Six Centuries of Painting
by Randall Davies · English · Gutenberg #29532 · 623,117 chars · public domain (US)
The Project Gutenberg eBook of Six Centuries of Painting
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.
Title: Six Centuries of Painting
Author: Randall Davies
Release date: July 28, 2009 [eBook #29532]
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/29532
Credits: Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Chuck Greif and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SIX CENTURIES OF PAINTING ***
Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Chuck Greif and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
SIX CENTURIES OF PAINTING
[Illustration; VITTORE PISANO
(CALLED PISANELLO)
ST ANTHONY AND ST GEORGE
_National Gallery, London_]
SIX CENTURIES OF
PAINTING
BY
RANDALL DAVIES
[Illustration]
LONDON: T. C. & E. C. JACK
67 LONG ACRE, W.C., AND EDINBURGH
CONTENTS
TUSCAN SCHOOLS-- PAGE
I. GIOVANNI CIMABUE 1
II. GIOTTO DI BONDONE 10
III. THE EARLIER QUATTROCENTISTS 18
IV. THE LATER QUATTROCENTISTS 26
V. LEONARDO DA VINCI 33
VI. MICHELANGELO BUONARROTI 40
VII. RAFFAELLO DI SANTI 47
VENETIAN SCHOOLS--
I. THE VIVARINI AND BELLINI 59
II. TIZIANO VECELLIO 78
III. PAOLO VERONESE AND IL TINTORETTO 99
SPANISH SCHOOL 109
FLEMISH SCHOOL--
I. HUBERT AND JAN VAN EYCK 121
II. PETER PAUL RUBENS 143
III. THE PUPILS OF RUBENS 157
DUTCH SCHOOL--
I. FRANS HALS 165
II. REMBRANDT VAN RYN 171
III. PAINTERS OF _GENRE_ 183
IV. PAINTERS OF ANIMALS 191
V. PAINTERS OF LANDSCAPE 202
GERMAN SCHOOLS 211
FRENCH SCHOOL--
I. THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 225
II. THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 235
THE ENGLISH SCHOOL--
I. THE EARLY PORTRAIT PAINTERS 251
II. WILLIAM HOGARTH 258
III. SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS AND THOMAS GAINSBOROUGH 267
IV. THE CLOSE OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 295
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY--
I. THE SPIRIT OF REVOLT 305
II. EUGÈNE DELACROIX 309
III. RUSKIN AGAINST THE PHILISTINES 313
IV. MANET AND WHISTLER AGAINST THE WORLD 324
V. THE ROYAL ACADEMY 329
INDEX 335
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
VITTORE PISANO (called PISANELLO)--St Anthony
and St George _Frontispiece_
National Gallery, London
PLATE FACING PAGE
I. FILIPPO LIPPI--The Annunciation 22
National Gallery, London
II. SANDRO BOTTICELLI(?)--The Virgin and Child 26
National Gallery, London
III. SANDRO BOTTICELLI--Portrait of a Young Man 28
National Gallery, London
IV. SANDRO BOTTICELLI--The Nativity 32
National Gallery, London
V. LEONARDO DA VINCI--The Virgin of the Rocks 36
National Gallery, London
VI. PIETRO PERUGINO--Central Portion of Altar-Piece 50
National Gallery, London
VII. RAPHAEL--The Ansidei Madonna 52
National Gallery, London
VIII. RAPHAEL--La Belle Jardinière 52
Louvre, Paris
IX. RAPHAEL--Portrait of Baldassare Castiglione 56
Louvre, Paris
X. CORREGGIO--Mercury, Cupid, and Venus 58
National Gallery, London
XI. ANDREA MANTEGNA--The Madonna della Vittoria 68
Louvre, Paris
XII. GIOVANNI BELLINI--The Doge Loredano 72
National Gallery, London
XIII. GIORGIONE--Venetian Pastoral 78
Louvre, Paris
XIV. TITIAN--Portrait said to be of Ariosto 84
National Gallery, London
XV. TITIAN--The Holy Family 86
National Gallery, London
XVI. TITIAN--The Entombment 88
Louvre, Paris
XVII. TINTORETTO--St George and the Dragon 102
National Gallery, London
XVIII. VELAZQUEZ--The Infante Philip Prosper 112
Imperial Gallery, Vienna
XIX. VELAZQUEZ--The Rokeby Venus 118
National Gallery, London
XX. MURILLO--A Boy Drinking 120
National Gallery, London
XXI. JAN VAN EYCK--Jan Arnolfini and His Wife 128
National Gallery, London
XXII. JAN VAN EYCK--Portrait of the Painter's Wife 132
Town Gallery, Bruges
XXIII. JAN MABUSE--Portrait of Jean Carondelet 136
Louvre, Paris
XXIV. SIR PETER PAUL RUBENS--Portrait of Hélène Fourment,
the Artist's Second Wife, and two of Her Children 150
Louvre, Paris
XXV. FRANS HALS--Portrait of a Lady 168
Louvre, Paris
XXVI. REMBRANDT--Portrait of Hendrickje Stoffels 176
Louvre, Paris
XXVII. REMBRANDT--Portrait of an Old Lady 182
National Gallery, London
XXVIII. TERBORCH--The Concert 186
Louvre, Paris
XXIX. GABRIEL METSU--The Music Lesson 188
National Gallery, London
XXX. PIETER DE HOOCH--Interior of a Dutch House 190
National Gallery, London
XXXI. JAN VERMEER--The Lace Maker 192
Louvre, Paris
XXXII. "THE MASTER OF ST BARTHOLOMEW"--Two Saints 212
National Gallery, London
XXXIII. HANS HOLBEIN--Portrait of Christina, Duchess of
Milan 224
National Gallery, London
XXXIV. ANTOINE WATTEAU--L'Indifférent 236
Louvre, Paris
XXXV. JEAN-BAPTISTE GREUZE--The Broken Pitcher 244
Louvre, Paris
XXXVI. JEAN HONORÉ FRAGONARD--L'Étude 248
Louvre, Paris
XXXVII. HANS HOLBEIN--Anne of Cleves 256
Louvre, Paris
XXXVIII. WILLIAM HOGARTH--The Shrimp Girl 260
National Gallery, London
XXXIX. SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS--Lady Cockburn and Her Children 274
National Gallery, London
XL. SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS--The Age of Innocence 284
National Gallery, London
XLI. THOMAS GAINSBOROUGH--The Market Cart 290
National Gallery, London
XLII. GEORGE ROMNEY--The Parson's Daughter 298
National Gallery, London
XLIII. GEORGE ROMNEY--Mrs Robinson--"Perdita" 300
Hertford House, London
XLIV. JACQUES LOUIS DAVID--Portrait of Mme. Récamier 306
Louvre, Paris
XLV. EUGÈNE DELACROIX--Dante and Virgil 310
Louvre, Paris
XLVI. JOHN CONSTABLE--The Hay Wain 312
National Gallery, London
XLVII. J. M. W. TURNER--Crossing the Brook 316
National Gallery of British Art, London
XLVIII. ÉDOUARD MANET--Olympia 326
Louvre, Paris
XLIX. J. M. WHISTLER--Lillie in Our Alley 328
In the possession of John J. Cowan, Esq.
_INTRODUCTORY_
So far as it concerns pictures painted upon panel or canvas in tempera
or oils, the history of painting begins with Cimabue, who worked in
Florence during the latter half of the thirteenth century. That the art
was practised in much earlier times may readily be admitted, and the
life-like portraits in the vestibule at the National Gallery taken from
Greek tombs of the second or third century are sufficient proofs of it;
but for the origin of painting as we are now generally accustomed to
understand the term we need go no further back than to Cimabue and his
contemporaries, from whose time the art has uninterruptedly developed
throughout Europe until the present day.
Oddly enough it is to the Christian Church, whose early fathers put
their heaviest ban upon all forms of art, that this development is
almost wholly due. The reaction against paganism began to die out when
the Christian religion was more firmly established, and representations
of Christ and the Saints executed in mosaic became more and more to be
regarded as a necessary, or at any rate a regular embellishment of the
numerous churches which were built. For these mosaics panel paintings
began in time to be substituted; but it was long before any of the human
feeling of art was to be found in them. The influence of S. Francis of
Assisi was needed to prepare the way, and it was only towards the close
of the thirteenth century that the breath of life began to be infused
into these conventional representations, and painting became a living
art.
As it had begun in Italy, under the auspices of the Church, so it
chiefly developed in that country; at first in Florence and Siena, later
in Rome, whither its greatest masters were summoned by the Pope, and in
Venice, where, farther from the ecclesiastical influence, it flourished
more exuberantly, and so became more capable of being transplanted to
other countries. In Germany, however, and the Low Countries it had
appeared early enough to be considered almost as an independent growth,
though not till considerably later were the northern schools capable of
sustaining the reputation given them by the Van Eycks and Roger Van der
Weyden.
But for the effects of the Renaissance in Italy in the fifteenth century
it is questionable whether painting would ever have spread as it did in
the sixteenth and seventeenth to Spain and France. But by the close of
the fifteenth century such enormous progress had been made by the
Italian painters towards the realisation of human action and emotion in
pictures, that from being merely an accessory of religious
establishments, painting had become as much a part of the recognised
means of intellectual enjoyment of everyday life as music, sculpture, or
even the refinements of food and clothing.
Portraiture, in particular, had gradually advanced to a foremost place
in painting. Originally it was used exclusively for memorials of the
dead--as we have seen in the case of the paintings from the Greek
tombs--and on coins and medals. But gradually the practice arose, as
painters became more skilful in representing the appearance of the
model, of introducing the features and figures of actual personages into
religious pictures, in the character of "donors," and as these increased
in importance, the sacred personages were gradually relegated to the
background, and ultimately dispensed with altogether. At the beginning
of the sixteenth century we find Hans Holbein (as an example)
recommended by Erasmus to Sir Thomas More as a portrait painter who
wished to try his fortunes in England; and during the rest of his life
painting practically nothing but portraits.
By the end of the sixteenth century, if not earlier, painting had become
almost as much a business as an art, not only in Italy but in most other
countries in Europe, and was established in each country more or less
independently. So that making every allowance for the various foreign
influences that affected each different country, it is convenient to
trace the development of painting in each country separately, and we
arrange our chapters accordingly under the titles of Tuscan and Venetian
(the two main divisions of Italian painting), Spanish, Flemish, Dutch,
German, French, and British Schools. In each country, as might be
expected--and especially in Italy--there are subdivisions; but, broadly
speaking, the lover of pictures will be quite well enough equipped for
the enjoyment of them if he is able to recognise their country, and
roughly their period, without troubling about the particular district or
personal influence of their origin.
For while it is undoubtedly true that the more one knows about the
history of painting in general the greater will be the appreciation of
the various excellences which tend to perfection, it is absolutely
ridiculous to suppose that only the learned in such matters are capable
of deriving enjoyment from a beautiful picture, or of expressing an
opinion upon it. In the first place, the picture is intended for the
public, and the public have therefore the best right to say whether it
pleases them or not--and why. And it may be noted as a positive fact
that whenever the public, in any country, have a free choice in matters
of art, that choice generally turns out to be right, and is ultimately
endorsed by the best critics. Most of the vulgar art to be found in
advertisements and the illustrated papers is put there by ignorant and
vulgar providers, who imagine that the whole public are as ignorant and
vulgar as themselves; whereas whenever a better standard of taste is
given an opportunity, it never fails to find a welcome. Until Sir Henry
Wood inaugurated the present régime, the Promenade Concerts at Covent
Garden were popularly supposed to represent the national taste in music.
Until the Temple Classics and Every Man's Library were published it was
commonly supposed that the people at large cared for nothing but Bow
Bells, the Penny Novelette, or such unclassical if alluring provender.
In the domain of painting, the Royal Academy has such a firm and ancient
hold on the popular imagination of the English that its influence is
difficult to dispel; but there are many signs that its baneful
ascendency is at length on the decline; and it is well known that the
National Gallery is attracting more and more visitors and Burlington
House less and less as the years go on.
In the following attempt at a general survey of the history of
painting--imperfect or ill-proportioned as it may appear to this or that
specialist or lover of any particular school--I have thought it best to
assume a fair amount of ignorance of the subject on the part of the
reader, though without, I hope, taking any advantage of it, even if it
exists; and I have therefore drawn freely upon several old histories and
handbooks for both facts and opinions concerning the old masters and
their works. In some cases, I think, a dead lion is decidedly better
than a live dog.
R. D.
CHELSEA, 1914.
_TUSCAN SCHOOLS_
I
GIOVANNI CIMABUE
By the will of God, in the year 1240, we are told by Vasari, GIOVANNI
CIMABUE, of the noble family of that name, was born in the city of
Florence, to give the first light to the art of painting. Vasari's
"Lives of the Painters" was first published in Florence in 1550, and
with all its defects and all its inaccuracies, which have afforded so
much food for contention among modern critics, it is still the principal
source of our knowledge of the earlier history of painting as it was
revived in Italy in the thirteenth century.
Making proper allowance for Vasari's desire to glorify his own city, and
to make a dignified commencement to his work by attributing to Cimabue
more than was possibly his due, we need not be deterred by the very
latest dicta of the learned from accepting the outlines of his life of
Cimabue as an embodiment of the tradition of the time in which he
lived--two centuries and a quarter after Cimabue--and, until
contradicted by positive evidence, as worthy of general credence. In the
popular mind Cimabue still remains "The Father of modern painting," and
though his renown may have attracted more pictures and more legends to
his name than properly belong to him, it is certain that Dante, his
contemporary, wrote of him thus:--
Credette Cimabue nella pintura
Tener lo campo, ed ora ha Giotto il grido
Si che la fama di colui s'oscura.
This is at least as important as anything written by a contemporary of
William Shakespeare; and even if we are required to believe that some of
his most important works are by another hand, his influence on the
history of art is beyond question. Let us then follow Vasari a little
further, and we shall find, at any rate, what is typical of the
development of genius.
"This youth," Vasari continues, "being considered by his father and
others to give proof of an acute judgment and a clear understanding, was
sent to Santa Maria Novella to study letters under a relation who was
then master in grammar to the novices of that convent. But Cimabue,
instead of devoting himself to letters, consumed the whole day in
drawing men, horses, houses, and other various fancies on his books and
different papers--an occupation to which he felt himself impelled by
nature."
This is exactly what is recorded of Reynolds, it may be noted, and very
much the same as in the case of Gainsborough, Benjamin West--and many a
modern painter.
"This natural inclination was favoured by fortune, for the governors of
the city had invited certain Greek (probably Byzantine) painters to
Florence, for the purpose of restoring the art of painting, which had
not merely degenerated but was altogether lost. These artists, among
other works, began to paint the chapel of the Gondi in Santa Maria
Novella, and Cimabue, often escaping from the school, and having
already made a commencement of the art he was so fond of, would stand
watching these masters at their work. His father, and the artists
themselves, therefore concluded that he must be well endowed for
painting, and thought that much might be expected from him if he devoted
himself to it. Giovanni was accordingly, much to his delight, placed
with these masters, whom he soon greatly surpassed both in design and
colouring. For they, caring little for the progress of art, executed
their works not in the excellent manner of the ancient Greeks, but in
the rude modern style of their own day. Wherefore, though Cimabue
imitated them, he very much improved the art, relieving it greatly from
their uncouth manner and doing honour to his country by the name that he
acquired and by the works which he performed. Of this we have evidence
in Florence from the pictures which he painted there--as for example the
front of the altar of Saint Cecilia and a picture of the Virgin, in
Santa Croce, which was and still is (_i.e._ in 1550) attached to one of
the pilasters on the right of the choir."
Unfortunately the very first example cited pulls us up short alongside
the official catalogue of the Uffizi Gallery (where the picture was
placed in 1841), in which it is catalogued (No. 20) as "Unknown ...
Vasari erroneously attributes it to Cimabue."
Tiresome as it may seem to be thus distracted, at the very outset, by
the question of authenticity, it is nevertheless desirable to start with
a clear understanding that in surveying in a general way the history and
development of painting, it will be quite hopeless to wait for the final
word on the supposed authorship of every picture mentioned. In this
instance, as it happens, there is no reason to question the modern
catalogue, though that is by no means the same thing as denying that
Cimabue painted the picture which existed in the church of S. Cecilia in
Vasari's time. Is it more likely, it may be asked, that Vasari, who is
accused of unduly glorifying Cimabue, would attribute to him a work not
worthy of his fame, or that during the three centuries since Vasari
wrote a substitution was effected? The other picture, the _Madonna and
Child Enthroned_, which found its way into our National Gallery in 1857,
is still officially catalogued as the work of Cimabue, and it is to be
hoped that this precious relic, together with the Madonnas in the
Louvre, the Florence Academy, and in the lower church at Assisi, may be
long spared to us by the authority of the critics as "genuine
productions" of the beloved master.
On the general question, however, let me reassure the reader by stating
that so far as possible I have avoided the mention of any pictures, in
the following pages, about which there is any grave doubt, save in a few
cases where tradition is so firmly established that it seems heartless
to disturb it until final judgment is entered--of which the following
examples of Cimabue's reputed work may be taken as types. The latest
criticism seeks to deprive him of every single existing picture he is
believed to have painted; those mentioned by Vasari which have perished
may be considered equally unauthentic, but, as before mentioned, his
account of them gives us as well as anything else the story of the
beginnings of the art.
Having afterwards undertaken, Vasari continues, to paint a large picture
in the Abbey of the Santa Trinità in Florence for the monks of
Vallombrosa, he made great efforts to justify the high opinion already
formed of him and showed greater powers of invention, especially in the
attitude of the Virgin, whom he depicted with the child in her arms and
numerous angels around her, on a gold ground. This is the picture now in
the Accademia in Florence. The frescoes next described are no longer in
existence:--
"Cimabue next painted in fresco at the hospital of the Porcellana at the
corner of the Via Nuova which leads into the Borgo Ogni Santi. On the
front of this building, which has the principal door in the centre, he
painted the Virgin receiving the Annunciation from the angel, on one
side, and Christ with Cleophas and Luke on the other, all the figures
the size of life. In this work he departed more decidedly from the dry
and formal manner of his instructors, giving more life and movement to
the draperies, vestments and other accessories, and rendering all more
flexible and natural than was common to the manner of those Greeks whose
work were full of hard lines and sharp angles as well in mosaic as in
painting. And this rude unskilful manner the Greeks had acquired not so
much from study or settled purpose as from having servilely followed
certain fixed rules and habits transmitted through a long series of
years by one painter to another, while none ever thought of the
amelioration of his design, the embellishment of his colouring, or the
improvement of his invention."
After describing Cimabue's activities at Pisa and Assisi with equal
circumstance, Vasari passes to the famous _Rucellai Madonna_, now
supposed to be by the hand of Duccio of Siena. However doubtful the
story may appear in the light of modern criticism, historical or
artistic, it certainly forms part of the history of painting--for its
spirit if not for its accuracy--and as such it can never be too often
quoted:--
"He afterwards painted the picture of the Virgin for the Church of
Santa Maria Novella, where it is suspended on high between the chapel of
the Rucellai family and that of the Bardi. This picture is of larger
size than any figure that had been painted down to those times, and the
angels surrounding it make it evident that although Cimabue still
retained the Greek manner, he was nevertheless gradually approaching the
mode of outline and general method of modern times. Thus it happened
that this work was an object of so much admiration to the people of that
day--they having never seen anything better--that it was carried in
solemn procession, with the sound of trumpets and other festal
demonstration, from the house of Cimabue to the Church, he himself being
highly rewarded and honoured for it. It is further reported, and may be
read in certain records of old painters, that while Cimabue was painting
this picture in a garden near the gate of S. Pietro, King Charles the
Elder of Anjou passed through Florence, and the authorities of the city,
among other marks of respect, conducted him to see the picture of
Cimabue. When this work was thus shown to the King, it had not before
been seen by anyone; wherefore all the men and women of Florence
hastened in great crowds to admire it, making all possible demonstration
of delight."
Now whether or not Vasari was right in crediting Cimabue with these
honours in Florence instead of Duccio in Siena, makes little difference
in the story of the origin and early development of the art of painting.
One may doubt the accuracy of the mosaic account of the Creation, the
authorship of the Fourth Gospel or the Shakespearean poems, or the list
of names of the Normans who are recorded to have fought with William the
Conqueror. But what if one may? The Creation, the poems and plays of
Shakespeare and the battle of Hastings are all of them historic facts,
and neither science, nor literature, nor history is a penny the worse
for the loose though perfectly understandable conditions under which
these facts have been handed down to us. When we come down to times
nearer to our own the accuracy of data is more easily ascertainable,
though the confusion arising out of them often obscures their real
significance; but in looking for origins we are content to ignore the
details, provided we can find enough general information on which to
form an idea of them. To these first chapters of Vasari, then, we need
not hesitate to resort for the main sources of the earlier history of
painting. Even so far as we have gone we have learnt several important
facts as to the nature of the foundations on which the glorious
structure was to be raised.
