arts analysis

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ARTS 1A: Document Analysis 8

Read the following excerpt from the autobiography of Italian artist Benvenuto Cellini, our primary source document this week. In your notebook, address the questions which follow.

Excerpts from the autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini, written between 1558 and 1571 “There is one very important thing, Benvenuto, that you artists, talented as you are, must understand: you cannot display your talents without help; and your greatness only becomes perceptible because of the opportunities you receive from us. Now you should be a little more obedient and less arrogant and headstrong. I remember giving you express orders to make me twelve silver statues, and that was all I wanted. But you have set your mind on making me a salt- cellar, and vases, and busts, and doors, and so many other things that I’m completely dumbfounded when I consider how you’ve ignored my wishes and set out to satisfy yourself. If you think you can go on like this, I’ll show you the way I behave when I want things done my way. So I warn you, make sure you obey my orders; if you persist in your own ideas you’ll run your head against a wall.” All the time he was talking, the noblemen with him remained very attentive, watching him as he shook his head, and frowned and gesticulated, now with one hand and now with the other. They were trembling with fear of what was going to happen to me, though for my part I was determined not to let myself panic in the slightest. . . . I knelt down on one knee, and kissing his robe just above the knee I said: “Sacred Majesty, I admit that everything you say is true: all I can reply is that continually, day and night, with all my heart and soul I have been intent only on obeying and serving your Majesty; and as for anything that may appear to disprove what I say, your Majesty must blame it not on Benvenuto, but on my evil destiny or my bad fortune, which has tried to make me unworthy of serving the most splendid prince the world ever had. . . . Everything I have done was meant for the best, and never meant in opposition to your Majesty's wishes. It is certainly true that up to its present stage that great Colossus has been at my own expense, because my only thought was, with your being such a great King, that an insignificant artist like myself should make a statue, for your glory as well as for my own, such as the ancients never had. Now that I see that God is unwilling to make me worthy of the honor of serving you, I beg your Majesty, in place of the honorable reward you intended to give me for my work, just to allow me a little of your good favor and allow me to take my leave. And now, if you are good enough to allow it, I shall return to Italy, and I shall always give thanks to God and to your Majesty for the happy hours I have spent in your service.” [The king] took hold of me with his hand, and then, very graciously, raised me from my knees and said that I should be content to serve him, and that everything I had made was good and pleased him very much. Then he turned to these noblemen with him, and [gesturing toward the doors] used these very words: “I firmly believe that if doors have to be made for Paradise, nothing finer than this could be achieved.”

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I paused a little, after this forceful praise, and then with very great respect I thanked him once again, but because I will still angry I repeated that I would like to be given leave to go. When that great King realized that I had not received his unusually generous acts of kindness the way they deserved, in a loud, terrifying voice he ordered me not to say another word or it would be worse for me. And then he added that he would drown me in gold, and that he was quite content with my working on my own initiative in addition to the works commissioned by him, and that I would never again have any dispute with him, because now he understood me; and he said that for my part I should try to understand him in the way that duty commanded. I replied that I gave thanks for everything to God and to his Majesty, and then I begged him to come and see the great statue and how far I had advanced it: so he came with me. I had it uncovered, and he was astonished beyond words. Immediately he ordered his secretary to give me without any delay all the money I had spent on it out of my own pocket, no matter what it was so long as I wrote the amount down myself. Then he left saying: “Good-bye, mon ami,” words rarely spoken by a king. . . . . . . I set aside certain hours of the day to work on the salt-cellar, and others to work on the Jupiter. As there were more men working on the salt-cellar than I could manage to employ on the Jupiter, by this time I had already finished it down to the last detail. The King had returned to Paris, and I went to find him, bringing the salt-cellar with me. As I have said before, it was oval in shape, about two-thirds of a cubit high, entirely in gold, and chased by means of a chisel. And, as I said when describing the model, I represented the Sea and the Land, both seated, with their legs intertwined just as some branches of the sea run into the land and the land juts into the sea: so, very fittingly, that was the attitude I gave them. I had placed a trident in the right hand of the Sea, and in his left hand, to hold the salt, I had put a delicately worked ship. . . . The Land I had represented by a very handsome woman, holding her horn of plenty in her hand, and entirely naked like her male partner. In her other hand, the left, I had made a little, very delicately worked, Ionic temple that I intended for the pepper. . . .

When I set this work before the King he gasped in amazement and could not take his eyes off it. Then he instructed me to take it back to my house, and said that in due course he would let me know what I was to do with it. I took it home, and at once invited in some of my close friends; and with them I dined very cheerfully, placing the salt-cellar in the middle of the table. We were the first to make use of it. . . .

* * * In your notebook, write a response to each of the following questions. As part of your responses, quote from this document—that is, literally place “quotation” marks around something that is stated, as part of your answer to each question. After completing your written responses to the questions below, keep them in your notes portfolio, to use during this week’s quiz and the final exam.

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1. In the first paragraph, King Francis I was speaking in anger to Cellini. Why was the king angry with the artist?

2. What had the king originally commissioned Cellini to make? (See the first paragraph.)

3. Who was the first to make use of the salt cellar, after it was completed? (See the last paragraph.)

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