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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/19863-8.txt b/19863-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0f2b596 --- /dev/null +++ b/19863-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8202 @@ +Project Gutenberg's The Old Masters and Their Pictures, by Sarah Tytler + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere 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 + + +Title: The Old Masters and Their Pictures + For the Use of Schools and Learners in Art + +Author: Sarah Tytler + +Release Date: November 19, 2006 [EBook #19863] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE OLD MASTERS AND THEIR PICTURES *** + + + + +Produced by Peter Yearsley, Ted Garvin and the Online +Distributed Proofreaders Europe at http://dp.rastko.net + + + + + +THE OLD MASTERS AND THEIR PICTURES + +_For the Use of Schools and Learners in Art_ + + +BY SARAH TYTLER + +AUTHOR OF "PAPERS FOR THOUGHTFUL GIRLS" ETC. + + +_NEW AND ENLARGED EDITION_ + + * * * * * + +LONDON +ISBISTER AND COMPANY LIMITED +15 & 16 TAVISTOCK STREET COVENT GARDEN +1893 + +[_The Right of Translation is Reserved_] + +LONDON: + +PRINTED BY J.S. VIRTUE AND CO., LIMITED, +CITY ROAD. + + + + +PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION. + + +I wish to say, in a very few words, that this book is intended to be a +simple account of the great Old Masters in painting of every age and +country, with descriptions of their most famous works, for the use of +learners and outsiders in art. The book is not, and could not well be, +exhaustive in its nature. I have avoided definitions of schools, +considering that these should form a later and more elaborate portion of +art education, and preferring to group my 'painters' according to what I +hold to be the primitive arrangements of time, country, and rank in +art. + + + + +PREFACE TO NEW EDITION. + + +The restrictions with regard to space under which the little volume +called "The Old Masters" was originally written, caused me to omit, to +my regret, many names great, though not first, in art. The circulation +which the book has attained induces me to do what I can to remedy the +defect, and render the volume more useful by adding two chapters--the +one on Italian and the other on German, Dutch, and Flemish masters. +These chapters consist almost entirely of condensed notes taken from two +trustworthy sources, to which I have been already much indebted--Sir C, +and Lady Eastlake's version of Kugler's "Handbook of Italian Art," and +Dr. Waagen's "Handbook,"--remodelled from Kugler--of German, Dutch, and +Flemish art, revised by J.A. Crowe. I have purposely given numerous +records of those Dutch painters whose art has been specially popular in +England and who are in some cases better represented in our country than +in their own. + + + + +CONTENTS. + + +CHAP. PAGE I. EARLY ITALIAN ART--GIOTTO, 1276-1337--ANDREA PISANO, +1280-1345--ORCAGNA, 1315-1376--GHIBERTI, 1381-1455--MASACCIO, 1402-1428 +_OR_ 1429--FRA ANGELICO, 1387-1455 1 + +II. EARLY FLEMISH ART--THE VAN EYCKS, 1366-1442--MABUSE, _ABOUT_ +1470-1532--MEMLING, _ABOUT_ 1478-1499--QUINTIN MATSYS, 1460-1530 OR 31 +41 + +III. IN EARLY SCHOOLS OF ITALIAN ART--THE BELLINI, 1422-1512--MANTEGNA, +1431-1506--GHIRLANDAJO, 1449-1498--- IL FRANCIA, 1450-1518--FRA +BARTOLOMMEO, 1469-1517--ANDREA DEL SARTO, 1488-1530 53 + +IV. LIONARDO DA VINCI. 1452-1519--MICHAEL ANGELO, 1475-1564--RAPHAEL, +1483-1520--TITIAN, 1477-1566 83 + +V. GERMAN ART--ALBRECHT DÜRER, 1471-1528 169 + +VI. LATER ITALIAN ART--GIORGIONE, 1477-1511--CORREGGIO, _ABOUT_ +1493-1534--TINTORETTO, 1512-1594--VERONESE, 1530-1588 181 + +VII. CARRACCI, 1555-1609--GUIDO RENI, 1575-1642--DOMENICHINO, +1581-1641--SALVATOR ROSA, 1615-1673 212 + +VIII. LATER FLEMISH ART--RUBENS, 1577-1640--REMBRANDT, 1606 _OR_ +1608-1669--TENIERS, FATHER AND SON, 1582-1694--WOUVVERMAN, +1620-1668--CUYP, 1605; _STILL LIVING_, 1638--PAUL POTTER, +1625-1654--CORNELIUS DE HEEM, 1630 225 + +IX. SPANISH ART--VELASQUEZ, 1599-1660--MURILLO, 1618-1682 260 + +X. FRENCH ART--NICOLAS POUSSIN, 1594-1665--CLAUDE LORRAINE, +1600-1682--CHARLES LE BRUN, 1619-1690--WATTEAU, 1684-1721--GREUZE, +1726-1805 286 + +XI. FOREIGN ARTISTS IN ENGLAND--HOLBEIN, 1494-1543--VAN DYCK, +1599-1641--LELY, 1618-1680--CANALETTO, 1697-1768--KNELLER, 1646-1723 309 + +XII. ITALIAN MASTERS FROM THE FOURTEENTH TO THE SEVENTEENTH +CENTURIES--TADDEO GADDI, 1300, SUPPOSED TO HAVE DIED 1366--FRA FILIPPO, +1412-1469--BENOZZO GOZZOLI, 1424-1496--LUCA SIGNORELLI, 1441, SUPPOSED +TO HAVE DIED ABOUT 1524--BOTTICELLI, 1447-1515--PERUGINO, +1446-1522--CARPACCIO, DATE AND PLACE OF BIRTH AND DEATH +UNKNOWN--CRIVELLI, FILIPPINO LIPI, EARLIER THAN 1460--ANTONELLA DA +MESSINA, BELIEVED TO HAVE DIED AT VENICE, 1416--GAROPALO, +1481-1559--LUINI, DATE OF BIRTH UNKNOWN, SUPPOSED TO HAVE DIED ABOUT +1530--PALMA, ABOUT 1480-1528--PARDENONE, 1483-1538--LO SPAGNA, DATE OF +BIRTH UNKNOWN, 1533--GIULIO ROMANO, 1492-1546--PARIS BORDONE, +1500-1570--IL PARMIGIANINO, 1503-1540--BAROCCIO, 1528-1612--CARAVAGGIO, +1569-1609--LO SPAGNOLETTO, 1593-1656--GUERCINO, 1592-1666--ALBANO, +1578-1660--SASSOFERRATO, 1605-1615--VASARI, 1512-1574--SOFONISBA +ANGUISCIOLA, 1535, ABOUT 1626--LAVINIA FONTANA, 1552-1614 364 + +XIII. GERMAN, FLEMISH, AND DUTCH ARTISTS FROM THE FIFTEENTH TO THE +EIGHTEENTH CENTURY--VAN DER WEYDEN, A CONTEMPORARY OF THE VAN EYCKS, +1366-1442--VAN LEYDEN, 1494-1533--VAN SOMER, 1570-1624--SNYDERS, +1579-1657--G. HONTHORST, 1592-1662--JAN STEEN, 1626-1679--GERARD DOW, +1613-1680--DE HOOCH, DATES OF BIRTH AND DEATH UNKNOWN--VAN OSTADE, +1610-1685--MAAS, 1632-1693--METZU, 1615. STILL ALIVE IN 1667--TERBURG, +1608-1681--NETCHER, 1639-1684--BOL, 1611-1680--VAN DER HELST, +1613-1670--RUYSDAEL, 1625 (?)-1682--HOBBEMA, 1638-1709--BERCHEM, +1620-1683--BOTH 1600 (?)-1650(?) DU JARDIN, 1625-1678--ADRIAN VAN DE +VELDE, 1639-1672--VAN DER HEYDEN, 1637-1712--DE WITTE, 1607-1692--VAN +DER NEER, 1619 (?)-1683--WILLIAM VAN DE VELDE, THE YOUNGER, +1633-1707--BACKHUYSEN, 1631-1708--VAN DE CAPELLA, ABOUT +1653--HONDECOETER, 1636-1695--JAN WEENIX, 1644-1719--PATER SEGERS, +1590-1661--VAN HUYSUM, 1682-1749--VAN DER WERFF, 1659-1722--MENGS, +1728-1774 391 + + * * * * * + + +THE OLD MASTERS AND THEIR PICTURES. + + * * * * * + + +CHAPTER I. + +EARLY ITALIAN ART--GIOTTO, 1276-1337--ANDREA PISANO. 1280-1345--ORCAGNA, +1315-1376 GHIBERTI, 1381-1455--MASACCIO, 1402-1428 OR 1429--FRA +ANGELICO, 1387-1455. + + +A pencil and paper, a box of colours, and a scrap-book, form so often a +child's favourite toys that one might expect that a very large portion +of men and women would prove painters. But, as we grow in years and +knowledge, the discrepancy between nature and our attempts to copy +nature, strike us more and more, until we turn in dissatisfaction and +disgust from the vain effort. + +There was only one old woman in an Esquimaux tribe who could be called +forward to draw with a stick on the sand a sufficiently graphic likeness +of the Erebus and the Terror. It is only a few groups of men belonging +to different countries, throughout the centuries, who have been able to +give us paintings to which we turn in wonder and admiration, and say +that these are in their degree fair exponents of nature. The old +painter's half-haughty, half-humble protest was true--it is 'God +Almighty,' who in raising here and there men above their fellows, 'makes +painters.' + +But let us be thankful that the old propensity to delight in a +facsimile, or in an idealized version of nature, survives in the very +common satisfaction and joy--whether cultivated or uncultivated--- +derived from looking at pictures, thinking over their details, striving +to understand the meaning of the painters, and proceeding farther to +consider the lives and times which throw light on works of genius. Music +itself is not more universally and gladly listened and responded to, +than pictures are looked at and remembered. + +Thus I have no fear of failing to interest you, my readers, in my +subject if I can only treat it sympathetically,--enter at a humble +distance into the spirit of the painters and of their paintings, and +place before you some of the paintings by reverent and loving +word-painting such as others have achieved, and such as I may strive to +attain to, that you may be in a sort early familiar with these +paintings, before you see them in engravings and photographs, and on +canvas and in fresco, as I trust you may be privileged to see many of +them, when you may hail them not only for what they are, the glories of +art, but for what they have been to you in thoughts of beauty and high +desires. + +Of the old Greek paintings, of which there are left isolated specimens +dug up in Herculaneum and Pompeii, I cannot afford to say anything, and +of the more modern Greek art which was spread over Europe after the fall +of Constantinople I need on Europe the birth-place of painting as of +other arts, that Greek painting which illustrated early Christianity, +was painting in its decline and decay, borrowing not only superstitious +conventionalities, but barbaric attributes of gilding and blazoning to +hide its infirmity and poverty. Virgins of the same weak and meaningless +type, between attenuated saints or angels, and doll-like child-Christs +in the one invariable attitude holding up two fingers of a baby hand to +bless the spectator and worshippers, were for ever repeated. In a +similar manner the instances of rude or meagre contemporary paintings +with which the early Christians adorned their places of worship and the +sepulchres of their dead in the basilicas and catacombs of Rome, are +very curious and interesting for their antiquity and their associations, +and as illustrations of faith; but they present no intrinsic beauty or +worth. They are not only clumsy and childish designs ill executed, but +they are rendered unintelligible to all save the initiated in such +hieroglyphics, by offering an elaborate ground-work of type, antitype, +and symbol, on which the artist probably spent a large part of his +strength. Lambs and lilies, serpents, vines, fishes, dolphins, +phoenixes, cocks, anchors, and javelins played nearly as conspicuous a +part in this art as did the dead believer, or his or her patron saint, +who might have been supposed to form the principal figure in the +picture. + +Italian art existed in these small beginnings, in the gorgeous but +quaintly formal or fantastic devices of illuminated missals, and in the +stiff spasmodic efforts of here and there an artist spirit such as the +old Florentine Cimabue's, when a great man heralded a great epoch. But +first I should like to mention the means by which art then worked. +Painting on board and on plastered walls, the second styled painting in +fresco, preceded painting on canvas. Colours were mixed with water or +with size, egg, or fig-juice--the latter practices termed _tempera_ (in +English in distemper) before oil was used to mix colours. But painters +did not confine themselves then to painting with pencil or brush, else +they might have attained technical excellence sooner. It has been well +said that the poems of the middle ages were written in stone; so the +earlier painters painted in stone, in that mosaic work which one of them +called--referring to its durability--'painting for eternity;' and in +metals. Many of them were the sons of jewellers or jewellers themselves; +they worked in iron as well as in gold and silver, and they were +sculptors and architects as well as painters; engineers also, so far as +engineering in the construction of roads, bridges, and canals, was known +in those days. The Greek knowledge of anatomy was well-nigh lost, so +that drawing was incorrect and form bad. The idea of showing degrees of +distance, and the management of light and shade, were feebly developed. +Even the fore-shortening of figures was so difficult to the old Italian +painters that they could not carry it into the extremities, and men and +women seem as though standing on the points of their toes. +Landscape-painting did not exist farther than that a rock or a bush, or +a few blue lines, with fishes out of proportion prominently interposed, +indicated, as on the old stage, that a desert, a forest, or a sea, was +to play its part in the story of the picture. So also portrait-painting +was not thought of, unless it occurred in the likeness of a great man +belonging to the time and place of the painter, who was the donor of +some picture to chapel or monastery, or of the painter himself, alike +introduced into sacred groups and scenes; for pictures were uniformly of +a religious character, until a little later, when they merged into +allegorical representations, just as one remembers that miracle plays +passed into moral plays before ordinary human life was reproduced. Until +this period, what we call dramatic expression in making a striking +situation, or even in bringing the look of joy or sorrow, pleasure or +pain, into a face, had hardly been attained. + +Perhaps you will ask, what merit had the old paintings of the middle +ages to compensate for so many great disadvantages and incongruities? +Certainly before the time I have reached, they have, with rare +exceptions, little merit, save that fascination of pathos, half-comic, +half-tragic, which belongs to the struggling dawn of all great +endeavours, and especially of all endeavours in art. But just at this +epoch, art, in one man, took a great stride, began, as I shall try to +show, to exert an influence so true, deep, and high that it extends, in +the noblest forms, to the present day, and much more than compensates to +the thoughtful and poetic for a protracted train of technical blunders +and deficiencies. + +Giotto, known also as Magister Joctus, was born in 1276 near Florence. I +dare say many have heard one legend of him, and I mean to tell the +legends of the painters, because even when they are most doubtful they +give the most striking indications of the times and the light in which +painters and their paintings were regarded by the world of artists, and +by the world at large; but so far as I have heard this legend of Giotto +has not been disproven. The only objection which can be urged against +it, is that it is found preserved in various countries, of very +different individuals--a crowning objection also to the legend of +William Tell. Giotto was a shepherd boy keeping his father's sheep and +amusing himself by drawing with chalk on a stone the favourites of the +flock, when his drawings attracted the attention of a traveller passing +from the heights into the valley. This traveller was the well-born and +highly-esteemed painter Cimabue, who was so delighted with the little +lad's rough outlines, that getting the consent of Giotto's father, +Cimabue adopted the boy, carried him off to the city of Florence, +introduced him to his studio, and so far as man could supplement the +work of God, made a painter of the youthful genius. I may add here a +later legend of Giotto. Pope Boniface VIII, requested specimens of skill +from various artists with the view to the appointment of a painter to +decorate St Peter's. Giotto, either in impatient disdain, or to show a +careless triumph of skill, with one flourish of his hand, without the +aid of compass, executed a perfect circle in red chalk, and sent the +circle as his contribution to the specimens required by the Pope. The +audacious specimen was accepted as the most conclusive, Giotto was +chosen as the Pope's painter for the occasion, and from the incident +arose the Italian proverb 'round as the o of Giotto.' Giotto was the +friend of Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio, especially of Dante, to whom +the grandeur of some of the painter's designs has been vaguely enough +attributed. The poet of the 'Inferno' wrote of his friend: + + '......... Cimabue thought + To lord it over painting's field; and now + The cry is Giotto's, and his name eclipsed.' + +Petrarch bequeathed in his will a Madonna by Giotto and mentioned it as +a rare treasure of art. Boccaccio wrote a merry anecdote of his comrade +the painter's wit, in the course of which he referred with notable +plain-speaking to Giotto's 'flat currish' plainness of face. + +The impression handed down of Giotto's character is that of an +independent, high-spirited man, full of invention, full of imagination, +and also, by a precious combination, full of shrewdness and common +sense; a man genial, given to repartee, and at the same time not +deficient in the tact which deprives repartee of its sting. While he was +working to King Robert of Naples, the king, who was watching the painter +on a very hot day, said, with a shrug, 'If I were you, Giotto, I would +leave off work and rest myself this fine day, 'And so would I, sire, if +I were _you_,' replied the wag. + +I need scarcely add that Giotto was a man highly esteemed and very +prosperous in his day; one account reports him as the head and the +father of four sons and four daughters. I have purposely written first +of the fame, the reputed character, and the circumstances of Giotto +before I proceed to his work. This great work was, in brief, to breathe +into painting the living soul which had till then--in mediæval +times--been largely absent. Giotto went to Nature for his inspiration, +and not content with the immense innovation of superseding by the actual +representation of men and women in outline, tint, and attitude, the +rigid traditions of his predecessors, he put men's passions in their +faces--the melancholy looked sad, the gay glad. This result, to us so +simple, filled Giotto's lively countrymen, who had seldom seen it, with +astonishment and delight. They cried out as at a marvel when he made the +commonest deed even coarsely lifelike, as in the case of a sailor in a +boat, who turned round with his hand before his face and spat into the +sea; and when he illustrated the deed with the corresponding expression, +as in the thrill of eagerness that perceptibly pervaded the whole figure +of a thirsty man who stooped down to drink. But Giotto was no mere +realist though he was a great realist; he was also in the highest light +an idealist. His sense of harmony and beauty was true and noble; he rose +above the real into 'the things unseen and eternal,' of which the real +is but a rough manifestation. He was the first to paint a crucifixion +robbed of the horrible triumph of physical power, and of the agony which +is at its bidding, and invested with the divinity of awe and love. + +Giotto's work did not end with himself; he was the founder of the +earliest worthy school of Italian art, so worthy in this very glorious +idealism, that, as I have already said, the men whose praise is most to +be coveted, have learned to turn back to Giotto and his immediate +successors, and, forgetting and forgiving all their ignorance, +crudeness, quaintness, to dwell never wearied, and extol without measure +these oldest masters' dignity of spirit, the earnestness of their +originality, the solemnity and heedfulness of their labour. It would +seem as if skill and polish, with the amount of attention which they +appropriate, with their elevation of manner over matter, and thence +their lowered standard, are apt to rob from or blur in men these highest +qualifications of genius, for it is true that judges miss even in the +Lionardo, Michael Angelo, and Raphael of a later and much more +accomplished generation, and, to a far greater extent, in the Rubens of +another and still later day, the perfect simplicity, the unalloyed +fervour, the purity of tenderness in Giotto, Orcagna, Fra Angelico, and +in their Flemish brethren, the Van Eycks and Mabuse. + +The difference between the two classes of painters in not so wide as +that between the smooth and brilliant epigrammatic poets of Anne's and +the ruggedly rich dramatists of Elizabeth's reign, neither was there the +unmistakable preponderance of such a mighty genius as that of +Shakespeare granted to the first decade, still the distinction was the +same in kind.