honours, poetical and chivalrous, of his work, though it is in truth as wretched a poem as it is a rare and most captivating biography. Robert Southey, a name not to be mentioned without respect, yet a critic by no means to be implicitly followed on questions of Portuguese literature, says that this is the best book of Portugal. If he simply meant that it is the most attractive biographical production, he was probably right, (if we set aside old Mendez Pinto, the marvellous and the delightful,) for we doubt whether a more striking personal narrative of genuine love-adventure is extant in any language. But if Southey intended to say that it was the best Portuguese poem, the eulogy is utterly absurd. There is but little unborrowed poetry in it, and his countrymen, who should be the best judges – justly proud as they are of him as an artist – do not admit him to any rank even among their numerous minor poets. There is, it is true, in one of the volumes of Southey's Life, recently published, a favourable specimen of this poem – a translation by Southey of a few lines, which are pleasing enough; but the version is an improvement on the original. Vieira gave indications of his talent for drawing by chalking figures on the floor before he could walk alone; and he proved his genius for intrigue by winning the heart of a damsel, not less juvenile than himself, but of far higher rank, and by completely hood-winking her parents and his own, before he was eight years old. But the constancy of this infant passion on both sides is the marvel of his life. At ten years of age he gained a patron in the Marquis of Abrantes, who, being appointed ambassador from John V. to Pope Clement XI., took him to Rome, where he resided seven years, always devoted to his art and to the Fidalgo's daughter. He was at first a pupil of Lutti, and afterwards of Trevisani. He mentions the latter with respect and affection. He obtained considerable distinction as a student of painting, and was befriended by Cardinal Barberini. On his return to Lisbon, whither his reputation had preceded him, he was welcomed by none of his friends more cordially than by the parents of Dona Agnes Helen De Lima e Mello, who was now a blooming and beautiful young woman, for whom several offers of suitable marriage had been already made, all of which she had evaded by the plea that it was her intention to take the veil. On his first visit he was followed by a porter with a box full of relics that he had brought from Rome – beads blest by the Pope, bones of saints, a chip of the true cross, and many other inestimable things of the kind, all warranted – tudo com seus diplomas authenticos! These he presented to the father and mother, who were more than delighted with such gifts, and could not but attribute a hopeful measure of sanctity to the young virtuoso who had collected them. He was thenceforward a frequent guest at the Quinta da Luz, the residence of the De Limas, and continued to be encouraged by the elders of the family, till they found out – not by their own wit – that the humble youth whom they had so graciously countenanced fully intended to do them the favour of becoming their son-in-law. The presumption was inconceivable, the humiliation of having been outwitted by two children was intolerable. Vieira had secretly consulted the Judge of Marriages (O Juiz dos Casamentos,) an official as formidable to hard-hearted parents in Portugal as a Gretna Green parson to guardians of heiresses in England. By his advice, the young gentleman had secured his lady-love's signature to a formal declaration of her engagement to him; and, on the strength of this document, the same obliging functionary had easily obtained the Patriarch of Lisbon's certificate of approval, which was necessary to perfect the legality of the contract. A page, in attendance on the Patriarch when the matter was discussed, happened to be acquainted with the family of De Lima, and hastened to reveal to the astonished parents the transaction that he had witnessed. In strict law, they had now no remedy – the parties were betrothed. But the lady's father possessed a power greater than the law in the friendship of the Minister, the formidable Pombal; and before any further communication could pass between her and her lover, she was shut up in a nunnery, the convent of St Anne. As she had avoided marriage by asserting her intention to become a nun, it was now resolved that she should keep her word. She resisted to the uttermost; and even after she was immured in the convent, it was only by main force that the novice's dress was put on her, though her aunt and two other grim duennas assisted in the operation. Vieira appealed to the King; but it was too delicate an affair to be interfered with, even by an absolute monarch. He retired from the royal presence in anything but a loyal mood, and tasked his wits from day to day, but all in vain, to devise some means of communication with the prisoner. That convent, he says, baffled all his approaches, as if it were an enchanted castle. He determined, however, that if she could not see him she should hear him; so he seized his guitar, repaired to the convent walls at midnight, and serenaded her with passionate songs – walking round and round the gloomy den like Blondel round the Fortress Tenebreuse, the cage of Lion Richard; or, as the painter himself expressed it in one of his pictures, like Orpheus at the gates of hell demanding his Eurydice. He was for the third or fourth time turning a corner of the convent chapel when he was pounced upon by the police, and forthwith lodged in prison, and would inevitably have been transported, in a ship ready to depart for one of the Indian settlements, had not one of his patrons, the Conde del Assumar, afterwards Marquis de Alorna, interfered, and procured his release. The noviciate of Agnes expired, and she was compelled to take the veil. Her relations now thought that they had her safely settled for life, and the lady abbess thought so too. Agnes, making a virtue of necessity, pretended to be reconciled to her fate; and thenceforward the restraints on the seemingly submissive nun were far less stringent than those that had been imposed on the rebellious novice. A correspondence between the married nun and her husband was now effected through a third party, who had access to the convent. It was written in a cipher invented by Vieira, as a sure precaution against mischance or impertinent curiosity.