First of all, it is apparent that the practice of painting, though
strictly forbidden by the earliest Fathers of the Church, was used by
the faithful in the Eastern churches for purposes of decoration, and was
introduced into Italy--we may safely say Tuscany--for the same purpose.
Second, that being transplanted into this new soil, it put forth such
wonderful blossoms that it came to be cultivated with much more regard;
and from being merely a necessary or conventional ornament of certain
portions of the church, was soon accounted its greatest glory.
Third, that it was accorded popular acclamation.
Fourth, that its most attractive feature in the eyes of beholders was
its life-like representation of the human form and other natural
objects.
Prosaic as these considerations may appear, they are nevertheless the
fundamental principles that underlie the whole of the subsequent
development of painting; and unless every picture in the world were
destroyed, and the art of painting wholly lost for at least a thousand
years, there could not be another picture produced which would not refer
back through continuous tradition to one or every one of them. First,
the basis of religion. Second, the development peculiar to the soil.
Third, the imitation of nature. Fourth, the approbation of the
public--there we have the four cardinal points in the chart of painting.
It would be easy enough to contend that painting had nothing whatever to
do with religion--if only by reference to the godless efforts of some of
the modernists; but such a contention could only be based on the
imperfect recognition of what religion actually means. In Italy in the
thirteenth century, as in Spain in the seventeenth, it meant the Church
of Rome. In Germany of the sixteenth, as in England in the eighteenth,
it meant something totally different. To put it a little differently,
all painting that is worth so calling has been done to the glory of God;
and after making due allowance for human frailties of every variety, it
is hard to say that among all the hundreds of great and good painters
there has ever been one who was not a good man.
As for the influence of environment, or nationality, this is so
universally recognised that the term "school" more often means locality
than tuition. We talk generally of the French, English, or Dutch
schools, and more particularly of the Paduan, Venetian, or Florentine.
It is only when we hesitate to call our national treasure a Botticelli
or a Bellini that we add the words "school of" to the name of the master
who is fondly supposed to have inspired its author. The difference
between a wood block of the early eighteenth century executed in
England and Japan respectively may be cited as an extreme instance of
the effect of locality on idea, when the method is identical.
With reference to the imitation of nature, at the mere mention of which
modernists become so furious, it is worth recalling that the earliest
story about painting relates to Zeuxis, who is said to have painted a
bunch of grapes with such skill that the birds ignored the fruit and
pecked at the picture. In later times we hear of Rembrandt being the
butt of his pupils, who, knowing his love of money, used to paint coins
on the floor; and there are plenty of stories of people painting flies
and other objects so naturally as to deceive the unwary spectator.
Vasari is continually praising his compatriots for painting "like the
life."
Lastly, the approbation, or if possible the acclamation, of the public
has seldom if ever been unconsidered by the artist. Where it has, it has
only been the greatest genius that has been able to exist without it. A
man who has anything to say must have somebody to say it to; and though
a painter may seem to be wasting the best part of his life in trying to
make the people understand what he has to say in his language instead of
talking to them in their own common tongue, it is rarely that he fails
in the end, even if, alas for him, the understanding comes too late to
be of any benefit to himself.
Cimabue's last work is said to be a figure, which was left unfinished,
of S. John, in mosaic, for the Duomo at Pisa. This was in 1302, which is
supposed to be the date of his death, though Vasari puts it two years
earlier, at the time he was engaged with the architect Arnolfo Lapi in
superintending the building of the Duomo in Florence, where he is
buried.
II
GIOTTO DI BONDONE
While according all due honour, and probably more, to Cimabue as the
originator of modern painting, it is to his pupil, GIOTTO, that we are
accustomed to look for the first developments of its possibilities. Had
Cimabue's successors been as conservative as his instructors, we might
still be not very much better off than if he had never lived. For much
as there is to admire in Cimabue's painting, it is only the first flush
of the dawn which it heralded, and though containing the germ of the
future development of the art, is yet without any of the glory which in
the fulness of time was to result from it.
To Giotto, Vasari considers, "is due the gratitude which the masters in
painting owe to Nature, seeing that he alone succeeded in resuscitating
art and restoring her to a path that may be called the true one; and
that the art of design, of which his contemporaries had little if any
knowledge, was by his means effectually recalled to life." This seems to
detract in some degree from his eulogies of Cimabue; but it is to the
last sentence that our attention should be directed, which implies that
in profiting by the master's example he succeeded in extending the
possibilities of the new art beyond its first limits. Cimabue, we may
believe, drew his Virgins and Saints from living models, whereas his
predecessors had merely repeated formulas laid down for them by long
tradition. Giotto went further, and extended his scope to the world at
large. For the plain gold background he substituted the landscape, thus
breaking down, as it were, a great wall, and seeing beyond it. Nor was
this innovation merely a technical one--it was the man's nature that
effected it and made his art a living thing.
Giotto, who was born in 1276, was the son of a simple husbandman, who
lived at Vespignano, about fourteen miles from Florence. Cimabue chanced
upon the boy when he was only about ten years old, tending his father's
sheep, and was astonished to find that he was occupied in making a
drawing of one of them upon a smooth piece of rock with a sharp stone.
He was so pleased with this that he asked to be allowed to take him back
to Florence, and the boy proved so apt a pupil that before very long he
was regularly employed in painting.
His influence was not confined to Florence, or even to Tuscany, but the
whole of Italy was indebted to him for a new impulse in art, and he is
said to have followed Pope Clement V. to Avignon and executed many
pictures there. Giotto was not only a painter, but his name is also
famous in the history of architecture: the wonderful Campanile adjoining
the Duomo in Florence was designed by him, and the foundations laid and
the building erected under his instructions. On sculpture too he
exercised a considerable influence, as may be seen in the panels and
statues which adorn the lower part of the tower, suggested if not
actually designed by Giotto, and carved by Andrea Pisano.
Chief of the earlier works of Giotto are his frescoes in the under
church at Assisi, and in these may be seen the remarkable fertility of
invention with which he endowed his successors. Instead of the
conventional Madonna and Child, and groups of saints and angels, we have
here whole legends represented in a series of pictures of almost
dramatic character. In the four triangular compartments of the groined
vaulting are the three vows of the Franciscan Order, namely, Poverty,
Chastity, and Obedience, and in the fourth the glorification of the
saint. In the first, the Vow of Poverty, it is significant to find that
he has taken his subject from Dante. Poverty appears as a woman whom
Christ gives in marriage to S. Francis: she stands among thorns; in the
foreground are two youths mocking her, and on either side a group of
angels as witnesses of the holy union. On the left is a youth, attended
by an angel, giving his cloak to a poor man; on the right are the rich
and great, who are invited by an angel to approach, but turn scornfully
away. The other designs appear to be Giotto's own invention. Chastity,
as a young woman, sits in a fortress surrounded by walls, and angels pay
her devotion. On one side are laymen and churchmen led forward by S.
Francis, and on the other Penance, habited as a hermit, driving away
earthly love and impurity. S. Francis in glory is more conventional, as
might be expected from the nature of the subject.
In the ancient Basilica of S. Peter in Rome Giotto made the celebrated
mosaic of the _Navicella_, which is now in the vestibule of S. Peter's.
It represents a ship, in which are the disciples, on a stormy sea.
According to the early Christian symbolisation the ship denoted the
Church. In the foreground on the right the Saviour, walking on the
waves, rescues Peter. Opposite sits a fisherman in tranquil expectation,
typifying the confident hope of the simple believer. This mosaic has
frequently been moved, and has undergone so much restoration that only
the composition can be attributed to Giotto.
Of the paintings of scriptural history attributed to Giotto very few
remain, and the greater part of those have in recent times been
pronounced to be the work of his followers. Foremost, however, among the
undoubted examples are paintings in the Chapel of the Madonna dell'Arena
at Padua, which was erected in 1303. In thirty-eight pictures, extending
in three rows along the wall, is contained the life of the Virgin. The
ground of the vaulting is blue studded with gold stars, among which
appear the heads of Christ and the prophets, while above the arch of the
choir is the Saviour in a glory of angels. Combined with these sacred
scenes and personages are introduced fitting allusions to the moral
state of man, the lower part of the side walls containing, in medallions
painted in monochrome, allegorical figures of the virtues and vices--the
former feminine and ideal, the latter masculine and individual--while
the entrance wall is covered with the wonderful _Last Judgment_.
Here, as in his allegorical pieces, Giotto appears as a great innovator,
a number of situations suggested by the Scriptures being now either
represented for the first time or seen in a totally new form. Well-known
subjects are enriched with numerous subordinate figures, making the
picture more truthful and more intelligible; as in the Flight into
Egypt, where the Holy Family is accompanied by a servant, and three
other figures are introduced to complete the composition. In the Raising
of Lazarus, too, the disciples behind the Saviour on the one side and
the astonished multitude on the other form two choruses, an arrangement
which is followed, but with considerable modification, in Ouwater's
unique picture of the same subject now in the Kaiser Friedrich Museum at
Berlin. This approach to dramatic reality sometimes assumes a character
which, as Kugler puts it, oversteps the strict limits of the higher
ecclesiastical style. It is worth noting, however, that the early
Netherlandish school--as we shall see in a later chapter--developed this
characteristic to a far greater extent, continuing the tradition handed
down, quite independently of Giotto, through illuminated manuscripts,
and with less of that expression of the highest religious or moral
feeling which is so evident in Giotto.
The few existing altar-pieces of Giotto are less important than his
frescoes, inasmuch as they do not admit of the exhibition of his higher
and most original gifts. Two signed examples are a _Coronation of the
Virgin_ in Santa Croce at Florence, and a _Madonna_, with saints and
angels on the side panels, originally in S. Maria degli Angeli at
Bologna, and now in the Brera at Milan. The latter, however, is not now
recognised as his. The earliest authentic example is the so-called
Stefaneschi altar-piece, painted in 1298 for the same patron who
commissioned the _Navicella_. Giotto's highest merit consists especially
in the number of new subjects which he introduced, in the life-like and
spiritual expression with which he heightened all familiar occurrences
and scenes, and in the choice of the moment of representation. In all
these no earlier Christian painter can be compared with him. Another and
scarcely less important quality he possessed is in the power of
conveying truth of character. The faces introduced into some of his
compositions bear an inward guarantee of their lively resemblance to
some living model, and this characteristic seems to have been eagerly
seized upon by his immediate followers for emulation, as is noticeable
in two of the principal works--in the Bargello at Florence, and in the
church of the Incoronata at Naples--formerly attributed to him but now
relegated to his pupils. The portrait of Dante in a fresco on the wall
of the Bargello shows a deep and penetrating mind, and in the
_Sacraments_ at Naples we find heads copied from life with obvious
fidelity and such a natural conception of particular scenes as brings
them to the mind of the spectator with extraordinary distinctness.
Of Giotto's numerous followers in the fourteenth century it is
impossible in the present work to give any particular account, but of
his influence at large on the practice as on the treatment and
conception of painting at this stage of its development, one or two
examples may be cited as typical of the progress he urged, such as the
frescoes in the Campo Santo at Pisa. This wonderful cloister, which
measures four hundred feet in length and over a hundred in
width--traditionally the dimensions of Noah's ark--was founded by the
Archbishop Ubaldo, before 1200, on his return from Palestine bringing
fifty-three ships laden with earth from the Holy Land. On this soil it
was erected, and surrounded by high walls in 1278. The whole of these
walls were afterwards adorned with paintings, in two tiers.
So far as concerns the history of painting, the question of the
authorship of these frescoes--which are by several distinct hands--is
altogether subordinate to that of the subjects depicted and the manner
in which they are treated, and we shall learn more from a general survey
of them than by following out the fortunes of particular painters. The
earliest are those on the east side, near the chapel, but more important
are those on the north, of about the middle of the fourteenth century,
which show a decided advance, both in feeling and execution, beyond
Giotto. The first is _The Triumph of Death_, in which the supernatural
is tempered with representations of what is mortal to an extent that
already shows that painting was not to be confined to religious uses
alone. All the pleasures and sorrows of life are here represented, on
the earth; it is only in the sky that we see the demons and angels. On
one side is a festive company of ladies and cavaliers, with hawks and
dogs, seated under orange trees, with rich carpets at their feet, all
splendidly dressed. A troubadour and a singing girl amuse them with
songs, _amorini_ flutter around them and wave their torches. On the
other side is another group, also a hunting party, on splendidly
caparisoned horses, and accompanied by a train of attendants. On the
mountains in the background are several hermits, who in contrast to the
votaries of pleasure have attained in a life of contemplation and
abstinence the highest term of human existence. Many of the figures are
traditionally supposed to be portraits.
The centre foreground is devoted to the less fortunate on earth, the
beggars and cripples, and also corpses of the mighty; and with these we
may turn to the allegorical treatment of the subject. To the first group
descends the angel of death, swinging a scythe, and to her the
unfortunate are stretching out their arms in supplication for an end to
their sorrows. The second group, it will be seen, are tracing a path
which leads to three open coffins in which lie the bodies of three
princes in different stages of decay, while a monk on crutches--intended
for S. Macarius--is pointing to them. The air is filled with angels and
demons, some of whom receive the souls of the dead.
A second picture is _The Last Judgment_, and a third _Hell_, the
resemblance between which and the great altar-piece in the Strozzi
Chapel in Santa Maria Novella at Florence, painted by Andrea Orcagna in
1357, was formerly considered proof of the same authorship. They are
now attributed to an unknown disciple of Pietro Lorenzetti, who was
painting in Siena between 1306 and 1348, and is assumed to have been a
pupil of Duccio.
The fourth picture, apparently by another hand--possibly that of
Lorenzetti himself--is _The Life of the Hermits_ in the wilderness of
Thebais, composed of a number of single groups in which the calm life of
contemplation is represented in the most varied manner. In front flows
the Nile, and a number of hermits are seen on its banks still subjected
to earthly occupations; they catch fish, hew wood, carry burdens to the
city, etc. Higher up, in the mountains, they are more estranged from the
world, but the Tempter follows them in various disguises, sometimes
frightful, sometimes seducing. As a whole this composition is
constructed in the ancient manner--as in Byzantine art--several series
rising one above the other, each of equal size, and without any
pretension to perspective: the single groups, at the same time, are
executed with much grace and feeling.
Next to this are six pictures of the history of S. Ranieri, and as many
of the lives of S. Efeso and S. Potito. The latter are known to have
been painted in 1392 by Spinello of Arezzo, or Spinello Aretino as he is
called, of whose work we have some fragments in the National
Gallery--alas too few! Two of these fragments are from his large fresco
_The Fall of the Rebellious Angels_, painted for the church of S. Maria
degli Angeli at Arezzo, which after being whitewashed over were rescued
on the conversion of the church to secular uses. Vasari relates that
when Spinello had finished this work the devil appeared to him in the
night as horrible and deformed as in the picture, and asked him where he
had seen him in so frightful a form, and why he had treated him so
ignominiously. Spinello awoke from his dream with horror, fell into a
state of abstraction, and soon afterwards died.
On the third part of the south wall is represented the history of Job,
in a series of paintings which were formerly attributed to Giotto
himself, though it is now recognised that they cannot be of an earlier
date than about 1370.
The _Temptation of Job_ is by Taddeo Gaddi, and the others, painted in
1372, are probably by Francesco da Volterra--not to be confused with the
sixteenth century painter Daniele da Volterra.
The paintings on the west wall are of inferior workmanship, while those
on the north were the crowning achievement of Benozzo Gozzoli a century
later.
III
THE EARLIER QUATTROCENTISTS
COMING to the second period in the development of the new art--roughly,
that is to say, from 1400 to 1450--Vasari observes that even where there
is no great facility displayed, yet the works evince great care and
thought; the manner is more free and graceful, the colouring more varied
and pleasing; more figures are employed in the compositions, and the
drawing is more correct inasmuch as it is closer to nature. It was
Masaccio, he says, who during this period superseded the manner of
Giotto in regard to the painting of flesh, draperies, buildings, etc.,
and also restored the practice of foreshortening and brought to light
that modern manner which has been followed by all artists. More natural
attitudes, and more effectual expression of feeling in the gestures and
movements of the body resulted, as art seeking to approach the truth of
nature by more correct drawing and to exhibit so close a resemblance to
the face of the living person that each figure might at once be
recognised. _Thus these masters constantly endeavoured to reproduce what
they beheld in nature and no more; their works became consequently more
carefully considered and better understood._ This gave them courage to
lay down rules for perspective and to carry the foreshortenings
precisely to the point which gives an exact imitation of the relief
apparent in nature and the real form. Minute attention to the effects of
light and shade and to various technical difficulties ensued, and
efforts were made towards a better order of composition. Landscapes also
were attempted; tracts of country, trees, shrubs, flowers, clouds, the
air, and other natural objects were depicted with some resemblance to
the realities represented; insomuch that the art might be said not only
to have become ennobled, but to have attained to that flower of youth
from which the fruit afterwards to follow might reasonably be looked
for.
Foremost among the painters of this period was FRA ANGELICO, or to give
him his proper title, Frate Giovanni da Fiesole, who was born in 1387
not far from Florence, and died in 1455. When he was twenty years old he
joined the order of the preaching friars, and all his painting is
devoted to religious subjects. He was a man of the utmost simplicity,
and most holy in every act of his life. He disregarded all worldly
advantages. Kindly to all, and temperate in all his habits, he used to
say that he who practised the art of painting had need of quiet, and
should live without cares and anxious thoughts; adding that he who would
do the work of Christ should perpetually remain with Christ. He was most
humble and modest, and in his painting he gave evidence of piety and
devotion as well as of ability, and the saints that he painted have more
of the air of sanctity than have those of any other master.
It was the custom of Fra Angelico to abstain from retouching or
improving any painting once finished. He altered nothing, but left all
as it was done the first time, believing, as he said, that such was the
will of God. It is also affirmed that he would never take his brushes in
hand until he had first offered a prayer, and he is said never to have
painted a crucifix without tears streaming from his eyes, and in the
countenance and attitude of his figures it is easy to perceive proof of
his sincerity, his goodness, and the depth of his devotion to the
religion of Christ.
This is well seen in the picture of the _Coronation of the Virgin_,
which is now in the Louvre (No. 1290). "Superior to all his other
works," Vasari says of this masterpiece, "and one in which he surpassed
himself, is a picture in the Church of San Domenico at Fiesole; in this
work he proves the high quality of his powers as well as the profound
intelligence he possessed of the art he practised. The subject is the
Coronation of the Virgin by Jesus Christ; the principal figures are
surrounded by a choir of angels, among whom are a vast number of saints
and holy personages, male and female. These figures are so numerous, so
well executed in attitudes, so various, and with expressions of the head
so richly diversified, that one feels infinite pleasure and delight in
regarding them. Nay, one is convinced that those blessed spirits can
look no otherwise in heaven itself, or, to speak under correction, could
not if they had forms appear otherwise; for all the saints male and
female assembled here have not only life and expression most delicately
and truly rendered, but the colouring also of the whole work would seem
to have been given by the hand of a saint or of an angel like
themselves. It is not without sufficient reason therefore that this
excellent ecclesiastic is always called Frate Giovanni Angelico. The
stories from the life of Our Lady and of San Domenico which adorn the
predella, moreover, are in the same divine manner; and I for myself can
affirm with truth that I never see this work but it appears something
new, nor can I ever satisfy myself with the sight of it or have enough
of beholding it."
No less beautiful are the five compartments of the predella to the
altar-piece still in San Domenico at Fiesole--which were purchased for
the National Gallery in 1860 at the then alarming price of £3500--with
no less than two hundred and sixty little figures of saintly personages,
"so beautiful," as Vasari says, "that they appear to be truly beings of
Paradise."
FRA FILIPPO LIPPI, born in Florence about 1406, and dying there in 1469,
was the exact antithesis of Fra Angelico, both in his private life and
in the method of his painting. He was just as earthly in both respects
as Fra Angelico was heavenly. As a child he was put with the Carmelites,
and as he showed an inclination for drawing rather than for study, he
was allowed every facility for studying the newly painted chapel of the
Branacci, and followed the manner of Masaccio so closely that it was
said that the spirit of that master had entered into his body. It is
only fair to Masaccio to add that this means his artistic spirit, for
Filippo's moral character was by no means exemplary. The story of one of
his best-known works, _The Nativity_, which is now in the Louvre (No.
1343), is thus related by Vasari:--"Having received a commission from
the nuns of Santa Margherita, at Prato, to paint a picture for the high
altar of their church, he chanced one day to see the daughter of
Francesco Buti, a citizen of Florence, who had been sent to the convent
as a novice. Filippo, after a glance at Lucrezia--for that was her
name--was so taken with her beauty that he prevailed upon the nuns to
allow him to paint her as the Virgin. This resulted in his falling so
violently in love with her that he induced her to run away with him.
