David Scott had now resolved to become the pupil of art, as he had formerly
been of nature; and for this purpose, to repair to Italy, and study in its galleries
the productions of those great masters whose excellence had endured the test of
centuries, and come out more brilliant from the ordeal. He would there learn
the mighty secret by which they had enthralled the world so completely and
so long that true utterance of painting which every age and nation can understand. He set off upon his quest in August, 1832, and, after a short stay in
London, visited Paris and Geneva, where the Louvre and the Alps alternately
solicited his study. Milan and Venice, Parma and Bologna, Florence and Sienna,
followed in turn, until he finally settled at Rome, once the nursing-mother of
heroes, but now of painters and sculptors, by whom her first great family have
been embalmed, that the present world might know how they looked when
they lived. It seems to have been only by degrees that the true grandeur of
these objects fully dawned upon the mind of David Scott ; for there was within
him not only much that needed to be improved, but much to be unlearned and
renounced. His impressions upon all the principal works of art are contained
in his diary; and these will, no doubt, be studied as a rich suggestive fund of
thought by our future young artists who repair to the great Italian fountainhead. But indefatigable though he was in these explorations, the most striking, though the least ostentatious part of his diary, is to be found in the scattered notices that everywhere occur of his own daily occupations, and from
eight to sixteen hours seem with him to have been nothing more than an
ordinary diurnal measure. The fruits of this diligence, independently of his
critical writings upon works of art, are thus summed up by his biographer:
"During that short residence in Rome, he made a set of eleven sheets of anatomical drawings, forming one of the most perfect artistical surveys of superficial anatomy ever made, with 137 studies from life, in oil or chalk; and in
painting he did four small pictures of the 'Four Periods of the Day;' a copy of
the 'Delphic Sybil,' from the Sistine, with a number of studies from the 'Last
Judgment;' several exercises in fresco; painted 'Sappho and Anacreon,' a
picture with life-size figures; and two or three smaller, but well-finished pictures; and, last and greatest, the picture of ' Family Discord,' or, as it was afterwards called, 'The Household Gods Destroyed.' The size of this last was nearly thirteen feet, by ten and a half. This amount of work, if we consider
the time lost, in a new scene and among new habits, and add the designs, sketchbooks, and other little matters which he accomplished, shows us a Hercules in
perseverance and impulse." It is interesting to see Scott's own account of the
effect produced upon him by this pilgrimage and labour; and this we have in
his diary, a short time after his return home, under the date of 16th August,
1834: "The anniversary of my leaving Scotland two years ago the crowning
of my desires the journey of art the sacrifice to enthusiasm the search after
greatness, in meeting the great men of the present, and the great labours of the
past. Among my old pictures and people, I now feel how different I am from
the man who left this but so short a time ago. I have looked too much for
what was without individual prototype in nature. The veil withdraws and
withdraws, and there is nothing left permanent. But I believe I can now meet
difficulties practically. Analyzing one's own thoughts and actions studying
things in their relations is often a painful task ; but he who has not done so is a child."
Having returned to Scotland inspired with new perceptions, as well as braced