 
"Heaven first taught letters for some wretch's aid,
Some banished lover, or some captive maid."
 

But this sort of communication only inflamed their impatience for freer intercourse. By the death of one of the sisterhood, a cell became vacant which might be very convenient for a vestal whose heart was unconsecrated. It was in a retired part of the building, and the window was in an outer wall, separated from some of the city gardens by an unfrequented thoroughfare. It was the custom to set a price upon the new tenancy of any void cell, so that the nun who wished to possess it must pay for the privilege. The price set upon this apartment was three hundred milreas, about £70. Vieira procured the money, and passed it to Agnes, who was thus enabled to become mistress of the room; and the superior seems to have had no suspicion that the gold was not supplied by some one of the young lady's wealthy relatives. The window was high, but the spaces between the iron grates were not so narrow as to forbid the passage of a faithful Mercury, in the shape of a basket secured by a string. When it could be prudently let down, a palm branch put out between the bars was a signal. Vieira, taught by his former misadventure, no more approached the walls as an unarmed minstrel, but silently, and furnished with munitions of war —mas munido com seus marciaes petrechos– a good sword at his side, a pair of loaded pistols in his belt, and a cloak of black taffeta over all. After a hundred plans for her rescue had been mutually discussed and abandoned, she thus addressed him, – "My beloved, I am withering here. You must deliver me from this horrid prison, from these dismal rules which I am forced to obey – though I protest that I am no nun, never was, and never will be. Freira nao sou, nem fui, nem ser quero. I am assured that nothing short of a decree by the Pope will avail us. I know that certain immunities may be bought and obtained by deputy from the Holy See; but I would trust no agent in such an affair as ours. I confide in the proverb – 'He who wants a thing goes for it; he who would miss it sends for it.' – (Quem quer vai, quem nao quer manda.)" He received the young lady's orders without winking, sem pestenejar; and, leaving two large pictures, commissions from the king, unfinished, he set off on the forlorn hope to the Vatican, with a good chance of ending his career in the Castle of St Angelo. He got to Rome, he says, as if by magic. Cardinal Barberini was dead: this news was a shock to him, for on his protection he had mainly relied. The resolute lover, however, by dint of importunity, obtained from the Pope an order addressed to the Patriarch of Lisbon, requiring him to cause the lady to be interrogated, and to report the result. Months passed away, but no answer came.

He obtained another order, an exact duplicate, also signed by the Pope, and forwarded it with an explanatory letter to the Conde de Assumar. The Count willingly carried the paper to the Patriarch, who was much offended, and refused to receive it, saying, that such matters were not to be disposed of in a hurry. He had received the Supreme Pontiff's first letter, and had, in consequence, personally visited the convent, and questioned Donna Agnes. Further investigations were on foot, and the case could not yet be decided.