Resisting every effort of her father and of the nuns to make her leave
Filippo, she remained with him, and bore him a son who lived to be
almost as famous a painter as his father. He was called Filippino
Lippi."
The picture of S. John and six saints in the National Gallery (No. 677)
also recalls the story of his wildness, inasmuch as it came from the
Palazzo Medici, where Filippo worked for the great Cosimo di Medici. It
was well known that Filippo paid no attention to his work when he was
engaged in the pursuit of his pleasures, and so Cosimo shut him up in
the palace so that he might not waste his time in running about while
working for him. But Filippo after a couple of days' confinement made a
rope out of his bed clothes, and let himself down from the window, and
for several days gave himself up to his own amusements. When Cosimo
found that he had disappeared, he had search made for him, and at last
Filippo returned; after which Cosimo was afraid to shut him up again in
view of the risk he had run in descending from the window.
Vasari considers that Filippo excelled in his smaller pictures--"In
these he surpassed himself, imparting to them a grace and beauty than
which nothing finer could be imagined. Examples of this may be seen in
the predellas of all the works painted by him. He was indeed an
[Illustration: PLATE I.--FILIPPO LIPPI
THE ANNUNCIATION
_National Gallery, London_]
artist of such power that in his own time he was surpassed by none;
therefore it is that he has not only been always praised by
Michelangelo, but in many particulars has been imitated by him."
As a contributor to the progress of the art of painting he is credited
by Vasari with two innovations, which may be seen in his paintings in
the church of San Domenico at Prato, namely (1) the figures being larger
than life, and thereby forming an example to later artists for giving
true grandeur to large figures; and (2) certain figures clothed in
vestments but little used at that time, whereby the minds of other
artists were awakened and began to depart from that sameness which
should rather be called obsolete monotony than antique simplicity.
It is noticeable that despite his bad character--which is said to have
been the cause of his death by poison--all his work was in religious
subjects. He was painting the chapel in the Church of Our Lady at
Spoleto when, in 1469, he died.
PAOLO UCCELLO, as he was called, was born at Florence in 1397, and died
there in 1475. His real name was Paolo di Dono, but he was so fond of
painting animals and birds--especially the latter--that he officially
signed himself as Paolo Uccello. He devoted so much of his time,
however, to the study of perspective, that both his life and his work
suffered thereby. His wife used to relate that he would stand the whole
night through beside his writing table, and when she entreated him to
come to bed, would only say, "Oh, what a delightful thing is this
perspective!" Donatello, the sculptor, is said to have told him that in
his ceaseless study of perspective he was leaving the substance for the
shadow; but Donatello was not a painter.
Before his time the painters had not studied the question of
perspective scientifically. Giotto had made no attempt at it, and
Masaccio only came nearer to realising it by chance. Brunelleschi, the
architect, laid down its first principles, but it was Uccello who first
put these principles into practice in painting, and thereby paved the
way for his successors to walk firmly upon.
How he struggled with the difficulties of this vitally important subject
may be seen in the large battle-piece at the National Gallery, and
however crude and absurd this fine composition may seem at first sight
to those who are only accustomed to looking at modern pictures, it must
be remembered that Uccello is here struggling, as it were, with a savage
monster which to succeeding painters has, through his efforts, been a
submissive slave.
This picture is one of four panels executed for the Bartolini family.
One of the others is in the Louvre, and a third in the Uffizi.
Another--or indeed almost the only other--work of Uccello which is now
to be seen is the colossal painting in monochrome (_terra-verde_) on the
wall of the cathedral at Florence. Strangely enough, this equestrian
portrait commemorates an Englishman, Sir John Hawkwood, whose name is
Italianized in the inscription into Giovanni Acuto. He was born at Sible
Hedingham in Essex, the son of a tanner, and adventuring under Edward
III. into France, found his way to Florence, where he served the State
so well that they interred him, on his death in 1393, at the public
expense, and subsequently commissioned Uccello to execute his monument.
With all his devotion to science, the artist has committed the strange
mistake of making the horse stand on two legs on the same side, the
other two being lifted.
TO MASACCIO, born in or about 1400, and dying in 1443, we owe a great
step in art towards realism. It was he, says Vasari, who first attained
the clear perception that _painting is only the close imitation, by
drawing and colouring simply, of all the forms presented by nature
showing them as they are produced by her, and that whoever shall most
perfectly effect this may be said to have most nearly approached the
summit of excellence_. The conviction of this truth, he adds, was the
cause of Masaccio's attaining so much knowledge by means of perpetual
study that he may be accounted among the first by whom art was in a
measure delivered from rudeness and hardness; it was he who led the way
to the realisation of beautiful attitudes and movements which were never
exhibited by any painter before his day, while he also imparted a life
and force to his figures, with a certain roundness and relief which
render them truly characteristic and natural. Possessing great
correctness of judgment, Masaccio perceived that all figures not
sufficiently foreshortened to appear standing firmly on the plane
whereon they are placed, but reared up on the points of their feet, must
needs be deprived of all grace and excellence in the most important
essentials. It is true that Uccello, in his studies of perspective, had
helped to lessen this difficulty, but Masaccio managed his
foreshortenings with much greater skill (though doubtless with less
science) and succeeded better than any artist before him. Moreover, he
imparted extreme softness and harmony to his paintings, and was careful
to have the carnations of the heads and other nude parts in accordance
with the colours of the draperies, which he represented with few and
simple folds as they are seen in real life.
Masaccio's principal remaining works are his frescoes in the famous
Branacci Chapel at the Carmine convent in Florence. The work of
decorating the chapel was begun by Masolino, but finished by Masaccio
and Filippo Lippi. Vasari states it as a fact that all the most
celebrated sculptors and painters had become excellent and illustrious
by studying Masaccio's work in this chapel, and there is good reason to
believe that Michelangelo and Raphael profited by their studies there,
without mentioning all the names enumerated by Vasari. Seeing how
important the influence of Masaccio was destined to become, I have
ventured to italicise Vasari's opinions on the causes which operated in
creating the Florentine style and in raising the art of painting to
heights undreamt of by its earliest pioneers.
IV
THE LATER QUATTROCENTISTS
THREE names stand out conspicuously from the ranks of Florentine
painters in the latter half of the fifteenth century. But progress being
one of the essential characteristics of the art at this period, as in
all others, it is not surprising that the order of their fame coincides
(inversely) pretty nearly with that of their date. First, ANTONIO
POLLAIUOLO; second, SANDRO BOTTICELLI; and lastly, LEONARDO DA VINCI.
It is important to note that Pollaiuolo was first apprenticed to a
goldsmith, and attained such proficiency in that craft that he was
employed by Lorenzo Ghiberti in the carving of the gates of the
Baptistry, and subsequently set up a workshop for himself. In
competition with Finiguerra he "executed various stories," says Vasari,
"wherein he fully equalled his competitor in careful execution, while he
surpassed him in beauty of design. The guild of merchants, being
convinced
[Illustration: PLATE II.--SANDRO BOTTICELLI (?)
THE VIRGIN AND CHILD
_National Gallery, London_]
of his ability, resolved to employ him to execute certain stories in
silver for the altar of San Giovanni, and he performed them so
excellently that they were acknowledged to be the best of all those
previously executed by various masters.... In other churches also in
Florence and Rome, and other parts of Italy, his miraculous enamels are
to be seen."
Now whether or not Antonio, like others, continued to exercise this
craft, the account given by Vasari, as follows, of his learning to paint
is extremely significant as showing how painting was regarded in
relation to the kindred arts so widely practised in
Florence:--"Eventually, considering that this craft did not secure a
long life to the work of its masters, Antonio, desiring for his labours
a more enduring memory, resolved to devote himself to it no longer; and
his brother Piero being a painter, he joined himself to him for the
purpose of learning the modes of proceeding in painting. He then found
this to be an art so different from that of the goldsmith that he wished
he had never addressed himself to it. But being impelled by shame rather
than any advantage to be obtained, he acquired a knowledge of the
processes used in painting in the course of a few months, and became an
excellent master."
As early as 1460 he had painted the three large canvases of _Hercules_
for Lorenzo de'Medici, now no longer existing, but probably reflected in
the two small panels of the same subject in the Uffizi. These alone are
enough to mark him as one of the greatest artists of his time. The
magnificent _David_, at Berlin, soon followed, and the little _Daphne
and Apollo_ in our National Gallery. These were all accomplished
unaided, but a little later he worked in concert with his brother Piero,
to whom we are told to attribute parts of the painting of the large _S.
Sebastian_ in the National Gallery, painted in 1475 for Antonio Pucci,
from whose descendant it was purchased. "For the chapel of the Pucci in
the church of San Sebastian," says Vasari, "Antonio painted the
altar-piece--a remarkable and wonderfully executed work with numerous
horses, many nude figures, and singularly beautiful foreshortenings.
Also the portrait of S. Sebastian taken from life, that is to say, from
Gino di Ludovico Capponi. This picture has been more extolled than any
by Antonio. He has evidently copied nature to the utmost of his power,
as we see more especially in one of the archers, who, bending towards
the ground, and resting his bow against his breast, is employing all his
force to prepare it for action; the veins are swelling, the muscles
strained, and the man holds his breath as he applies all his strength to
the effort. All the other figures in the diversity of their attitudes
clearly prove the artist's ability and the labour he has bestowed on the
work."
It is in his superb rendering of the figure, especially in the nude,
that Antonio Pollaiuolo marks a decisive step in the progress of
painting, and is entitled to be regarded as "the first modern artist to
master expression of the human form, its spirit, and its action." But
for him we should miss much of the strength and vigour that
distinguishes the real from the false Botticelli.
"In the same time with the illustrious Lorenzo de Medici, the elder,"
Vasari writes, "which was truly an age of gold for men of talent, there
flourished a certain Alessandro, called after our custom Sandro, and
further named di Botticello, for a reason which we shall presently see.
His father, Mariano Filipepi, a Florentine citizen, brought him up with
care; but although the boy readily acquired whatever he had a mind to
learn,
[Illustration: PLATE III.--SANDRO BOTTICELLI
PORTRAIT OF A YOUNG MAN
_National Gallery, London_]
yet he was always discontented, nor would he take any pleasure in
reading, writing, or accounts; so that his father turned him over in
despair to a friend of his called Botticello, who was a goldsmith.
"There was at that time a close connection and almost constant
intercourse between the goldsmiths and the painters, wherefore Sandro,
who had remarkable talent and was strongly disposed to the arts of
design, became enamoured of painting and resolved to devote himself
entirely to that vocation. He acknowledged his purpose forthwith to his
father, who accordingly took him to Fra Filippo. Devoting himself
entirely to the vocation he had chosen, Sandro so closely followed the
directions and imitated the manner of his master, that Filippo conceived
a great love for him, and instructed him so effectually that Sandro
rapidly attained a degree in art that none could have predicted for
him."
The influence of the Giottesque tradition which was thus handed on to
the youthful Botticelli by Filippo Lippi is traceable in the beautiful
little _Adoration of the Magi_--the oblong, not the _tondo_--in the
National Gallery (No. 592). This was formerly attributed to Filippino
Lippi, but is now universally recognised as one of Sandro's very
earliest productions, when still under the immediate influence of
Filippo, and prior to the _Fortitude_, painted before 1470, which is now
in the Uffizi, and is the first picture mentioned by Vasari,
thus--"While still a youth he painted the figure of Fortitude among
those pictures of the virtues which Antonio and Pietro Pollaiuolo were
executing in the Mercatanzia or Tribunal of Commerce in Florence. In
Santo Spirito (Vasari continues, naming a picture which is probably _The
Virgin Enthroned_, now at Berlin (No. 106)), he painted a picture for
the Bardi family; this work he executed with great diligence, and
finished it very successfully, depicting the olive and palm trees with
extraordinary care."
The influence of Pollaiuolo is more evident in his two next productions,
the two small panels of _Holofernes_ and the _Portrait of a Man with a
Medal_, in the Uffizi, and again in the _S. Sebastian_ now at Berlin,
which was painted in 1473.
About 1476 the second _Adoration of the Magi_ in the National Gallery
was painted, and a year or two later the famous and more splendid
picture of the same subject which is in the Uffizi. With this he
established his reputation, showing himself unmistakably as an artist of
profound feeling and noble character besides being a skilful painter. It
was commissioned for the church of Santa Maria Novella. "In the face of
the oldest of the kings," says Vasari, "there is the most lively
expression of tenderness as he kisses the foot of the Saviour, and of
satisfaction at the attainment of the purpose for which he had
undertaken his long journey. This figure is the portrait of Cosimo
de'Medici, the most faithful and animated likeness of all now known of
him. The second of the kings is the portrait of Giuliano de' Medici,
father of Pope Clement VII., and he is presenting his gift with an
expression of the most devout sincerity. The third, who is likewise
kneeling, seems to be offering thanksgiving as well as adoration; this
is the likeness of Giovanni, the son of Cosimo.
"The beauty which Sandro has imparted to these heads cannot be
adequately described; all the figures are in different attitudes, some
seen full face, others in profile, some almost entirely turned away,
others bent down; and to all the artist has given an appropriate
expression, whether old or young, showing numerous peculiarities, which
prove the mastery he possessed over his art. He has even distinguished
the followers of each king, so that one can see which belong to one and
which to another. It is indeed a most wonderful work; the composition,
the colouring, and the design are so beautiful that every artist to-day
is amazed at it, and at the time it acquired so great a fame for Sandro
that Pope Sixtus IV. appointed him superintendent of the painting of the
chapel he had built in Rome."
The visit to Rome was in 1481, and meantime Botticelli had produced the
wayward _Primavera_, and the more stern and harsh _S. Augustine_ in the
church of Ognissanti. Of his frescoes in the Pope's chapel nearly all
have survived, including _Moses slaying the Egyptian_, _The Temptation_,
and _The Destruction of Korah's Company_, besides such of the heads of
the Popes as were not painted by Domenico Ghirlandaio and his other
assistants in the work.
Returning to Florence in 1482, he was for twenty years without a rival
in the city--after the departure of Leonardo to Milan--and he appears to
have been subjected to no new influences, but steadily to have developed
the immense forces within him. Before 1492 may be dated the two examples
in the National Gallery, the _Portrait of a Youth_ and the fascinating
_Mars and Venus_, which was probably intended as a decoration for some
large piece of furniture. The beautiful and extraordinarily life-like
frescoes in the Louvre (the only recognised works of the master in that
Gallery) from the Villa Lemmi, representing Giovanna Tornabuoni with
Venus and the Graces, and Lorenzo Tornabuoni with the Liberal Arts, are
assigned to 1486. Of this period are also the more familiar _Birth of
Venus_; _The Tondo of the Pomegranate_ and the _Annunciation_ in the
Uffizi, and the San Marco altar-piece, the _Coronation of the Virgin_
in the Florence Academy.
To the influence of Savonarola, however great or little that may have
been, is attributed the seriousness of his latest work. Professor Muther
characterises Botticelli as "the Jeremiah of the Renaissance," but
whether or not this is a rhetorical overstatement, the "tendency to
impassioned and feverish action, so evident in the famous _Calumny of
Apelles_, reflects, no doubt, the agitation of his spiritual stress."[1]
This is the latest of Sandro's works which are in public galleries, and
there is every probability that the last years of his life were not very
productive. "This master is said to have had an extraordinary love for
those whom he knew to be zealous students in art," Vasari tells us, "and
is affirmed to have gained considerable sums of money, but being a bad
manager and very careless, all came to nothing. Finally, having become
old, unfit for work, and helpless, he was obliged to go on crutches,
being unable to stand upright, and so died, after long illness and
decrepitude, in his seventy-eighth year. He was buried at Florence, in
the church of Ognissanti in the year 1510."
The large and beautiful _Assumption of the Virgin_, with the circles of
saints and angels, in the National Gallery, which has only of late years
been taken out of the catalogue of Botticelli's works, is now said to
have been executed by his early pupil FRANCESCO BOTTICINI (_c._
1446-1497) in 1470 or thereabouts. "In the church of San Pietro," Vasari
writes of Botticelli, "he executed a picture for Matteo Palmieri, with a
very large number of figures. The subject is the Assumption of our Lady,
and the zones or circles of heaven are
[Illustration: PLATE IV.--SANDRO BOTTICELLI
THE NATIVITY
_National Gallery, London_]
there painted in their order. The patriarchs, prophets, apostles,
evangelists, martyrs, confessors, doctors, virgins, and the hierarchies;
all of which was executed by Sandro according to the design furnished to
him by Matteo, who was a very learned and able man. The whole work was
conducted and finished with the most wonderful skill and care; at the
foot were the portraits of Matteo and his wife kneeling. But although
this picture is exceedingly beautiful, and ought to have put envy to
shame, yet there were certain malevolent and censorious persons who, not
being able to fix any other blame upon it, declared that Matteo and
Sandro had fallen into grievous heresy." It is apparent that the picture
has suffered intentional injury, and it is known that in consequence of
this supposed heresy the altar which it adorned was interdicted and the
picture covered up.
In view of all the circumstances it is certain that it was designed by
Botticelli, and very possibly executed under his immediate supervision
and with some assistance from him. If we do not see the real Botticelli
in it, we see his influence and his power far more clearly than in the
numerous _tondi_ of Madonna and Child that have been assigned to him in
less critical ages than our own. For the real Botticelli was something
very real indeed, and though it was easy enough to imitate his
mannerisms, neither the style nor the spirit of his work were ever
within reach of his closest followers.
V
LEONARDO DA VINCI
Twelve years younger than Botticelli was LEONARDO DA VINCI (1452-1520),
whose career as a painter commenced in the workshop of Andrea
Verrocchio, goldsmith, painter, and sculptor. That so extraordinary a
genius should have fixed upon painting for his means of expression
rather than any of his other natural gifts is the most telling evidence
of the pre-eminence earned for that art by the efforts of those whose
works we have been considering. For once we may go all the way with
Vasari, and accept his estimate of him as even moderate in comparison
with those of modern writers. "The richest gifts," he writes, "are
sometimes showered, as by celestial influence, on human creatures, and
we see beauty, grace, and talent so united in a single person that
whatever the man thus favoured may turn to, his every action is so
divine as to leave all other men far behind him, and to prove that he
has been specially endowed by the hand of God himself, and has not
obtained his pre-eminence by human teaching. This was seen and
acknowledged by all men in the case of Leonardo da Vinci, in whom, to
say nothing of the beauty of his person, which was such that it could
never be sufficiently extolled, there was a grace beyond expression
which was manifested without thought or effort in every act and deed,
and who besides had so rare a gift of talent and ability that to
whatever subject he turned, however difficult, he presently made himself
absolute master of it. Extraordinary strength was in him joined with
remarkable facility, a mind of regal boldness and magnanimous daring.
His gifts were such that his fame extended far and wide, and he was held
in the highest estimation not in his own time only, but also and even to
a greater extent after his death; and this will continue to be in all
succeeding ages. Truly wonderful indeed and divinely gifted was
Leonardo."
To his activities in directions other than painting, I need not allude
except to say that they account in a great measure for the scarcity of
the pictures he has left us, and to emphasise the significance of his
having painted at all. To a man of such supreme genius the circumstances
in which he found himself, rather than any particular technical
facility, determined the course of his career, and in another age and
another country he might have been a Pheidias or a Newton, a Shakespeare
or a Beethoven.
But if the pictures he has left us are few in number--according to the
present estimate not more than a dozen--they are altogether greater than
anything else in the realm of painting, and with their marvellous beauty
and subtlety have probably had a wider influence, both on painters and
on lovers of painting, than those of any other master. They seem to be
endowed with a spirit of something beyond painting itself, and in the
presence of _The Last Supper_ or the _Mona Lisa_ the babble of
conflicting opinions on questions of style, technique, and what not is
silenced.
Similarly, in writing of Leonardo's pictures, every one of which is a
masterpiece, it seems superfluous to say even a word about what the
whole world already knows so well. All that can be usefully added is a
little of the tradition, where it is sufficiently authenticated,
relating to the circumstances under which they came into existence, and
such of the circumstances of his life as concern their production.
When still quite a youth Leonardo was apprenticed to Andrea Verrocchio,
and the story goes that it was the marvellous painting of the angel, by
the pupil, in the master's _Baptism_ in the Academy at Florence, that
induced Verrocchio to abandon painting and devote himself entirely to
sculpture. This angel has been attributed to the hand of Leonardo from
the earliest times, but can hardly be taken, at any rate in its present
condition, as a decided proof of the genius that was to be displayed in
manhood. More certain are the _S. Jerome_ in the Vatican, and the
_Adoration of the Kings_ in the Uffizi, though neither is carried beyond
the earlier stages of "under-painting." A few finished portraits are now
assigned with tolerable certainty to his earlier years; but for his
famous masterpieces we must jump to the year 1482, when he left Florence
and went to Milan, where for the next sixteen years he was
intermittently engaged in the execution of the great equestrian statue,
which was destroyed by the French mercenaries before it was actually
completed.