[1] + +I wish you, my readers, to note it in the very commencement, and to +learn, like the thoughtful students of painting, to put aside any +half-childish over-estimate of the absurdity of a blue stroke +transfixing a huge flounder-like fish as a likeness of a sea, (which you +have been accustomed to see translucid, in breakers and foam, in modern +marine pictures,) or your quick sense of the ugliness of straight +figures with long hands, wooden feet, and clinging draperies, while your +eyes have been familiar with well-modelled frames and limbs and flowing +lines. But we must look deeper if we would not be slaves to superficial +prettiness, or even superficial correctness; we must try to go into the +spirit of a painting and value it more in proportion as it teaches art's +noblest lesson--the divinity of the divine, the serenity of utmost +strength, the single-heartedness of passion. + +I have only space to tell you of three or four of the famous works of +Giotto. First, his allegories in the great church, in honour of St +Francis, at Assisi, in relation to which, writing of its German +architect, an author says: 'He built boldly against the mountain, piling +one church upon another; the upper vast, lofty, and admitting through +its broad windows the bright rays of the sun: the lower as if in the +bowels of the earth--low, solemn, and almost shutting out the light of +day. Around the lofty edifice grew the convent, a vast building, resting +upon a long line of arches clinging to the hill-sides. As the evening +draws nigh, casting its deep shadows across the valley, the traveller +beneath gazes upwards with feelings of wonder and delight at this +graceful arcade supporting the massy convent; the ancient towers and +walls of the silent town gathering around, and the purple rocks rising +high above--all still glowing in the lingering sunbeams--a scene +scarcely to be surpassed in any clime for its sublime beauty.' The +upper church contains frescoes wonderfully fresh, by Cimabue, of +Scriptural subjects, and frescoes of scenes from the life vowed to +poverty of St Francis. In the lower church, over the tomb of St Francis, +are the four masterpieces with which we have to do. These are the three +vows of the order figuratively represented. Mark the fitness and +grandeur of two of the figures, the suggestion of which has been +attributed to Dante, the woman Chastity seated beyond assault in her +rocky fortress, and Obedience bowing the neck to curb and yoke. The +fourth fresco pictures the saint who died, 'covered by another's cloak +cast over his wasted body eaten with sores,' enthroned and glorified +amidst the host of Heaven. + +I have chosen the second example of the art of Giotto because you may +with comparative ease see it for yourselves. It is in the National +Gallery, London, having belonged to the collection of the late Samuel +Rogers. It is a fragment of an old fresco which had been part of a +series illustrating the life of John the Baptist in the church of the +Carmine, Florence, a church which was destroyed by fire in 1771. The +fragment in the National Gallery has two fine heads of apostles bending +sorrowfully over the body of St John. Though it is not necessary to do +it, in strict justice, because good work rises superior to all accidents +of comparison as well as accidents of circumstance, one must remember in +regarding this, the stilted and frozen figures and faces, which, before +Giotto broke their bonds and inspired them, had professed to tell the +Bible's stories. + +The third instance I have chosen to quote is Giotto's portrait of Dante +which was so strangely lost for many years. The portrait occurs in a +painting, the first recorded performance of Giotto's, in which he was +said to have introduced the likeness of many of his contemporaries, on +the wall of the Palazzo dell' Podestà or Council Chamber of Florence. +During the banishment of Dante the wall was plastered or white-washed +over, through the influence of his enemies, and though believed to +exist, the picture was hidden down to 1840, when, after various futile +efforts to recover it, the figures were again brought to light. + +This portrait of Dante is altogether removed from the later portraits of +the indignant and weary man, of whom the Italian market-women said that +he had been in Hell as well as in exile. Giotto's Dante on the walls of +the Council Chamber is a noble young man of thirty, full of ambitious +hope and early distinction. The face is slightly pointed, with broad +forehead, hazel eyes, straight brows and nose, mouth and chin a little +projecting. The close cloak or vest with sleeves, and cap in folds +hanging down on the shoulder, the hand holding the triple fruit, in +prognostication of the harvest of virtue and renown which was to be so +bitter as well as so glorious, are all in keeping and have a majesty of +their own. The picture is probably known by engravings to many of my +readers. + +The last example of Giotto's, is the one which of all his works is most +potent and patent in its beauty, and has struck, and, in so far as we +can tell, will for ages strike, with its greatness multitudes of widely +different degrees of cultivation whose intellectual capacity is as far +apart as their critical faculty. I mean the matchless Campanile or +bell-tower 'towering over the Dome of Brunelleschi' at Florence, formed +of coloured marbles--for which Giotto framed the designs, and even +executed with his own hands the models for the sculpture. With this +lovely sight Dean Alford's description is more in keeping than the +prosaic saying of Charles V., that 'the Campanile ought to be kept under +glass.' Dean Alford's enthusiasm thus expresses itself: + + 'A mass of varied light written on the cloudless sky of + unfathomed blue; varied but blended, as never in any other + building that we had seen; the warm yellow of the lighter marbles + separated but not disunited by the ever-recurring bands of dark; + or glowing into red where the kisses of the sun had been hottest; + or fading again into white where the shadows mostly haunted, or + where the renovating hand had been waging conflict with decay.' + +It is known that Giotto, together with his friend Dante, died before +this--Giotto's last great work--was finally constructed by Giotto's +pupil, Taddeo Gaddi, and that therefore neither of the friends could +have really looked on 'Giotto's Tower,' though Italian Ciceroni point +out, and strangers love to contemplate, the very stone on which 'Grim +Dante' sat and gazed with admiration in the calm light of evening on the +enduring memorial of the painter. + +Giotto died in the year 1336 or 1337, his biographer adds, 'no less a +good Christian than an excellent painter,' and in token of his faith he +painted one crucifixion in which he introduced his own figure 'kneeling +in an attitude of deep devotion and contrition at the foot of the +Cross.' The good taste of such an act has been questioned, so has been +the practice which painted the Virgin Mother now as a brown Italian, now +as a red and white Fleming, and again as a flaxen-haired German or as a +swarthy Spaniard, and draped her and all the minor figures in the +grandest drama the world ever saw--as well as the characters in older +Scripture histories, in the Florentine, Venetian, and Antwerp fashions +of the day. The defence of the practice is, that the Bible is for +universal time, that its Virgin Mother, its apostles and saints, were +types of other mothers and of other heroes running down the stream of +history; that even the one central and holy figure, if He may be +represented at all, as the Divine brother of all humanity, may be clad +not inaptly in the garments of all. It appears to me that there is +reason in this answer, and that viewed in its light the criticism which +constantly demands historic fidelity is both carping and narrow. I do +not mean, however, to underrate historic accuracy in itself, or to +depreciate that longing for completeness in every particular, which +drives our modern painters to the East to study patiently for months the +aspects of nature under its Oriental climate, with its peculiar people +and animals, its ancient costumes and architecture. + +Giotto was buried with suitable honours by a city which, like the rest +of the nation, has magnified its painters amongst its great men, in the +church of Santa Maria del Fiore, where his master Cimabue had been +buried. Lorenzo de' Medici afterwards placed over Giotto's tomb his +effigy in marble. + +In chronicling ancient art I must here diverge a little. I have already +mentioned how closely painting was in the beginning allied with working +in metals as well as with sculpture and architecture. It is thus +necessary to write of a magnificent work in metal, the study and +admiration of generations of painters, begun in the life of Giotto, and +completed in two divisions, extending over a period of nearly a hundred +years. We shall proceed to deal with the first division, and recur to +the second a little later. + +The old Italian cities. They were then the great merchant cities of the +world, more or less republican in their constitution. They stood to the +citizens, who rarely left their walls, at once as peculiar possessions +and as native countries rather than as cities alone, while they excited +all the patriotism, pride, and love that were elsewhere expended on a +whole country--which after all was held as belonging largely to its king +and nobles. The old Italian merchant guilds, and wealthy merchants as +individuals, vied with each other in signalizing their good citizenship +by presenting--as gifts identified with their names--to their cities, +those palace buildings, chapels, paintings, gates, which are the delight +of the world to this day. It was a merchant guild which thought happily +of giving to Florence the bronze gates to the baptistery of San Giovanni +or St John the Baptist, attached to the Cathedral. After some +competition the gates were intrusted to Andrea Pisano, one of a great +group of painters, sculptors, and architects linked together and named, +as so often happened in Italy, for their place of birth, Pisa. Andrea +executed a series of beautiful reliefs from the life of John the +Baptist, which were cast in 1330, gilt, and placed in the centre +door-way. I shall leave the rest of the gates, still more exquisitely +wrought, till their proper time, only observing that the Pisani group of +carvers and founders are supposed to have attained their extraordinary +superiority in skill and grace, even over such a painter as Giotto, in +consequence of one of them, Nicola Pisano, having given his attention to +the study of some ancient Greek sarcophagi preserved at Pisa. + +Passing for a while from the gates of St John of Florence, we come back +to painting and a painter, and with them to another monument--in itself +very noble and curious in its mouldering age, of the old Italians' love +to their cities. Andrea Orcagna, otherwise known as Andrea di Cione, one +of a brotherhood of painters, was born in Florence about 1315. His +greatest works are in the Campo Santa of Pisa. + +This wonderful 'holy field' is a grand legacy, so far as dilapidation, +alas, will let it be, of the old painters. Originally a place of burial, +though no longer used as such, it is enclosed by high walls and an +arcade, something like the cloisters of a cathedral or college running +round, and having on the north and east sides chapels where masses for +the dead were celebrated. The space in the centre was filled with earth +brought from the Holy Land by the merchant ships of Pisa. It is covered +with turf, having tall cypress-trees at the corners, and a little cross +in the centre. The arcade is pierced with sixty-two windows, and +contains on its marble pavement hundreds of monuments--among them the +Greek sarcophagi studied by Nicola Pisano. But the great distinction of +the Campo Santa (of which there are many photographs) are the walls +opposite the windows of the arcade painted with Scriptural subjects by +artists of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, for the decoration of +the walls was continued at intervals, during two hundred years. The +havoc wrought by time and damp has been terrible; not only are the +pictures faded and discoloured, but of the earliest only mutilated +fragments, 'here an arm and there a head,' remain. Giotto's +illustrations of the book of Job have thus perished. Still Orcagna's +work has partially escaped, and left us indications of what it was in +his and its youth, when Michael Angelo and Raphael did not disdain to +borrow from it in design and arrangement. Dean Alford has thus described +Orcagna's mournful, thoughtful 'Triumph of Death:' + +'The picture is one of crowded action, and contains very many +personages. The action may be supposed to begin in the lower corner on +the right hand. There we see what appears to be a wedding-party seated +in festivity under a grove of orange-trees laden with fruit. Over two of +them a pair entertaining them with merry strains. But close to them on +the left comes swooping down on bats' wings, and armed with the +inevitable scythe, the genius of Death. Her wild hair streams in the +wind, her bosom is invulnerable, being closed in a trellised armour of +steel. Beneath her, on the ground, are a heap of corpses, shown by their +attire to be the great and wealthy of the world. Three winged figures, +two fiends and one angel, are drawing souls, in the form of children, +out of the mouths of three of these corpses. Above, the air is full of +flying spirits, angels and demons: the former beautiful and saintly, the +latter hideous and bestial. Some are dragging, or bearing upwards, human +souls: others are on their way to fetch them from the heaps of dead: +others, again, are flying about apparently without aim. Further yet to +the left, a company of wretched ones, lame and in rags, are invoking +Death with outstretched arms to come to their relief; but she sweeps by +and heeds them not. + +'Dividing one half of the picture from the other, is a high range of +rocks, terminating in a fiery mountain, into which the demons are +casting the unhappy souls which they have carried off. Beyond that seems +to be a repetition of the same lesson respecting Death in another form. +A party of knights and dames are issuing on horseback from a mountain +pass. In the left hand of the picture there lie in their path three +corpses in coffins, with coronets on their heads. One is newly dead; on +the second, decay has begun its work; the third is reduced to a +grinning skeleton. The impression produced on the gay party by the sight +is very various. Some look on carelessly; one holds his nose in disgust; +one, a lady jewelled and crowned, leans her head on her hand in solemn +thought. Above, on a rising ground, an aged monk (it is said, Saint +Macarius) is holding a scroll, and pointing out to passengers the moral +of the sight which meets them. The path winds up a hill crowned with a +church, and by its side at various points are hermits sitting in calm +security, or following peaceful occupations. One of them is milking a +doe; another is reading; a third is calmly contemplating from a distance +the valley of Death. About them are various animals and birds. The idea +evidently intended to be conveyed is that deliverance from the fear of +death is to be found not in gaiety and dissipation, but in contemplation +and communion with God. + +'Such is the wonderful fresco, and the execution is as wonderful as the +conception. Belonging as the painter did to a rude and early period of +art, he yet had the power of endowing his figures with both majesty and +tenderness of expression.' + +The Last Judgment is no less solemn and sad, with hope tempering its +sadness. Mrs Jameson's note of it is: 'Above, in the centre, Christ and +the Virgin are throned in separate glories. He turns to the left, +towards the condemned, while he uncovers the wound in his side, and +raises his right arm with a menacing gesture, his countenance full of +majestic wrath. The Virgin, on the right of her Son, is the picture of +heavenly mercy, and, as if terrified at the words of eternal +condemnation, she turns away. On either side are ranged the Prophets of +the Old Testament, the Apostles and other saints, severe, solemn, +dignified figures. Angels, holding the instruments of the Passion, hover +over Christ and the Virgin; under them is a group of archangels. The +archangel Michael stands in the midst holding a scroll in each hand; +immediately before him another archangel, supposed to represent Raphael, +the guardian angel of humanity, cowers down, shuddering, while two +others sound the awful trumpets of doom. Lower down is the earth where +men are seen rising from their graves; armed angels direct them to the +right and left. Here is seen King Solomon, who, whilst he rises, seems +doubtful to which side he should turn; here a hypocritical monk, whom an +angel draws back by the hair from the host of the youth in a gay and +rich costume, whom another angel leads away to Paradise. There is +wonderful and even terrible power of expression in some of the heads; +and it is said that among them are many portraits of contemporaries, but +unfortunately no circumstantial traditions as to particular figures have +reached us.' + +One of Orcagna's altar-pieces, that of 'the coronation of the Virgin,' +containing upwards of a hundred figures, and with the colouring still +rich, is in our National Gallery. As an architect, Orcagna designed the +famous Loggia de' Lanzi of the grand ducal palace at Florence. + +Now I must take you back to the bronze gates of the Baptistery in their +triumphant completion nearly a hundred years after the first gate was +executed by Andrea Pisano. I should have liked, but for our limits, to +tell in full the legend of the election of Lorenzo Ghiberti, the +step-son of a goldsmith, and skilled in chasing and enamelling, to +design the second gate; when yet a lad of twenty-three, how he and two +other young men, one of them still younger than Ghiberti, were declared +the most promising competitors in the trial for the work; how the last +two voluntarily withdrew from the contest, magnanimously proclaiming +Lorenzo Ghiberti their superior; how all the three lived to be famous, +the one as a founder in metal, the others as an architect and a +sculptor, and remained sworn brothers in art till death. + +Lorenzo Ghiberti has left us an expression of the feeling with which he +set about his task, an expression so suggestive that, even had we no +other indication, it is enough to stamp the true and tender nature of +the man. He prepared for his achievement 'with infinite diligence and +love'--the words deserve to be pondered over. He took at least +twenty-two years to his work, receiving for it eleven hundred florins. +He chose his subjects from the life and death of the Lord, working them +out in twenty panels, ten on each side of the folding doors, and below +these were eight panels containing full-length figures of the four +evangelists and four doctors of the Latin Church, with a complete border +of fruit and foliage, having heads of prophets and sibyls interspersed. +So entire was the satisfaction the superb gate gave, that Lorenzo was +not merely loaded with praise, he received a commission to design and +cast a third and central gate which should surpass the others, that were +thenceforth to be the side entrances. + +For his second gate Lorenzo Ghiberti repaired to the Old Testament for +subjects, beginning with the creation and ending with the meeting of +Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, and represented them in ten compartments +enclosed in a rich border of fruit and foliage, with twenty-four +full-length figures of the Hebrew heroes and prophets, clearly and +delicately designed and finished, occupying corresponding niches. This +crowning gate engaged the founder upwards of eighteen years--forty-nine +years are given as the term of the work of both the gates. + +The single defect which is found in those marvellous gates--left to us +as a testimony of what the life-long devotion of genius could +produce--is that they abound floridly both in ornament and action, in +place of being severely simple and restrained according to the classical +standard. + +Michael Angelo called these gates 'worthy to be the gates of Paradise,' +and they are still one of the glories of Florence. Casts of the gates +are to be found in the School for Art at Kensington, and at the Crystal +Palace. + +A young village boy learned to draw and model from Ghiberti's gates. He +in his turn was to create in the Brancacci Chapel of the Church of the +Carmine at Florence a school of painters scarcely less renowned and +powerful in its effects than that produced by the works in the Campo +Santa. You will find the Italian painters not unfrequently known by +nicknames, quite as often by their father's trades as by their father's +surnames, and still oftener by the town which was their place of birth +or nurture. This Tom village birth-place, was commonly called Masaccio, +short for Tomasaccio, 'hulking Tom,' as I have heard it translated, on +account of his indifferent, slovenly habits. I think there is a +tradition that he entered a studio in Florence as a colour boy, and +electrified the painter and his scholars, by _brownie_ like freaks of +painting at their unfinished work, in their absence, better than any of +his masters, and by the dexterity with which he perpetrated the frolic +of putting the facsimile of a fly on one of the faces on the easels. His +end was a tragic conclusion to such light comedy. At the age of +twenty-six, he quitted Florence for Rome so suddenly that he left his +finest frescoes unfinished. It was said that he was summoned thither by +the Pope. At Rome, where little or nothing of Masaccio's life is known, +he died shortly afterwards, not without a suspicion of his having been +poisoned. + +A curious anecdote exists of the identification of the time when he +forsook Florence to meet his death in Rome. Just as we have read, that +the period of the death of Massinger the dramatist has been settled by +an entry in an old parish register, 'died, Philip Massinger a stranger,' +so there has been found some quaint equivalent to a modern tax-paper +which had been delivered at the dwelling of Masaccio when the word +'gone' was written down. + +There is a further tradition--not very probable under the +circumstances--that Masaccio is buried, without name or stone, under the +Brancacci Chapel. Be that as it may, he very early rose to eminence, +surpassing all his predecessors in drawing and colouring, and he +combined with those acquirements such animation and variety of +expression in his characters, that it was said of him 'he painted souls +as well as bodies,' while his invention was not less bold and fresh. + +It is difficult to indicate Masaccio's pictures because some of them +have been repainted and destroyed. As to those in the Brancacci Chapel +from the life of St Peter, (with the exception of two,) considerable +confusion has arisen as to which are Masaccio's, and which belong to +his scholar Filippino Lippi. The fresco which Masaccio left unfinished, +that of the Apostles Peter and Paul raising a dead youth (from +traditional history), was finished by Lippi. In the fresco of Peter +baptizing the converts, generally attributed to Masaccio, there is a lad +who has thrown off his garments, and stands shivering with cold, whose +figure, according to authority, formed an epoch in art. Lionardo da +Vinci, Michael Angelo, Andrea del Sarto, Fra Bartolommeo, all studied +their art in this chapel. Raphael borrowed the grand figure of St Paul +preaching at Athens in one of the cartoons, from one of Masaccio's or +Filippo Lippi's frescoes. Masaccio's excellence as an artist, reached at +an immature age, is very remarkable. + +I have come to the last and probably the best appreciated among modems +of the early Italian painters. Fra Angelico da Fiesole, the gentle +devout monk whom Italians called '_Il Beato_,' the Blessed, and who +probably did receive the distinction of beatification, a distinction +only second in the Roman Catholic Church to that of canonization. He was +born at the lovely little mountain-town of Fiesole near Florence, 1387, +and his worldly name, which he bore only till his twenty-first year, was +Guido Petri de Mugello. In his youth, with his gift already recognized, +so that he might well have won ease and honour in the world, he entered +the Dominican Convent of St Mark, Florence, for what he deemed the good +and peace of his soul. He