A friendly Portuguese Jesuit gave Vieira warning that he was in danger, and that, if he persisted in his appeals to the Pope, he would be quickly and summarily silenced. Baffled at all points, and ashamed to go home, he continued in Italy for six years, during all which time he maintained a correspondence with Agnes, by the aid of a friend at Lisbon, a well-known brother artist, André Gonsalves. He also laboured assiduously in his profession, and became famous as a painter in the land of painters. His works were purchased as fast as he could produce them, and many of them were engraved. Finally, he, was elected member of the Academy of St Luke, and was honoured with a diploma or certificate of especial merit. He now thought he might return to Lisbon, and look after his impounded treasure – his tesouro imprisonado. On the arrival of the ship in the Tagus, he remained on board till he could be smuggled ashore at night. His enemies imagined him to be still at Rome when he was once more plotting under the convent walls, and thus announcing himself to the faithful object of so much constant love – "Here I am again! All the doors of justice are closed against us, and we have nothing but our own wits to help us; yet I am more resolved on your deliverance than ever." He proposed to supply her with files and aqua fortis to cut through the bars of her cell, and a rope-ladder to let her down. But she rejected that expedient. "Through the gate by which I entered, and through that only, will I go out," she said. Pois só pela portaria, por onde entrei, sahir quero. Repairs were going on in the house; many masons were employed there daily. "Get me," said she, "a hodman's dress and a half-mask, and I will walk out of the convent. Do not look so mistrustful; I am not without courage; I know myself well. I rely, too, on higher strength than my own for aid. God does not require violent sacrifices: I am here against my will; my stay in these cloisters is not self-devotion, but sacrilege." Seeing that she had made up her mind to the adventure at all hazards, Vieira lost no time in furnishing her with the required disguise. He prides himself particularly on his skill in the fabrication of the half-mask, which he describes as a miracle of art. It fitted her exactly, and the false nose was provided with hooks to be inserted in the nostrils of the true nose, to prevent it from betraying itself by any eccentric movement,

 
"Porém no nariz fingido
Lhe armou de arame hum remedio
Para poder segurar-se
Nas ventas do verdadeiro."
 

The hour was come for the perilous attempt. It was a summer evening, light as noon, when the chapel bell rang for the Ave Maria. Donna Agnes left her cell and gained a covered courtyard, where she passed some of the sisters, who bade the supposed workman good evening. She was a little too soon, for the labourers were not yet assembled to retire. But, being so far committed, she could not retreat; she must proceed alone to the porter's gate. It chanced that several ladies of the city were standing by the lodge, in conversation with the superior. It was therefore requisite, according to custom, that the person going out should ask leave to pass with all respect, licença para passar, com respeito. She did so, and the lady abbess herself answered, "Pass," making way for her. Donna Agnes, in her agitation, stumbled against an angle of the wall, and heard one of the party she had just left behind her, perhaps the abbess, exclaim – "Ah, can't you see, you clumsy fellow?" She moved on into the street, where Vieira, also in disguise, was anxiously waiting. He would not have known her had he not recognised his own handiwork, the mask. He seemed not to notice, her till she had turned down a lane at some distance: he then followed her, and in a few minutes they were out of immediate danger. The commotion in the nunnery, when her flight was known, may be imagined. The king, when informed of an escape which was speedily the talk of the town, applauded the act for its spirit and cleverness, though he had declined to enforce the law on behalf of the aggrieved pair. They proceeded with all despatch to verify the contract made between them before her incarceration. After this formal attestation of the illegality of her enforced vows, they were formally married, and their triumph was complete. Here, according to rule, where connubial bliss begins, the story should end, for it is very like a novel; but it is nevertheless a true tale, huma historia verdadeira, and something darker remains behind. They took a house in the Hortas da Cera, and were happy for some months. But the rage of her family was unappeasable. While the painter was pursuing his professional avocations with honour and profit, they were secretly busy with machinations against his life. On the morning of Whitsunday he had set out from home, to hear mass in the nearest church. His wife, attended by a servant, followed him some minutes later. At the top of an obscure alley, communicating with the street just where it made a bend, stood a man whose face was muffled up in his cloak. Vieira had passed but a little way beyond him, when he was fired at and severely wounded by this person. The pistol had been loaded with slugs, one of which pierced the artist's right cheek, and another was lodged in his shoulder. Turning round, he caught a glimpse of the face of the assassin, in whom he recognised his own brother-in-law, the brother of Donna Agnes. Vieira, supposing himself mortally hurt, called out for a confessor, staggered back to meet his wife, and fell bleeding at her feet. Both were carried half dead into their house. His wounds, though so serious that the last sacraments were administered to him, were skilfully and prosperously treated by Felucci, an Italian leech, and by the king's German surgeon, who was ordered to attend to him. His wife was nearer death from terror and anxiety, than he from his wounds; but no sooner was he declared out of danger than she recovered, and was his best nurse. As soon as he could be safely moved, he proceeded in a chair to the palace, and craved audience of the king, before whom, after he had knelt and kissed hands, he was permitted to produce the clothes in which he had been shot. They were stained with blood that told its own story. The king and the gentlemen present seemed much affected; and an order was given, somewhat late it would seem, for the apprehension and punishment of the assassin. Family interest, nevertheless, smothered up the inquiry, and the criminal was not even imprisoned; but the mark of Cain was on him, and the general odium that he had incurred soon compelled him to leave the kingdom. It is a sort of satisfaction to know that he fell into poverty, and was even at last reduced to the ignominious condition of a pensioner on the bounty of the man whose life he had attempted. The fact is not recorded in the poem, as it ought in poetical justice to have been; but Cyrillo asserts that he had it from Vieira's own mouth, in these words, – "He came at last to beg his bread from me, whom he had outraged so cruelly."

