Subercaseaux and Umbria
Shahan, Thomas J.
November z6, 1924 THE COMMONWEAL 69 SUBERCASEAUX AND...
...of the landscape, buildings, etc...
...able scc~ies Saint Francis moves and acts with a higher truth—in an atmosphere of light and peace that could be caught only by a spirit akin to his own—one who ST...
...He used to spend from a public more bent on practical aims than on art long hours at night sketching, or reading about St...
...A few years ago he, with a few friends—artists, architects and art lovers, started a campaign in favor of the colonial style of building and decoration, which had been abandoned since the Independence and replaced by a medley of European styles...
...The International Art Exhibition held in Santiago, in 1910, was an unexpected succes3...
...While staying in THE ARTIST SUBERCASEAUX~me in 1911, he painted a life-size portrait of Pope Pius X...
...The largest canvases he has painted are one in the National Congress Building in Santiago, and another in the Exchange of that city...
...He has painted other large pictures for Buenos Aires for which he has been paid prices unheard of in South America, and not often attained by European artists...
...What Burke did for India and Moore for Persia, by their incomparable artistry of words, this painter has done for the earthly stage of the Franciscan gospel...
...Some months after, he in Santiago, Chile...
...In the summer of 1920 he arrived at the Benedictine monastery on the Isle of Wight, where he joined the Order of Sahn Benedict...
...Many another page also is here of that evangel of love which seven centuries ago resounded among the hill cities of Umbria, and still haunts that religious heart of Italy, gripping with its ineffable beauty and sweetness every nobler spirit, and holding it bound in a kind of prayerful ecstasy...
...This painting hangs now in one of the rooms D EDRO SUBERCASEAUX was born in Rome in of the Vatican...
...We have here the Gustave Dort~ of Saint Francis and the holy land of Assisi, the soft contours of its green hills, all the curious witchery of forest and stream, of valley and crag and field, that rests forever on the crowded landscapes of those "spirituals" among the cinquecento painters, who transferred to canvas the Legend of the Three Companions and the Fioretti...
...Quite a number of private houses, churches and public buildings have been erected in the old-fashioned manner, which is very much like what is known in the United States as the mission style...
...Architecture and costume, the remote ways of the colorful life of the times, its picturesque round of work and play, of rich mentality and high spiritual ardor, its delightful camaraderie, its varied humor and its drab conventionalities, are all here...
...After five years absence he again returned to Italy...
...Faam Fmncmxa ¶0 tam Ma6aus...
...One consequence of those years spent in close touch with Saint Francis and with the spirituality of the mediaeval world, was his gaining a deeper sense of what art should be...
...Some of these pictures are among the best he has painted...
...Since then his life has been spent in the ordinary activities of a Benedictine monk— chiefly in prayer, study and manual work...
...Pedro Subercaseaux's father is at present Chilean Ambassador to the Holy See...
...November z6, 1924 THE COMMONWEAL 7t I-Ic consulted several Roman archeologists, with whose help he was enabled to draw correct views of some thirteenth century buildings, especially of the ancient basilica otT Saint Peter which stood then exactly as it had been built by Constantine 900 years before...
...The former represents the Discovery of Chile, the other is an allegory of Commerce and Industry...
...During all the time Pedro Subercaseaux lived in his own country, he had to work hard continually in order to satisfy the demand for his pictures...
...November z6, 1924 THE COMMONWEAL 69 SUBERCASEAUX AND UMBRIA By THOMAS J. SHAHAN (Rector, thc CdlhoIic Uiii:'ersity) FOR the first time since Cigoli a painter has satisfactorily revealed to the eye of faith the story of that holy youth who long ago shed such a spiritual glory on all the slopes and vales of Umbria...
...Not only was his outlook on art changed, but also his outlook on Life itself...
...He felt a strong was only at the age of seventeen that he started sen- desire to express in pictorial form the varied feelings ously the study of painting in the Royal School of Art the Franciscan Legend awoke in his spirit He knew of Berlin...
...He is at present painting a series of pictures over the altars of the monastery church...
...The result of this was that the public, especially in the capital, began to show an enthusiastic taste for art, and to patronize artists in a generous manner...
...Even in out of the way country places, old local industries were revived, and people began wearing the picturesque clothes and ornaments of an earlier time...
...FsAxas Duwwxs His Fawn 70 THE COMMONWEAL November 26, 1924 joined to a tender introspective sympathy and a temper of mystical piety the highest technical skill...
...But his imagination was country and they received but little encouragement constantly turning back to Umbnia...
...wcr6' or *tls-$o of she country...
...He next wdrked for two years in Rome it would be a difficult task and he had no experience in and later in Paris in the Academic Juliun, under Jules religious painting...
...artists, created an awakening of taste throughout the land...
...The I- iBSo at ihe time when his father was beginning beauty and poetry of that little town, in which every his diplomatic career...
...They were generally episodes of the Spanish Conquest in the sixteenth century, or of the war of Independence in the first years of the nineteenth century...
...About that time several exhibitions of European art Francis and his time...
...The subjects of his painting were usually taken from the history of Chile...
...The result of this campaign was soon visible...
...Certain scenes offer a beauty that words cannot paint, Francis folded in the arms of the good Bishop Gubbic, in the presence of his irate and disgusted father...
...Francis receiving the stigmata...
...Francis resting on the plain and blessing Assisi in his dying hour...
...The North American section of that exhibition attracted special attention, on account of the real merit of the paintings shown there...
...At the time when he started work resumed his usual work in Santiago and went on paintthere in Ira, ihere were only a few artists in that ing battles or colonial scenes...
...He began by making careful studies Lefebvre and Robert Fleury...
...That same year he visited Assisi...
...Asapon as lie could ae wes&ba& to It4yjhcrc he The mint of these4 added to &e~ tliinativCitfrt~dSdGii~ICd6u1y oulilt tint Prancas...
...They had to convince the people that a Louis XV villa, or an English cottage, which may harmonize very nicely with European landscape, look absurdly out of keeping with the grand masses of the Andes or the immense plains and valleys of America...
...He interrupted his work several times in Chile in order to cross to Buenos Aires and Europe...
...which were to be the Nearly all of his pictures were painted while living setting of the future pictures...
...Sr...
...In these remark...
...From early childhood he felt street and every house seems to recall Saint Francis, a decided inclination to drawing and painting, but it made a deep impression on his mind...
...Clare and her companions praying at the bier of Francis, the latter scene an incomparable rendering of the holiest spiritual affection...
...With the advent of the great war he left Europe...
...Subercaseaux tried to help the movement by painting a series of pictures of old world life in colonial times...
...Although his days are very busy, he can generally spare some time for painting...
...he has poured upon it delicate hues and shadings, a refinement of pictorial interpretation that all can appreciate, but those mostly in whose hearts there dwells the urge of that mighty love of all creation that inspired the Canticle of the Sun, and joyously embraced all life from its divine source, the Crucified One on Alverno, to the swallows of Alviano and the wolf of Gubbio...
...He also painted a certain number of sea battles, and scenes from modern military life...
Vol. 1 • November 1924 • No. 3