seldom afterwards left it, and that only as +directed by his convent superior, or summoned by the Pope. He was a man +devoid of personal ambition, pure, humble, and meek. When offered the +Archbishopric of Florence as a tribute to his sanctity, he declined it +on account of his unworthiness for the office. He would not work for +money, and only painted at the command of his prior. He began his +painting with fasting and work, he steadfastly refused to make any +alteration in the originals. It is said that he was found dead at his +easel with a completed picture before him. It is not wonderful, that +from such a man should come one side of the perfection of that idealism +which Giotto had begun. Fra Angelico's angels, saints, Saviour, and +Virgin are more divinely calm, pure, sweet, endowed with a more exulting +saintliness, a more immortal youth and joy, and a more utter +self-abnegation and sympathetic tenderness than are to be found in the +saints and the angels, the Saviour and the Virgin of other painters. +Neither is it surprising that Fra Angelico's defects, besides that of +the bad drawing which shows more in his large than in his small +pictures, are those of a want of human knowledge, power, and freedom. +His wicked--even his more earthly-souled characters, are weak and faulty +in action. What should the reverent and guileless dreamer know, unless +indeed by inspiration of the rude conflicts, the fire and fury of human +passions intensified in the malice and anguish of devils? But Fra +Angelico's singular successes far transcend his failures. In addition to +the sublime serenity and positive radiance of expression which he could +impart to his heads, his notions of grouping and draping were full of +grace, sometimes of splendour and magnificence. In harmony with his +happy temperament and fortunes, he was fond of gay yet delicate colours +'like spring flowers,' and used a profusion of gold ornaments which do +not seem out of keeping in his pictures. The most of Fra Angelico's +pictures are in Florence--the best in his own old convent of St Mark, +where he lovingly adorned not only chapter-hall and court, but the cells +of his brother friars. A crucifix with adoring saints worshipping their +crucified Saviour is regarded as his masterpiece in St Mark's. A famous +coronation of the Virgin, which Fra Angelico painted for a church in his +native town, and which is now in the Louvre, Paris, is thus described by +Mrs Jameson: 'It represents a throne under a rich Gothic canopy, to +which there is an ascent of nine steps; on the highest kneels the +Virgin, veiled, her hands crossed on her bosom. She is clothed in a red +tunic, a blue robe over it, and a royal mantle with a rich border +flowing down behind. The features are most delicately lovely, and the +expression of the face full of humility and adoration. Christ, seated on +the throne, bends forward, and is in the act of placing the crown on her +head; on each side are twelve angels, who are playing a heavenly concert +with guitars, tambourines, trumpets, viols, and other musical +instruments; lower than these, on each side, are forty holy personages +of the Old and New Testament; and at the foot of the throne kneel +several saints, male and female, among them St Catherine with her wheel, +St Agnes with her lamb, and St Cecilia crowned with flowers. Beneath the +principal picture there is a row of seven small ones, forming a border, +and representing various incidents in the life of St Dominic.' + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +EARLY FLEMISH ART--THE VAN EYCKS, 1366-1442--MABUSE, MATSYS, 1460-1530 +OR 31. + + +In the Low Countries painting had very much the same history that it had +in Italy, but the dates are later, and there may be a longer interval +given to each stage of development. Religious painting, profuse in +symbolism, with masses of details elaborately worked in, meets us in the +first place. This style of painting reached its culmination, in which it +included (as it did not include in its representation in the Italian +pictures) many and varied excellencies, among them the establishment of +painting in oil in the pictures of the Flemish family of painters--the +Van Eycks. + +Before going into the little that is known of the family history of the +Van Eycks, I should like to call attention to the numerous painter +families in the middle ages. What a union, and repose, and happy +sympathy of art-life it indicates, which we appear to restlessness and +separate interests of modern life. The Van Eycks consisted of no less +than four members of a family, three brothers, Hubert, John, and +Lambert, and one sister, Margaret, devoted, like her brothers, to her +art. There is a suggestion that they belonged to a small village of +Limburg called Eyck, and repaired to Bruges in order to pursue their +art. Hubert was thirty years older than John, and it is said that he was +a serious-minded man as well as an ardent painter, and belonged to the +religious fraternity of our Lady of Ghent. He died in 1426. John, though +of so much consideration in his profession as to be believed to be 'the +Flemish Painter' sent by Duke Philip the Good of Flanders and Burgundy +with a mission to Portugal to solicit the hand of a princess in +marriage, is reported to have died very poor in 1449, and has the +suspicion attached to him of having been a lover of pleasure and a +spendthrift. Of Lambert, the third brother, almost nothing is known; +indeed, the fact of his existence has only lately come to light. +Margaret lived and died unmarried, and belonged, like her brother +Hubert, to the religious society of our Lady of Ghent. She died about +1432. + +The invention of painting in oil, for which the Van Eycks are commonly +known, was not literally that of mixing colours with oil, which was +occasionally done before their day. It was the combining oil with resin, +so as to produce at once a good varnish, and avoid the necessity of +drying pictures in the sun, a bright thought, which may stand in the +same rank with the construction, by James Watt, of that valve which +rendered practicable the application of steam to machinery. The thought, +occasioned by the cracking of a picture in tempera exposed to the sun, +is due to Hubert Van Eyck. + +The great picture of the Van Eycks, which was worked at for a number of +years by both Hubert and John, and, as some reckon, touched by the whole +family, is the 'Adoration of the Lamb,' at St Bavon's, Ghent. I should +like to give a faint idea of this extraordinary picture, which was +painted for a burgomaster of Ghent and his wife in order to adorn their +mortuary chapel in the cathedral. It was an altar piece on separate +panels, now broken up and dispersed, only a portion of it being retained +in Ghent. + +It may strike some as strange that a picture should be on panels, but +those of the old pictures which were not on plastered walls were +commonly on panels, many of them on the lids and sides of chests and +presses which were used to hold sacred vessels and priestly raiment. + +When the wings of the Van Eycks' altar-piece of the 'Adoration of the +Lamb' were opened on festivals, the subjects of the upper central +picture were seen, consisting of the Triune God, a majestic figure, and +at his side in stately calm the Virgin and the Baptist. On the inside of +the wings were angels, at the two extremities Adam and Eve. The lower +central picture shows the Lamb of the Revelation, whose blood flows into +a cup; over it is the dove of the Holy Spirit. Angels, who hold the +instruments of the Passion, worship the Lamb. Four groups of many +persons advance from the sides, these are the holy martyrs, men and +women, priests and laymen. In the foreground is the fountain of life; in +the distance are the towers of the heavenly Jerusalem. On the wings +other groups are coming up to adore the Lamb; on the left those who have +laboured for the Kingdom of the Lord by worldly deeds--the soldiers of +Christ led by St George, St Sebastian, and St Michael, the patron saints +of the old Flemish guilds, followed by emperors and kings--a goodly +company. Beyond the soldiers and princes, on the left, are the righteous +judges, also on horseback. In front of them, on a splendidly caparisoned +gray, rides a mild, benevolent old man in blue velvet trimmed with fur. +This is the likeness of Hubert Van Eyck, painted after his death by his +brother John, and John himself is in the group, clothed in black, with a +shrewd, sharp countenance. On the self-renunciation have served the Lamb +in the spirit, hermits and pilgrims, among them St Christopher, St +Anthony, St Paul the hermit, Mary Magdalene, and St Mary of Egypt. A +compartment underneath, which represented hell, finished the whole--yet +only the whole on one side, for the wings when closed presented another +series of finely thought-out and finished pictures--the Annunciation; +figures of Micah and Zechariah; statues of the two St Johns, with the +likenesses of the donors who gave to the world so great a work of art, +kneeling humbly side by side, the burgomaster somewhat mean-looking in +such company in spite of the proof of his liberality, but his wife noble +enough in feature and expression to have been the originator of this +glory of early Flemish painting. The upper part of the picture is +painted on a gold ground, round the central figure of the Lamb is vivid +green grass with masses of trees and flowers--indeed there is much +lovely landscape no longer indicated by a rock or a bush, but betokening +close observation of nature, whether in a fruitful valley, or a rocky +defile, or mountain ridges with fleecy clouds overhead. The expression +of the immense number of figures is as varied and characteristic as +their grouping.[2] + +Hubert Van Eyck died while this work was in progress, and it was +finished by his brother John six years after Hubert's death. When one +thinks of the intense application and devotion which such a work costs, +and recalls the bronze gates of St John that occupied Lorenzo Ghiberti +49 years, and when we read, as we shall read a few chapters farther on, +of large paintings which were begun and ended in so many days--even so +many hours, one can better understand what is the essential difference +between the works of the early and the later painters, a difference +which no skill, no power even can bridge over. John Van Eyck, who had +lived late enough to have departed from the painting of sacred pictures +alone, so that he left portraits and an otter hunt among his works, is +three times represented in our National Gallery, in three greatly +esteemed portraits, one a double portrait, believed to be the likenesses +of the painter and his wife, standing hand in hand with a terrier dog +at their feet. + +Gossaert, called de Mabuse from his native town of Mabeuze, sometimes +signing his name Joannes Malbodius, followed in the steps of the Van +Eycks, particularly in his great picture of the 'Adoration of the +Kings,' which is at Castle Howard, the seat of the Earl of Carlisle. +Mabuse was in England and painted the children of Henry VII, in a +picture, which is at Hampton Court. There is a picture in the palace of +Holyrood, Edinburgh, which has been attributed to Mabuse. It represents +on the sides of a triptych or diptych (somewhat like a folding screen) +James III. and his queen with attendants. The fur on the queen's dress +displays already that marvellous technical skill for which Flemish +painting is so celebrated. + +Hans Memling belonged to Bruges. There is a tradition of him, which is +to a certain extent disproven, that he was a poor soldier relieved by +the hospital of St John, Bruges, and that in gratitude he executed for +the hospital the well-known reliquary of St Ursula. However it might +have originated, this is the most noted work of a painter, who was +distinguished frequently by his minute missal-like painting (he was also +an illuminator of missals), in which he would introduce fifteen hundred +small figures in a picture two feet eight inches, by six feet five +inches in size, and work out every detail with the utmost niceness and +care. The reliquary, or 'chasse,' is a wooden coffer or shrine about +four feet in length, its style and form those of a rich Gothic church, +its purpose to hold an arm of the saint. The whole exterior is covered +with miniatures by Memling, nearly the whole of them giving incidents in +the legendary history of St Ursula, a 'virgin princess of Brittany,' or +of England, who, setting out with eleven thousand companions, her lover, +and an escort of knights on a pilgrimage to Rome, was, with her whole +company, met and murdered, by a horde of heathen Huns, when they had +reached Cologne, on their return. My readers may be aware that the +supposed bones of the virgins and St Ursula form the ghastly adornment +of the church founded in her honour at Cologne. It is absolutely filled +with bones, built into the walls, stowed under the pavement, ranged in +glass cases about the choir. Hans Memling's is a pleasanter +commemoration of St Ursula. + +Quintin Matsys, the blacksmith of Antwerp, was born at Louvain about +1460. Though he worked first as a smith he is said by Kugler to have +belonged to a family of painters, which somewhat takes from the romance, +though it adds to the probability of his story. Another painter in +Antwerp having offered the hand and dowry of his daughter--beloved by +Quintin Matsys--as a prize to the painter who should paint the best +picture in a competition for her hand, the doughty smith took up the +art, entered the lists, and carried off the maiden and her portion from +all his more experienced rivals. The vitality of the legend is indicated +by the inscription on a tablet to the memory of Quintin Matsys in the +Cathedral, Antwerp. The Latin inscription reads thus in English: + + 'Twas love connubial taught the smith to paint,' + +Quintin Matsys lived and died a respected burgher of Antwerp, a member +of the great Antwerp painters' guild of St Luke. He was twice married, +and had thirteen children. + +Whatever might have been his source of inspiration, Quintin Matsys was +an apt scholar. His 'Descent from the Cross,' now in the Museum, +Antwerp, was _the_ 'Descent from the Cross,' and _the_ picture in the +Cathedral, until superseded by Rubens' masterpiece on the same subject. +Still Quintin Matsys version remains, and is in some respects an +unsurpassed picture. There is a traditional grouping of this Divine +tragedy, and Quintin Matsys has followed the tradition. The body of the +Lord is supported by two venerable old men--Joseph of Arimathea and +Nicodemus--while the holy women anoint the wounds of the Saviour; the +Virgin swooning with grief is supported by St John. The figures are full +of individuality, and their action is instinct with pathos. For this +picture Quintin Matsys--popular painter as he was--got only three +hundred florins, equivalent to twenty-five pounds (although, of course, +the value of money was much greater in those days). The Joiners' +Company, for whom he painted the 'Descent from the Cross,' sold the +picture to the City of Antwerp for five times the original amount, and +it is said Queen Elizabeth offered the City nearly twenty times the +first sum for it, in vain. + +Quintin Matsys painted frequently half-length figures of the Virgin and +Child, an example of which is in the National Gallery. He excelled in +the 'figure painting' of familiar subjects, then just beginning to be +established, affording a token of the direction which the future +eminence of the Flemish painters would take. One of his famous pictures +of this kind is 'The Misers,' in the Queen's collection at Windsor. Two +figures in the Flemish costume of the time, are seated at a table; +before them are a heap of money and a book, in which one is writing with +his right hand, while he tells down the money with his left. The faces +express craft and cupidity. The details of the ink-horn on the table, +and the bird on its perch behind, have the Flemish graphic exactness. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +IN EARLY SCHOOLS OF ITALIAN ART--THE BELLINI, 1422-1512--MANTEGNA, +1431-1506--GHIRLANDAJO, 1449-1498--IL FRANCIA, 1450-1518--FRA +BARTOLOMMEO, 1469-1517--ANDREA DEL SARTO, 1488-1530. + + +I have come to the period when Italian art is divided into many +schools--Paduan, Venetian, Umbrian, Florentine, Roman, Bolognese, etc., +etc. With the schools and their definitions I do not mean to meddle, +except it may be to mention to which school a great painter belonged. +Another difficulty meets me here. I have been trying so far as I could +to give the representative painters in the order of time. I can no +longer follow this rule strictly, and the grouping of this chapter is +made on the principle of leading my readers up by some of the +predecessors who linked the older to the later Italian painters, and by +some of the contemporaries of these later painters, to that central +four, Lionardo da Vinci, Michael Angelo, Raphael, and Titian, who +occupy so great a place in the history of art. + +In the brothers Bellini and their native Venice, we must first deal with +that excellence of colouring for which the Venetian painters were +signally noted, while they comparatively neglected and underrated +drawing. A somewhat fanciful theory has been started, that as Venice, +Holland, and England have been distinguished for colour in art, and as +all those States are by the sea, so a sea atmosphere has something to do +with a passion for colour. Within more reasonable bounds, in reference +to the Venetians, is the consideration that no colouring is richer, +mellower, more exquisitely tinted than that which belongs to the blue +Italian sky over the blue Adriatic, with those merged shades of violet, +green, and amber, and that magical soft haze which has to do with a +moist climate. + +The two brothers Gentile and Gian or John Bellini, the latter the more +famous of the two, were the sons of an old Venetian painter, with regard +to whom the worthy speech is preserved, that he said it was like the +Tuscans for son to beat father, and he hoped, in God's name, that +Giovanni or Gian would outstrip him, and Gentile, the elder, outstrip +both. The brothers worked together and were true and affectionate +brothers, encouraging and appreciating each other. + +Gentile was sent by the Doge at the request of the Sultan--either +Mahommed II, or Bajazet II., to Constantinople, where Gentile Bellini +painted the portrait of the Sultan and the Sultana his mother, now in +the British Museum. The painter also painted the head of John the +Baptist in a charger as an offering--only too suitable--from him to the +Grand Turk. The legend goes on to tell that in the course of the +presentation of the gift, an incident occurred which induced Gentile +Bellini to quit the Ottoman Court with all haste. The Sultan had +criticized the appearance of the neck in John the Baptist's severed +head, and when Gentile ventured to defend his work, the Sultan proceeded +to prove the correctness of his criticism, by drawing his scimitar and +cutting off at a stroke the head of a kneeling slave, and pointing to +the spouting blood and the shrinking muscle, gave the horrified painter +a lesson in practical anatomy. On Gentile's return from the East, he was +pensioned by his State, and lived on painting, till he was eighty years +of age, dying in 1501. + +Gian Bellini is said to have obtained by a piece of deceit, which is not +in keeping with his manly and honourable character, the secret, +naturally coveted by a Venetian, of mixing colours with resin and oil. A +Venetian painter had brought the secret from Flanders, and communicated +it to a friend, who, in turn, communicated it to a third painter, and +was murdered by that third painter for his pains, so greedy and criminal +was the craving, not only to possess, but to be as far as possible the +sole possessor of, the grand discovery. Gian Bellini was much less +guilty, if he were really guilty. Disguised as a Venetian nobleman, he +proposed to sit for his portrait to that Antonella who first brought the +secret from Flanders, and while Antonella worked with unsuspicious +openness, Gian Bellini watched the process and stole the secret. + +Gian Bellini lived to the age of ninety, and had among his admirers the +poet Ariosto and Albrecht Dürer. The latter saw Gian Bellini in his age, +and said of him, when foolish mockers had risen up to scout at the old +man, and his art now become classic, 'He is very old, but he is still +the best of our painters.' Gian Bellini had illustrious pupils, +including in their number Titian and Giorgione. + +The portraits of Gentile and Gian, which are preserved in a painting by +Gian, show Gentile fair-complexioned and red-haired, and Gian with dark +hair. + +Gian Bellini is considered to have been less gifted with imagination +than some of his great brother artists; but he has proved himself a man +of high moral sense, and while he stopped short at the boundary between +the seen and the unseen, it is certain he must still have painted with +much of 'the divine patience' and devout consecration of all his powers, +and of every part of his work, which are the attributes of the earliest +Italian painters. When he and his brother began to paint, Venetian art +had already taken its distinctive character for open-air effects, rich +scenic details in architecture, furniture and dress (said to be +conspicuous in commercial communities), and a growing tendency to +portraiture. Gian went with the tide, but he guided it to noble results. +His simplicity and good sense, with his purity and dignity of mind, were +always present. He introduced into his pictures 'singing boys, dancing +cherubs, glittering thrones, and dewy flowers,' pressing the outer world +into his service and that of religious art. It is said also that his +Madonnas seem 'amiable beings imbued with a lofty grace;' while his +saints are 'powerful and noble forms.' But he never descended to the +paltry or the vulgar. He knew from the depths of his own soul how to +invest a face with moral grandeur. Especially in his representations of +our Saviour Gian Bellini 'displays a perception of moral power and +grandeur seldom equalled in the history of art.' The example given is +that of the single figure of the Lord in the