Vieira, soon after his complaint to the king, being apprehensive of further molestation from the family of his wife, placed her with some of his own relations, and took sanctuary, for a while, in the convent of the Paulistas; and there, in 1730 and 1731, he painted his famous Hermits, as appropriate ornaments for the church of their patron, St Paul the Eremite. In 1733, willing to live tranquil, says Cyrillo, he resolved on a third visit to Rome, with the view of ending his days there. Guarienti, the curator of the Dresden Gallery, who came to Lisbon in 1733, and remained there till 1736, was personally acquainted with Vieira, and asserts that his motive for expatriating himself was disgust at an insult that had been put on him through the malice of his rivals, by the removal of one of his works from the recently completed pile of Mafra, and the substitution of a picture by an inferior artist. He got no farther, however, than Madrid or Seville, (Cyrillo names the latter city,) when he was recalled by his sovereign, who well knew his value, and appeased him with honours and a fixed salary as Royal Painter, exclusive of payment for works supplied by command.

Vieira Lusitano lived admired and honoured, to a venerable age, eighty-four; and his constant heroine, the Lady Agnes, also reached a good old age, and shared prosperity which could hardly have been real, or of any value, without her. She died at Mafra in 1775, and from the day of her death he never again touched a pencil. To the last, says Cyrillo, he idolised her memory; and, no doubt, the strength of his affection for her was the governing motive of his publication of their strange history, five years after her decease, and but three before his own. Both his own portrait and hers were often introduced into his paintings. Many of his works perished in the earthquake, with the temples and mansions they adorned. He particularises, as thus destroyed, "his grand picture of the Martyrs – the inestimable portrait of the first Patriarch of Lisbon, Don Thomas Almeida," (who figures as an important influence, for and against him, in the narration of his love adventure;) "the portraits of the Royal Children, and that sublime idea," (the words are his own,) "the Meeting of the Blessed Mother with her Son, after her assumption – the Death of Moses – Pluto and the Court of Hell listening to the suit of Orpheus." He says he designed the last-named performance as an allegorical plea for the restoration of his wife, to whom the convent was a hell. In another composition, which he calls "a stupendous work," and which was also demolished – Perseus exhibiting the Gorgon's head to Phineus – he represented his own effigy as that of the Greek hero, and the image of his cloistered wife, as a winged Victory, hovering over him, and about to drop a laurel wreath on his helm, &c.

But in spite of the earthquake in his own day, and the later razzias of the French in their Pyrennean Algiers, – in spite, too, of civil convulsions, spoliation of convents and convent churches, and all the various causes of dispersion or wanton destruction of works of art in this fair but unhappy land – there is a sufficient number left of those by Vieira Lusitano to show, on better authority than his poetical self-celebration, that he was in truth a fine artist, though not quite a Gran Vasco. The dignity of his St Augustine, and the elegance of his Madonna of the Rosary, both in the Academy of Art at Lisbon, might be evidence enough to prove that the Italians made no great mistake when they conferred a first-class medal on him in his boyhood, nor when they elected him member of the Academy of St Luke after his return, an unprotected emigrant, to Rome. St Augustine is trampling on heresy, while an angel in the foreground burns a pile of heretical writings. This is generally admired as the most powerful of those works by F. Vieira that are in possession of his countrymen. Count Raczynski prefers the other – a Virgin and Child, – in which the infant Jesus stands on a pedestal, surrounded with figures excellently grouped. It must be a fastidious taste that can look coldly upon either. A St Antony in the Church of St Francisco de Paula bears Vieira's signature, and the date 1763. It shows that his hand had lost nothing of its cunning at the age of sixty-four. The Church of St Roque and that of the Paulistas, and some other Lisbon churches, contain important specimens of his skill. They are all more or less remarkable, not only for correctness of drawing, and for breadth of well-harmonised colouring, but for a peculiar grace of touch – a feeling of the versifier and the lover – that seems never to have forsaken him to the last. Even in the countenances of his hermits, the sanctity of expression is heightened, not enfeebled, by a sentiment of human tenderness and regret, as if the day-dreams of their youth in the world were not utterly forgotten. M. Raczynski, though usually chary of commendation in these latitudes – for his predilections are manifestly, and perhaps naturally enough, far north, – has always a good word for this artist, and now and then even grants him a down-feather from the nest of the Black Eagle itself. "As to Vieira Lusitano," says the Count, "he is truly a distinguished artist; and at the time in which he lived we were very poor in Prussia: we were very far from possessing a painter of his value. Wherever I meet with his works, I feel myself attracted by the nature that he infuses into art."

