GOUNOD (Charles) - Lot 104

GOUNOD (Charles) Born in Paris. 1818-1893. French composer. First Prix de Rome in 1839. Autograph letter signed "Ch. Gounod" to Jules Richomme, in Florence. S.l. [Paris], October 7, 1846. 4 pages in-8. Superb, long letter to the painter Jules Richomme, who had gone to Italy (he kept up a regular correspondence with this painter throughout his life) ...I took advantage of my master's ecclesiastical retreat to make one of my own, and devote an eighth of solitude to thoughts that the necessary work does not allow me to caress as much. Here I am now, back in the life of study, where, incidentally, I'm merely rediscovering in another form what the heart sees for its own. He imagines that his solitude will soon be trumped by the meeting of people ... among the artists who are not lacking in this country (...). I follow you in my thoughts to Pitti, to the Uffizzi, to the Academy, to San-Marco, to the Loggia in Piazza del Duomo, to San-Miniato, in fact to all the places where I have seen and admired so many masterpieces that I will be so happy to see again with other eyes, friends and better than mine. I have always thought that seeing Italy was the necessary complement to the studies of any artist: for a man of art is but one thing, whose manifold manifestations are but diverse languages; (...) there is an unquestionable profit to be made from seeing Italy.) there is an undeniable and substantial benefit for a poet or a musician in seeing beautiful paintings, beautiful buildings, or a beautiful country: the feeling of an artist seems to me a kind of universal alchemy, in which each one converts to his own nature the most varied elements, in order to seize them, assimilate them, and make them become his true substance. So when you're in Rome, I strongly urge you not to miss the Cappella Papale, where you'll find frescoed music as much as you like: there's a marvelous identity in the productions of all these masters, attesting to the degree to which the same ideas and feelings dominated them all. And the influence of this principle had to be very powerful to have absorbed so much individuality, whose life, taken in isolation, was so far removed from me. I believe, dear friend, that only great epochs can do great things: this explains, it seems to me, why some very good Christians today make such bad Christian paintings, and why, in those days, some very ugly fools, carried away by the current of their time, made admirable Catholic art, because they were no more than the instruments of a universal idea that carried them along in spite of themselves... He asks him for a sketch ...I'm relying on you and what you know about me to dedicate a small drawing to my heart: I don't think you'll be embarrassed by what you have to do... He concludes by reassuring him about his parents and wishing him a safe journey home ...see all you can, and enjoy as much as you can of this country where the letter and the spirit enter through every pore: a painter's day is so full and so quickly spent in the midst of all that surrounds you, and these days so quickly make up five or six months! They pay us with appearances, but not everyone pays them, and there are some poor people here who are thirsty and dry...