Dresden Gallery, where the +Son of God, without nimbus, or glory, stands forth as the 'ideal of +elevated humanity.' + +The greater portion of Gian Bellini's pictures remain in the churches +and galleries of Venice. But the first great work at which the two +brothers in their youth worked in company--the painting of the Hall of +Council in the palace of the Doge, with a series of historical and +legendary pictures of the Venetian wars with the Emperor Frederick +Barbarossa (1177), including the Doge Ziani's receiving from the Pope +the gold ring with which the Doge espoused the Adriatic, in token of +perpetual dominion over the sea--was unfortunately destroyed by fire in +1577. Giovanni Bellini's greatest work, now at St Salvatore, is Christ +at Emmaus, with Venetian senators and a Turkish dragoman introduced as +spectators of the risen Lord. + +Of another great work at Vicenza, painted in Gian Bellini's old age, +when neither his skill nor his strength was abated, 'The Baptism of +Christ,' Dean Alford writes thus: + + 'Let us remain long and look earnestly, for there is indeed much + to be seen. That central figure, standing with hands folded on + His bosom, so gentle, so majestic, so perfect in blameless + humanity, oh what labour of reverent thought; what toil of + ceaseless meditation; what changes of fair purpose, oscillating + into clearest vision of ideal truth, must it have cost the great + painter, before he put forth that which we see now! It is as + impossible to find aught but love and majesty in the Divine + countenance, as it is to discover a blemish on the complexion of + that body, which seems to give forth light from itself, as He + stands in obedience, fulfilling all righteousness. + + 'And even on the accessories to this figure, we see the same + loving and reverent toil bestowed. The cincture, where alone the + body is hidden from view, is no web of man's weaving; or, if it + were, it is of hers whose heart was full of divine thoughts as + she wove: so bright and clear is the tint, so exquisitely + careful and delicate every fold where light may play or colour + vary. And look under the sacred feet, on the ground blessed by + their pressure; no dash of hurrying brush has been there: less + than a long day's light, eve, did not suffice to give in + individual shape and shade every minutest pebble and mote of + that shore of Jordan. Every one of them was worth painting, for + we are viewing them as in the light of His presence who made + them all and knew them all. + + 'And now let us pass to the other figures: to that living and + glowing angelic group in the left hand of the picture. Three of + the heavenly host are present, variously affected by that which + they behold. The first, next the spectator, in the corner of the + picture, is standing in silent adoration, tender and gentle in + expression, the hands together, but only the points of the + fingers touching, his very reverence being chastened by angelic + modesty; the second turns on that which he sees a look of + earnest inquiry, but kneels as he looks; and indeed that which + he sees is one of the things which angels desire to look into. + The third, a majestic herald-like figure, stands, as one + speaking, looking to the spectator, with his right hand on his + garment, and his left out as in demonstration, unmistakeably + saying to us who look on, "Behold what love is here!" Then, + hardly noticing what might well be much noticed, the grand dark + figure of the Baptist on the right, let us observe how + beautifully and accurately all the features of the landscape are + given.' + +Of the same work another critic records: 'The attendant angels in this +work (signed by the artist) are of special interest, instinct with an +indefinable purity and depth of reverential tenderness elsewhere hardly +rivalled. But the picture, like that in S. Giovanni Crisostomo, with +which it is nearly contemporary, is almost more interesting from the +astonishing truth and beauty of its landscape portions. _These_ form +here a feature more important, perhaps, than in any work of that period; +the stratification and form of the rocks in the foreground, the palms +and other trees relieved against the lucid distance, and the +mountain-ranges of tender blue beyond, are as much beyond praise for +their beauty and their truth, as they have been beyond imitation from +the solidity and transparent strength of their execution! The minute +finish is Nature's, and the colouring more gem-like than gems.' + +No praise can exceed that bestowed on Gian Bellini's colouring for its +intensity and transparency. 'Many of his draperies are like crystal of +the clearest and deepest colour,' declares an authority; and another +states' his best works have a clear jewel brightness, an internal +gem-like fire such as warms a summer twilight. The shadows are intense +and yet transparent, like the Adriatic waves when they lie out of the +sun under the palace bridges.' + +Portrait-painting, just beginning, was established in Venice, its later +stronghold, by Gian Bellini. His truthful portrait of the Doge Loredano, +one of the earliest of that series of Doges' portraits which once hung +in state in the ducal palace, is now in our National Gallery. + +Of Gentile Bellini, whose work was softer, but less vigorous than his +brother's, the best painting extant is that at Milan of St Mark +preaching at Alexandria, in which the painter showed how he had profited +by his residence at Constantinople in the introduction of much rich +Turkish costume, and of an animal unknown to Europe at the time--a +camelopard. + +Andrea Mantegna was born near Padua. He was the son of a farmer. His +early history, according to tradition, is very similar to that of +Giotto. Just as Cimabue adopted Giotto, Squarcione, a painter who had +travelled in Italy and Greece, and made a great collection of antiques, +from which he taught in a famous school of painters, adopted Andrea +Mantegna at the early age of ten years. It was long believed that +Mantegna, in the end, forfeited the favour of his master by marrying +Nicolosa Bellini, the sister of Gentile and Gian Bellini, whose father +was the great rival of Squarcione; and farther, that Mantegna's style of +painting had been considered Bellini. Modern researches, which have +substituted another surname for that of Bellini as the surname of Andrea +Mantegna's wife, contradict this story. + +Andrea Mantegna, a man of much energy and fancy, entered young into the +service of the Gonzaga lords of Mantua, receiving from them a salary of +thirty pounds a year and a piece of land, on which the painter built a +house, and painted it within and without--the latter one of the first +examples of artistic waste, followed later by Tintoret and Veronese, +regardless of the fact that painting could not survive in the open air +of Northern Italy. + +Andrea Mantegna had his home at Mantua, except when he was called to +Rome to paint for the Pope, Innocent VIII. An anecdote is told by Mrs +Jameson of this commission. It seems the Pope's payments were irregular; +and one day when he visited his painter at work, and his Holiness asked +the meaning of a certain allegorical female figure in the design, Andrea +answered, with somewhat audacious point, that he was trying to +represent _Patience_. The Pope, understanding the allusion, paid the +painter in his own coin, by remarking in reply, 'If you would place +Patience in fitting company, you would paint Discretion at her side.' +Andrea took the hint, said no more, and when his work was finished not +only received his money, but was munificently rewarded. + +Andrea Mantegna had two sons and a daughter. One of his sons painted +with his father, and, after Andrea Mantegna's death, completed some of +his pictures. + +Andrea Mantegna's early study of antique sculpture moulded his whole +life's work. He took great delight in modelling, in perspective, of +which he made himself a master, and in chiaroscuro, or light and shade. +Had his powers of invention and grace not kept pace with his skill, he +would have been a stiff and formal worker; as it was, he carried the +austerity of sculpture into painting, and his greatest work, the +'Triumph of Julius Cæsar,' would have been better suited for the +chiselled frieze of a temple than it is for the painted frieze of the +hall of a palace. Yet he was a great leader and teacher in art, and the +true proportions of his drawing are grand, if his colouring is harsh. I +am happy to say that Mantegna's 'Triumph of Julius Cæsar' is in England +at Hampton Court, having been bought from the Duke of Mantua by Charles +I. These cartoons, nine in number, are sketches in water-colour or +distemper on paper fixed on cloth. They are faded and dilapidated, as +they well may be, considering the slightness of the materials and their +age, about four hundred years. At the same time, they are, after the +cartoons of Raphael (which formed part of the same art collection of +Charles I.), perhaps the most valuable and interesting relic of art in +England. + +The series of the 'Triumph' contain the different parts, originally +separated by pillars, of a long and splendid procession. There are +trumpeters and standard bearers, the statues of the gods borne aloft, +battering-rams and heaps of glittering armour, trophies of conquest in +huge vases filled with coin, garlanded oxen, and elephants. The second +last of the series, presents the ranks of captives forming part of the +show, rebellious men, submissive women, and unconscious children--a +moving picture. In the last of the series comes the great conqueror in +his chariot, a youth in the crowd following him, carrying his banner, on +which is inscribed Cæsar's notable despatch, 'Veni, vidi, vici;' 'I +came, I saw, I conquered.' + +Another of Mantegna's best pictures is in distemper--in which, and on +fresco, Mantegna chiefly painted,--and is in the Louvre, Paris. It is +the Madonna of Victory, so called from its being painted to commemorate +the deliverance of Italy from the French army under Charles VIII., a +name which has acquired a sardonic meaning from the ultimate destination +of the picture. This picture--which represents the Virgin and Child on a +throne, in an arbour of fruit and flowers, between the archangels, +Michael and St Maurice, in complete armour, with the patron saints of +Mantua and the infant St John in the front, and the Marquis Ludovico of +Mantua and his wife, Isabella D'Este, kneeling to return thanks--was +painted by Mantegna at the age of seventy years; and, as if the art of +the man had mellowed with time, it is the softest and tenderest of his +pictures in execution. A beautiful Madonna of Mantegna's, still later in +time, is in the National Gallery. + +When Mantegna was sixty years old he took up the art of engraving, and +prosecuted it with zeal and success, being one of the earliest painters +who engraved his own pictures, and this accomplishment spread them +abroad a hundredfold. + +Domenico Ghirlandajo was properly Domenico Bicordi, but inherited from +his father, a goldsmith in Florence,[3] the by-name of Ghirlandajo or +Garland-maker--a distinctive appellation said to have been acquired by +the elder man from his skill in making silver garlands for the heads of +Florentine women and children. Domenico Ghirlandajo worked at his +father's craft till he was twenty-four years of age, when, having in the +mean time evinced great cleverness in taking the likenesses of the +frequenters of Ghirlandajo the elder's shop, the future painter +abandoned the goldsmith's trade for art pure and simple. He soon +vindicated the wisdom of the step which he had taken by giving proofs of +something of the strength of Masaccio, united with a reflection of the +feeling of Fra Angelico. + +Ghirlandajo was summoned soon to Rome to paint in the Sistine Chapel, +afterwards to be so glorious; but his greatest works were done in the +prime of his manhood, in his native city, Florence, where he was chosen +as the teacher of Michael Angelo, who was apprenticed to Ghirlandajo for +three years. + +While still in the flower of his age and crowned with golden opinions, +being, it is said with effusion, 'the delight of his city,' Ghirlandajo +died after a short illness, in Ghirlandajo's time Florence had reached +her meridian, and her citizens outvied each other in the magnificence of +their gifts to their fair mother city. Ghirlandajo was fitted to be +their painter; himself a generous-spirited artist, in the exuberance of +life and power, he wished that his fellow-citizens would give him all +the walls of the city to cover with frescoes. He was content with the +specified sum for his painting, desiring more the approbation of his +employers than additional crowns. His genius lying largely in the +direction of portrait painting, he introduced frequently the portraits +of contemporaries, causing them to figure as spectators of his sacred +scenes. One of these contemporaries thus presented, was Amerigo +Vespucci, who was to give his name to a continent. Another was a +Florentine beauty, a woman of rank, Ginevra de Benci. + +Ghirlandajo was lavish in his employment of rich Florentine costumes and +architecture. He even made the legends of the saints and the histories +of the Bible appear as if they had happened under the shadow of +Brunelleschi's duomo and Giotto's campanile, and within sound of the +flow of the Arno. In the peculiar colouring used in fresco painting +Ghirlandajo excelled. + +He painted a chapel for a Florentine citizen, Francesco Sasetti, in the +church of the Trinità, Florence, with scenes from the life of St +Francis. Of these, the death of St Francis, surrounded by the sorrowing +monks of his order, with the figures of Francesco Sasetti and his wife, +Madonna Nera, on one side of the picture, is considered the best. As a +curious illustration of the modernizing practice of Ghirlandajo, he has +painted an old priest at the foot of the bier, chanting the litanies for +the dying, with spectacles on his nose, the earliest known +representation of these useful instruments. + +Ghirlandajo painted during four years the choir of the church of Santa +Maria Novella, Florence, for one of the great Florentine benefactors, +Giovanni Tornabuone, and there are to be seen some of Ghirlandajo's +finest frescoes from the history of John the Baptist and the Virgin. + +A Madonna and Child with angels in the National Gallery is attributed to +Ghirlandajo. + +Francesco Francia, or Il Francia, was born at Bologna, and was the son +of a carpenter, whose surname was Raibaloni, but Francesco assumed the +name of his master, a goldsmith, and worked himself at a goldsmith's +trade till he was forty years of age. Indeed he may be said never to +have relinquished his connection with the trade, and certainly he was no +more ashamed of it than of his calling as a painter, for he signed +himself indiscriminately 'goldsmith' and 'painter,' and sometimes +whimsically put 'goldsmith' to his paintings and 'painter' to his +jewellery. He was a famous designer of dies for coins and medals, and it +is quite probable, as a countryman of his own has sought to prove, that +he was the celebrated type-cutter, known as 'Francesco da Bologna.' But +it is with Francesco '_pictor_' that we have to do. + +Though he only began to prosecute the painter's art in middle age, he +rose with remarkable rapidity to eminence, was the great painter of +Lombardy in his day, rivalling Squarcione, Mantegna's teacher in his +school, which numbered two hundred scholars, and becoming the founder of +the early Bolognese school of painters. + +Francia is said to have been very handsome in person, with a kindly +disposition and an agreeable manner. He was on terms of cordial +friendship with Raphael, then in his youth, and thirty years Il +Francia's junior. Il Francia addressed an enthusiastic sonnet to +Raphael, and there is extant a letter of Raphael's to Il Francia, +excusing himself for not sending his friend Raphael's portrait, and +making an exchange of sketches, that of his 'Nativity' for the drawing +of Il Francia's 'Judith;' while it was to Il Francia's care that Raphael +committed his picture of St Cecilia, when it was first sent to Bologna. +These relations between the men and their characters throw discredit on +the tradition that Il Francia died from jealous grief caused by the +sight of Raphael's 'St Cecilia.' As Il Francia was seventy years of age +at the time of his death, one may well attribute it to physical causes. +Il Francia had at least one son, and another kinsman, painters, whose +paintings were so good as to be occasionally confounded with those of Il +Francia. + +Il Francia is thought to have united, in his works, a certain calm +sedateness and frank sincerity to the dreamy imaginativeness of some of +his contemporaries. His finest works are considered to be the frescoes +from the life of St Cecilia in the church of St Cecilia at Bologna. + +Of a Madonna and Child, by Francia, at Bologna, I shall write down +another of Dean Alford's descriptions,--many of which I have given for +this, among other reasons, that these descriptions are not technical or +professional, but the expression of the ardent admiration and grateful +comprehension of a sympathetic spectator. 'He,' speaking of the Divine +Child, 'is lying in simple nakedness on a rich red carpet, and is +supported by a white pillar, over which the carpet passes. Of these +accessories every thread is most delicately and carefully painted; no +slovenly washes of meretricious colour where He is to be served, before +whom all things are open; no perfunctory sparing of toil in serving Him +who has given us all that is best. On his right hand kneels the Virgin +Mother in adoration, her very face a magnificat--praise, lowliness, +confidence; next to her, Joseph, telling by his looks the wonderful +story, deeply but simply. Two beautiful angels kneel, one on either +side--hereafter, perhaps, to kneel in like manner in the tomb. Their +faces seemed to me notable for that which I have no doubt the painter +intended to express,--the pure abstraction of reverent adoration, +unmingled with human sympathies. The face and figure of the Divine +Infant are full of majesty, as he holds his hands in blessing towards +the spectator, who symbolizes the world which He has come to save. Close +to him on the ground, on his right branch in trustful repose; on his +left springs a plant of the meadow-trefoil. Thus lightly and reverently +has the master touched the mystery of the Blessed Trinity: the goldfinch +symbolizing by its colours, the trefoil by the form of its leaf.' + +In our own National Gallery is a picture by Il Francia of the enthroned +Virgin and Child and her mother, St Anne, who is presenting a peach to +the infant Christ; at the foot of the throne is the little St John; to +the right and left are St Paul with the sword, St Sebastian bound to a +pillar and pierced with arrows, and St Lawrence with the emblematical +grid-iron, etc. etc. Opposite this picture hangs, what once formed part +of it, a solemn, sorrowful Pietà, as the Italians call a picture +representing the dead Redeemer mourned over by the Virgin and by the +other holy women. These pictures were bought by our Government from the +Duke of Lucca for three thousand five hundred pounds. + +Fra Bartolommeo. We come to a second gentle monk, not unlike Fra +Angelico in his nature, but far less happy than Fra Angelico, in having +been born in stormy times. Fra Bartolommeo, called also Baccio della +Porta, or Bartholomew of the gate, from the situation of his lodgings +when a young man, but scarcely known in Italy by any other name than +that of Il Frate, or the Friar, was born near Florence, and trained from +his boyhood to be a painter. In his youth, however, a terrible public +event convulsed Florence, and revolutionized Baccio della Porta's life. +He had been employed to paint in that notable Dominican convent of St +Mark, where Savonarola, its devoted friar, was denouncing the sins of +the times, including the profligate luxury of the nobles and the +degradation of the representatives of the Church. Carried away by the +fervour and sincerity of the speaker, Baccio joined the enthusiasts who +cast into a burning pile the instruments of pride, vanity, and godless +intellect denounced by the preacher. Baccio's sacrifice to the flaming +heap of splendid furniture and dress, and worldly books, was all his +designs from profane subjects and studies of the undraped figure. A +little later Savonarola was excommunicated by the Pope and perished as +a martyr; and Baccio, timid from his natural temper, distracted by +doubt, and altogether horror-stricken, took a monk's vows, and entered +the same convent of St Mark, where for four years he never touched a +pencil. + +At the request of his superior Fra Bartolommeo painted again, and when +Raphael visited Florence, and came with all his conquering sweetness and +graciousness to greet the monk in his cell, something of Il Frate's old +love for his art, and delight in its exercise, returned. He even visited +Rome, but there his health failed him, and the great works of Lionardo, +Michael Angelo, and Raphael, when he compared his own with theirs, +seemed to crush and overwhelm him. But he painted better for his visit +to Rome, even as he had painted better for his intimacy with Raphael. +Nay, it is said Raphael himself painted better on account of his +brotherly regard for, and confidence in, Fra Bartolommeo. + +Fra Bartolommeo died aged forty-eight years. Among his best pupils was a +nun of St Catherine's, known as Suor Plautilla. + +To Il Frate, as a painter, is attributed great softness and harmony, and +even majesty, though, like Fra Angelico, he was often deficient in +strength. He was great in the management of draperies, for the better +study of which he is said to have invented the lay figure. He indulged +in the introduction into his pictures of rich architecture. He was fond +of painting boy-angels--in which he excelled--playing frequently on +musical instruments, or holding a canopy over the Virgin. Very few of +his works are out of Italy; the most are in Florence, especially in the +Pitti Palace. His two greatest works are the Madonna della Misericordia, +or the Madonna of Mercy, at Lucca, where the Virgin stands with +outstretched arms pleading for the suppliants, whom she shelters under +the canopy, and who look to her as she looks to her Son,--and the grand +single figure of St Mark, with his Gospel in his hand, in the Pitti +Palace, Florence. Sir David Wilkie said of the Madonna of Mercy, 'that +it contained the merits of Raphael, of Titian, of Rembrandt, and of +Rubens.' + +Andrea Vanucchi, commonly called Andrea del Sarto, from the occupation +of his father, who was a tailor (in Italian, _sarto_), was born at +Florence in 1488. He was first a goldsmith, but soon turned painter, +winning early the commendatory title of 'Andrea senza errori,' or +'Andrea the Faultless.' His life is a miserable and tragic history. In +the early flush of his genius and industry, with its just crown of fame +and success, he conceived a passion for a beautiful but worthless woman, +whom, in spite of the opposition of his friends, he married. She +rendered his home degraded and wretched, and his friends and scholars +fell off from him. In disgust he quitted Florence, and entered the +service of Francis I, of France; but his wife, for whom his regard was a +desperate infatuation, imperiously summoned him back to Florence, to +which he returned, bringing with him a large sum of money, entrusted to +him by the king for the purchase of works of art. Instigated by his +wife, Andrea del Sarto used this money for his, or rather her, purposes, +and dared not return to France. Even in his native Florence he was +loaded with reproach and shame. He died of the plague at the age of +fifty-five years, according to tradition, plundered and abandoned in his +extremity by the base woman for whom he had sacrificed principle and +honour. We may read the grievous story of Andrea del Sarto, written by +one of the greatest of England's modern poets. + +As may be imagined, Andrea del Sarto's excellence lay in the charm of +his execution. His works were deficient in earnestness and high feeling, +and some will have it, that, evilly haunted as he was, he perpetually +painted in his Madonnas the beautiful but base-souled face of the woman +who ruined him. Andrea del Sarto's best works are in Florence, +particularly in the cloisters of the convent of the Annunziata. In the +court of the same convent is his famous Riposo (or rest of the Holy +Family on their way to Egypt), which is known as the 'Madonna of the +Sack,' from the circumstance of Joseph in the picture leaning against a +sack. This picture has held a high place in art for hundreds of years. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +LIONARDO DA VINCI, 1452-1519--MICHAEL ANGELO, 1475-1564--RAPHAEL, +1483-1520--TITIAN, 1477-1566. + + +We have arrived at the triumph of art, not, indeed, in unconsciousness +and devotion, but in fulness and completeness, as shown in the works of +four of the greatest painters and men whom the world ever saw. Of the +first, Lionardo da Vinci, born at Vinci in the neighbourhood of +Florence, 1452, it may be said that the many-sidedness which +characterized Italians--above all Italians of his day--reached its +height in him. Not only was he a painter, a sculptor, an architect, and +engineer, but also one of the boldest speculators of the generation +which gave birth to Columbus, and was not less original and ingenious +than he was universally accomplished--an Admirable Crichton among +painters. There is a theory that this many-sidedness is a proof of the +greatest men, indicating a man who might have been great in any way, +who, had his destiny not found and left him a painter, would have been +equally great as a philosopher, a man of science, a poet, or a +statesman. It may be so; but the life of Lionardo tends also to +illustrate the disadvantage of too wide a grasp and diffusion of genius. +Beginning much and finishing little, not because he was idle or fickle, +but because his schemes were so colossal and his aims so high, he spent +his time in preparation for the attainment of perfect excellence, which +eluded him. Lionardo was the pioneer, the teacher of others, rather than +the complete fulfiller of his own dreams; and the life of the proud, +passionate man was, to him self mortification. This result might, in a +sense, have been avoided; but Lionardo, great as he was, proved also one +of those unfortunate men whose noblest efforts are met and marred by +calamities which could have hardly been foreseen or prevented. + +Lionardo da Vinci was the son of a notary, and early showed a taste for +painting as well as for arithmetic and mathematics. He was apprenticed +to a painter, but he also sedulously studied physics. He is said, +indeed, to have made marvellous guesses at truth, in chemistry, botany, +astronomy, and particularly, as helping him in his art, anatomy. He was, +according to other accounts, a man of noble person, like Ghirlandajo. +And one can scarcely doubt this who looks at Lionardo's portrait painted +by himself, or at any engraving from it, and remarks the grand presence +of the man in his cap and furred cloak; his piercing wistful eyes; +stately outline of nose; and sensitive mouth, unshaded by his +magnificent flowing beard. + +He was endowed with surprising bodily strength, and was skilled in the +knightly exercises of riding, fencing, and dancing. He was a lover of +social pleasure, and inclined to indulge in expensive habits. While a +lad he amused himself by inventing machines for swimming, diving, and +flying, as well as a compass, a hygrometer, etc. etc. In a combination +from the attributes of the toads, lizards, bats, etc. etc., with which +his studies in natural history had made him familiar, he painted a +nondescript monster, which he showed suddenly to his father, whom it +filled with horror. But the horror did not prevent the old lawyer +selling the wild phantasmagoria for a large sum of money. As something +beyond amusement, Lionardo planned a canal to unite Florence with Pisa +(while he executed other canals in the course of his life), and +suggested the daring but not impossible idea of raising _en masse_, by +means of levers, the old church of San Giovanni, Florence, till it +should stand several feet above its original level, and so get rid of +the half-sunken appearance which destroyed the effect of the fine old +building. He visited the most frequented places, carrying always with +him his sketch-book, in which to note down his observations; he followed +criminals to execution in order to witness the pangs of despair; he +invited peasants to his house and told them laughable stories, that he +might pick up from their faces the essence of comic expression.[4] A +mania for truth--alike in great and little things--possessed him. + +Lionardo entered young into the service of the Gonzaga family of Milan, +being, according to one statement, chosen for the office which he was to +fill, as the first singer in _improvisatore_ of his time (among his +other inventions he devised a peculiar kind of lyre). He showed no want +of confidence in asserting his claims to be elected, for after declaring +the various works he would undertake, he added with regard to +painting--'I can do what can be done, as well as any man, be he who he +may.' He received from the Duke a salary of five hundred crowns a year. +He was fourteen years at the court of Milan, where, among other works, +he painted his 'Cenacolo,' or 'Last Supper,' one of the grandest +pictures ever produced. He painted it, contrary to the usual practice, +in oils upon the plastered walls of the refectory of the Dominican +convent, Milan. The situation was damp, and the material used proved so +unsuitable for work on plaster, that, even before it was exposed to the +reverses which in the course of a French occupation of Milan converted +the refectory into a stable, the colours had altogether faded, and the +very substance of the picture was crumbling into ruin. + +The equestrian statue of the old Duke of Milan by Lionardo excited so +much delight in its first freshness, that it was carried in triumph +through the city, and during the progress it was accidentally broken. +Lionardo began another, but funds failed for its completion, and +afterwards the French used the original clay model as a target for their +bowmen. + +Lionardo returned to Florence, and found his great rival, Michael +Angelo, already in the field. Both of the men, conscious of mighty +gifts, were intolerant of rivalry. To Lionardo especially, as being much +the elder man, the originator and promoter of many of the new views in +art which his opponent had adopted, the competition was very +distasteful, and to Michael Angelo he used the bitter sarcasm which has +been handed down to us, 'I was famous before you were born.' + +Nevertheless Lionardo consented to compete with Michael Angelo for the +painting in fresco of one side of the council-hall, by the order of the +gonfaloniere for the year. Lionardo chose for his subject a victory of +the Florentines over the Milanese, while Michael Angelo took a scene +from the Pisan campaigns. Not only was the work never done (some say +partly because Lionardo _would_ delay in order to make experiments in +oils) on account of political troubles, but the very cartoons of the two +masters, which all the artists of the day flocked to see, have been +broken up, dispersed, and lost; and of one only, that of Michael Angelo, +a small copy remains, while but a fragment from Lionardo's was preserved +in a copy made by Rubens. + +Lionardo went to Rome in the pontificate of Leo X., but there his +quarrel with Michael Angelo broke out more violently than ever. The Pope +too, who loved better a gentler, more accommodating spirit, seemed to +slight Lionardo, and the great painter not only quitted Rome in disgust, +but withdrew his services altogether from ungrateful Italy. + +At Pavia Lionardo was presented to Francis I, of France, who, zealous +in patronizing art, engaged the painter to follow Francis's fortunes at +a salary of seven hundred crowns a year. Lionardo spent the remainder of +his life in France. His health had long been declining before he died, +aged sixty-seven years, at Cloux, near Amboise. He had risen high in the +favour of Francis. From this circumstance, and the generous, chivalrous +nature of the king, there doubtless arose the tradition that Francis +visited Lionardo on his death-bed; and that, while in the act of gently +assisting him to raise himself, the painter died in the king's arms. +Court chronicles do their best to demolish this story, by proving +Francis to have been at St Germain on the day when Lionardo died at +Cloux. + +Lionardo was never married, and he left what worldly goods he possessed +to a favourite scholar. Besides his greater works, he filled many MS. +volumes, some with singularly accurate studies and sketches, maps, plans +for machines, scores for music (three volumes of these are in the Royal +Library at Windsor), and some with writing, which is written--probably +to serve as a sort of cipher--from right to left, instead of from left +to right. One of his writings is a valuable 'Treatise' on painting; +other writings are on scientific and philosophic subjects, and in these +Lionardo is believed to have anticipated some of the discoveries which +were reached by lines of close reasoning centuries later. + +Lionardo's genius as a painter was expressed by his uniting, in the very +highest degree, truth and imagination. He was the shrewdest observer of +ordinary life, and he could also realize the higher mysteries and +profounder feelings of human nature. He drew exceedingly well. Of +transparent lights and shadows, or chiaroscuro, he was the greatest +master; but he was not a good colourist. His works are very rare, and +many which are attributed to him are the pictures of his scholars, for +he founded one of the great schools of Milan or Lombardy. There is a +tradition that he was, as Holbein was once believed to be, ambidextrous, +or capable of using his left hand as well as his right, and that he +painted with two brushes--one in each hand. Thus more than fully armed, +Lionardo da Vinci looms out on us like a Titan through the mists of +centuries, and he preaches to us the simple homily, that not even a +Titan can command worldly success; that such men must look to ends as +the reward of their travail, and before undertaking it they must count +the cost, and be prepared to renounce the luxurious tastes which clung +to Lionardo, and which were not for him or for such men as he was. + +Lionardo's great painting was his 'Last Supper,' of which, happily, good +copies exist, as well as the wreck of the picture itself. The original +is now, after it is too late, carefully guarded and protected in its old +place in the Dominican convent of the Madonna della Grazia, Milan. The +assembled company sit at a long table, Christ being seated in the +middle, the disciples forming two separate groups on each side of the +Saviour. The gradations of age are preserved, from the tender youth of +John to the grey hairs of Simon; and all the varied emotions of mind, +from the deepest sorrow and anxiety to the eager desire of revenge, are +here portrayed. The well-known words of Christ, 'One of you shall betray +me,' have caused the liveliest emotion. The two groups to the left of +Christ are full of impassioned excitement, the figures in the first +turning to the Saviour, those in the second speaking to each +other,--horror, astonishment, suspicion, doubt, alternating in the +various expressions. On the other hand, stillness, low whispers, +indirect observations, are the prevailing expressions in the groups on +the right. In the middle of the first group sits the betrayer; a +cunning, sharp profile, he looks up hastily to Christ, as if speaking +the words, 'Master, is it I?' while, true to the Scriptural account, his +left hand and Christ's right hand approach, as if unconsciously, the +dish that stands before them.[5] + +A sketch of the head of Christ for the original picture, which has been +preserved on a torn and soiled piece of paper at Brera, expresses the +most elevated seriousness, together with Divine gentleness pain on +account of the faithless disciple, a full presentiment of his own death, +and resignation to the will of the Father. It gives a faint idea of what +the master may have accomplished in the finished picture. + +During his stay at Florence Lionardo painted a portrait of that Ginevra +Benci already mentioned as painted by Ghirlandajo; and a still more +famous portrait by Lionardo was that of Mona Lisa, the wife of his +friend Giocondo. This picture is also known as 'La Jaconde.' I wish to +call attention to it because it is the first of four surpassingly +beautiful portraits of women which four great painters gave in +succession to the world. The others, to be spoken of afterwards, are +Raphael's 'Fornarina,' Titian's 'Bella Donna,' and Rubens' 'Straw Hat.' +About the original of 'La Jaconde' there never has been a mystery such +as there has been about the others. At this portrait the unsatisfied +painter worked at intervals for four years, and when he left it he +pronounced it still unfinished. 'La Jaconde' is now in the Louvre in +nearly ruined condition, yet a judge says of it that even now 'there is +something in this wonderful head of the ripest southern beauty, with its +airy background of a rocky landscape, which exercises a peculiar +fascination over the mind.' + +There is a painting of the Madonna and Child Christ said to be by +Lionardo, and probably, at least, by one of his school, and which +belongs, I think, to the Duke of Buccleuch, and was exhibited lately +among the works of the old masters. The group has at once something +touching and exalted in its treatment. The Divine Child in the Mother's +arms is strangely attracted by the sight of a cross, and turns towards +it with ineffable longing, while the Virgin Mother, with a pang of +foreboding, clasping the child in her arms, seeks to draw him back. + +The fragment of the cartoon in which Lionardo competed with Michael +Angelo, may be held to survive in the fine painting by Rubens called +'the Battle of the Standard.' Of a famous Madonna and St Anne, by +Lionardo, the original cartoon in black chalk is preserved under glass +in our Royal Academy.[6] + +Michael Angelo Buonarroti, born at Castel Caprese near Tuscany, 1475, is +the next of these universal geniuses, a term which we are accustomed to +hold in contempt, because we have only seen it exemplified in parody. +After Lionardo, indeed, Michael Angelo, though he was also painter, +sculptor, architect, engineer, poet, musician, might almost be regarded +as restricted in his pursuits, yet still so manifold was he, that men +have loved to make a play upon his name and call him 'Michael the +angel,' and to speak of him as of a king among men. + +Michael Angelo was of noble descent, and though his ancient house had +fallen into comparative poverty, his father was mayor or podesta of +Chiusi, and governor of the castle of Chiusi and Caprese. Michael Angelo +was destined for the profession of the law, but so early vindicated his +taste for art, that at the age of thirteen years he was apprenticed to +Ghirlandajo. Lorenzo the Magnificent was then ruling Florence, and he +had made a collection of antique models in his palace and gardens, and +constituted it an academy for young artists. In this academy Michael +Angelo developed a strong bias for sculpture, and won the direct +patronage of the Medici. + +To this period of his life belong two characteristic anecdotes. In a +struggle with a fellow-student, Michael Angelo received a blow from a +mallet in his face, which, breaking bone and cartilage, lent to his nose +the rugged bend, + + 'The bar of Michael Angelo.' + +An ill-advised member of the Medician house, while entertaining a party +of guests during a snowstorm, sent out the indignant artist to make a +snow man within sight of the palace windows. These anecdotes bear +indirectly on the ruling qualities of Michael Angelo--qualities so +integral that they are wrought into his marble and painted on his +canvas--proud independence and energy. + +Before going farther I wish to guard against a common misapprehension of +Michael Angelo--that he was a haughty, arrogant man, absolutely narrow +in his half-idolatrous, half-human worship of art. Michael Angelo was +severe in place of being sweet; he was impatient of contradiction; he +was careless and scornful of ceremony; and in his very wrath at flattery +and hypocrisy, he was liable to sin against his own honesty and +sincerity. But he was a man with a lofty sense of duty and a profound +reverence for God. He was, unlike Lionardo, consistently simple, frugal, +and temperate, throughout his long life. If he held up a high standard +to others, and enforced it on them with hardness, he held up a higher +standard to himself, and enforced it on himself more hardly still. He +was a thoroughly unworldly man, and actions which had their root in +unworldliness have been ascribed unjustly to a kind of Lucifer pride. +Greed, and the meanness of greed, were unknown to him. He worked for the +last ten years of his life (under no less than five different Popes) at +his designs for St Peter's, steadfastly refusing pay for the work, +saying that he did it for the honour of God and his own honour. He made +many enemies and suffered from their enmity, but I cannot learn that, +except in one instance, he was guilty of dealing an unworthy blow at +his opponents. He was generous to his scholars, and without jealousy of +them, suffering them to use his designs for their own purposes. He said, +'I have no friends, I need none, I wish for none;' but that was in +feeling himself 'alone before Heaven;' and of the friends whom he did +possess, he loved them all the more devotedly and faithfully, because +they were few in number. + +One need only be told of his love for his old servant Urbino, whom he +presented with two thousand crowns to render him independent of service; +and when the servant was seized with his last illness Michael Angelo +nursed him tenderly, sleeping in his clothes on a couch that he might be +ready to attend his patient. When his cares were ended, Michael Angelo +wrote to a correspondent--'My Urbino is dead--to my infinite grief and +sorrow. Living, he served me truly; and in his death he taught me how to +die. Of Michael Angelo's more equal friendship with Vittoria Colonna I +hope my readers will read at leisure for themselves. No nobler, truer +friendship ever existed. It began when the high-born and beautiful, +gifted, and devout Marchesa de Pescara--most loyal of wives and widows, +was forty-eight, and Michael Angelo sixty-four years of age. After a few +years of privileged intercourse and correspondence, which were the +happiest years in Michael Angelo's life, it ended for this world when he +stood mourning by her lifeless clay. 'I was born a rough model, and it +was for thee to reform and re-make me,' the great painter had written +humbly of himself to his liege lady.