The alphabetical table (which, by-the-by, sadly wants the revision of an index-maker,) gives references to Vieira Lusitano, and Francisco Vieira, as if the two designations did not belong to one and the same person.

There is a second Francisco Vieira, also a historical painter; but, to distinguish him from his predecessor, he is called Vieira Portuense – Vieira of Oporto, the place where he was born, 1765. In 1789 he went to Rome. After about two years' study there, he repaired to Parma, where he was elected one of the directors of the Academy, and gave lessons in drawing to a daughter of the Duke. In 1794 he returned to Rome, where he staid three years more, and then proceeded to Dresden. Few of his works are found in his native city. Mr Allen possesses two or three. There is one at the house of the British Association – Eleanor of Castille extracting the poison from the arm of our Edward the First. The outline of the two figures is not ungraceful, but the effect is tame. The queen looks more asleep than the king; her lips do not touch the wound, yet are so close to it as to seem to express that action. In this, as in most of this artist's productions, the colouring is fluent but weak. Yet some of his church-pictures at Lisbon, and one also of the few at Oporto – St Margaret on her deathbed confessing to a Monk – are stamped with a holy fervour of intention, a deep and unaffected sentiment of piety, that is strength in itself, and not always to be found in religious paintings of higher name. Of his lighter performances, a Cupid and Venus in a landscape, very elegant, and not unworthy of Albani, was engraved at Lisbon by his friend Bartolozzi. His life, it is said, was embittered by the malice of Sequeira his rival. They went to Rome about the same time. Taborda, Fusquini, and Cyrillo, their contemporaries, also studied at Rome. We agree with M. Raczynski in his estimate of Sequeira, whose St Bruno and other ambitious displays are so highly extolled by his countrymen. He is a clever and disagreeable performer on canvass, except in some few of his minor pictures, such as the Translation of St Francis. In his large and finished works he strains at intenseness of effect, and vulgarises his art. But his numerous sketches have quite a contrary character. They appear to have cost him no trouble; and the best of them, if always true to proportion, would be almost as valuable as those of the elder Vieira, the Lusitanian, of which many, in red crayon, are preserved in the library at Evora. As to Taborda, Fusquini, and Cyrillo, and some other recent artists, we would say, to the inquirer, "Go to the palace of Ajuda, and by their works you shall know them! They are as precious there as flies in amber."

M. Raczynski's desultory notices touch on architecture, sculpture, terra-cotta figures, glazed tiles, and many other things besides painting – that portion of his inquiries to which we have of necessity confined our remarks. Of the actual condition of this art in the city of Ulysses, the Academy, instituted in 1780, presents, we fear, no very hopeful indications, though it has many young students as well as many old members. "Numerous are the persons," Count Raczynski observes, "who are enthusiastic in their praise of the Arts in Portugal. But with the honourable exceptions of the Duke of Palmella and the Count de Farrobo, not one will expend a sous, not one will take any trouble for their advancement. It is true, however, that in the actual position of affairs, it would be no easy matter to know how to set about such a service to the nation. The country is in a state of revolution. These few words explain all; and we have only to accuse modern constitution-mongers, and the confusion of ideas and the disorderly spirit that are the consequence of their machinations, here and in Spain, for more than twenty years."

The worthy diplomatist from Prussia, when he wrote the last quoted sentence, seems to have had no notion of the force of pestilent doctrines that were at work on the other side of the Pyrenees, nor how soon the revolutionary mania was to shake the Transmontane thrones, and all but annihilate even his own master's.