It appears that he was recommended by Lorenzo de'Medici to Lodovico il
Moro, Duke of Milan, probably for the very purpose of executing this
statue. However that may be, it is now certain that in 1483 he was
commissioned by the Franciscan monks to paint a picture of the Virgin
and Child for their church of the Conception, and that between 1491 and
1494 Leonardo and his assistant, Ambrogio di Predis, petitioned the Duke
for an arbitration as to price. This was the famous _Virgin of the
Rocks_, now in the Louvre, and the similar, and though not precisely
identical, composition in our National Gallery is generally supposed to
be a replica, painted by Ambrogio under the supervision of, and possibly
with some assistance from, Leonardo himself.
Between 1495 and 1498 Leonardo was engaged on the painting of _The Last
Supper_. In the Forster Library at the Victoria and Albert Museum is a
notebook which contains his first memoranda for the wonderful design of
this masterpiece. At Windsor are studies for the heads of S. Matthew, S.
Philip, and
[Illustration: PLATE V.--LEONARDO DA VINCI
THE VIRGIN OF THE ROCKS
_National Gallery, London_]
Judas, and for the right arm of S. Peter. That of the head of the Christ
in the Brera at Milan has been so much "restored" that it can hardly be
regarded as Leonardo's work. Vasari's account of the delays in the
completion of the painting is better known, and probably less
trustworthy, than one or two notices of about the same date, quoted by
Mr H. P. Horne, in translating and commenting on Vasari. In June 1497,
when the work had been in progress over two years, Duke Lodovico wrote
to his secretary "to urge Leonardo, the Florentine, to finish the work
of the Refectory which he has begun, ... and that articles subscribed by
his hand shall be executed which shall oblige him to finish the work
within the time that shall be agreed upon." Matteo Bandello, in the
prologue to one of his _Novelle_, describes how he saw him actually at
work--"Leonardo, as I have more than once seen and observed him, used
often to go early in the morning and mount the scaffolding (for _The
Last Supper_ is somewhat raised above the ground), and from morning till
dusk never lay the brush out of his hand, but, oblivious of both eating
and drinking, paint without ceasing. After that, he would remain two,
three, or four days without touching it: yet he always stayed there,
sometimes for one or two hours, and only contemplated, considered, and
criticised, as he examined with himself the figures he had made."
Vasari's story of the Prior's head serving for that of Judas is related
with less colour, but probably more truth, in the Discourses of G. B.
Giraldi, who says that when Leonardo had finished the painting with the
exception of the head of Judas, the friars complained to the Duke that
he had left it in this state for more than a year. Leonardo replied that
for more than a year he had gone every morning and evening into the
Borghetto, where all the worst sort of people lived, yet he could never
find a head sufficiently evil to serve for the likeness of Judas: but he
added, "If perchance I shall not find one, I will put there the head of
this Father Prior who is now so troublesome to me, which will become him
mightily."
In 1500 Leonardo was back again in Florence, and his next important work
was the designing, though probably not the actual painting, of the
beautiful picture in the Louvre, _The Virgin and Child with S. Anne_,
the commission for which had been given to Filippino Lippi, but resigned
by him on Leonardo's return. In 1501 Isabella d'Este wrote to know
whether Leonardo was still in Florence, and what he was doing, as she
wished him to paint a picture for her in the palace at Mantua, and in
the reply of the Vicar-General of the Carmelites we have a valuable
account of the artist and his work. "As far as I can gather," he writes,
"the life of Leonardo is extremely variable and undetermined. Since his
arrival here he has only made a sketch in a cartoon. It represents a
Christ as a little child of about a year old, reaching forward out of
his mother's arms towards a lamb. The mother, half rising from the lap
of S. Anne, catches at the child as though to take it away from the
lamb, the animal of sacrifice signifying the Passion. S. Anne, also
rising a little from her seat, seems to wish to restrain her daughter
from separating the child from the lamb; which perhaps is intended to
signify the Church, that would not wish that the Passion of Christ
should be hindered. These figures are as large as life, but they are all
contained in a small cartoon, since all of them sit or are bent; the
figure of the Virgin is somewhat in front of the other, turned towards
the left. This sketch is not yet finished. He has not executed any
other work, except that his two assistants paint portraits and he, at
times, lends a hand to one or another of them. He gives profound study
to geometry, and grows most impatient of painting."
The history of this cartoon--as indeed of the Louvre picture--is
somewhat obscure, but it is certain that the beautiful cartoon of the
same subject in the possession of the Royal Academy is not the one above
described.
Lastly, there is the famous--or, may we say, now more famous than
ever--portrait of _Mona Lisa_. "Whoever wishes to know how far art can
imitate nature," Vasari writes, "may do so in this head, wherein every
detail that could be depicted by the brush has been faithfully
reproduced. The eyes have the lustrous brightness and watery sheen that
is seen in life, and around them are all those rosy and pearly tints
which, like the eyelashes too, can only be rendered by means of the
deepest subtlety; the eyebrows also are painted with the closest
exactitude, where fuller and where more thinly set, in a manner that
could not be more natural. The nose, with its beautiful and delicately
roseate nostrils, seems to be alive. The mouth, wonderful in its
outline, shows the lips perfectly uniting the rose tints of their colour
with that of the face, and the carnation of the cheek appears rather to
be flesh and blood than only painted. Looking at the pit of the throat
one can hardly believe that one cannot see the beating of the pulse, and
in truth it may be said that the whole work is painted in a manner well
calculated to make the boldest master tremble.
"Mona Lisa was exceedingly beautiful, and while Leonardo was painting
her portrait he kept someone constantly near her to sing or play, to
jest or otherwise amuse her, so that she might continue cheerful, and
keep away the melancholy that painters are apt to give to their
portraits. In this picture there is a smile so pleasing that the sight
of it is a thing that appears more divine than human, and it has ever
been considered a marvel that it is not actually alive."
It is worth observing that while these rapturous expressions of wonder
at the life-like qualities of the portrait may seem somewhat tame and
childish in comparison with the appreciation accorded to Leonardo's work
in these times--notably that of Walter Pater in this case--they are in
reality at the root of all criticism. If Vasari, as I have already
pointed out, pitches upon this quality of life-likeness and direct
imitation of nature for his particular admiration, it is only because
the first and foremost object of the earlier painters was in fact to
represent the life; and though in the rarefied atmosphere of modern talk
about art these naïve criticisms may seem out of date, it is significant
that between Vasari and ourselves there is little, if any, difference of
opinion as to which masters were the great ones, and which were not.
"Truly divine" is a phrase in which he sums up the impressions created
in his mind by the less material qualities of some of the greatest, but
before even the greatest could create such an impression they must have
learnt the rudiments of the art in the school of nature.
VI
MICHELANGELO BUONARROTI
IN the opening years of the sixteenth century the art of painting had
attained such a pitch of excellence that unless carried onward by a
supreme genius it could hardly hope to escape from the common lot of
all things in nature, and begin to decline. After Botticelli and
Leonardo, the works of Andrea del Sarto, "the perfect painter" as he has
been called, fall rather flat; and no less a prodigy than Michelangelo
was capable of excelling his marvellous predecessors, or than Raphael of
rivalling them.
Vasari prefaces his life to ANDREA DEL SARTO (1486-1531) with something
more definite than his usual rhetorical flourishes. "At length we have
come," he says, "after having written the lives of many artists
distinguished for colour, for design, or for invention, to that of the
truly excellent Andrea del Sarto, in whom art and nature combined to
show all that may be done in painting when design, colouring, and
invention unite in one and the same person. Had he possessed a somewhat
bolder and more elevated mind, had he been distinguished for higher
qualifications as he was for genius and depth of judgment in the art he
practised, he would beyond all doubt have been without an equal. But
there was in his nature a certain timidity of mind, a sort of diffidence
and want of strength, which prevented those evidences of ardour and
animation which are proper to the highest characters from ever appearing
in him which, could they have been added to his natural advantages,
would have made him truly a divine painter, so that his works are
wanting in that grandeur, richness, and force which are so conspicuous
in those of many other masters.
"His figures are well drawn, and entirely free from errors, and perfect
in all their proportions, and for the most part are simple and chaste.
His airs of heads are natural and graceful in women and children, while
both in youth and old men they are full of life and animation. His
draperies are marvellously beautiful. His nudes are admirably executed,
simple in drawing, exquisite in colouring--nay, they are truly divine."
And yet? Well, let us turn to Michelangelo.
"While the best and most industrious artists," says Vasari, "were
labouring by the light of Giotto and his followers to give the world
examples of such power as the benignity of their stars and the varied
character of their fantasies enabled them to command, and while desirous
of imitating the perfection of Nature by the excellence of Art, they
were struggling to attain that high comprehension which many call
intelligence, and were universally toiling, but for the most part in
vain, the Ruler of Heaven was pleased to turn the eyes of his clemency
towards earth, and perceiving the fruitlessness of so many labours, the
ardent studies pursued without any result, and the presumptuous
self-sufficiency of men which is farther from truth than is darkness
from light, he resolved, by way of delivering us from such great errors,
to send to the world a spirit endowed with universality of power in each
art, and in every profession, one capable of showing by himself alone
what is the perfection of art in the sketch, the outline, the shadows,
or the lights; one who could give relief to painting and with an upright
judgment could operate as perfectly in sculpture; nay, who was so highly
accomplished in architecture also, that he was able to render our
habitations secure and commodious, healthy and cheerful,
well-proportioned, and enriched with the varied ornaments of art."
A more prosaic passage follows presently, occasioned by the innuendoes
of Condivi as to Vasari's intimacy with Michelangelo and his knowledge
of the facts of his life at first hand. Vasari meets this accusation by
quoting the following document relating to the apprenticeship of
Michelangelo to Domenico Ghirlandaio when fourteen years old. "1488. I
acknowledge and record this first day of April that I, Lodovico di
Buonarroti, have engaged Michelangelo my son to Domenico and David di
Tommaso di Currado for the three years next to come, under the following
conditions: That the said Michelangelo shall remain with the above named
all the said time, to the end that they may teach him to paint and to
exercise their vocation, and that the above named shall have full
command over him paying him in the course of these three years
twenty-four florins as wages...."
Besides this teaching in his earliest youth, it is considered probable
that in 1494, when he visited Bologna, he came under influences which
resulted in the execution at about that time of the unfinished
_Entombment_ and the _Holy Family_, which are two of our greatest
treasures in the National Gallery. As he took to sculpture, however,
before he was out of Ghirlandaio's hands, there are few traces of any
activity in painting until 1506, when he was engaged on the designs for
the great battle-piece for the Council Hall at Florence. The one easel
picture of which Vasari makes any mention, the _tondo_ in the Uffizi, is
the only one besides those already noted which is known to exist. "The
Florentine citizen, Angelo Doni," Vasari says, "desired to have some
work from his hand as he was his friend; wherefore Michelangelo began a
circular painting of Our Lady for him. She is kneeling, and presents the
Divine Child to Joseph. Here the artist has finely expressed the delight
with which the Mother regards the beauty of her Son, as is clearly
manifest in the turn of her head and fixedness of her gaze; equally
evident is her wish that this contentment shall be shared by that pious
old man who receives the babe with infinite tenderness and reverence.
Nor was this enough for Michelangelo, since the better to display his
art he has grouped several undraped figures in the background, some
upright, some half recumbent, and others seated. The whole work is
executed with so much care and finish that of all his pictures, which
indeed are but few, this is considered the best."
After relating the story of the artist's quarrel with his friend over
the price of this masterpiece (for which he at first only asked sixty
ducats), Vasari goes on to describe the now lost cartoons for the great
fresco in the Council Hall at Florence, in substance as follows:--
"When Leonardo was painting in the great hall of the Council, Piero
Soderini, who was then Gonfaloniere, moved by the extraordinary ability
which he perceived in Michelangelo [he calls him in a letter a young man
who stands above all his calling in Italy; nay, in all the world],
caused him to be entrusted with a portion of the work, and our artist
began a very large cartoon representing the Battle of Pisa. It
represented a vast number of nude figures bathing in the Arno, as men do
on hot days, when suddenly the enemy is heard to be attacking the camp.
The soldiers spring forth in haste to arm themselves. One is an elderly
man, who to shelter himself from the heat has wreathed a garland of ivy
round his head, and, seated on the ground, is labouring to draw on his
hose, hindered by his limbs being wet. Hearing the sound of the drums
and the cries of the soldiers he struggles violently to get on one of
his stockings; the action of the muscles and distortion of the mouth
evince the zeal of his efforts. Drummers and others hasten to the camp
with their clothes in their arms, all in the most singular attitudes;
some standing, others kneeling or stooping; some falling, others
springing high into the air and exhibiting the most difficult
foreshortenings.... The artists were amazed as they realised that the
master had in this cartoon laid open to them the very highest resources
of art; nay, there are some who still declare that they have never seen
anything to equal it, either from his hand or any other, and they do not
believe that genius will ever more attain to such perfection. Nor is
this an exaggeration, for all who have designed from it and copied
it--as it was the habit for both natives and strangers to do--have
become excellent in art, amongst whom were Raphael, Andrea del Sarto,
Franciabigio, Pontormo, and Piero del Vaga."
In 1508 Michelangelo began to prepare the cartoons for the ceiling of
the Sistine Chapel. Space forbids me to attempt any description of
these, but the story of their completion as related by Vasari can hardly
be omitted. "When half of them were nearly finished," he says, "Pope
Julius, who had gone more than once to see the work--mounting the
ladders with the artist's help--insisted on having them opened to public
view without waiting till the last touches were given, and the chapel
was no sooner open than all Rome hastened thither, the Pope being first,
even before the dust caused by removing the scaffold had subsided. Then
it was that Raphael, who was very prompt in imitation, changed his
manner, and to give proof of his ability immediately executed the
frescoes with the Prophets and Sibyls in the church of the Pace.
Bramante (the architect) also laboured to convince the Pope that he
would do well to entrust the second half to Raphael.... But Julius, who
justly valued the ability of Michelangelo, commanded that he should
continue the work, judging from what he saw of the first half that he
would be able to improve the second. Michelangelo accordingly finished
the whole in twenty months, without help. It is true that he often
complained that he was prevented from giving it the finish he would have
liked owing to the Pope's impatience, and his constant inquiries as to
when it would be finished, and on one occasion he answered, "It will be
finished when I shall have done all that I believe necessary to satisfy
art." "And we command," replied Julius, "that you satisfy our wish to
have it done quickly," adding finally that if it were not at once
completed he would have Michelangelo thrown headlong from the
scaffolding. Hearing this, the artist, without taking time to add what
was wanting, took down the remainder of the scaffolding, to the great
satisfaction of the whole city, on All Saints' Day, when the Pope went
into his chapel to sing Mass."
Michelangelo had much wished to retouch some portions of the work _a
secco_, as had been done by the older masters who had painted the walls;
and to add a little ultramarine to some of the draperies, and gild other
parts, so as to give a richer and more striking effect. The Pope, too,
would now have liked these additions to be made, but as Michelangelo
thought it would take too long to re-erect the scaffolding, the pictures
remained as they were. The Pope would sometimes say to him, "Let the
chapel be enriched with gold and bright colours; it looks poor." To
which Michelangelo would reply, "Holy Father, the men of those days did
not adorn themselves with gold; those who are painted here less than
any; for they were none too rich. Besides, they were holy men, and must
have despised riches and ornaments."
VII
RAFFAELLO DI SANTI
The character and the influence of RAPHAEL are well expressed in the
following sentences with which Vasari concludes his biography:--"O happy
and blessed spirit! every one speaks with interest of thee; celebrates
thy deeds; admires thee in thy works! Well might Painting die when this
noble artist ceased to live; for when his eyes were closed she remained
in darkness. For us who survive him it remains to imitate the excellent
method which he has left for our guidance; and as his great qualities
deserve, and our duty bids us, to cherish his memory in our hearts, and
keep it alive in our discourse by speaking of him with the high respect
which is his due. For through him we have the art in all its extent
carried to a perfection which could hardly have been looked for; and in
this universality let no human being ever hope to surpass him. And,
beside this benefit which he conferred on Art as her true friend, he
neglected not to show us how every man should conduct himself in all the
relations of life. Among his rare gifts there is one which especially
excites my wonder; I mean, that Heaven should have granted him to infuse
a spirit among those who lived around him so contrary to that which is
prevalent among professional men. The painters--I do not allude to the
humble-minded only, but to those of an ambitious turn, and many of this
sort there are--the painters who worked in company with Raphael lived in
perfect harmony, as if all bad feelings were extinguished in his
presence, and every base, unworthy thought had passed from their minds.
This was because the artists were at once subdued by his obliging
manners and by his surpassing merit, but more than all by the spell of
his natural character, which was so full of affectionate kindness, that
not only men, but even the very brutes, respected him. He always had a
great number of artists employed for him, helping them and teaching them
with the kindness of a father to his children, rather than as a master
directing his scholars. For which reason it was observed he never went
to court without being accompanied from his very door by perhaps fifty
painters who took pleasure in thus attending him to do him honour. In
short, he lived more as a sovereign than as a painter. And thus, O Art
of Painting! thou too, then, could account thyself most happy, since an
artist was thine, who, by his skill and by his moral excellence exalted
thee to the highest heaven!"
Raphael was the son of Giovanni Sanzio, or di Santi, of Urbino. He
received his first education as an artist from his father, whom,
however, he lost in his eleventh year. As early as 1495 probably, he
entered the school of Pietro Perugino, at Perugia, where he remained
till about his twentieth year.
The "Umbrian School," in which Raphael received his first education, and
in which he is accordingly placed, is distinguished from the Florentine,
of which it may be said to have been an offshoot, by several
well-defined characteristics. Chief of these are, first, the more
sentimental expression of religious feeling, and second, the greater
attention paid to distance as compared with the principal figures; both
of which are explainable on the ground of local circumstances. They
reflect the difference between the bustling intellectual activity of
Florence and the dreamy existence but broader horizon of the dwellers
in the upper valley of the Tiber. In the beautiful _Nativity_ of PIERO
DELLA FRANCESCA (No. 908 in the National Gallery) we see something akin
to the Florentine pictures, and yet something more besides. Piero shared
with Paolo Uccello the eager desire to discover the secrets of
perspective; but in addition he seems to have been influenced by the
study of nature herself, in the open air, as Uccello never was. His
pupil, LUCA SIGNORELLI (1441-1523), was more formal and less
naturalistic, as may be seen by a comparison between the _Circumcision_
(No. 1128 in the National Gallery) and Piero's _Baptism of Christ_ on
the opposite wall. PIETRO PERUGINO (1446-1523)--his real name was
Vannucci--was influenced both by Signorelli and by Verrocchio. In the
studio of the latter he had probably worked with Leonardo and Lorenzo di
Credi, so that in estimating the influences which went to form the art
of Raphael we need not insist too strongly on the distinction between
"Umbrian" and "Florentine."
Raphael's first independent works (about 1500) are entirely in
Perugino's style. They bear the general stamp of the Umbrian School, but
in its highest beauty. His youthful efforts are essentially youthful,
and seem to contain the earnest of a high development. Two are in the
Berlin Museum. In the one (No. 141) called the _Madonna Solly_, the
Madonna reads in a book; the Child on her lap holds a goldfinch. The
other (No. 145), with heads of S. Francis and S. Jerome, is better.
Similar to it, but much more finished and developed, is a small round
picture, the _Madonna Casa Connestabile_, now at St. Petersburg.
A more important picture of this time is the _Coronation of the
Virgin_, painted for the church of S. Francesco at Perugia in 1503, but
now in the Vatican. In the upper part, Christ and the Madonna are
throned on clouds and surrounded by angels with musical instruments;
underneath, the disciples stand around the empty tomb. In this lower
part of the picture there is a very evident attempt to give the figures
more life, motion, and enthusiastic expression than was before attempted
in the school.
After this, Raphael appears to have quitted the school of Perugino, and
to have commenced an independent career: he executed at this time some
pictures in the neighbouring town of Città di Castello. With all the
features of the Umbrian School, they already show the freer impulse of
his own mind,--a decided effort to individualize. The most excellent of
these, and the most interesting example of this first period of
Raphael's development, is the _Marriage of the Virgin_ (Lo Sposalizio),
inscribed with his name and the date 1504, now in the Brera at Milan.
With much of the stiffness and constraint of the old school, the figures
are noble and dignified; the countenances, of the sweetest style of
beauty, are expressive of a tender, enthusiastic melancholy, which lends
a peculiar charm to this subject.