[7] + +Italy, in Michael Angelo's time, as Germany in Albert Dürer's, was all +quickened and astir with the new wave of religious thought which brought +about the Reformation. Ochino and Peter Martyr, treading in the +footsteps of Savonarola, had preached to eager listeners, but 'in Italy +men did not adopt Lutheranism, though they approached it;' and in all +the crowd of great Italian artists of the day, Michael Angelo shows +deepest traces of the conflict--of its trouble, its seriousness, its +nobleness. He only, among his brethren, acted out his belief that the +things of the world sank into insignificance before those thoughts of +God and immortality which were alone fully worthy of the soul. And it +was, as to a religious work for which he was fitted, that he at last +gave himself up to the raising of St Peter's. We shall have next in +order the life of a man who had all the winning qualities which Michael +Angelo wanted, but we shall hardly, through the whole range of history, +find a nobler man than Michael Angelo. + +After his first visit to Rome, 1496, Michael Angelo executed his +colossal statue of David. In 1503 he entered into the competition with +Lionardo for the painting of one end of the Council-hall, in Florence, +which has been already mentioned. For this object he drew as his +cartoon, 'Pisan soldiers surprised while bathing by a sudden trumpet +call to arms.' The grand cartoon, of which only a small copy exists, was +said to have been torn to pieces as an act of revenge by a +fellow-sculptor, whom Michael Angelo had offended. + +Michael Angelo was invited to Rome by Julius II. in 1504 to aid in +erecting the unapproachable monument which the Pope projected raising +for himself. Then commenced a series of contentions and struggles +between the imperious and petulant Pope and the haughty, uncompromising +painter, in which the latter certainly had the best of it. At one time +in the course of the quarrel, Michael Angelo departed from Rome without +permission or apology, and stoutly refused to return, though followed +hotly by no less than five different couriers, armed with threats and +promises, and urged to make the reparation by his own gonfaloniere. At +last a meeting and a reconciliation between Michael Angelo and the Pope +were effected at Bologna. Michael Angelo designed for Pope Julius II, +not only the statue of Pope Julius at Bologna, which was finally +converted into a cannon, and turned against the very man whose effigy it +had originally presented, but also for that tomb which was never +completed, the famous figure of Moses seated, grasping his beard with +one hand. + +While employed at the tomb, Michael Angelo, then in his fortieth year, +was desired by the Pope to undertake the decoration of the ceiling of +the Sistine Chapel. Here, again, the hand of an enemy is said to have +been at work. Michael Angelo, with the first place as a sculptor, was +inexperienced in fresco painting; while Raphael, who was taking the +place of Lionardo as Michael Angelo's most formidable rival (yet whom it +is said Michael Angelo pointed out as the fittest painter of the +ceiling), and who was then engaged in painting the Vatican chambers, had +already achieved the utmost renown. It was anticipated by secret +hostility, so records tradition, that Michael Angelo would fail signally +in the unaccustomed work, and that his merit as an artist would pale +altogether before that of Raphael's. I need hardly write how entirely +malice was balked in the verdict to which posterity has set its seal. + +Michael Angelo brought artists from Florence to help him in his great +undertaking, for over the chapel, whose walls had already been painted +by older artists--among them Ghirlandajo, was an enormous vault of 150 +feet in length by 50 in breadth, which Michael Angelo was required to +cover with designs representing the Fall and Redemption of Man. But the +painter was unable to bear what seemed to him the bungling attempts of +his assistants; so dismissing them all and destroying their work, he +shut himself up, and working in solitude and secrecy, set himself to +evolve from his own inner consciousness the gigantic scenes of a +tremendous drama. In 22 months (or, as Kugler holds, in three years, +including the time spent on the designs) he finished gloriously the +work, the magnitude of which one must see to comprehend. On All Saints' +Day, 1512, the ceiling was uncovered, and Michael Angelo was hailed, +little though he cared for such clamorous hailing, as a painter indeed. +For this piece of work Michael Angelo received 3000 crowns. + +Pope Julius died, and was succeeded by Leo X. of the Medician house, +but, in spite of early associations as well as of mother country, +Michael Angelo was no more acceptable to the Pope--a brilliantly +polished, easy-tempered man of the world, who filled the chair of St +Peter's, than Lionardo had been. Leo X, greatly preferred Raphael, to +whom all manner of pleasantness as well as of courteous deference was +natural, to the two others. At the same time, Leo employed Michael +Angelo, though it was more as an architect than as a painter, and rather +at Florence than at Rome. At Florence Michael Angelo executed for Pope +Clement VII., another Medici, the mortuary chapel of San Lorenzo, with +its six great statues, those of the cousins Lorenzo de Medici and +Giuliano de Medici, the first called by the Florentines 'Il Pensièro,' +or 'Pensive Thought,' with the four colossal recumbent figures named +respectively the Night, the Morning, the Dawn, and the Twilight. + +In 1537 Michael Angelo was employed by his fellow citizens to fortify +his native city against the return of his old patrons the Medici, and +the city held out for nine months. + +Pope Paul III., an old man when elected to the popedom, but bent on +signalizing his pontificate with as splendid works of art as those +which had rendered the reigns of his predecessors illustrious, summoned +another man, grown elderly, Michael Angelo, upwards of sixty years, +reluctant to accept the commission, to finish the decoration of the +Sistine Chapel; and Michael Angelo painted on the wall, at the upper +end, his painting, 'The Last Judgment.' The picture is forty-seven feet +high by forty-three wide, and it occupied the painter eight years. It +was during its progress that Michael Angelo entered on his friendship +with Vittoria Colonna. + +For the chapel called the Paolina or Pauline Chapel Michael Angelo also +painted less-known frescoes, but from that time he devoted his life to +St Peter's. He had said that he would take the old Pantheon and 'suspend +it in air,' and he did what he said, though he did not live to see the +great cathedral completed. His sovereign, the Grand Duke of Florence, +endeavoured in vain with magnificent offers to lure the painter back to +his native city. Michael Angelo protested that to leave Rome then would +be 'a sin and a shame, and the ruin of the greatest religious monument +in Christian Europe.' Michael Angelo, like Lionardo, did not marry; he +died at Rome in 1563, in his eighty-ninth year. + +His nephew and principal heir,[8] by the orders of the Grand Duke of +Florence, and it is believed according to Michael Angelo's own wish, +removed the painter's body to Florence, where it was buried with all +honours in the church of Santa Croce there. + +The traits which recall Michael Angelo personally to us, are the +prominent arch of the nose, the shaggy brows, the tangled beard, the +gaunt grandeur of a figure like that of one of his prophets. + +While Michael Angelo lived, one Pope rose on his approach, and seated +the painter on his right hand, and another Pope declined to sit down in +his painter's presence; but the reason given for the last condescension, +is that the Pope feared that the painter would follow his example. And +if the Grand Duke Cosmo uncovered before Michael Angelo, and stood hat +in hand while speaking to him, we may have the explanation in another +assertion, that 'sovereigns asked Michael Angelo to put on his cap, +because the painter would do it unasked.' + +The solitary instance in which Michael Angelo is represented as taking +an unfair advantage of an antagonist, is in connection with the +painter's rivalry in his art with Raphael. Michael Angelo undervalued +the genius of Raphael, and was disgusted by what the older man +considered the immoderate admiration bestowed on the younger. A +favourite pupil of Michael Angelo's was Sebastian Del Piombo, who being +a Venetian by birth was an excellent colourist. For one of his +pictures--the very 'Raising of Lazarus' now in the National Gallery, +which the Pope had ordered at the same time that he had ordered +Raphael's 'Transfiguration'--it is rumoured that Michael Angelo gave the +designs and even drew the figures, leaving Sebastian the credit, and +trusting that without Michael Angelo's name appearing in the work, by +the help of his drawing in addition to Sebastian's superb colouring, +Raphael would be eclipsed, and that by a painter comparatively obscure. + +The unwarrantable inference that the whole work was that of one painter, +constituted a stratagem altogether unworthy of Michael Angelo, and if it +had any existence, its getting wind disappointed and foiled its authors. +When the story was repeated to Raphael, his sole protest is said to have +been to the effect that he was glad that Michael Angelo esteemed him so +highly as to enter the lists with him. + +We can judge of Michael Angelo's attainments as a poet, even without +having recourse to the original Italian, by Wordsworth's translations of +some of the Italian master's sonnets, and by Mr John Edward Taylor's +translations of selections from Michael Angelo's poems. + +Michael Angelo was greater as an architect and a sculptor than as a +painter, because his power and delight lay in the mastery of form, and +in the assertion, through that mastery, of the idealism of genius. It is +not necessary to speak here of the mighty harmonies and the ineffable +dignity of simplicity, somewhat marred by the departure from Michael +Angelo's designs, in St Peter's. It has been the fashion to praise them +to the skies, and it has been a later fashion to decry them, in awarding +a preference to the solemn shades and the dim rich dreaminess of Gothic +architecture. Both fashions come to this, after all, that beauty, like +these great men of genius of old, is many-sided. + +In Michael Angelo's works of sculpture a weird charm attaches to his +monuments in honour of the Medici in the chapel of San Lorenzo, +Florence. Perhaps something of this weirdness has to do with the tragic +history of the men, and with a certain mystery which has always shrouded +the sculptor's meaning in these monuments. + +Mrs Jameson quotes an account of Michael Angelo at work. An eye-witness +has left us a very graphic description of the energy with which, even in +old age, Michael Angelo handled his chisel:--"I can say that I have +seen Michael Angelo at the age of sixty, and, with a body announcing +weakness, make more chips of marble fly about in a quarter of an hour +than would three of the strongest young sculptors in an hour,--a thing +almost incredible to him who has not beheld it. He went to work with +such impetuosity and fury of manner, that I feared almost every moment +to see the block split into pieces. It would seem as if, inflamed by the +idea of greatness which inspired him, this great man attacked with a +Vigenére." + +In painting Michael Angelo regarded colouring as of secondary +importance. He is not known to have executed one painting in oil, and he +treated oil and easel-painting generally as work only fit for women or +idle men. While he approached the sublime in his painting, it was by no +means faultless. Even in form his efforts were apt to tend to heaviness +and exaggeration, and the fascination which robust muscular delineation +had for him, betrayed him into materialism. Fuseli's criticism of +Michael Angelo's work, that Michael Angelo's women were female men, and +his children diminutive giants, is judged correct. Incomparably the +greatest painting of Michael Angelo's is his ceiling of the Sistine +Chapel. It includes upwards of 200 figures, the greater part colossal, +as they were to be looked at, in the distance, from below. + + 'The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel contains the most perfect + works done by Michael Angelo in his long and active life. Here + his great spirit appears in noblest dignity, in its highest + purity; here the attention is not disturbed by that arbitrary + display to which his great power not unfrequently seduced him in + other works. The ceiling forms a flattened arch in its section; + the central portion, which is a plain surface, contains a series + of large and small pictures, representing the most important + events recorded in the book of Genesis--the Creation and Fall of + Man, with its immediate consequences. In the large triangular + compartments at the springing of the vault are sitting figures + of the Prophets and Sibyls, as the foretellers of the coming + Saviour. In the soffits of the recesses between these + compartments, and in the arches underneath, immediately above + the windows, are the ancestors of the Virgin, the series leading + the mind directly to the Saviour. The external of these numerous + representations is formed by an architectural frame-work of + peculiar composition, which encloses the single subjects, tends + to make the principal masses conspicuous, and gives to the whole + an appearance of that solidity and support so necessary, but so + seldom attended to in soffit decorations, which may be + considered as if suspended. A great number of figures are also + connected with the frame-work; those in unimportant situations + are executed in the colour of stone or bronze; in the more + important, in natural colours. These serve to support the + architectural forms, to fill up and to connect the whole. They + may be best described as the living and embodied _genii_ of + architecture. It required the unlimited power of an architect, + sculptor, and painter, to conceive a structural whole of so much + grandeur, to design the decorative figures with the significant + repose required by the sculpturesque character, and yet to + preserve their subordination to the principal subjects, and to + keep the latter in the proportions and relations best adapted to + the space to be filled.'--_Kugler_. + +The pictures from the Old Testament, beginning from the altar, are:-- + + 1. The Separation of Light and Darkness. + 2. The Creation of the Sun and Moon. + 3. The Creation of Trees and Plants. + 4. The Creation of Adam. + 5. The Creation of Eve. + 6. The Fall and the Expulsion from Paradise. + 7. The Sacrifice of Noah. + 8. The Deluge. + 9. The Intoxication of Noah. + + 'The scenes from Genesis are the most sublime representations of + these subjects;--the Creating Spirit is unveiled before us. The + peculiar type which the painter has here given of the form of the + Almighty + Father has been frequently imitated by his followers, and even by + Raphael, but has been surpassed by none. Michael Angelo has + represented him in majestic flight, sweeping through the air, + surrounded by _genii_, partly supporting, partly borne along with + him, covered by his floating drapery; they are the distinct + syllables, the separate virtues of his creating word. In the + first (large) compartment we see him with extended hands, + assigning to the sun and moon their respective paths. In the + second, he awakens the first man to life. Adam lies stretched on + the verge of the earth in the act of raising himself; the Creator + touches him with the point of his finger, and appears thus to + endow him with feeling and life. This picture displays a + wonderful depth of thought in the composition, and the utmost + elevation and majesty in the general treatment and execution. The + third subject is not less important, representing the Fall of + Man, and his Expulsion from Paradise. The tree of knowledge + stands in the midst; the serpent (the upper part of the body + being that of a woman) is twined around the + stem; she bends down towards the guilty pair, who are in the act + of plucking the forbidden fruit. The figures are nobly graceful, + particularly that of Eve. Close to the serpent hovers the angel + with the sword, ready to drive the fallen beings out of Paradise. + In this double action, this union of two separate moments, there + is something peculiarly poetic and significant: it is guilt and + punishment in one picture. The sudden and lightning-like + appearance of the avenging angel behind the demon of darkness has + a most impressive effect.'--_Kugler_. + + +The lower portion of the ceiling is divided into triangles, occupied by +the Prophets and Sibyls in solemn contemplation, accompanied by angels +and genii. Beginning from the left of the entrance their order is-- + + 1. Joel. + 2. Sibylla Erythræa. + 3. Ezekiel. + 4. Sibylla Persica. + 5. Jonah. + 6. Sibylla Libyca. + 7. Daniel. + 8. Sibylla Cumæa. + 9. Isaiah. + 10. Sibylla Delphica. + + 'The prophets and sibyls in the triangular compartments of the + curved portion of the ceiling are the largest figures in the + whole work; these, too, are among the most wonderful forms that + modern art has called into life. They are all represented + seated, employed with books or rolled manuscripts; genii stand + near or behind them. These mighty beings sit before us pensive, + meditative, inquiring, or looking upwards with inspired + countenances. Their forms and movements, indicated by the grand + lines and masses of the drapery, are majestic and dignified. We + see in them beings, who, while they feel and bear the sorrows of + a corrupt and sinful world, have power to look for consolation + into the secrets of the future. Yet the greatest variety + prevails in the attitudes and expression: each figure is full of + individuality. Zacharias is an aged man, busied in calm and + circumspect investigation; Jeremiah is bowed down, absorbed in + thought, the thought of deep and bitter grief; Ezekiel turns + with hasty movements to the genius next to him, who points + upwards with joyful expectation, etc. The sibyls are equally + characteristic: the Persian, a lofty, majestic woman, very aged; + the Erythræan, full of power, like the warrior goddess of + wisdom; the Delphic, like Cassandra, youthfully soft and + graceful, but with strength to bear the awful seriousness of + revelation.'--_Kugler_. + + 'The belief of the Roman Catholic Church in the testimony of the + sibyl is shown by the well-known hymn, said to have been composed + by Pope Innocent III, at the close of the thirteenth century, + beginning with the verse-- + + "Dies iræ, dies illa, + Solvet sæclum in favilla + Teste David cum Sibylla." + + It may be inferred that this hymn, admitted into the liturgy of + the Roman Church, gave sanction to the adoption of the sibyls + into Christian art. They are seen from this time accompanying the + prophets and apostles, in the cyclical decorations of the + church.... But the highest honour that art has rendered to the + sibyls has been by the hand of Michael Angelo, + on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Here in the conception of a + mysterious order of women, placed above and without all + considerations of the graceful or the individual, the great + master was peculiarly in his element. They exactly fitted his + standard, of art, not always sympathetic, nor comprehensible to + the average human mind, of which the grand in form and the + abstract in expression were the first and last conditions. In + this respect, the sibyls on the Sistine Chapel ceiling are more + Michael Angelesque than their companions the prophets. For these, + while types of the highest monumental treatment, are yet men, + while the sibyls belong to a distinct class of beings, who convey + the impression of the very obscurity in which their history is + wrapt--creatures who have lived far from the abodes of men, who + are alike devoid of the expression of feminine sweetness, human + sympathy, or sacramental beauty; who are neither Christians nor + Jewesses, Witches nor Graces, yet living, grand, beautiful, and + true, according to laws revealed to the great Florentine genius + only. + + Thus their figures may be said to be unique, as the offspring of + a peculiar sympathy between the master's mind and his subject. To + this sympathy may be ascribed the prominence and size given them, + both prophets and sibyls, as compared to their usual relation to + the subjects they environ. They sit here on twelve throne-like + niches, more like presiding deities, each wrapt in + self-contemplation, than as tributary witnesses to the truth and + omnipotence of Him they are intended to announce. Thus they form + a gigantic frame-work round the subjects of the Creation, of + which the birth of Eve, as the type of the Nativity, is the + intentional centre. For some reason, the twelve figures are not + prophets and sibyls alternately--there being only five sibyls to + seven prophets,--so that the prophets come together at one angle. + Books and scrolls are given indiscriminately to them. + +'The Sibylla Persica, supposed to be the oldest of the sisterhood, holds +the book close to her eyes, as if from dimness of sight, which fact, +contradicted as it is by a frame of obviously Herculean strength, gives +a mysterious intentness to the action. + +'The Sibylla Libyca, of equally powerful proportions, but less closely +draped, is grandly wringing herself to lift a massive volume from a +height above her head on to her knees. + +'The Sibylla Cumana, also aged, and with her head covered, is reading +with her volume at a distance from her eyes. + +'The Sibylla Delphica, with waving hair escaping from her turban, is a +beautiful young being, the most human of all, gazing into vacancy or +futurity. She holds a scroll. + +'The Sibylla Erythræa, grand, bare-headed creature, sits reading +intently with crossed legs, about to turn over her book. + +'The prophets are equally grand in structure, and though, as we have +said, not more than men, yet they are the only men that could well bear +the juxtaposition with their stupendous female colleagues. Ezekiel, +between Erythræa and Persica, has a scroll in his hand that hangs by his +side, just cast down, as he turns eagerly to listen to some voice. + +'Jeremiah, a magnificent figure, with elbow on knee and head on hand, +wrapt in meditation appropriate to one called to utter lamentation and +woe. He has neither book nor scroll. + +'Jonah is also without either. His position is strained and ungraceful, +looking upwards, and apparently remonstrating with the Almighty upon the +destruction of the gourd, a few leaves of which are seen above him. His +hands are placed together with a strange and trivial action, supposed to +denote the counting on his fingers the number of days he was in the +fish's belly. A formless marine monster is seen at his side. + +'Daniel has a book on his lap, with one hand on it. He is young, and a +piece of lion's skin seems to allude to his history.'[9] + +In the recesses between the prophets and sibyls are a series of lovely +family groups, representing the genealogy of the Virgin, and expressive +of calm expectation of the future. The four corners of the ceiling +contain groups illustrative of the power of the Lord displayed in the +especial deliverances of his chosen people. Near the altar are: + +Right, The Deliverance of the Israelites by the Brazen Serpent. + +Left, The Execution of Haman. + +Near the entrance are: + +Right, Judith and Holofernes. + +Left, David and Goliath.