Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 9.djvu/892

 856 F Y T F Y Z lie was born iu 1GGO at Marein in Styria, probably of poor parents. Of his youth and early training nothing is known. All we can ascertain is that in 1696 he was organist at one of the principal churches of Vienna, and in 1698 was appointed by the emperor Leopold I. as his &quot; imperial court- composer,&quot; with the by no means inconsiderable salary of about 6 a month. At the court of Leopold and of his successors Joseph I. and Charles VI., Fux remained for the rest of his life. To hid various court dignities that of organist atSt Stephen s cathedral was added in 1704. As a proof of the high favour in which he was held by the art- loving Charles VI., it is told that at the coronation of that emperor as king of Bohemia in 1723 an opera, La Con- stanza e la Fortezza, especially composed by Fux for the occasion, was given at Prague. The performance took place in an open-air theatre, and the mise-tn-scene is said to have been of great splendour. Fux at the time was suffering from gout, but in order to enable him to be present at the performance, the emperor had him carried in a litter all the way from Vienna, and a seat in the imperial box was re served for the composer. Fux died at Vienna in 1741. His life, although passed in the great world, was eventless, and his only troubles arose from the intrigues of his Italian rivals at court. Of the numerous operas which Fux wrote for the amusement of his imperial patrons it is unnecessary to speak. They do not essentially differ from the style of the Italian opera seria of the time. Of greater importance are his sacred compositions, psalms, motets, oratorios, and masses, the celebrated Missa Canonica amongst the latter. It is an all but unparalleled tour de force of learned musicianship, being written entirely in that most difficult of contrapuntal devices the canon. As a contrapuntist and musical scholar generally, Fux was unsurpassed by any of his contemporaries, and it is owing to these qualities that his great theoretical work, the Gradus ad ParnassMi,has pre served its importance to the present day. For a long time it remained by far the most thorough treatment of counter point and its various developments. The title of the original Latin edition may be given : Gradus ad Par- nassum sive manuductio ad compositionem musicoe regidarem, methoda nova ac certa nondum ante tarn exacta ordine in Imein edita, elaborata a Joanne Josepho Fux (Vienna, 1725). It was translated into most European languages during the 18th century, and is still studied by musicians interested in the history of their art. The expenses of the publication were defrayed by the emperor Charles VI., to whom the musical world most probably owes the survival of the im portant work. Fux s biography, a book full of minutest original research, and trustworthy in every respect, has re cently been published by Ludwig von K6chel( Vienna, 1871). It contains, amongst other valuable materials, a complete catalogue of the composer s numerous works. (F. H.) FYT, JOHANNES (1609-1 661), the best painter of animals and game after Franz Snyders, was born at Antwerp and christened August 19, 1609. He was registered apprentice to Hans van den Berghe in 1621. That he should have been placed thus early under the tuition of a man who held but a humble station amongst his artist contemporaries can only be explained by stating that Van den Berghe was the friend of Fyt s father and had already taught Jacques Fyt, Johannes s brother. Professionally Van den Berghe was a restorer of old pictures rather than a painter of new ones. At twenty Johannes Fyt entered the guild of St Luke as a master, and from that time till his death in 1661, he pro duced a vast number of pictures in which the bold facility of Snyders is united to the powerful effects of Rembrandt, and harmonies of gorgeous tone are not less conspicuous than freedom of touch and a true semblance of nature. There never was such a master of technical processes as Fyt in the rendering of animal life in its most varied forms. He may have been less correct in outline, less bold in action than Snyders, but he was much more skilful and more true in the reproduction of the coat of deer, dogs, greyhounds, hares, and monkeys, whilst in realizing the plumage of peacocks, woodcocks, ducks, hawks, and cocks and hens, he had not his equal, nor was any artist even of the Dutch school more effective in relieving his composi tions with accessories of tinted cloth, porcelain ware, vases, and fruit. He was not clever at figures, and he sometimes trusted for these to the co-operation of Cornelius Schut or Willeborts, whilst his architectural backgrounds were some times executed by Quellyn. Silenus amongst Fruit and Flowers, in the Harrach collection at Vienna, Diana and her Nymphs with the Produce of the Chase, in the Belve dere at Vienna, and Dead Game and Fruit in front of a Triumphal Arch, belonging to Baron Anselm von Rothschild at Vienna, are specimens of the co-operation respectively of Schut, Willeborts, and Quellyn. They are also Fyt s masterpieces. The earliest dated work of the master is a cat grabbing at a piece of dead poultry near a hare and birds, belonging to Baron Cetto at Munich, and executed in 1644. The latest is a Dead Snipe with Ducks, of 1660, sold w r ith the Jager collection at Cologne in 1871. Great power is shown in the bear and boar hunts at Munich and Ravensworth castle. A Hunted Roedeer with Dogs in the Water, in the Berlin Museum, has some of the life and more of the roughness of Snyders, but lacks variety of tint and finish. A splendid specimen is the Page and Parrot neor a table covered with game, guarded by a dog staring at a monkey, in the collection of Sir Richard Wallace. It is curious that Antwerp should possess only two examples of Fyt. The Madrid Museum contains 11, the Lichtenstein Gallery at Vienna 8, the Berlin, Vienna, and Dresden Museums 5 each, the Louvre 3, and the London National Gallery 1. With the needle and the brush Fyt was equally clever. He etched 16 plates, and those representing dogs are of their kind unique. (j. A. c.) FYZABAD, another name for FAIZABAD (q.v. END OF VOLUME NINTH. NETLL AND COMPANY, TRINTKER. EDTNBTTTIOP.