In 1504 Raphael painted the two little pictures in the Louvre, _S.
George_ and _S. Michael_ (Nos. 1501-2) for the Duke of Urbino. _The
Knight Dreaming_, a small picture, now in the National Gallery (No.
213), is supposed to have been painted a year earlier.
In the autumn of 1504 Raphael went to Florence. Tuscan art had now
attained its highest perfection, and the most celebrated artists were
there contending for the palm. From this period begins his
emancipation
[Illustration: PLATE VI.--PIETRO PERUGINO
CENTRAL PORTION OF ALTAR-PIECE
_National Gallery, London_]
from the confined manner of Perugino's school; the youth ripens into
manhood and acquires the free mastery of form.
To this time belong the celebrated _Madonna del Granduca_, now in the
Pitti Gallery, and another formerly belonging to the Duke of Terra
Nuova, and now at Berlin (No. 247a). In the next year we find him
employed on several large works in Perugia; these show for the first
time the influence of Florentine art in the purity, fullness, and
intelligent treatment of form; at the same time many of the motives of
the Peruginesque school are still apparent. The famous _Cowper Madonna_,
recently sold to an American for £140,000, also belongs to the year
1505, when the blending of the two influences resulted in a picture
which has been extolled by the sanest of critics as "the loveliest of
Raphael's Virgins." An altar-piece, executed for the church of the
Serviti at Perugia, inscribed with the date 1506, is the famous _Madonna
dei Ansidei_, purchased for the National Gallery from the Duke of
Marlborough. Besides the dreamy religious feeling of the School of
Perugia, we perceive here the aim at a greater freedom, founded on
deeper study.
Raphael was soon back in Florence, where he remained until 1508. The
early paintings of this period betray, as might be expected, many
reminiscences of the Peruginesque school, both in conception and
execution; the later ones follow in all essential respects the general
style of the Florentines.
One of the earliest is the _Virgin in the Meadow_, in the Belvedere
Gallery at Vienna. Two others show a close affinity with this
composition; one is the _Madonna del Cardellino_, in the Tribune of the
Uffizi, in which S. John presents a goldfinch to the infant Christ. The
other is the so-called _Belle Jardinière_, inscribed 1507, in the
Louvre.
It is interesting to observe Raphael's progress in the smaller pictures
which he painted in Florence--half-figures of the Madonna and Child.
Here again the earliest are characterised by the tenderest feeling,
while a freer and more cheerful enjoyment of life is apparent in the
later ones. The _Madonna della Casa Tempi_, at Munich, is the first of
this series. In the picture from the Colonna Palace at Rome, now in the
Berlin Museum (No. 248), the same childlike sportiveness, the same
maternal tenderness, are developed with more harmonious refinement. A
larger picture, belonging to the middle time of his Florentine period,
is in the Munich Gallery--the _Madonna Canignani_, which presents a
peculiar study of artificial grouping, in a pyramidal shape. Among the
best pictures of the latter part of this Florentine period are the _S.
Catherine_, now in the National Gallery, formerly in the Aldobrandini
Gallery at Rome, and two large altar-pieces. One of these is the
_Madonna del Baldacchino_, in the Pitti Gallery. The other, _The
Entombment_, painted for the church of S. Francesco at Perugia, is now
in the Borghese Gallery at Rome. This is the first of Raphael's
compositions in which an historical subject is dramatically developed;
but in this respect the task exceeded his powers. The composition lacks
repose and unity of effect; the movements are exaggerated and mannered;
but the figure of the Saviour is extremely beautiful, and may be placed
among the greatest of the master's creations.
About the middle of the year 1508, when only in his twenty-fifth year,
Raphael was invited by Pope
[Illustration: PLATE VII.--RAPHAEL
THE ANSIDEI MADONNA
_National Gallery, London_]
[Illustration: PLATE VIII.--RAPHAEL
LA BELLE JARDINIÈRE
_Louvre, Paris_]
Julius II. to decorate the state apartments in the Vatican. With these
works commences the third period of his development, and in these he
reached his highest perfection. The subjects, more important than any in
which he had hitherto been occupied, gave full scope to his powers; and
the proximity of Michelangelo, who at this time began the painting of
the Sistine Chapel, excited his emulation.
At this period, just before the Reformation, the Papal power had reached
its proudest elevation. To glorify this power--to represent Rome as the
centre of spiritual culture--were the objects of the paintings in the
Vatican. They cover the ceilings and walls of three chambers and a large
saloon, which now bear the name of the "Stanze of Raphael."
The execution of these paintings principally occupied Raphael to the
time of his death, and were only completed by his scholars.
In 1513 and 1514 Raphael also executed designs for the ten tapestries
intended to adorn the Sistine Chapel, representing events from the lives
of the apostles. Seven of these magnificent cartoons are now in the
South Kensington Museum.
Beside these important commissions executed for the Papal court, during
twelve years, many claims were made on him by private persons. Two
frescoes executed for Roman churches may be mentioned. One, in S. Maria
della Pace, represents four Sibyls surrounded by angels, which it is
interesting to compare with the Sibyls of Michelangelo. In each we find
the peculiar excellence of the two great masters; Michelangelo's figures
are grand, sublime, profound, while the fresco of the Pace exhibits
Raphael's serene and ingenious grace. In a second fresco, the prophet
Isaiah and two angels, in the church of S. Agostino at Rome, the
comparison is less favourable to Raphael, the effort to rival the
powerful style of Michelangelo being rather too obvious.
Like all other artists, Raphael is at his best when, undisturbed by
outside influences, he follows the free original impulse of his own
mind. His peculiar element was grace and beauty of form, in so far as
these are the expression of high moral purity.
The following works of his third period are especially deserving of
mention.
The _Aldobrandini Madonna_, now in the National Gallery--in which the
Madonna is sitting on a bench, and bends down to the little S. John, her
left arm round him. The _Madonna of the Duke of Alba_, in the Hermitage
at St. Petersburg. _La Vierge au voile_, in the Louvre; the Madonna is
seated in a kneeling position, lifting the veil from the sleeping Child
in order to show him to the little S. John. The _Madonna della
Seggiola_, in the Pitti at Florence (painted about 1516), a circular
picture. The _Madonna della Tenda_ at Munich; a composition similar to
the last, except that the Child is represented in more lively action,
and looking upwards.
A series of similar, but in some instances more copious compositions,
belong to a still later period; they are in a great measure the work of
his scholars, painted after his drawings, and only partly worked upon by
Raphael himself. Indeed many pictures of this class should perhaps be
considered altogether as the productions of his school, at a time when
that school was under his direct superintendence, and when it was
enabled to imitate his finer characteristics in a remarkable degree.
In this class are the _Madonna dell'Impannata_, in the Pitti, which
takes its name from the oiled-paper window in the background. The large
picture of a _Holy Family_ in the Louvre, painted in 1518, for Francis
I., is peculiarly excellent. The whole has a character of cheerfulness
and joy: an easy and delicate play of graceful lines, which unite in an
intelligible and harmonious whole. Giulio Romano assisted in the
execution.
With regard to the large altar-pieces of his later period in which
several Saints are assembled round the Madonna, it is to be observed
that Raphael has contrived to place them in reciprocal relation to each
other, and to establish a connection between them; while the earlier
masters either ranged them next to one another in simple symmetrical
repose, or disposed them with a view to picturesque effect.
Of these the _Madonna di Foligno_, in the Vatican, is the earliest. In
the upper part of the picture is the Madonna with the Child, enthroned
on the clouds in a glory, surrounded by angels. Underneath, on one side,
kneels the donor, behind him stands S. Jerome. On the other side is S.
Francis, kneeling, while he points with one hand out of the picture to
the people, for whom he entreats the protection of the Mother of Grace;
behind him is S. John the Baptist, who points to the Madonna, while he
looks at the spectator as if inviting him to worship her.
The second, the _Madonna del Pesce_ has much more repose and grandeur as
whole, and unites the sublime and abstract character of sacred beings
with the individuality of nature in the happiest manner. It is now in
Madrid, but was originally painted for S. Domenico at Naples, about
1513. It represents the Madonna and Child on a throne; on one side is
S. Jerome; on the other the guardian angel with the young Tobias who
carries a fish (whence the name of the picture). The artist has imparted
a wonderfully poetic character to the subject. S. Jerome, kneeling on
the steps of the throne, has been reading from a book to the Virgin and
Child, and appears to have been interrupted by the entrance of Tobias
and the Angel. The infant Christ turns towards them, but at the same
time lays his hand on the open book, as if to mark the place. The Virgin
turns towards the Angel, who introduces Tobias; while the latter
dropping on his knees, looks up meekly to the Divine Infant. S. Jerome
looks over the book to the new-comers, as if ready to proceed with his
occupation after the interruption.
But the most important is the famous _Madonna di San Sisto_, at Dresden.
Here the Madonna appears as the queen of the heavenly host, in a
brilliant glory of countless angel-heads, standing on the clouds, with
the eternal Son in her arms; S. Sixtus and S. Barbara kneel at the
sides. Both of them seem to connect the picture with the real
spectators. This is a rare example of a picture of Raphael's later time,
executed entirely by his own hand.
Two large altar pictures still claim our attention; they also belong to
Raphael's later period. One is the _Christ Bearing the Cross_, in
Madrid, known by the name of _Lo Spasimo di Sicilia_, from the convent
of Santa Maria dello Spasimo at Palermo, for which it was painted. Here,
as in the tapestries, we again find a finely conceived development of
the event, and an excellent composition. The other is the
_Transfiguration_, now in the Vatican, formerly in S. Pietro at
Montorio.
[Illustration: PLATE IX.--RAPHAEL
PORTRAIT OF BALDASSARE CASTIGLIONE
_Louvre, Paris_]
This was the last work of the master (left unfinished at his death); the
one which was suspended over his coffin, a trophy of his fame, for
public homage.
"I cannot believe myself in Rome," wrote Count Castiglione, on the death
of the master, "now that my poor Raphael is no longer here." Men
regarded his works with religious veneration as if God had revealed
himself through Raphael as in former days through the prophets. His
remains were publicly laid out on a splendid catafalque, while his last
work, the _Transfiguration_, was suspended over his head. He was buried
in the Pantheon, under an altar adorned by a statue of the Holy Virgin,
a consecration offering from Raphael himself. Doubts having been raised
as to the precise spot, a search was made in the Pantheon in 1833, and
Raphael's bones were found; the situation agreeing exactly with Vasari's
description of the place of interment. On the 18th of October, in the
same year, the relics were reinterred in the same spot with great
solemnities.
* * * * *
The schools of Lombardy and the Emilia, which derive their
characteristics from Florentine rather than from Venetian influences,
may here be briefly mentioned before turning to the consideration of the
Venetian School. In 1482, it will be remembered, Leonardo went to Milan,
where he remained till the end of the century; and the extent of his
influence may be judged from many of the productions of BERNADINO LUINI
(1475-1532) and GIOVANNI ANTONIO BAZZI, known as SODOMA (1477-1549). Of
AMBROGIO DI PREDIS we have already heard in connection with the painting
of our version of Leonardo's _Virgin of the Rocks_. GIOVANNI ANTONIO
BOLTRAFFIO (1467-1516) was a pupil of VINCENZO FOPPA, but he soon
abandoned the manner of the old Lombard School, and came under the
influence of the great Florentine, of whom he became a most enthusiastic
disciple.
More independent--indeed, he is officially characterised as "an isolated
phenomenon in Italian Art"--was ANTONIO ALLEGRI, commonly called
CORREGGIO, from the place of his birth. In 1518 he settled at Parma,
where he remained till 1530, so that he is usually catalogued as of the
School of Parma, which for an isolated phenomenon serves as well as any
other. Of late years his popularity has been somewhat diminished by the
increasing demands of private collectors for works which are
purchasable, and most of Correggio's are in public galleries. At Dresden
are some of the most famous, notably the _Nativity_, called "La Notte,"
from its wonderful scheme of illumination, and two or three large
altar-pieces. The _Venus Mercury and Cupid_ in our National Gallery,
though sadly injured, is still one of his masterpieces. It was purchased
by Charles I. with the famous collection of the Duke of Mantua. Our
_Ecce Homo_ is entitled to rank with it, as is also the little _Madonna
of the Basket_.
[Illustration: PLATE X.--CORREGGIO
MERCURY, CUPID, AND VENUS
_National Gallery, London_]
_VENETIAN SCHOOLS_
I
THE VIVARINI AND BELLINI
In Venice the Byzantine style appears to have offered a more stubborn
resistance to the innovators than in Tuscany, or, in fact, in any other
part of Italy. Few, if any, of the allegorical subjects with which
Giotto and his scholars decorated whole buildings are to be found here,
and the altar pictures retain longer than anywhere else the gilt
canopied compartments and divisions, and the tranquil positions of
single figures. It was not until a century after the death of Cimabue
and Duccio that the real development of the Venetian School was
manifested, so that when things did begin to move the conditions were
not the same, and the results accordingly were something substantially
different.
The influence of the Byzantine style still hangs heavily over the work
of NICOLO SEMITECOLO, who was working in Venice in the middle of the
fourteenth century, as may be seen in the great altar-piece ascribed to
him in the Academy--the Coronation of the Virgin with fourteen scenes
from the life of Christ. In this work there is little of the general
advancement visible in other parts of Italy. It corresponds most nearly
with the work of Duccio of Siena, though without attaining his
excellence; while the gold hatchings and olive brown tones are still
Byzantine.
An altar-piece, by MICHELE GIAMBONO, also in the Academy, painted during
the first half of the fifteenth century, shows a more decided advance,
and even anticipates some of the later excellences of the Venetian
School. The drapery is in the long and easy lines which we see in the
Tuscan pictures of the period, and what is especially significant, in
view of the subsequent development of Venetian painting, the colouring
is rich, deep, and transparent, and the flesh tints unusually soft and
warm. This is signed by Giambono, and is one of his most important
works, as well as the most complete, as it exists in its original state
as an _ancona_ or altar-piece divided into compartments by canopies of
joiners' work. It is unusual in form, inasmuch as the central panel,
though slightly larger than the pair on either side, contains but a
single figure. This figure was generally supposed to be the Saviour, but
it has recently been pointed out that it is S. James the Great, the
others being SS. John the Evangelist, Philip Benizi, Michael, and Louis
of Toulouse. Some of Giambono's finest work was in mosaic, and the walls
and roof of the Cappella de'Mascoli in S. Mark's may be regarded as the
highest achievement in mosaic of the early Venetian School. While this
species of decoration had given place to fresco painting elsewhere, it
was here, in 1430, brought to a pitch of perfection by Giambono which
entitles this work to a prominent place in the history of painting.
But the two chief pioneers of the early fifteenth century were Giovanni,
or JOHANNES ALAMANUS, and ANTONIO DA MURANO. The former appears from his
surname to have been of German origin, the latter belonged to the family
of VIVARINI, and they used to work together on the same pictures. Two
excellent examples of this combination are in the Academy at Venice.
The one, dated 1440, is a Coronation of the Virgin, with many figures,
including several boys, and numerous saints seated. In the heads of the
saints we may trace the hand of Alamanus, in the Germanic type of
countenance which recalls the style of Stephen of Cologne. A repetition
of this, if it is not actually the original, is in S. Pantalone at
Venice. The other picture, dated 1446, of enormous dimensions,
represents the Virgin enthroned, beneath a canopy sustained by angels,
with the four Fathers of the Church at her side. The colouring is fully
as flowing and splendid as that of Giambono.
We do not recognise here, as Kugler rightly observes, the influence of
the school of Giotto, but rather the types of the Germanic style
gradually assuming a new character, possibly owing to the social
condition of Venice itself. There was something perhaps in the nature of
a rich commercial aristocracy of the middle ages calculated to encourage
that species of art which offered the greatest splendour and elegance to
the eye; and this also, if possible, in a portable form; thus preferring
the domestic altar or the dedication picture to wall decorations in
churches. The contemporary Flemish paintings, under similar conditions,
exhibit analogous results. With regard to colour, the depth and
transparency observable in the works of the old Venetian School had long
been a distinguishing feature in the Byzantine paintings on wood, and
may therefore be traceable to this source without assuming an influence
on the part of Padua, or from the north through Giovanni Alamanus.
The two side panels of an altar-piece, representing severally SS. Peter
and Jerome, and SS. Francis and Mark, now in the National Gallery (Nos.
768 and 1284), are ascribed to Antonio Vivarini alone, though the centre
panel, the Virgin and Child, now in the Poldi Pezzoli collection at
Milan is said to be the joint work of Alamanus and Antonio. However that
may be, there is no longer any dispute about the fascinating Adoration
of the Kings in the Kaiser Friedrich Museum at Berlin, formerly supposed
to be the work of Gentile da Fabriano, but now catalogued as that of
Antonio.
In 1450 the name of Alamanus disappears altogether, and that of
BARTOLOMMEO VIVARINI, Antonio's younger brother, replaces it in an
inscription upon the great altar-piece commissioned by Pope Nicholas V.
in commemoration of Cardinal Albergati, now in the Pinacoteca of
Bologna. The change is noticeable as introducing the Paduan influence of
Squarcione, under whom Bartolommeo had studied, instead of the northern
influence of Alamanus, into Antonio's workshop, and while this work of
1450, as might be supposed, bears a general resemblance to that of 1446,
the change of partnership is at least perceptible, and had a determining
influence on the development of the Venetian style.
A slightly earlier work of Bartolommeo alone is a Madonna and Child
belonging to Sir Hugh Lane, signed and dated 1448. An altar-piece in the
Venice Academy is dated 1464, a Madonna and Four Saints, in the Frari,
1482, and S. Barbara, in the Academy, 1490. Bartolommeo is supposed to
have died in 1499.
ALVISE, or LUIGI, VIVARINI was the son of Antonio, and though he worked
under him and his uncle Bartolommeo, as well as under Giovanni Bellini,
the Paduan influence is apparent in his work. He was born in 1447, and
his first dated work is an altar-piece at Montefiorentino, in 1475. In
the Academy at Venice is a Madonna dated 1480, and at Naples a Madonna
with SS. Francis and Bernard, 1485. Another Madonna at Vienna is dated
1489, and the large altar-piece in the Basilica at the Kaiser Friedrich
Museum in Berlin is assigned to about the same time. This is the first
of his works in which the influence of Bellini rather than that of his
family is traceable, while of the "Redentore" Madonna at Venice, of
about five years later, Mr Bernhard Bernson says that, "As a composition
no work of the kind by Giovanni Bellini even rivals it." In 1498 he had
advanced so far as to be spoken of as anticipating Giorgione and Titian,
in the effect of light and in the roundness and softness of the figures
of the _Resurrection_, at Bragora. His last work, the altar-piece at the
Frari, was completed after his death in 1504 by his pupil Basaiti.
Bartolommeo Montagna, Jacopo da Valenza and Lorenzo Lotto were the chief
of his other pupils.
In connection with the Vivarini must be mentioned CARLO CRIVELLI, who
studied with Bartolommeo under Antonio and Squarcione. But there was
something fierce and uncongenial about Crivelli which takes him out of
the main body of Venetian painters, and seems to have given him more
pride in being made a knight than in his pictorial achievements,
remarkable as they were. In his ornamentation of every detail with gold
and jewels he recalls the style of Antonio Vivarini, but while the
master used it as accessory merely, Crivelli positively revelled in it.
An inventory of the precious stones, ornaments, fruits and flowers, and
other detached items in the great "Demidoff Altar-Piece" in the National
Gallery would fill several pages. Of the eight examples in this gallery
the earliest is probably the _Dead Christ_, presumably painted in 1472.
The Demidoff altar-piece is dated 1476. The _Annunciation_ (No. 739),
which may be considered his masterpiece, was ten years later. In 1490
Crivelli was knighted by Prince Ferdinand of Capua, and from that date
onward he was careful to add to his signature the title _Miles_--as
appears in our _Madonna and Child Enthroned_, with SS. Jerome and
Sebastian--called the Madonna della Rondine:----
CAROLUS CRIVELLUS VENETUS MILES PINXIT. This was painted for the Odoni
Chapel in S. Francesco at Matelica, the coat of arms of the family being
painted on the step.
Our _Annunciation_ was executed for the convent of the Santissima
Annunziata at Ascoli, and is dated 1486. Three coats of arms on the
front of the step at the bottom of the picture are those of the Bishop
of Ascoli, Pope Innocent VII., the reigning Pontiff, and the City of
Ascoli. Between these are the words _Libertas Ecclesiastica_, in
allusion to the charter of self-government given in 1482 by the Pope to
the citizens of Ascoli. The patron saint of the city, S. Emidius, is
represented as a youth kneeling beside the Archangel, holding in his
hands a model of it. The Virgin is seen through the open door of a
house, and in an open loggia above are peacocks and other birds. Amid
all the rich detail, the significance of the group of figures at the top
of a flight of steps must not be missed, amongst which a child and a
poet are the only two who are represented as noticing the mystic event.