[10] + +Michael Angelo was thirty-nine years of age when he painted the ceiling +of the Sistine. When he began to paint the 'Day of Judgment' he was +above sixty years of age, and his great rival, Raphael, had already been +dead thirteen years. + +The picture of the 'Day of Judgment,' with much that renders it +marvellous and awful, has a certain coarseness of conception and +execution. The moment chosen is that in which the Lord says, 'Depart +from me, ye cursed,' and the idea and even attributes of the principal +figure are taken from Orcagna's old painting in the Campo Santo. But +with all Michael Angelo's advantages, he has by no means improved on the +original idea. He has robbed the figure of the Lord of its transcendant +majesty; he has not been able to impart to the ranks of the blessed the +look of blessedness which 'Il Beato' himself might have conveyed. The +chief excellence of the picture is in the ranks of the condemned, who +writhe and rebel against their agonies. No wonder that the picture is +sombre and dreadful. + +Of the allegorical figures of 'Night' and 'Morning' in the chapel of San +Lorenzo, there are casts at the Crystal Palace. + +A comparison and a contrast have been instituted between Michael Angelo +and Milton, and Raphael and Shakespeare. There may be something in them, +but, as in the case of broken metaphors, they will not bear being pushed +to a logical conclusion or picked to pieces. The very transparent +comparison which matches Michael Angelo with his own countryman, Dante, +is after all more felicitous and truer. Michael Angelo with Lionardo are +the great chiefs of the Florentine School. + +Raphael Sanzio, or Santi of Urbino, the head of the Roman School, was +one of those very exceptional men who seem born to happiness, to inspire +love and only love, to pass through the world making friends and +disarming enemies, who are fully armed to confer pleasure while almost +incapable of either inflicting or receiving pain. To this day his +exceptional fortune stands Raphael's memory in good stead, since for one +man or woman who yearns after the austere righteousness and priceless +tenderness of Michael Angelo, there are ten who yield with all their +hearts to the gay, sweet gentleness and generosity of Raphael. No doubt +it was also in his favour as a painter, that though a man of highly +cultivated tastes, 'in close intimacy and correspondence with most of +the celebrated men of his time, and interested in all that was going +forward,' he did not, especially in his youth, spend his strength on a +variety of studies, but devoted himself to painting. While he thus +vindicated his share of the breadth of genius of his country and time, +by giving to the world the loveliest Madonnas and Child-Christs, the +most dramatic of battle-pieces, the finest of portraits, his noble and +graceful fertility of invention and matchless skill of execution were +confined to and concentrated on painting. He did not diverge long or far +into the sister arts of architecture and sculpture, though his classic +researches in the excavations of Rome were keen and zealous; a heap of +ruins having given to the world in 1504 the group of the +that a writer of his day could record that 'Raphael had sought and found +in Rome another Rome.' + +Raphael was born in the town of Urbino, and was the son of a painter of +the Umbrian School, who very early destined the boy to his future +career, and promoted his destination by all the efforts in Giovanni +Santi's power, including the intention of sending away and apprenticing +the little lad to the best master of his time, Perugino, so called from +the town where he resided, Perugia. Raphael's mother died when he was +only eight years of age, and his father died when he was no more than +eleven years, before the plans for his education were put into action. +But no stroke of outward calamity, or loss--however severe, could annul +Raphael's birthright of universal favour. His step-mother, the uncles +who were his guardians, his clever, perverse, unscrupulous master, all +joined in a common love of Raphael and determination to promote his +interests. + +Raphael at the age of twelve years went to Perugia to work under +Perugino, and remained with his master till he was nearly twenty years +of age. In that interval he painted industriously, making constant +progress, always in the somewhat hard, but finished, style of Perugino, +while already showing a predilection for what was to prove Raphael's +favourite subject, the Madonna and Child. At this period he painted his +famous _Lo Sposalizio_ or the 'Espousals,' the marriage of the Virgin +Mary with Joseph, now at Milan. In 1504 he visited Florence, remaining +only for a short time, but making the acquaintance of Fra Bartolommeo +and Ghirlandajo, seeing the cartoons of Lionardo and Michael Angelo, and +from that time displaying a marked improvement in drawing. Indeed +nothing is more conspicuous in Raphael's genius in contra-distinction to +Michael Angelo's, than the receptive character of Raphael's mind, his +power of catching up an impression from without, and the candour and +humility with which he availed himself unhesitatingly of the assistance +lent him by others. + +Returning soon to Florence, Raphael remained there till 1508, when he +was twenty-five years, drawing closer the valuable friendships he had +already formed, and advancing with rapid strides in his art, until his +renown was spread all over Italy, and with reason, since already, while +still young, he had painted his 'Madonna of the Goldfinch,' in the +Florentine Gallery, and his 'La Belle Jardinière,' or Madonna in a +garden among flowers, now in the Louvre. + +In his twenty-fifth year Raphael was summoned to Rome to paint for Pope +Julius II. My readers will remember that Michael Angelo in the abrupt +severity of his prime of manhood, was soon to paint the ceiling of the +Sistine Chapel for the same despotic and art-loving Pope, who had +brought Raphael hardly more than a stripling to paint the '_Camere_' or +'_Stanze_' chambers of the Vatican. + +The first of the halls which Raphael painted (though not the first in +order) is called the Camera della Segnatura (in English, signature), and +represents Theology, Poetry, Philosophy, with the Sciences, Arts, and +Jurisprudence. The second is the 'Stanza d'Eliodoro,' or the room of +Heliodorus, and contains the grandest painting of all, in the expulsion +of Heliodorus from the Temple of Jerusalem (taken from Maccabees), the +Miracle of Bolsena, Attila, king of the Huns, terrified by the +apparition of St Peter and St Paul, and St Peter delivered from prison. +The third stanza painted by Raphael is the 'Stanza dell' Incendio' (the +conflagration), so called from the extinguishing of the fire in the +Borgo by a supposed miracle, being the most conspicuous scene in +representations of events taken from the lives of Popes Leo III, and +IV.; and the fourth chamber, which was left unfinished by Raphael, and +completed by his scholars, is the 'Sala di Constantino,' and contains +incidents from the life of the Emperor Constantine, including the +splendid battle-piece between Constantine and Maxentius. At these +chambers, or at the designs for them, during the popedoms of Julius II., +who died in the course of the painting of the Camere, and Leo X., for a +period of twelve years, till Raphael's death in 1520, after which the +'Sala di Constantino' was completed by his scholars. + +Raphael has also left in the Vatican a series of small pictures from the +Old Testament, known as Raphael's Bible. This series decorates the +thirteen cupolas of the 'Loggie,' or open galleries, running round three +sides of an open court. Another work undertaken by Raphael should have +still more interest for us. Leo X., resolving to substitute woven for +painted tapestry round the lower walls of the interior of the Sistine +Chapel, commanded Raphael to furnish drawings to the Flemish weavers, +and thence arose eleven cartoons, seven of which have been preserved, +have become the property of England, and are the glory of the Kensington +Museum. The subjects of the cartoons in the seven which have been saved, +are 'The Death of Ananias,' 'Elymas the Sorcerer struck with Blindness,' +'The Healing of the Lame Man at the Beautiful Gate of the Temple,' 'The +Miraculous Draught of Fishes,' 'Paul and Barnabas at Lystra,' 'St Paul +Preaching at Athens,' and 'The Charge to St Peter.' The four cartoons +which are lost, were 'The Stoning of St Stephen,' 'The Conversion of St +Paul,' 'Paul in Prison,' and 'The Coronation of the Virgin.' + +In those cartoons figures above life-size were drawn with chalk upon +strong paper, and coloured in distemper, and Raphael received for his +work four hundred and thirty gold ducats (about _£650_), while the +Flemish weavers received for their work in wools, silk, and gold, fifty +thousand gold ducats. The designs were cut up in strips for the +weavers' use, and while some strips were destroyed, the rest lay in a +warehouse at Arras, till Rubens became aware of their existence, and +advised Charles I, to buy the set, to be employed in the tapestry +manufactory established by James I. at Mortlake. Brought to this country +in the slips which the weavers had copied, the fate of the cartoons was +still precarious. Cromwell bought them in Charles I.'s art collection, +and Louis XIV, sought, but failed, to re-buy them. They fell into +farther neglect, and were well-nigh forgotten, when Sir Godfrey Kneller +recalled them to notice, and induced William III, to have the slips +pasted together, and stretched upon linen, and put in a room set apart +for them at Hampton Court, whence they were transferred, within the last +ten years, for the greater advantage of artists and the public, to +Kensington Museum. + +The woven tapestries for which the cartoons were designed had quite as +chequered a career. In the two sacks of Rome by French soldiers, the +tapestries were seized, carried off, and two of them burnt for the +bullion in the thread. At last they were restored to the Vatican, where +they hang in their faded magnificence, a monument of Leo X, and of +Raphael. An additional set of ten tapestry cartoons were supplied to the +Vatican by Raphael's scholars. + +Raphael painted for the Chigi family in their palace, which is now the +Villa Farnesina, scenes from the history of Cupid and Psyche, and the +Triumph of Galatea, subjects which show how the passion for classical +mythology that distinguishes the next generation, was beginning to work. +To these last years belong his 'Madonna di San Sisto,' so named from its +having been painted for the convent of St Sixtus at Piacenza, and his +last picture, the 'Transfiguration,' with which he was still engaged +when death met him unexpectedly. + +Raphael, as the Italians say, lived more like a '_principe_' (prince) +than a '_pittore_' (painter). He had a house in Rome, and a villa in the +neighbourhood, and on his death left a considerable fortune to his +heirs. There has not been wanting a rumour that his life of a principe +was a dissipated and prodigal life; but this ugly rumour, even if it had +more evidence to support it, is abundantly disproven by the nature of +Raphael's work, and by the enormous amount of that work, granting him +the utmost assistance from his crowd of scholars. He had innumerable +commissions, and retained an immense school from all parts of Italy, the +members of which adored their master. Raphael had the additional +advantage of having many of his pictures well engraved by a contemporary +engraver named Raimondi. + +Like Giotto, Raphael was the friend of the most distinguished Italians +of his day, including Count Castiglione, and the poet Ariosto. He was +notably the warm friend of his fellow-painters both at home and abroad, +with the exception of Michael Angelo. A drawing of his own, which +Raphael sent, in his kindly interchange of such sketches, to Albert +Dürer, is, I think, preserved at Nüremberg. The sovereign princes of +Italy, above all Leo X., were not contented with being munificent +patrons to Raphael, they treated him with the most marked consideration. +The Cardinal Bibbiena proposed the painter's marriage with his niece, +ensuring her a dowry of three thousand gold crowns, but Maria di +Bibbiena died young, ere the marriage could be accomplished; and +Raphael, who was said to be little disposed to the match, did not long +survive her. He caught cold, as some report, from his engrossing +personal superintendence of the Roman excavations; and, as others +declare, from his courtly assiduity in keeping an appointment with the +Pope, was attacked by fever, and died on his birth-day, April 6th, 1520, +having completed his thirty-seventh year. + +All Rome and Italy mourned for him. When his body lay in state, to be +looked at and wept over by multitudes, his great unfinished picture of +the 'Transfiguration' was hung above the bed. He was buried in a spot +chosen by himself in his lifetime, and, as it happened, not far from the +resting-place of his promised bride. Doubts having been raised as to +Raphael's grave, search was made, and his body was exhumed in 1833, and +re-buried with great pomp. Raphael's life and that of Rubens form the +ideal painter's life--bountiful, splendid, unclouded, and terminating +ere it sees eclipse or decay--to all in whom the artistic temperament is +united to a genial, sensuous, pleasure-loving nature. + +Raphael was not above the middle height, and slightly made. He was +sallow in colour, with brown eyes, and a full yet delicate mouth; but +his beautiful face, like that of our English Shakespeare, is familiar to +most of us. With regard to Raphael's face, the amount of womanliness in +it is a striking characteristic. One hears sometimes that no man's +character is complete without its share of womanliness: surely Raphael +had a double share, for womanliness is the most distinctive quality in +his face, along with that vague shade of pensiveness which we find not +infrequently, but strangely enough, in those faces which have been +associated with the happiest spirits and the brightest fortunes. + +Raphael and his scholars painted and drew about nine hundred pictures +and sketches, including a hundred and twenty Madonnas, eight of which +are in private collections in England. Of Raphael's greatness, Kugler +writes that 'it is not so much in kind as in degree. No master left +behind _so many_ really excellent works as he, whose days were so early +numbered; in none has there been observed so little that is unpleasant.' +All authorities agree in ascribing much of Raphael's power to his purely +unselfish nature and aim. His excellence seems to lie in the nearly +perfect expression of material beauty and harmony, together with +grandeur of design and noble working out of thought. We shall see that +this devotion to material beauty has been made something of a reproach +to Raphael, as it certainly degenerated into a snare in the hands of his +followers, while unquestionably the universal appreciation of Raphael's +work, distinguished from the partial appreciation bestowed on the great +works of others, proceeds from this evident material beauty which is +open to all. + +Then, again, Raphael, far more than Andrea del Sarto, deserved to be +called 'faultless;' and this general absence of defects and equality of +excellence is a great element of Raphael's wide popularity; for, as one +can observe for one's self, in regarding a work of art, there is always +a large proportion of the spectators who will seize on an error, dwell +on it, and be incapable of shaking off its influence, and rising into +the higher rank of critics, who discover and ponder over beauties. I +would have it considered also, that this equality of excellence does not +necessarily proceed always from a higher aim, but may arise rather from +an unconsciously lower aim. + +The single reproach brought against Raphael as a painter is +that--according to some witnesses only, for most deny the +implication--Raphael so delighted in material beauty that he became +enslaved by it, till it diminished his spiritual insight. It is an +incontestable truth that in Raphael, as in all the great Italian +painters of his century, there was a falling away from the simple +earnestness, the exceeding reverence, the endless patience, the +self-abstraction, and self-devotion of the earliest Italian and Flemish +painters. Therefore there has been within the last fifty or sixty years +that movement in modern art, which is called Pre-raphaelitism, and which +is, in fact, a revolt against subjection to Raphael, and his supposed +undue exaltation of material beauty, and subjection of truth to +beauty--so called. But we must not fall into the grave mistake of +imagining that there was any want of vigour and variety in Raphael's +grace and tenderness, or that he could not in his greatest works rise +into a grandeur in keeping with his subject. Tire as we may of hearing +Raphael called the king of painters, as the Greeks tired of hearing +Aristides called 'the just,' this fact remains: no painter has left +behind him such a mass of surpassingly good work; in no other work is +there the same charm of greatest beauty and harmony. + +It is hard for me to give you an idea in so short a space of Raphael's +work. I must content myself with quoting descriptions of two of his +Stanze, those of the Heliodorus and the Segnatura. 'Heliodorus driven +out of the Temple (2 Maccabees iii.). In the background Onias the +priest is represented praying for Divine interposition;--in the +foreground Heliodorus, pursued by two avenging angels, is endeavouring +to bear away the treasures of the temple. Amid the group on the left is +seen Julius II., in his chair of state, attended by his secretaries. One +of the bearers in front is Marc-Antonio Raimondi, the engraver of +Raphael's designs. The man with the inscription, "Jo Petro de Folicariis +Cremonen," was secretary of briefs to Pope Julius. Here you may fancy +you hear the thundering approach of the heavenly warrior, and the +neighing of his steed; while in the different groups who are plundering +the treasures of the temple, and in those who gaze intently on the +sudden consternation of Heliodorus, without being able to divine its +cause, we see the expression of terror, amazement, joy, humility, and +every passion to which human nature is exposed.'[11] + +'The Stanza della Segnatura is so called from a judicial assembly once +held here. The frescoes in this chamber are illustrative of the Virtues +of Theology, Philosophy, Poetry, and Jurisprudence, who are represented +on the ceiling by Raphael, in the midst of arabesques by _Sodoma_. The +square pictures by Raphael refer:--the Fall of Man to Theology; the +Study of the Globe to Philosophy; the Flaying of Marsyas to Poetry; and +the Judgment of Solomon to Jurisprudence. + +'_Entrance Wall_.--"The School of Athens." Raphael consulted Ariosto as +to the arrangement of its 52 figures. In the centre, on the steps of a +portico, are seen Plato and Aristotle, Plato pointing to heaven and +Aristotle to earth. On the left is Socrates conversing with his pupils, +amongst whom is a young warrior, probably Alcibiades. Lying upon the +steps in front is Diogenes. To his left, Pythagoras is writing on his +knee, and near him, with ink and pen, is Empedocles. The white mantle is +Francesco Maria della Rovere, nephew of Julius II. On the right is +Archimedes drawing a geometrical problem upon the floor. The young man +near him with uplifted hands is Federigo II., Duke of Mantua. Behind +these are Zoroaster, Ptolemy, one with a terrestrial, the other with a +celestial globe, addressing two figures, which represent Raphael and his +master Perugino. The drawing in brown upon the socle beneath this +fresco, is by _Pierino del Vaga_, and represents the death of +Archimedes. + +'_Right Wall_.--"Parnassus." Apollo surrounded by the Muses; on his +right, Homer, Virgil, and Dante. Below on the right, Sappho, supposed to +be addressing Corinna, Petrarch, Propertius, and Anacreon; on the left +Pindar and Horace, Sannazzaro, Boccaccio, and others. Beneath this, in +grisaille, are,--Alexander placing the poems of Homer in the tomb of +Achilles, and Augustus preventing the burning of Virgil's Æneid. + +'_Left Wall_.--Above the window are Prudence, Fortitude, and Temperance. +On the left, Justinian delivers the Pandects to Tribonian. On the right, +Gregory IX. (with the features of Julius II.) delivers the Decretals to +a jurist;--Cardinal de' Medici, afterwards Leo X., Cardinal Farnese, +afterwards Paul III., and Cardinal del Monte, are represented near the +Pope. In the socle beneath is Solon addressing the people of Athens. + +'_Wall of Egress_.