Another painter of the earlier half of the fourteenth century may be
mentioned here, though as he was more famous as a medallist his
influence on the main course of painting is not observable. VITTORE
PISANO, called PISANELLO, was born in Verona before 1400, and died in
1455. Of the few pictures attributed to him we are fortunate in having
two such beautiful examples as the _SS. Anthony and George_ and _The
Vision of S. Eustace_ in the National Gallery. Both exhibit his two most
noticeable characteristics, namely, the minute care and exquisite
feeling that made him the most famous of medallists, and his wonderful
drawing of animals. The latter, it is worth remarking, was attributed by
a former owner to Albert Dürer. The other is signed "Pisanus"; in the
frame are inserted casts of two of his medals, representing Leonello
d'Este, his patron, and a profile of himself.
Another very considerable factor in the development of Venetian painting
was the influence of GENTILE DA FABRIANO (_c._ 1360-1430), who settled
in Venice in the latter part of his life, and there formed the closest
intimacy with Antonio Vivarini. The remarkable _Adoration of the Kings_
in the Berlin Museum was until lately given to Gentile, though it is now
catalogued as the work of Antonio. Of Gentile's education little is
known, and of the numerous works which he executed at Fabriano, in Rome
and in Venice very few have survived. From those that exist, however, we
can form an estimate of his talents and of the difference between his
earlier and later styles. To the first belong a fresco of the Madonna in
the Cathedral at Orvieto, and the beautiful picture of the Madonna and
saints which is now in the Kaiser Friedrich Museum at Berlin. Also the
fine _Adoration of the Kings_, inscribed with his name and the date
1423, formerly in the sacristy of S. Trinità at Florence, and now in the
Accademia. This, his masterpiece, is one of the finest conceptions of
the subject as well as one of the most excellent productions of the
schools descended from Giotto. Of his later period the _Coronation of
the Virgin_ (called the _Quadro della Romita_) in the Brera gallery at
Milan is one of the finest. In many respects his work is like that of
Fra Angelico, and was aptly characterised by Michelangelo when he said
that "Gentile's pictures were like his name." Apart from the influence
of the Paduan School, which will next be noticed, the Venetian owed most
to Gentile da Fabriano, if only as the master of Jacopo Bellini, whose
son, Giovanni Bellini, may be regarded as the real head of the Venetian
School as developed by his pupils Giorgione and Titian at the opening of
the sixteenth century.
Whether or not Giotto left any actual pupils in Padua after completing
the frescoes in the chapel of the arena there, it must be admitted that
the older school of painting in Padua, which centred round the church
containing the body of S. Anthony, was an offshoot of the Florentine,
and that as Giotto was the great leader in Florence he must be
considered the same here; though his followers differ so much from each
other in style that beyond their indebtedness to their founder they have
no distinctive feature in common. But with the opening of the fifteenth
century one particular tendency was developed under the fostering
influence of FRANCESCO SQUARCIONE, born in 1394, which affected in a
very sensible degree the style of the great painters of the next
generation in Venice. This, in a word, was the cult of the antique.
Among the Florentines, as we have seen, the study of form was chiefly
pursued on the principle of direct reference to nature, the especial
object in view being an imitation in two dimensions of the actual
appearances and circumstances of life existing in three. In the Paduan
School it now came to be very differently developed, namely, by the
study of the masterpieces of antique sculpture, in which the common
forms of nature were already raised to a high ideal of beauty. This
school has consequently the merit, as Kugler points out, of applying the
rich results of an earlier, long-forgotten excellence in art to modern
practice. Of a real comprehension of the idealising principle of classic
art there does not appear any trace; what the Paduans borrowed from the
antique was limited primarily to mere outward beauty. Accordingly in the
earliest examples we find the drapery treated according to the antique
costume, and the general arrangement more resembling bas-relief than
rounded groups. The accessories display in like manner a special
attention to antique models, particularly in the architecture, and the
frequent introduction of festoons of fruit; while the exaggerated
sharpness in the marking of the forms due to the combined influence of
the study of the antique and the naturalising tendency of the time,
sometimes borders on excess.
The immediate cause of this almost sudden outbreak of the cult of the
antique--whatever natural forces were behind it--was the visit of
Squarcione to Greece, and Southern Italy, to collect specimens of the
remains of ancient art. On his return to Padua his collection soon
attracted a great number of pupils anxious to avail themselves of the
advantages it offered; and by these pupils, who poured in from all parts
of Italy, the manner of the school was afterwards spread throughout a
great portion of the country. Squarcione himself is better known as a
teacher than as an artist, the few of his remaining works being of no
great importance. There is no example in the National Gallery, but of
the work of his great pupil, Mantegna, we have as much, at any rate, as
will serve to commemorate the master.
ANDREA MANTEGNA was born at Vicenza in 1431, and when no more than ten
years old was inscribed in the guild of Padua as pupil and adopted son
of Squarcione. As early as 1448 he had painted an altar-piece for Santa
Sophia, now lost, and in 1452 the fresco in San Antonio. In 1455 he was
engaged with Nicolo Pizzolo (Donatello's assistant), and others, on the
six frescoes in the Eremitani Church at Padua. The whole of the left
side of the chapel of SS. James and Christopher--the life of S.
James--and the martyrdom of S. Christopher are his, and in these, his
earliest remaining works, we already see the result of pedantic
antiquarianism combined with his extraordinary individuality.
In 1460 he went to Mantua, where he remained for the greater part of his
life, visiting Florence in 1466 and Rome in 1488.
Among his earlier works are the small _Adoration of the Kings_ in the
Uffizi at Florence, the _Death of the Virgin_ and the _S. George_ in the
Venice Academy. From 1484 to 1494 he was intermittently engaged on the
nine great cartoons of _The Triumph of Cæsar_, which are now at Hampton
Court, having been acquired by Charles I. with many other gems from the
Duke of Mantua's collection. On the completion of these he painted the
celebrated _Madonna della Vittoria_, now in the Louvre--a large
altar-piece representing a Madonna surrounded by saints, with Francesco
Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua, and his wife, kneeling at her feet. It is a
dedication picture for a victory obtained over Charles VIII. of France
in 1495. It is no less remarkable for its superb execution than for a
softer treatment of the flesh than is usual in Mantegna's work. Two
other pictures in the Louvre are, however, distinguished by similar
qualities--the _Parnassus_, painted in 1497, and the _Triumph of
Virtue_.
[Illustration: PLATE XI.--ANDREA MANTEGNA
THE MADONNA DELLA VITTORIA
_Louvre, Paris_]
In our own collection we have _The Agony in the Garden_, painted in
1459--to which I shall refer presently--two monochrome paintings (Nos.
1125 and 1145), the beautiful _Virgin and Child Enthroned_, with SS.
Mary Magdalen and John the Baptist, which is comparable with the more
famous Louvre _Madonna_, and, lastly, the _Triumph of Scipio_, in
monochrome, painted for Francesco Cornaro, a Venetian nobleman,
completed in 1506, only a few months before the painter's death. In this
we see that Mantegna's antiquarianism was not simply a youthful phase,
but lasted till the very end of his career. The subject is the reception
of the Phrygian mother of the gods among the recognised divinities of
the Roman State, as is indicated on the plinth by the inscription. In
the centre is Claudia Quinta about to kneel before the bust of the
goddess. Behind is Scipio, and in the background are monuments to his
family. The composition includes twenty-two figures. It is significant
that the subject and its treatment are so entirely classic as only to be
appreciated by references to Latin literature.
Another significance attaches to the _Agony in the Garden_ above
mentioned, which is one of the very earliest, as the _Scipio_ is the
very latest, of Mantegna's pictures, being painted before he left Padua
to go to Mantua. In this we find that the original suggestion for the
design appears to have been taken from a drawing in the sketch-book of
his father-in-law, Jacopo Bellini, which is now in the British Museum;
and the same design appears to have served Giovanni Bellini in the
composition of the picture in our gallery (No. 726). This takes us back
to Venice, and accounts for the Paduan influence traceable in the works
of the Bellini family and their pupils.
JACOPO BELLINI, whose considerable talents have been somewhat obscured
by the fame of his two sons, Gentile and Giovanni, was originally a
pupil of Gentile da Fabriano, after whom he named his eldest son. He was
working in Padua in the middle of the fifteenth century, in rivalry with
Squarcione, and in 1453 his daughter Nicolosia married Andrea Mantegna.
Thus it happened that both of his sons came under the influence of
Mantegna, and evidently, too, of the sculptor Donatello, when working at
Padua between 1450 and 1460.
Very few authentic pictures by Jacopo are known to us. _A Crucifixion_
(much repainted) was in the sacristy of the Episcopal Palace at Verona;
and another, which recalls the treatment of his master, Gentile da
Fabriano, at Lovere, near Bergamo. In the sketch-book above mentioned,
the contents of which consist of sacred subjects, and studies from the
antique, both in architecture and in costume, we see the peculiar
tendency of the Paduan School expressed in the most complete and
comprehensive manner. These drawings constitute the most remarkable link
of connection between Mantegna and the sons of Jacopo Bellini, all three
of whom must have studied from them. The book was inherited by Gentile
on his mother's death, and bequeathed by him to his brother on condition
that he should finish the picture of _S. Mark_, on which Gentile was
engaged at the time of his death.
GIOVANNI BELLINI was born in 1428 or 1430 and lived to 1516. Albert
Dürer, writing from Venice in 1506, says that "he is very old, but is
still the best in painting."
The greater number of Bellini's pictures are to be found in the
galleries and churches in Venice, all of those which are dated being
the work of his old age. Of his earlier pictures we are fortunate in
having two fine examples in the National Gallery, _Christ's Agony in the
Garden_ (No. 726) and _The Blood of the Redeemer_ (No. 1233). In both of
these the influence of his famous brother-in-law Andrea Mantegna, is
traceable,--the former being till lately attributed to him. Both
Giovanni and Gentile worked in Padua, where Mantegna was established, in
1460 or thereabouts, and where another influence, that of the sculptor
Donatello, must have had its effect on the young brothers. Similar in
character, and even more beautiful in some respects, is the _Redeemer_,
a single half figure in a landscape, recently acquired for the
Louvre--the first authentic example of the master in that collection.
In 1464, Giovanni had returned to Venice, and it was some years before
the severe Paduan influence melted before "the sensuous feeling of the
true Venetian temperament." In 1475, however, the arrival of Antonello
da Messina in Venice, bringing with him the practice of painting in oil,
effected a revolution, in which Giovanni, if not one of the foremost,
was certainly one of the most successful in adopting the new method. His
later works, so far from showing any diminution of power, may be said to
anticipate the Venetian style of the sixteenth century in the clearest
manner. One of the chief, dated 1488, is the large altar-piece in the
sacristy of S. Maria di Frari, a _Madonna Enthroned_ with two angels and
four saints. The two little angels are of the utmost beauty; the one is
playing on a lute, and listens with head inclined to hear whether the
instrument is in tune; the other is blowing a pipe. The whole is
perfectly finished and of a splendid effect of colour. To the year 1486
belongs a _Madonna Enthroned with Six Saints_, now in the Academy at
Venice. The famous head of the Doge Loredano in the National Gallery
must have been painted in or after 1501. In 1507, he completed the large
picture of _S. Mark Preaching at Alexandria_, now in the Brera Gallery
at Milan, begun by his brother Gentile. Within three years of his death,
namely in 1513, he could produce such a masterwork as the altar-piece in
S. Giovanni Crisostomo. His last work, the landscape in which was
finished by Titian, is dated 1514. This is the famous _Bacchanal_ now in
the collection of the Duke of Northumberland.
The influence of Bellini on the Venetian School was paramount, and his
noble example helped more than anything else to develop the excellences
observable in the works of Cimada Conegliano, Vincenzo Catena, Lorenzo
Lotto, Palma Vecchio and Basaiti, to say nothing of his great pupils
Titian and Giorgione. It is impossible to conjecture what course the
genius of this younger generation would have taken without his guidance,
but when we consider that in 1500 Bellini was seventy years old, and had
stored within his mind the experience of his early association with his
brother-in-law Andrea Mantegna in Padua, the introduction of the use of
oil paints by Antonello da Messina in 1475, since which date he had
sedulously developed the new practice; when we also take into account
the dignity and gravity of his own works, and the indication they afford
of the man himself, it is not difficult to judge how much his pupils and
successors owed to him.
The works of GENTILE BELLINI, the elder brother of Giovanni, are of less
importance, but of considerable interest, especially in view of his
journey to Constantinople in 1479 at the request of the Sultan, whose
portrait he painted there in the following year. A replica
[Illustration: PLATE XII.--GIOVANNI BELLINI
THE DOGE LOREDANO
_National Gallery, London_]
of this portrait has been bequeathed to the National Gallery by Sir
Henry Layard, and it is to be hoped that the difficulties raised by the
Italian government as to its removal from Venice will shortly be
overcome. The picture of _S. Mark Preaching at Alexandria_ already
mentioned as having been finished by Giovanni, is remarkable for the
Oriental costumes of all the figures in it. Gentile's pictures are often
ascribed to his brother; in two examples at the National Gallery (Nos.
808 and 1440) there is actually a false signature on a cartellino. In
the latter instance Messrs Ludwig and Molmenti are still of opinion that
the picture is the work of Giovanni.
VINCENZO CATENA (_c._ 1470-1530) is not known to have been a pupil of
Bellini, but he began by so modelling his style upon him that one of his
works in the National Gallery was until quite lately officially ascribed
to him, namely the _S. Jerome in his Study_. Another, a later work, _A
Warrior Adoring the Infant Christ_ was similarly ascribed to Giorgione.
This is a proof that Catena was very susceptible to various influences,
and was "an artist of extraordinary suppleness of mind, never too old to
learn or to appreciate new ideals and new sentiments." In a manner more
his own is the _Madonna with Four Saints_ in the Berlin Gallery (No.
19). The _S. Jerome_ and the _Warrior_ are among the most popular
pictures in the National Gallery--partly perhaps on account of their
supposed illustrious parentage, but by no means entirely. A painter who
could so absorb the characteristics of two such masters must needs be a
master himself.
CIMA DA CONEGLIANO, so called from his birthplace in Friuli--the rocky
height of which serves as a background in some of his pictures--settled
in Venice in 1490, when he was about thirty years old. The influence of
Bellini may be seen in the temperamental as well as the technical
qualities of his work, which is distinguished by sound drawing and
proportion, fine and brilliant colour, as well as by sympathetic types
of countenance. One of his best and earliest pictures is the _S. John
the Baptist_ with four other saints, in Santa Maria del Orto in Venice.
Another is the _Madonna with S. Jerome and S. Louis_, now in the Vienna
Gallery. A smaller but peculiarly attractive piece is the _S. Anianus of
Alexandria_ healing a shoemaker's wounded hand, at Berlin, distinguished
for its beautiful clear colours and the life-like character of the
heads.
ANDREA PREVITALI, born in Bergamo in 1480, came to Venice to study under
Bellini, whom he succeeded in imitating with remarkable success. _The
Mystic Marriage of S. Catherine_ (No. 1409) in the National Gallery was
formerly attributed to Bellini. If he had not the originality to carry
the art any farther, his pictures are nevertheless a decided and very
agreeable proof of the advance that was being made in it at the
beginning of the sixteenth century, before the full splendour of
Giorgione and Titian had unfolded.
MARCO BASAITI, though probably not a pupil of Bellini, nevertheless
acquired many of his characteristics. The picture in the National
Gallery known as _The Madonna of the Meadow_ was until lately assigned
to Bellini, and another of his, in the Giovanelli Palace at Venice,
which is identical in technique, tone, and general effect with this one,
is still so ascribed. Whether or not he learnt from Bellini, he was
certainly an assistant to Alvise Vivarini, on whose death he completed
the large altar-piece in the Church of S. Maria de Friari at Venice,
representing _S. Ambrose surrounded by Saints_. His _Christ on the Mount
of Olives_ and _The Calling of Zebedee_, both dated 1510, are now in the
Academy at Venice, and together with the _Portrait of a Man_, dated
1521, in the Bergamo Gallery, and _The Assumption_ in S. Pietro Martire
at Murano, may be considered his best performances.
More remote from Bellini, yet not so far as to be entirely free from his
influence in some of their more important compositions, was the school
formed by LAZZARO DI BASTIANI or SEBASTIANI, of which the chief ornament
was Vittore Carpaccio, and among the lesser ones Giovanni Mansueti and
Benedetto Diana. The history of this independent group of painters has
only of late years been elucidated; Kugler, after a page devoted to
Carpaccio, dismissed them with the remark that Mansueti and Bastiani
were both pupils of Carpaccio, and that Benedetto Diana was "less
distinguished." Our national collection was without any example until
1896, when Mansueti's _Symbolic representation of the Crucifixion_ was
purchased. In 1905 the National Art-Collections Fund secured Bastiani's
_Virgin and Child_, and in 1910 Sir Claude Phillips presented Diana's
_Christ Blessing_. Alas! that we are still without anything from the
hand of Vittore Carpaccio. Seven portraits by Moroni do not fill a gap
like this.
The name of Lazzaro de Bastiani first occurs in Venice as a witness to
his brother's will in 1449, and as early as 1460 he was painting an
altar-piece for the Church of San Samuele. Ten years later, the brothers
of the Scuolo di San Marco ordered a picture of the _Story of David_
from him, promising him the same payment as they gave to Jacobo Bellini,
who had been working for them with his two sons Gentile and Giovanni.
In 1474, another proof of his rank and repute as a painter is afforded
by a letter from a gentleman in Constantinople, asking for a picture by
him, but that Giovanni Bellini should paint it in the event of Bastiani
being already dead. He was thus, it would seem, preferred to Bellini,
though it will be remembered that five years later, when the Sultan
expressed the wish that a distinguished portrait-painter should be sent
him from Venice, it was Gentile Bellini who was nominated. All the same,
Gentile was a portrait-painter, and Bastiani was not; and it is fairly
evident that the latter was at least in the front rank. One of his
best-known pictures the _Vergine dai begli occhi_ in the Ducal Palace at
Venice used to be attributed to Giovanni Bellini; but though he appears
to have drawn inspiration for his larger and more important compositions
from Jacobo Bellini, his style was chiefly developed through that of
Giambono. His most important work is now in the Academy at Vienna--an
altar-piece painted for the Church of Corpus Domini, Venice, _S.
Veneranda Enthroned_. In the Imperial Gallery at Vienna are a _Last
Communion_ and _Funeral of S. Girolamo_. In the Academy at Venice are
_S. Anthony of Padua_, seated between the branches of a walnut-tree,
with Cardinal Bonaventura and Brother Leo on either side, a large
picture of a _Miracle of the Holy Cross_, and a remarkable rendering of
_The Madonna Kneeling_, the child being laid under an elaborate canopy.
An _Entombment_ in the Church of S. Antonino at Venice is reminiscent of
Giovanni Bellini at his best.
In 1508, the name of VITTORE CARPACCIO occurs with that of Bastiani in
connection with the frescoes of Giorgione upon the façade of the Fondaco
de Tedeschi, about which there was a dispute. To Carpaccio we are
indebted for the most vivid realization of the contemporary life of
Venice; for although his subjects were nominally taken from sacred
history or legend, they are treated in a thoroughly secular fashion,
giving the clearest idea of the buildings, people, and costume of the
Venice of his time, with the greatest variety and richest development.
His object is not only to represent single events, but a complete scene,
and while we observe this characteristic in one or two pictures by the
Bellini, Carpaccio not only shows it much oftener, but carries it to a
much fuller development--possibly influenced by the Netherlandish
masters.
Many of his works are in the Academy at Venice; eight large pictures,
painted between 1490 and 1495, represent the history of S. Ursula and
the eleven thousand virgins. Such a wealth of charming material might
have embarrassed a less capable painter, but "the monotonous incident
which forms the groundwork of many of them," as Kugler coldly puts it,
"is throughout varied and elevated by a free style of grouping and by
happy moral allusions." Another series is that of the _Miracles of the
Holy Cross_, among which may be especially noticed the cure of a man
possessed by a devil; the scene is laid in the loggia of a Venetian
palace, and is watched from below by a varied group of figures on the
Canal and its banks. Larger and broader treatment may be seen in the
_Presentation in the Temple_, painted in 1510, which is also in the
Academy, and in the altar-piece of _S. Vitale_, dated 1514. This last
brings Carpaccio into closer comparison with the later Venetian
painters, being in the nature of a _Santa Conversazione_, where the holy
personages are grouped in some definite relation to each other, and not
independent figures.
PALMA VECCHIO (1480-1528), so called to distinguish him from Giacomo
Palma the younger--Palma Giovane,--was so much influenced by Giorgione
and Titian that his indebtedness to Bellini appears to have been
comparatively slight. The beautiful _Portrait of a Poet_ in the National
Gallery has been attributed both to Giorgione and to Titian.
The number of pictures which are now permitted by the experts to be
called Giorgione's is so small, that we may learn more about him as an
influence on the work of other painters--especially Titian--than from
the meagre materials available for his own biography. The only
unquestioned examples of his work are three pictures at the Uffizi, _The
Trial of Moses_, _The Judgment of Solomon_, and _The Knight of Malta_;
the _Venus_ at Dresden; _The Three Philosophers_ at Vienna; and the
famous _Concert Champêtre_ in the Louvre. But until the critics deprive
him even of these, we are able to agree that "his capital achievement
was the invention of the modern spirit of lyrical passion and romance in
pictorial art, and his magical charm has never been equalled."
II
TIZIANO VECELLIO
TITIAN occupies almost, if not quite, as important a place in the
history of painting as does Shakespeare in that of literature. His fame,
his popularity, the wide range as well as the immense quantity of his
works, entitle him to be ranked with our poet, if only for the
[Illustration: PLATE XIII.--GIORGIONE
VENETIAN PASTORAL
_Louvre, Paris_]
enormous influence they have both exercised on posterity: and without
carrying the parallel farther than the limits imposed by the difference
of their circumstances and their method of expression, it may fairly be
said that Titian, in painting, stands for us to-day much as Shakespeare
stands for in letters. "Titian," says M. Caro Delvaille,[2] "is the
father of modern painting. As the blood of the patriarchs of old infused
the veins of a whole race, so the genius of the most productive of
painters was destined to infuse those of artists through all the ages
even to the present day. He bequeathed, in his enormous _oeuvre_, a
heritage in which generations of painters have participated."
Not only was he the father of modern painting, but he was himself the
first modern painter, just as Shakespeare was, to all present intents
and purposes, the first modern writer. Among a thousand readers of
Shakespeare, there is possibly not more than one who has ever read a
line of Chaucer, or who has ever heard of any of his other predecessors.
So it is with Titian. To the connoisseur, Titian is one of the latest
painters; to the public he is the earliest. "In certain of his
portraits," we read in the National Gallery Catalogue, "he ranks with
the supreme masters; in certain other aspects he is seen as the greatest
academician, as perhaps he was the first."
As it happens, too, Titian stands in much the same relation to Giorgione
as Shakespeare did to Marlowe. Giorgione was really the great innovator,
and Giorgione died young, leaving Titian to carry on the work. It has
always been supposed that Titian and Giorgione, like Marlowe and
Shakespeare, were born within the same year; but in this respect the
parallel is no longer admissible, as Mr Herbert Cook has shown to the
verge of actual proof that the story of Titian being born in 1577, and
having lived to be ninety-nine years old, is unworthy of acceptance. If
this were merely a question of biography, it would not be worth dwelling
upon; but as it seriously affects the whole study of early Venetian
painting, it is necessary to point out that the probability, according
to a critical study of all the evidence available, is that Titian was
not born till 1488 or 1489, and was thus really the pupil rather than
the contemporary of Giorgione, and therefore more slightly influenced by
Giovanni Bellini than has been generally supposed.
Without going into all the evidence adduced by Mr Cook (_Reviews and
Appreciations,_ Heinemann, 1913) it is nevertheless pretty evident that
in the account given by his friend and contemporary, Lodovico Dolce,
published in 1557, we have the most authentic story of Titian's early
years, and from this it is quite clear that Titian was considerably
younger than Giorgione. "Being born at Cadore," he writes, "of
honourable parents, he was sent, when a child of nine years old, by his
father to Venice, to the house of his father's brother, in order that he
might be put under some proper master to study painting; his father
having perceived in him even at that tender age strong marks of genius
towards the art.... His uncle directly carried the child to the house of
Sebastanio, father of the _gentilissimo_ Valerio and of Francesco
Zuccati (distinguished masters of the art of mosaic, ...) to learn the
principles of the art. From them he was removed to Gentile Bellini,
brother of Giovanni, but much inferior to him, who at that time was at
work with his brother in the Grand Council Chamber. But Titian, impelled
by nature to greater excellence and perfection in his art, could not
endure following the dry and laboured manner of Gentile, but designed
with boldness and expedition. Whereupon Gentile told him he would make
no progress in painting because he diverged so much from the old style.
Thereupon Titian left the stupid Gentile and found means to attach
himself to Giovanni Bellini; but not perfectly pleased with his manner,
he chose Giorgio da Castel Franco. Titian, then, drawing and painting
with Giorgione, as he was called, became in a short time so accomplished
in art that when Giorgione was painting (in 1507-8) the façade of the
Fondaco de'Tedeschi, or Exchange of the German merchants, which looks
towards the Grand Canal, Titian was allotted the other side which faces
the market place, being at the time scarcely twenty years old. Here he
represented a Judith of wonderful design and colour, so remarkable
indeed, that when the work came to be uncovered it was commonly thought
to be the work of Giorgione, and all the latter's friends congratulated
him (Giorgione) as being by far the best thing he had produced.
Whereupon Giorgione, in great displeasure, replied that the work was
from the hand of his pupil, who showed already how he could surpass his
master and (what is more) Giorgione shut himself up for some days at
home, as if in despair, seeing that a young (_i.e._ younger) man knew
more than he did."
Again, in speaking of the famous altar-piece--the _Assumption_, now in
the Academy at Venice--painted by Titian in 1516, Dolce mentions him
twice as "giovinetto." "Not long afterwards he was commissioned to paint
a large picture for the high altar of the Church of the Frate Minori,
where Titian, quite a young man, painted in oil the Virgin ascending to
Heaven.... This was the first public work which he painted in oil, and
he did it in a very short time, and while still a young man."
Vasari's account of Titian's early years is substantially the same, but
unfortunately opens with the statement that he was "born in the year
1480." This might easily have been a slip of the pen or a printer's
mistake for 1488 or 1489, and subsequent passages in the life bear out
this supposition. But partly because Titian was a Venetian and not a
Florentine, and partly, no doubt, because he was still alive, and had
been producing picture after picture for over sixty years at the time
Vasari published his second edition in 1568, the whole account is so
confused and inaccurate that its credit has been severely shaken by
modern critics, with the result that it is hardly nowadays considered
authentic in any respect. The following extracts, however, there seems
no reason to question:----
"About the year 1507, Giorgione not being satisfied [with the
old-fashioned methods of Bellini and others] began to give his works an
unwonted softness and relief, painting them in a very beautiful manner."
And a little later "Having seen the manner of Giorgione, Titian early
resolved to abandon that of Gian Bellino, although well grounded
therein. He now, therefore, devoted himself to this purpose, and in a
short time so closely imitated Giorgione that his pictures were
sometimes taken for those of this master, as will be related below.
Increasing in age, judgment and facility of hand, our young artist
executed numerous works in fresco.... At the time when he began to adopt
the manner of Giorgione, being then not more than eighteen, he took the
portrait of a gentleman of the Barberigo family, who was his friend, and
this was considered very beautiful, the colouring being true and
natural, the hair so distinctly painted that each one could be counted,
as might also the stitches in a satin doublet painted in the same work;
in a word, it was so well and carefully done that it would have been
taken for a work of Giorgione if Titian had not written his name on the
dark ground."
With this we may leave the question of Titian's birth date, and consider
the exceptional interest attaching to the question of this Barberigo
portrait. According to Mr. Cook, and also, under reserve, to several
other eminent authorities, it is no other than the so-called _Ariosto_,
which was purchased for the National Gallery in 1904. The chief
difficulties in deciding the question are, first, whether it is possible
that a youth of eighteen could have painted such a masterpiece, second,
that the signature _Titianus_ is supposed not to have been used by the
artist before about 1520, and lastly, that the head, at any rate, is
decidedly more in the manner of Giorgione than that of Titian. This
last, of course, did not trouble Vasari, and his testimony is therefore
all the more valuable; but all difficulties vanish if we accept Mr.
Cook's theory that the portrait was begun by Giorgione in 1508, was left
incomplete at his sudden death in 1510, and finished by Titian in 1520.
That is to say, the head and general design is that of Giorgione, the
marvellous finish of the sleeve and other parts that of Titian.
Of works left unfinished at a master's death and completed by a pupil
there are numerous instances; the famous _Bacchanal_ at Alnwick is one
which takes us a step further in Titian's career. This was begun by
Giovanni Bellini, and Titian was invited by the Duke of Ferrara, in
1516, to finish it. The landscape is entirely his. To complete the
decoration of the apartment in which the picture was hung, he was
called upon to paint two others of the same size, one the _Triumph of
Bacchus_, or as it is usually called _Bacchus and Ariadne_ (now in the
National Gallery) and the other a similar subject, the _Bacchanal_, now
in the Prado (No. 418, formerly 450).
Ridolfi, in his life of Titian characterises our picture as one to whose
unparalleled merits he is inadequate to do justice; "There is," he says,
"such a graceful expression in the figure of Ariadne, such beauty in the
children--so strongly marked both in the looks and attitudes is the
joyous character of the licentious votaries of Bacchus--the roundness
and correct drawing of the man entwined with snakes, the magnificence of
the sky and landscape, the sporting play of the leaves and branches of
the most vivid tints, and the detailed herbage on the ground tending to
enliven the scene, and the rich tone of colour throughout, form
altogether such a whole that hardly any other work of Titian can stand
in competition with it."
In the composition of the second picture, _The Bacchanal_ at Madrid, a
number of the votaries of Bacchus are assembled on the bank of a
rivulet, flowing with red wine from a hill in the distance; some of them
are distributing the liquor to their associates, while a nymph and two
men are dancing. The nymph is supposed to be a portrait of Violante,
Titan's mistress, as he has painted, in allusion to her name, a violet
on her breast and his own name round her arm. Her light drapery is
raised by the breeze, and discovers the beautiful form and _morbidezza_
of her limbs. In the foreground Ariadne lies asleep, her head resting on
a rich vase in place of a pillow.[3]
[Illustration: PLATE XIV.--TITIAN
PORTRAIT SAID TO BE OF ARIOSTO
_National Gallery, London_]
Cumberland says that Raphael Mengs, who lived long at Madrid at the time
when this picture was in the reception room of the New Palace, was of
opinion that Titian's superior taste was nowhere more strikingly
displayed, and remarks that he himself could never pass by it without
surprise and admiration, more particularly excited by the beauty of the
sleeping Ariadne in the foreground.
Respecting the merits of both pictures the testimony of Agostino
Carracci should not be omitted; when he viewed them in the possession of
the Duke of Ferrara he declared that he considered them the first in the
world, and that no one could say he was acquainted with the most
marvellous works of art without having seen them.
Commenting upon another picture of Titian's early period, Sir Joshua
Reynolds delivers himself of the following criticisms on Titian as
compared with Raphael, "It is to Titian that we must turn," he says, "to
find excellence in regard to colour, and light and shade in the highest
degree. He was both the first and the greatest master of this art; by a
few strokes he knew how to mark the general image and character of
whatever object he attempted, and produced by this alone a truer
representation of nature than his master, Giovanni Bellini, or any of
his predecessors, who finished every hair. His greatest object was to
express the general colour, to preserve the masses of light and shade,
and to give by opposition the idea of that solidity which is inseparable
from natural objects....
"Raphael and Titian seemed to have looked at nature for different
purposes; they both had the power of extending their view to the whole,
but one looked only at the general effect as produced by form, the
other as produced by colour. We cannot refuse Titian the merit of
attending to the general form of the object, as well as colour; but his
deficiency lay--a deficiency at least when he is compared with
Raphael--in not possessing the power, like him, of correcting the form
of his model by any general idea of beauty in his own mind. Of this his
_St. Sebastian with other Saints_ (in the Vatican) is a particular
instance. This figure appears to be a most exact representation both of
the form and colour of the model which he then happened to have before
him, and has all the force of nature, and the colouring of flesh itself;
but unluckily the model was of a bad form, especially the legs. Titian
has with much care preserved these defects, as he has imitated the
beauty and brilliancy of the colouring...."
Of the Sebastian, Vasari says very much the same as Reynolds. "He is
nude," he writes, "and has been exactly copied from the life without the
slightest admixture of art, no efforts for the sake of beauty have been
sought in any part--trunk or limbs; all is as nature left it, so that it
might seem to be a sort of cast from the life. It is nevertheless
considered very fine, and the figure of our Lady with the infant in her
arms, whom all the other figures are looking at, is also accounted most
beautiful."
Two more of the pictures of Titian's earliest period are in the National
Gallery--the _Christ appearing to Mary Magdalen_ (No. 270), and the
_Holy Family_ (No. 4). The former is ascribed to about the year 1514,
partly on the ground that the group of buildings in the landscape is
identical, line for line, with that in the Dresden _Venus_ painted by
Giorgione but completed by Titian after his death. The same landscape
also occurs in the beautiful little _Cupid_ in the Vienna
[Illustration: PLATE XV.--TITIAN
THE HOLY FAMILY
_National Gallery, London_]
Academy, and, as Mr Herbert Cook suggests, possibly represents some
cherished spot in Titian's memory connected with his mountain home at
Pieve di Cadore.
The _Holy Family_, above mentioned, is a most charming example of the
_sacra conversazione_ as developed by Titian from the somewhat formal
and austere conception of Bellini and his contemporaries into something
eminently characteristic of the secular side of his genius. The very
titles of two of his most beautiful and most famous pictures of this
sort proclaim the hold they have taken on the popular mind. The one is
the _Madonna of the Cherries_, in the Vienna Gallery. The other is the
_Madonna with the Rabbit_, in the Louvre. In our picture the
distinguishing feature is the kneeling shepherd, with his little
water-cask slung on his belt, who puts us at once in touch with the
whole scene by the simple appeal to our common human experience. Raphael
could move our religious feelings to revere the godhead in the child,
but could seldom, like Titian, stir our human emotions and bring home to
us that Christ was born on earth for our sakes.
If this particular characteristic of Titian were confined to the
pastoral setting of these Holy Conversations, it might be taken as
merely accidental, and without further significance than should be
accorded to a youthful fancy. But in the wonderful _Entombment_, now in
the Louvre, in which he displays "the full splendour of his early
maturity," the human element is such an important factor in the
presentment of the divine tragedy that even a painter, M.
Caro-Delvaille, must postpone his description of the picture to
sentences like these:--"Sur un ciel tourmenté," he writes, in phrases
which it is impossible to render adequately in English, "se profile le
groupe tragique. Aucun geste superflu; le drame est intérieur. La
Douleur plane dans l'air alourdi du crépuscule, comme une aile
fatale--Jésus est mort! Le grand cadavre livide, que les apôtres
angoissés soutiennent, n'a rien dans sa robustesse inerte de la
dépouille émaciée des Christs mystiques. Le fils de Dieu semble un
patriarche douloureusement frappé par le décret d'en haut.
"Une âpreté primitive, où les larmes se cachent comme une faiblesse,
communique a l'oeuvre un pathétique si poignant que le mystère de la
mort s'étend jusqu'à nous.
"La Vierge et la Madeleine sont là. Elle, la Mère, doute de la réalité,
tant elle souffre! Son regard fixe sur le corps chéri, elle ne peut
croire que tout est consommé. La pécheresse pitoyable la prend dans ses
bras pour essayer de l'arracher à l'horreur de cette vision.
"Drame humain et divin! ne sont-ce point des fils qui ramènent le
cadavre de leur père à la poussière? Tous ceux qui passèrent par ces
épreuves se souviennent de ce deuil qui semble se prolonger dans la
nature entière."
Titian's first period may be said to end in 1530, by which time he had
completed the famous _Peter Martyr_, which was destroyed by fire in
1867. In 1530, too, Titian's wife died. This event of itself need not be
supposed to have greatly influenced his career, as there is no evidence
of her having appealed to his artistic nature as did his daughter
Lavinia. As it happened, however, a more certain influence was nearly
coincident with this event--the arrival in Venice of the notorious
Aretine, who, chiefly as it appears, with an eye to business, entered
into the most intimate relations with Titian. The accession of the
sculptor
[Illustration: PLATE XVI.--TITIAN
THE ENTOMBMENT
_Louvre, Paris_]
Sansovino to the comradeship earned for the group the name of the
Triumvirate.
So far from Titian being corrupted by the society of Aretine, there is
direct evidence in one of the poet's letters to him that he was not.
"You must come to our feast to-night," he writes, "but I may as well
warn you that you had better leave early, as I know how particular you
are about certain things." Nor is there anything in the artist's works
of this next period--which we may roughly date from 1530 to 1550, that
betrays a more serious devotion to the sensual side of life than can be
accounted for by the demands of the high and mighty patrons that Aretine
was soon to find for him. As an artist he looked upon woman as a
beautiful creature, as a man he most probably never troubled about her,
or was troubled by her. There is no proof that any of his pictures are
rightly called "Titian's mistress," and we may conclude that he was as
good a husband and a father as was Rubens, who revelled in painting
woman, or Velasquez, who seems to have frankly disliked it. Like
Rowlandson, whom the general public only know as a caricaturist, but who
when he once got away from London was the most pure minded and poetical
artist, so Titian, when once dissociated from the demands of corrupt
patrons, like Philip II., never reveals himself as having fallen under
the influence of Aretine--if indeed at all. The _Danaë_ and the _Venus
and a Musician_ at the Prado are the only examples it is possible to
cite--unless it be the _Venus_, to which popular opinion would hardly
deny its place of honour in the Tribune at the Uffizi.
At the same time the difference in circumstances, the fuller, richer
life that he must have led in these years of patronage and prosperity,
accounts for a certain "shallowness and complacency" which
distinguishes his work during this period as sharply from that which
preceded as from that which followed it; and fine as is his
accomplishment during these years, especially in portraiture, it
includes fewer of those masterpieces which appeal to the heart as much
as to the eye.
To 1538 belongs the large and beautiful picture of the _Presentation of
the Virgin Mary in the Temple_, painted for the Scuola della Carità in
Venice, which is now occupied by the Academy, where it still hangs, as
is said, in its original place. It is twenty-two feet in length, and
contains several portraits, among which are those of his daughter
Lavinia (the Virgin, as is supposed), Andrea Franchescini, grand
chancellor of Venice, in a scarlet robe; next him, in black, Lazzaro
Crasso, a lawyer, and certain monks of the convent following them.
We now find Titian employed by the Duke of Urbino on some of the
principal works of this period. Among these were the Uffizi _Venus_,
said to be a portrait of the Duchess herself. The _Girl in a Fur Mantle_
at Vienna, portraits of the Duke and of the Duchess (1537), and the
so-called _La Bella_ at the Uffizi. The so-called _Duke of Norfolk_ at
the Pitti, supposed to represent the young Duke Guidobaldo of Urbino.
Also the _Isabella d'Este_ at Vienna, and somewhat earlier, the
_Cardinal Ippolito_ in Hungarian dress, at the Pitti; and the _Daughter
of Robert Strozzi_, at Berlin.
The large _Ecce Homo_ in the Vienna Gallery, dated 1543, measuring 11
ft. 3 in. by 7 ft. 7 in. was for some years in London, and with better
fortune might still be in this country if not in our national
collection. It was one of the nineteen pictures by Titian in the
wonderful collection of Rubens, which the Duke of Buckingham persuaded
him to sell to him for a fabulous price. The collection was shipped to
England in 1625, when the pictures were taken to York House in the
Strand, and the statues and gems to Chelsea. In 1649 a portion of the
collection was sold at Brussels, and the _Ecce Homo_ was purchased there
by the Archduke Leopold for his gallery at Prague, which now forms part
of that at Vienna. The Earl of Arundel offered the Duke of Buckingham
£7000 for it--an unheard of price, especially when we remember the
greater value of money at that time.
With another masterpiece--fortunately still preserved in the Prado,
though not entirely uninjured by fire--we may close the second period.
This is the magnificent equestrian portrait of _The Emperor Charles V._
which was painted at Augsburg in 1548. A few years later the Emperor
abdicated in favour of his egregious son, Philip II., of whom Titian
painted three portraits in succession. The second of these, now in the
Prado, has an especial interest for us, inasmuch as it was painted for
the benefit or the enticement of Queen Mary before her marriage to
Philip. As might be expected, it is a highly flattering likeness,--in
white and gold, in half armour. To quote M. Caro-Delvaille, this king of
_auto da fés_ and sunken galleys is here nothing more than a gallant
cavalier--neurasthenic but elegant. For England was also painted the
_Venus and Adonis_, in 1554; but unfortunately the original is now in
Madrid, and only a copy in our National Gallery. However, the remains of
Philip are there too, and not in Westminster Abbey!
A copy of another famous picture painted by Titian for the Emperor
Charles V. was also in the collection of the Duke of Buckingham, who
probably brought it with him when he returned from his madcap expedition
with Prince Charles to Madrid. It is described in his catalogue as "One
great Piece of the Emperor Charles, a copy called Titian's Glory, being
the principal in Spain, now in the Escurial." This was the great
_Paradise_, or Apotheosis of Charles V. which Charles took with him into
Spain at the time of his abdication and placed in the monastery of St.
Juste, in Estramadura, to which he retired. After his death it was
removed by Philip II. to Madrid.
Of the two versions of _The Crowning with Thorns_, the earlier one at
the Louvre, painted in 1560, is more familiar to, and probably more
popular with, the general public than the much later one at Munich
painted in 1571. But for the real merits of the two we need not hesitate
to accept M. Caro-Delvaille's judgment, since if he had any bias it
would be in favour of his own country's treasure. The former he
characterises as an incoherent composition, in which useless
gesticulation diminishes the dramatic effect, while striving to force
it; and adds that all the false romanticism of painting comes from this
sort of theatrical pathos. Of the other he writes "It was the picture at
the Louvre which shocked me with its violent declamation and its forced
blows that never hit anything. But here at Munich a mystery so profound
broods over the drama that the melodramatic element disappears. The
scene becomes tragic, lamentable, hopelessly sad. The great artist with
a brush that trembles in his aged hands paints but the sentiment of it,
to exhale from his work like a plaintive sigh. The veil of death
descends and spreads over life.... Titian might seem to have painted it
as an offering to Rembrandt when he, too, should feel the approach of
death."
Another of his latest pictures, the _Adam and Eve in Paradise_, is in
the Prado (No. 429, formerly 456). This was copied, or one might almost
say travestied, by Rubens when he was at Madrid in 1629, and his work
was hung in the same room with it. As the colouring is of a lower tone
than is usual with Titian, and the attitudes of the figures extremely
simple and natural, the contrast is all the more marked, and was well
expressed by Cumberland, who said that "when we contemplate Titian's
picture of Adam and Eve we are convinced they never wore clothes; turn
to the copy, and the same persons seem to have laid theirs aside."
A more generous comparison between these two painters is made by
Reynolds in a note on du Fresnoy's poem on Painting respecting the
qualities of regularity and uniformity. "An instance occurs to me where
those two qualities are separately exhibited by two great painters,
Rubens and Titian: the picture of Rubens is in the Church of S.
Augustine at Antwerp, the subject (if that may be called a subject where
no story is represented) is the Virgin and Infant Christ placed high in
the picture on a pedestal with many saints about them and as many below
them, with others on the steps to serve as a link to unite the upper and
lower part of the picture. The composition of this picture is perfect in
its kind; the artist has shown the greatest skill in composing and
contrasting more than twenty figures without confusion and without
crowding; the whole appearing as much animated and in motion as it is
possible where nothing is to be done.
"The picture of Titian which we would oppose to this is in the Church
of the S. Frari at Venice (the "Pesaro Madonna," where the two donors
kneel below the Virgin enthroned). One peculiar character of this piece
is grandeur and simplicity, which proceed in a great measure from the
regularity of the composition, two of the principal figures being
represented kneeling directly opposite to each other, and nearly in the
same attitude. This is what few painters would have had the courage to
venture; Rubens would certainly have rejected so unpicturesque a mode of
composition had it occurred to him. Both these pictures are excellent in
their kind, and may be said to characterize their respective authors.
There is a bustle and animation in the work of Rubens, a quiet solemn
majesty in that of Titian. The excellence of Rubens is the picturesque
effect he produces; the superior merit of Titian is in the appearance of
being above seeking after any such "artificial excellence."
The most important artist besides Titian who was a pupil of Giorgione
was SEBASTIANO DEL PIOMBO, as he was called--his father's name was
LUCIANI. But as two other notable influences determined his career, he
is not to be taken as typical of the Venetian School in general or that
of Giorgione in particular. Born in Venice about the year 1485, he first
studied under Giovanni Bellini, as appears from the signature as well as
from the style of a _Pietà_ by him in the Layard collection, which we
may hope soon to see in the National Gallery. Of his Giorgionesque
period there is only one important picture known to us, the beautiful
altar-piece in S. Giovanni Crisostomo in Venice, which is not far
removed from the richness of Titian's earlier work. The picture
represents the mild and dignified S. Chrysostom seated, reading aloud at
a desk in an open hall; S. John the Baptist leaning on his cross is
looking attentively at him; behind him are two male and on the left two
female saints listening devoutly, and in the foreground the Virgin
looking majestically out of the picture at the spectator--a splendid
type of the full and grand Venetian ideal of female beauty of that time.
The true expression of a _Santa Conversazione_ could not be more
worthily given than in the relation in which the listeners stand to the
reader, and in glow of colour this work is not inferior to the best of
Giorgione's or Titian's.
As early as 1510, however, he not only left Venice, but also his
Venetian manner. He was invited to Rome by the rich banker and patron of
the arts, Agostino Chigi, where he met Raphael, and with astonishing
versatility succeeded as well in emulating the excellences of that
master as he had those of Bellini and Giorgione. The half-length
_Daughter of Herodias_ bequeathed to the National Gallery by George
Salting is dated 1510, and in 1512 he painted the famous _Fornarina_ in
the Uffizi, which until the middle of the last century was supposed to
be a _chef d'oeuvre_ of Raphael. To this period also belongs the _S.
John in the Desert_, at the Louvre.
Within the next seven years a still mightier influence found him, that
of Michelangelo, and how far he was capable of responding to it may be
judged by our great _Raising of Lazarus_, painted at Rome in 1517-19 for
Giulio de'Medici, afterwards Pope Clement VII., to be placed with
Raphael's _Transfiguration_ in the Cathedral of Narbonne. Both pictures
were publicly exhibited in Rome, and by some people Sebastiano's was
preferred to Raphael's. According to Waagen the whole composition was
designed by Michelangelo, with whom Sebastiano had entered into the
closest intimacy; and Kugler states that the group of Lazarus and those
around him was actually drawn by the master. However that may be, we can
hardly fail to see how entirely the Venetian influence is obscured by
that of the great Florentine, and to recognise the extraordinary genius
of a painter who could do something more than imitate from such masters
as Bellini, Giorgione, Raphael and Michelangelo.
The last traces of the Vivarini influence are to be seen in the earlier
works of LORENZO LOTTO(1480-1556), who was a pupil of Alvise, though his
pictures after 1508, when he had left Venice, Treviso and Reccanti,
where he had been employed, show the effect of his changed surroundings.
To this date is assigned the _Portrait of a Young Man_, at Hampton
Court. At Rome in 1509 he was painting with Raphael in the Vatican, and
in his next dated work, the _Entombment_, at Jesi, the echoes of
Raphael's Disputation and the _School of Athens_ are clear. The Dresden
_Madonna and Child with S. John_ was probably painted at Bergamo in
1518, and the _Madonna and Saints_, lately bequeathed to the National
Gallery, is dated 1521.
At Madrid is a picture by him of _A Bride and Bridegroom_ dated 1523, to
which year probably belongs the _Family Group_ in the National Gallery.
These are early instances of the comparatively rare inclusion of more
than a single figure in a pure portrait. In our example the father and
mother and two children are composed into a delightful picture, in which
for once we may see the actual people of the time in something like
their natural surroundings, instead of being posed, however effectively,
to assist in the representation of some historic or legendary scene.
In 1527 Lotto was back again in Venice, and was probably influenced by
Palma Vecchio when he painted the superb portrait of the sculptor
_Odoni_, which is at Hampton Court. A little later the influence of
Titian is more visible. Two other portraits are in our National Gallery,
those of the Protonotary Juliano and of Agostino and Niccolo della
Torre.
BONIFAZIO DI PITATI (1487-1553), sometimes called Bonifazio Veronese or
Veneziano, was born at Verona, but studied in Venice under Palma
Vecchio. The influence of his native city distinguishes his work in some
degree from the pure Venetian, as it did that of the more famous Paolo
in later years; but the atmosphere created by Giorgione was so strong as
to cause Bonifazio's masterpiece (if we except the _Dives and Lazarus_
at the Academy in Venice) to be attributed until quite lately to
Giorgione. It is thus described by Kugler:--"A picture in the Brera in
Milan, very deserving of notice, is perhaps one of Giorgione's most
beautiful works; it is historic in subject, but romantic in conception.
The subject is the finding of Moses; all the figures are in the rich
costume of Giorgione's time. In the centre the princess sits under a
tree, and looks with surprise at the child who is brought to her by a
servant. The seneschal of the princess, with knights and ladies, stand
around. On one side are seated two lovers on the grass, on the other
side musicians and singers, pages with dogs, a dwarf with an ape, etc.
It is a picture in which the highest earthly splendour and enjoyment are
brought together, and the incident from Scripture only gives it a more
pleasing interest. The costume, however inappropriate to the story,
disturbs the effect as little as in other Venetian pictures of the same
period, since it refers more to a poetic than to a mere historic truth,
and the period itself was rich in poetry; its costume too assists the
display of a romantic splendour. This picture, with all its glow of
colour, is softer than the earlier works of the master, and reminds us
of Titian...."
The beautiful _Santa Conversazione_ in the National Gallery, again,
which was formerly in the Casa Terzi at Bergamo, was there attributed to
Palma Vecchio. Here the Virgin in a rose-coloured mantle is the centre
of the composition, with the Child on her knee, whose foot the little S.
John is bending to kiss. On the right is S. Catherine and on the left S.
James the Less and S. Jerome. In the landscape are seen a shepherd lying
beside his flock, while other shepherds are fleeing from a lion who has
seized their dog. A copy of this composition is in the Academy at
Venice.
Oddly enough it was a pupil of Bonifazio who employed the grand Venetian
manner in the humbler and more commonplace walks of life, and neglecting
alike the _Sacra Conversazione_ and the pompous scenes of festivity,
developed into the first Italian painter of _genre_. This was JACOPO DA
PONTE, called from his birthplace BASSANO, who was working in Venice
under Bonifazio as early as 1535. He afterwards returned to Bassano, and
selecting those scenes in which he could most extensively introduce
cottages, peasants, and animals, he connected them with events from
sacred history or mythology. A peculiar feature by which his pictures
may be known is the invariable and apparently intentional hiding of the
feet of his figures, for which purpose sheep and cattle and household
utensils are introduced. He confines himself to a bold, straightforward
imitation of familiar objects, united, however, with pleasing
composition, colour, and chiaroscuro. His colours, indeed, sparkle like
gems, particularly the greens, in which he displays a brilliancy quite
peculiar to himself. His lights are boldly infringed on the objects,
and are seldom introduced except on prominent parts of the figures. In
accordance with this treatment his handling is spirited and peculiar,
somewhat in the manner of Rembrandt; and what on close inspection
appears dark and confused, forms at a distance the very strength and
magic of his colouring. The picture of the _Good Samaritan_ in the
National Gallery is a good example, and was formerly in the collection
of Reynolds, who it is said always kept it in his studio. The _Portrait
of a Man_ (No. 173) is excelled by that of an _Old Man_ at Berlin.
III
PAOLO VERONESE AND IL TINTORETTO
It cannot be said that the Venetian artists of the second half of the
sixteenth century equalled in their collective excellence the great
masters of the first, but in single instances they are frequently
entitled to rank beside them. At the head of these is JACOPO ROBUSTI
(1518-1594), called IL TINTORETTO (the dyer), in allusion to his
father's trade. He was one of the most vigorous painters in all the
history of art; one who sought rather than avoided the greatest
difficulties, and who possessed a true feeling for animation and
grandeur. If his works do not always charm, it should be imputed to the
foreign and non-Venetian element which he adopted, but never completely
mastered; and also to the times in which he lived, when Venetian art had
fallen somewhat into the mistaken way of colossal and rapid
productiveness. His off-hand style, as Kugler calls it, is always full
of grand and significant detail, and with a few patches of colour he
sometimes achieves the liveliest forms and expressions. But he fails in
that artistic arrangement of the whole and in that nobility of motives
in the parts which are necessary exponents of a really high ideal. His
compositions are achieved less by finely studied degrees of
participation in the principal action than by great masses of light and
shade. Attitudes and movements are taken immediately from common life,
not chosen from the best models. With Titian the highest ideal of
earthly happiness in existence is expressed by beauty; with Tintoretto
in mere animal strength, sometimes of an almost rude character.
For a short time he was a pupil of Titian, but for some unknown reason
he soon left him, and struck out for himself. In the studio which he
occupied in his youth he had inscribed, as a definition of the style he
professed, "The drawing of Michelangelo, the colouring of Titian." He
copied the works of the latter, and also designed from casts of
Florentine and antique sculpture, particularly by lamplight--as did
Romney a couple of centuries later--to exercise himself in a more
forcible style of relief. He also made models for his works, which he
lighted artificially, or hung up in his room, in order to master
perspective. By these means he united great strength of shadow with the
Venetian colouring, which gives a peculiar character to his pictures,
and is very successful when limited to the direct imitation of nature.
But apart from the impossibility of combining two such totally different
excellences as the colouring of Titian and the drawing of Michelangelo,
it appears that Tintoretto's acquaintance with the works of the latter
only developed his tendency to a naturalistic style. That which with
Michelangelo was the symbol of a higher power in nature was adopted by
Tintoretto in its literal form. Most of his defects, it is probable,
arose from his indefatigable vigour, which earned for him the nickname
of _Il Furioso_. Sebastian del Piombo said that Tintoretto could paint
as much in two days as would occupy him two years. Other sayings were
that he had three brushes, one of gold, one of silver, and a third of
brass, and that if he was sometimes equal to Titian he was often
inferior to Tintoretto! In this last category Kugler puts two of his
earliest works, the enormous _Last Judgment_, and _The Golden Calf_, in
the church of S. Maria dell'Orto, while on his much later _Last Supper_
he is still more severe. "Nothing more utterly derogatory," he writes,
"both to the dignity of art and to the nature of the subject can be
imagined. S. John is seen with folded arms, fast asleep, while others of
the Apostles with the most burlesque gestures are asking, 'Lord, is it
I?' Another Apostle is uncovering a dish which stands on the floor
without remarking that a cat has stolen in and is eating from it. A
second is reaching towards a flask; a beggar sits by, eating. Attendants
fill up the picture. To judge from an overthrown chair the scene appears
to have been a revel of the lowest description. It is strange that a
painter should venture on such a representation of this subject scarcely
a hundred years after the creation of Leonardo da Vinci's _Last
Supper_."
It was in 1548, when but thirty years old, that Tintoretto first became
famous, with the large _Miracle of S. Mark_, now in the Venice Academy.
This is perhaps his finest as well as his most celebrated work; but the
greatest monument to his industry and general ability is the Scuola
di'San Rocco, where he began to work in 1560 under a contract to produce
three pictures a year for an annuity of a hundred ducats. In all there
are sixty-two of his pictures in this building, the greater part of
them very large, the figures throughout being of the size of life. _The
Crucifixion_, painted in 1565, is the most extensive of them, and on the
whole the most perfect. In 1590, four years before his death, he
completed the enormous _Paradise_ in the Sala del Gran Consiglio,
measuring seventy-four feet in length and thirty in height.
In the National Gallery we have three characteristic examples,
fortunately on a smaller scale, namely, the _S. George_ on a white
horse, which, with its greyish flesh tones and the blue of the
princess's mantle, is cooler in tone than the generality of his
pictures; _Christ washing the Disciples' Feet_, and the very beautiful
and radiant _Origin of the Milky Way_, purchased from Lord Darnley in
1890. At Hampton Court a still finer example, _The Nine Muses_, is so
discoloured by age and hung in such a difficult light that it is
impossible to enjoy its full beauty.
PAOLO CALIARI, better known as VERONESE, was born ten years later than
Tintoretto, and died six years before him (1528-1588). He studied in his
native city of Verona till he was twenty, and after working for some
time at Mantua he came to Venice in 1555, where he was quickly
recognised by Titian and by Sansovino, the sculptor and Director of
Public Buildings, and was commissioned in that year to paint a
_Coronation of the Virgin_ and other works in the church of S.
Sebastian. The _Martyrdom of S. Giustino_, now in the Uffizi, and the
_Madonna and Child_ in the Louvre are also among his earlier works. As
early as 1562 he was at work on the enormous _Feast at Cana_, now in the
Louvre, and a similar work at Dresden is of the same date. In 1564 he
went to Rome, where he studied the works of Raphael and Michelangelo. On
his return to Venice in
[Illustration: PLATE XVII.--TINTORETTO
ST GEORGE AND THE DRAGON
_National Gallery, London_]
1565--after visiting Verona, where he painted in his parish church, and
also married--he was employed to decorate the Ducal Palace, but much of
his best work there was destroyed by fire. Two of his most important
works completed before 1573 are in the Academy at Venice, _The Battle of
Lepanto_ and the _Feast in the House of Levi_. In this last he incurred
strictures from the Inquisition more severe than those of Kugler upon
Tintoretto's _Last Supper_, and possibly with as much reason, it being
objected that the introduction of German soldiery, buffoons, and a
parrot was "irreligious." His _Family of Darius_, now in the National
Gallery, was one of his latest works.
Veronese, even more than Titian, whom in colouring he sought to emulate,
and Tintoretto, whom in this respect he certainly excelled, expresses
the spirit of the Venetians of his time--a powerful and noble race of
human beings, as Kugler calls them, elate with the consciousness of
existence, and in full enjoyment of all that renders earth attractive.
By the splendour of his colour, assisted by rich draperies and other
materials, by a very clear and transparent treatment of the shadows, he
infused a magic into his great canvases which surpasses almost all the
other masters of the Venetian School. Never had the pomp of colour, on a
large scale, been so exalted and glorified as in his works. This, his
peculiar quality, is most decidedly and grandly developed in scenes of
worldly splendour; he loved to paint festive subjects for the
refectories of rich convents, suggested of course from particular
passages in the Scriptures, but treated with the greatest freedom,
especially as regards the costume, which is always of his own time.
Instead, therefore, of any religious sentiment, we are presented with a
display of the most cheerful human scenes and the richest worldly
splendour. That which distinguishes him from Tintoretto, and which in
his later period, after the death of Titian and Michelangelo, earned for
him the rank of the first living master, was that beautiful vitality,
that poetic feeling, which as far as it was possible he infused into a
declining period of art. At the same time it becomes more and more
evident, as our attention is turned to the deeper and nobler spirit of
the earlier masters in Venice, that the beauty of his figures is more
addressed to the senses than to the soul, and that his naturalistic
tendencies are often allowed to run wild.
The most celebrated, and as it happens the most historically
interesting, of his great pictures is the _Feast at Cana_, in the
Louvre, measuring thirty feet wide and twenty feet high. This was
formerly in the refectory of S. Giorgio Maggiore in Venice. The scene is
a brilliant atrium, surrounded by majestic pillars. The tables at which
the guests are seated form three sides of a parallelogram. The guests
are supposed to be almost entirely contemporary portraits, so that the
figures of Christ and His mother, of themselves insignificant enough,
lose even more in the general interest of the subject. Servants occupy
the foreground, while on the raised balustrades and the balconies of
distant houses are innumerable onlookers. The most remarkable feature of
the whole composition is a group of musicians in the centre of the
foreground, which are portraits of the artist himself and Tintoretto,
playing on violon-cellos, and Titian, in a red robe, with the
contra-bass.
_Christ in the House of Simon_, the Magdalen washing His feet, is
another scarcely less gigantic picture in the Louvre; but it is much
simpler in arrangement, and is distinguished by the fineness of the
heads, especially that of the Christ. An interesting piece of technical
criticism on the _Feast at Cana_ occurs in Reynolds's Eighth
Discourse:--
"Another instance occurs to me," he says, "where equal liberty may be
taken in regard to the management of light. Though the general practice
is to make a large mass about the middle of the picture surrounded by
shadow, the reverse may be practised, and the spirit of rule may still
be preserved.... In the great composition of Paul Veronese, the
_Marriage at Cana_, the figures are for the most part in half shadow;
the great light is in the sky; and indeed the general effect of this
picture, which is so striking, is no more than what we often see in
landscapes, in small pictures of fairs and country feasts; but those
principles of light and shadow, being transferred to a large scale, to a
space containing near a hundred figures as large as life, and conducted
to all appearance with as much facility and with an attention as
steadily fixed upon the _whole together_ as if it were a small picture
immediately under the eye, the work justly excites our admiration; the
difficulty being increased as the extent is enlarged."
* * * * *
With the death of the great Venetians, Titian, Tintoretto, and Paul
Veronese, in the last quarter of the sixteenth century, the history of
Italian painting of the first rank comes to an end. In Florence, t
Showing first 200,000 characters. Full text: gutenberg.org/ebooks/29532