--"The Disputa." So called from an impression that it +represents a Dispute upon the Sacrament. In the upper part of the +composition the heavenly host are present; Christ between the Virgin and +St John the Baptist; on the left, St Peter, Adam, St John, David, St +Stephen, and another; and on the right, St Paul, Abraham, St James, +Moses, St Lawrence, and St George. Below is an altar surrounded by the +Latin fathers, Gregory, Jerome, Ambrose, and Augustine. Near St +Augustine stand St Thomas Aquinas, St Anacletus, with the palm of a +martyr, and Cardinal Buenaventura reading. Those in front are Innocent +III., and in the background, Dante, near whom a monk in a black hood is +pointed out as Savonarola. The Dominican on the extreme left is supposed +to be Fra Angelico. The other figures are uncertain.' ... + +'Raphael commenced his work in the Vatican by painting the ceiling and +the four walls in the room called _della Segnatura_, on the surface of +which he had to represent four great compositions, which embraced the +principal divisions of the encyclopedia of that period; namely, +Theology, Philosophy, Poetry, and Jurisprudence. + +'It will be conceived, that to an artist imbued with the traditions of +the Umbrian School, the first of these subjects was an unparalleled +piece of good fortune: and Raphael, long familiar with the allegorical +treatment of religious compositions, turned it here to the most +admirable account; and, not content with the suggestions of his own +genius, he availed himself of all the instruction he could derive from +the intelligence of others. From these combined inspirations resulted, +to the eternal glory of the Catholic faith and of Christian art, a +composition without a rival in the history of painting, and, we may also +add, without a name; for to call it lyric or epic is not enough, unless, +indeed, we mean, by using these expressions, to compare it with the +allegorical epic of Dante, alone worthy to be ranked with this +marvellous production of the pencil of Raphael. + +'Let no one consider this praise as idle and groundless, for it is +Raphael himself who forces the comparison upon us, by placing the figure +of Dante among the favourite sons of the Muses; and, what is still more +striking, by draping the allegorical figure of Theology in the very +colours in which Dante has represented Beatrice; namely, the white veil, +the red tunic, and the green mantle, while on her head he has placed the +olive crown. + +'Of the four allegorical figures which occupy the compartments of the +ceiling, and which were all painted immediately after Raphael's arrival +in Rome, Theology and Poetry are incontestably the most remarkable. The +latter would be easily distinguished by the calm inspiration of her +glance, even were she without her wings, her starry crown, and her azure +robe, all having allusion to the elevated region towards which it is her +privilege to soar. The figure of Theology is quite as admirably suited +to the subject she personifies; she points to the upper part of the +grand composition, which takes its name from her, and in which the +artist has provided inexhaustible food for the sagacity and enthusiasm +of the spectator. + +'This work consists of two grand divisions,--Heaven and Earth--which are +united to one another by that mystical bond, the Sacrament of the +Eucharist. The personages whom the Church has most honoured for learning +and holiness, are ranged in picturesque and animated groups on either +side of the altar, on which the consecrated wafer is exposed. St +Augustine dictates his thoughts to one of his disciples; St Gregory, in +his pontifical robes, seems absorbed in contemplation of celestial +glory; St Ambrose, in a slightly different attitude, appears to be +chanting the Te Deum; while St Jerome, seated, rests his hands on a +large book, which he holds on his knees. Pietro Lombardo, Duns Scotus, +St Thomas Aquinas, Pope Anacletus, St Buenaventura, and Innocent III., +are no less happily characterized; while, behind all these illustrious +men, whom the Church and succeeding generations have agreed to honour, +Raphael has ventured to introduce Dante with his laurel crown, and, with +still greater boldness, the monk Savonarola, publicly burnt ten years +before as a heretic. + +'In the glory, which forms the upper part of the picture, the Three +Persons of the Trinity are represented, surrounded by patriarchs, +apostles, and saints: it may, in fact, be considered in some sort as a +_resumé_ of all the favourite compositions produced during the last +hundred years by the Umbrian School. A great number of the types, and +particularly those of Christ and the Virgin, are to be found in the +earlier works of Raphael himself. The Umbrian artists, from having so +long exclusively employed themselves on mystical subjects, had certainly +attained to a marvellous perfection in the representation of celestial +beatitude, and of those ineffable things of which it has been said that +the heart of man cannot conceive them, far less, therefore, the pencil +of man portray; and Raphael, surpassing them in all, and even in this +instance, while surpassing himself, appears to have fixed the limits, +beyond which Christian art, properly so called, has never since been +able to advance.'[12] + +Of Raphael's Madonnas, I should like to speak of three. The Madonna di +San Sisto: 'It represents the Virgin standing in a majestic attitude; +the infant Saviour _enthroned_ in her arms; and around her head a glory +of innumerable cherubs melting into light. Kneeling before her we see on +one side St Sixtus, on the other St Barbara, and beneath her feet two +heavenly cherubs gaze up in adoration. In execution, as in design, this +is probably the most perfect picture in the world. It is painted +throughout by Raphael's own hand; and as no sketch or study of any part +of it was ever known to exist, and as the execution must have been, from +the thinness and delicacy of the colours, wonderfully rapid, it is +supposed that he painted it at once on the canvas--a _creation_ rather +than a picture. In the beginning of the last century the Elector of +Saxony, Augustus III., purchased this picture from the monks of the +convent for the sum of sixty thousand florins (about £6000), and it now +forms the chief boast and ornament of the Dresden Gallery'[13] + +The Madonna del Cardellino (our Lady of the Goldfinch): 'The Virgin is +sitting on a rock, in a flowery meadow. Behind are the usual light and +feathery trees, growing on the bank of a stream, which passes off to the +left in a rocky bend, and is crossed by a bridge of a single arch. To +the right, the opposite bank slopes upward in a gentle glade, across +which is a village, backed by two distant mountain-peaks. + +'In front of the sitting matronly figure of the Virgin are the holy +children, our Lord and the Baptist, one on either side of her right +knee. She has been reading, and the approach of St John has caused her +to look off her book (which is open in her left hand) at the new comer, +which she does with a look of holy love and gentleness, at the same +time caressingly drawing him to her with her right hand, which touches +his little body under the right arm. In both hands, which rest across +the Virgin's knee, he holds a captive goldfinch, which he has brought, +with childish glee, as an offering to the Holy Child. The infant Jesus, +standing between his mother's knees, with one foot placed on her foot, +and her hand, with the open book, close above his shoulder, regards the +Baptist with an upward look of gentle solemnity, at the same time that +he holds his bent hand over the head of the bird. + +'So much for mere description. The inner feeling of the picture, the +motive which has prompted it, has surely hardly ever been surpassed. The +Blessed Virgin, in casting her arm round the infant St John, looks down +on him with a holy complacency for the testimony which he is to bear to +her Son. Notice the human boyish glee with which the Baptist presents +the captured goldfinch, and, on the other hand, the divine look, even of +majesty and creative love, with which the infant Jesus, laying his hand +on the head of the bird, half reproves St John, as it were saying, "Love +them and hurt them not." Notice, too, the unfrightened calm of the bird +itself, passive under the hand of its loving Creator. All these are +features of the very highest power of human art. + +'Again, in accompaniments, all is as it should be. The Virgin, modestly +and beautifully draped; St John, girt about the loins, not only in +accord with his well-known prophetic costume, but also as partaking of +sinful humanity, and therefore needing such cincture: the Child +Redeemer, with a slight cincture, just to suggest motherly care, but not +over the part usually concealed, as indeed it never ought to be, seeing +that in Him was no sin, and that it is this spotless purity which is +ever the leading idea in representations of Him as an infant. Notice, +too, his foot, beautifully resting on that of his mother; the unity +between them being thus wonderfully though slightly kept up. Her eye has +just been dwelling on the book of the Prophecies open in her hand; and +thus the spectator's thought is ruled in accordance with the high +mission of the Holy One of God, and thrown forward into the grand and +blessed future. It is a holy and wonderful picture; I had not seen any +in Italy which had struck or refreshed me more.'[14] + +And allow me to write two or three words with regard to the 'Madonna +della Sedia,' or our Lady of the Chair, an engraving of which used to +charm me when a child. The Virgin, very young and simple-looking in her +loveliness, is seated on a low chair, clasping the Divine Child, who is +leaning in weariness on her breast. In the original picture, St John +with his cross is standing--a boy at the Virgin's knee, but he is absent +from the old engraving. The meek adoring tenderness in the face of the +mother, the holy ingenuousness in that of the child, are expressions to +be long studied. + +Of Raphael's cartoons, which, so many of us can see for ourselves, I +cannot trust myself to do more than to repeat what strikes me as a +singularly apt phrase of Hazlitt's, given by Mrs Jameson, that the +cartoons are instances in which 'the corruptible has put on +incorruption.' That from the very slightness of the materials employed, +and the very injuries which the cartoons have sustained, we have the +greatest triumph of art, where 'the sense of power supersedes the +appearance of effort,' and where the result is the more majestic for +being in ruins. 'All other pictures look like oil and varnish, we are +stopped and attracted by the colouring, the penciling, the finishing, +the instrumentality of art; but the on the canvas.... There is nothing +between us and the subject; we look through a frame and see Scripture +histories, and amidst the wreck of colour and the mouldering of material +beauty, nothing is left but a universe of thought, or the broad imminent +shadows of calm contemplation and majestic pains.' + +And that Raphael did not neglect the minutest details in these sketches, +will be seen by the accompanying note: 'The foreground of Raphael's two +cartoons, "The Miraculous Draught of Fishes," and "The Charge to +Peter," are covered with plants of the common sea cole-wort, of which +the sinuated leaves and clustered blossoms would have exhausted the +patience of any other artist; but have appeared worthy of prolonged and +thoughtful labour to the great mind of Raphael.'--_Ruskin_. + +Whole clusters of anecdotes gather round the cartoons, which, as they +have to do with the work and not the worker, I leave untouched, with +regret. But I must forewarn my readers by mentioning some of the refuted +criticisms which have been applied to the cartoons. Reading the +criticisms and their answers ought to render us modest and wary in +'picking holes' in great pictures, as forward and flippant critics, old +and young, are tempted to pick them. With regard to the 'Miraculous +Draught of Fishes,' a great outcry was once set up that Raphael had made +the boat too little to hold the figures he has placed in it. But Raphael +made the boat little advisedly; if he had not done so, the picture would +have been 'all boat,' a contingency scarcely to be desired; on the +other hand, if Raphael had diminished the figures to suit the size of +the boat, these figures would not have suited those of the other +cartoons, and the cartoon would have lost greatly in dignity and effect. + +In the cartoon of the 'Death of Ananias,' carping objectors were ready +to suggest that Raphael had committed an error in time by introducing +Sapphira in the background counting her ill-gotten gains, at the moment +when her no less guilty husband has fallen down in the agonies of death. +It was hours afterwards that Sapphira entered into the presence of the +apostles. But we must know that time and space do not exist for +painters, who have to tell their story at one stroke, as it were. + +In the treating of the 'Lame Man at the Beautiful Gate of the Temple,' +some authorities have found fault with Raphael for breaking the +composition into parts by the introduction of pillars, and, farther, +that the shafts are not straight. Yet by this treatment Raphael has +concentrated the principal action in a sort of frame, and thus has been +enabled to give more freedom of action to the remaining figures in the +other divisions of the picture. 'It is evident, moreover, that had the +shafts been perfectly straight, according to the severest law of good +taste in architecture, the effect would have been extremely disagreeable +to the eye; by their winding form they harmonize with the manifold forms +of the moving figures around, and they illustrate, by their elaborate +elegance, the Scripture phrase, "the gate which is called +Beautiful."'--_Mrs Jameson_. + +Of Raphael's portraits I must mention that wonderful portrait of Leo X., +often reckoned the best portrait in the world for truth of likeness and +excellence of painting, and those of the so-called 'Fornarina,' or +'baker'. Two Fornarinas are at Rome and one at Florence. There is a +story that the original of the first two pictures was a girl of the +people to whom Raphael was attached; and there is this to be said for +the tradition, that there is an acknowledged coarseness in the very +beauty of the half-draped Fornarina of the Barberini Palace. The +'Fornarina' of Florence is the portrait of a noble woman, holding the +fur-trimming of her mantle with her right hand, and it is said that the +picture can hardly represent the same individual as that twice +represented in Rome. According to one guess the last 'Fornarina' is +Vittoria Colonna, the Marchesa de Pescara, painted by Seba Piombo, +instead of by Raphael; and according to another, the Roman 'Fornarina' +is no Fornarina beloved by Raphael, but Beatrice Pio, a celebrated +improvisatrice of the time. + +An 'innovation of modern times is to spell Raphael's name in England as +the modern Italians spelt it, _Raffaelle_, a word of four syllables, and +yet to pronounce this Italian word as if it were English, as _Raphael_. +Vasari wrote Raffaello; he himself wrote Raphael on his pictures, and +has signed the only autograph letter we have of his, Raphaello.'[15] + +Titian, or Tiziano Vecelli, the greatest painter of the Venetian +School, reckoned worthy to be named with Lionardo, Michael Angelo and +Raphael, was born of good family at Capo del Cadore in the Venetian +State, in 1477. There is a tradition that while other painters made +their first essays in art with chalk or charcoal, the boy Titian, who +lived to be a glorious colourist, made his earliest trials in painting +with the juice of flowers. Titian studied in Venice under the Bellini, +and had Giorgione, who was born in the same year, for his +fellow-scholar, at first his friend, later his rival. When a young man +Titian spent some time in Ferrara; there he painted his 'Bacchus and +Ariadne,' and a portrait of Lucrezia Borgia. In 1512, when Titian was +thirty-five years of age, he was commissioned by the Venetians to +continue the works in the great council-hall, which the advanced age of +Gian Bellini kept him from finishing. Along with this commission Titian +was appointed in 1516 to the office of la Sanseria, which gave him the +duty and privilege of painting the portraits of the Doges as long as he +held the office; coupled with the office was a salary of one hundred +and twenty crowns a year. Titian lived to paint five Doges; two others, +his age, equal to that of Gian Bellini, prevented him from painting. + +In 1516, Titian painted his greatest sacred picture, the 'Assumption of +the Virgin.' In the same year he painted the poet Ariosto, who mentions +the painter with high honour in his verse. + +In 1530, Titian, a man of fifty-three years, was at Bologna, where there +was a meeting between Charles V, and Pope Clement VII., when he was +presented to both princes. + +Charles V, and Philip II, became afterwards great patrons and admirers +of Titian, and it is of Charles V. and Titian that a legend, to which I +have already referred, is told. The Emperor, visiting the painter while +he was at work, stooped down and picked up a pencil, which Titian had +let fall, to the confusion and distress of the painter, when Charles +paid the princely compliment, 'Titian is worthy of being served by +Cæsar.' Titian painted many portraits of Charles V., and of the members +of his house. As Maximilian had created Albrecht Dürer a noble of the +Empire, Charles V, created Titian a Count Palatine, and a Knight of the +Order of St Iago, with a pension, which was continued by Philip II., of +four hundred crowns a year. It is doubtful whether Titian ever visited +the Spain of his patrons, but Madrid possesses forty-three of his +pictures, among them some of his finest works. + +Titian went to Rome in his later years, but declined to abandon for Rome +the painter's native Venice, which had lavished her favours on her son. +He lived in great splendour, paying annual summer visits to his +birth-place of Cadore, and occasionally dwelling again for a time at +Ferrara, Urbino, Bologna. In two instances he joined the Emperor at +Augsburgh. When Henry III, of France landed at Venice, he was +entertained _en grand seigneur_ by Titian, then a very old man; and when +the king asked the price of some pictures which pleased him, Titian at +once presented them as a gift to his royal guest. + +Titian married, as has been recently ascertained, and had three +children,--two sons, the elder a worthless and scandalous priest; the +second a good son and accomplished painter; and a daughter, the +beautiful Lavinia, so often painted by her father, and whose name will +live with his. Titian survived his wife thirty-six years; and his +daughter, who had married, and was the mother of several children, six +years. His second son and fellow-painter died of the same plague which +struck down Titian, in 1566, at the ripe age of eighty-nine years. + +Titian is said to have been a man of irritable and passionate temper. +The hatred between him and the painter, Pordenone, was so bitter, that +the latter thought his life in danger, and painted with his shield and +poniard lying ready to his hand. Titian grasped with imperious tenacity +his supremacy as a painter, sedulously kept the secrets of his skill, +and was most unmagnanimously jealous of the attainments of his scholars. +No defect of temper, however, kept Titian from having two inseparable +convivial companions--one of them the architect, Sansovino, and the +other the profligate wit, Aretino, who was pleased to style himself the +'friend of Titian and the scourge of princes.' Though Titian is said, in +the panic of the great plague, to have died not only neglected, but +plundered before his eyes, still Venice prized him so highly, that she +made in his favour the single exception of a public funeral, during the +appalling devastation wrought by the pestilence. + +From an engraving of a portrait of Titian by himself, which is before +me, I can give the best idea of his person. He looks like one of the +merchant princes, whom he painted so often and so well, in richly furred +gown, massive chain, and small cap, far off his broad forehead: a +stately figure, with a face--in its aquiline nose and keen eyes, full of +sagacity and fire, which no years could tame. + +Towards the close of Titian's life, there was none who even approached +the old Venetian painter in the art which he practised freely to the +last. Painting in Italy was everywhere losing its pre-eminence. It had +become, even when it was not so nominally, thoroughly secularized;--and +with reason, for the painters by their art-creed and by their lives were +fitter to represent gods and goddesses, in whom no man believed, than to +give earnest expression to a living faith. Even Titian, great as he was, +proved a better painter of heathen mythology than of sacred subjects. + +But within certain limits and in certain directions, Titian stands +unequalled. He has a high place for composition and for drawing, and his +colouring was, beyond comparison, grand and true. He was great as a +landscape painter, and he was the best portrait painter whom the world +ever saw. In his painting is seen, not, indeed, the life of the spirit, +but the life of the senses 'in its fullest power,' and in Titian there +was such large mastery of this life, that in his freedom there was no +violence, but the calmness of supreme strength, the serenity of perfect +satisfaction. His painting was a reflection of the old Greek idea of the +life of humanity as a joyous existence, so long as the sun of youth, +maturity, health, and good fortune shone, without even that strain of +foreboding pain, and desperate closing with fate, which troubled the +bliss of ancient poet or sculptor. A large proportion of Titian's +principal pictures are at Venice and Madrid. + +Among Titian's finest sacred pictures, are his 'Assumption of the +Virgin,' now in the Academy, Venice, where 'the Madonna, a powerful +figure, is borne rapidly upwards, as if divinely impelled; .., +fascinating groups of infant angels surround her, beneath stand the +apostles, looking up with solemn gestures;' and his 'Entombment of +Christ,' a picture which is also in Venice. Titian's Madonnas were not +so numerous as his Venuses, many of which are judged excellent examples +of the master. His 'Bacchus and Ariadne,' in the National Gallery, is +described by Mrs Jameson, 'as presenting, on a small scale, an epitome +of all the beauties which characterize Titian, in the rich, picturesque, +animated composition, in the ardour of Bacchus, who flings himself from +his car to pursue Ariadne; the dancing bacchanals, the frantic grace of +the bacchante, and the little joyous satyr in front, trailing the head of +the sacrifice.' + +Titian's landscapes are the noble backgrounds to many of his pictures. +These landscapes were not only free, but full. 'The great masters of +Italy, almost without exception, and Titian, perhaps, more than any +other (for he had the highest knowledge of landscape), are in the +constant habit of rendering every detail of their foregrounds with the +most laborious botanical fidelity; witness the Bacchus and Ariadne, in +which the foreground is occupied by the common blue iris, the aquilegia, +and the wild rose; _every stamen_ of which latter is given, while the +blossoms and leaves of the columbine (a difficult flower to draw) have +been studied with the most exquisite accuracy.'--_Ruskin_. + +In portraits, Titian conveyed to the sitters and transferred to his +canvas, not only a life-likeness, but a positively noble dignity in that +likeness. What in Van Dyck and Sir Joshua Reynolds was the bestowing of +high breeding and dainty refinement, became under Titian's brush +dignity, pure and simple, very quiet, and wonderfully real. There is +this peculiarity in connection with the number of portraits which Titian +executed, that many of them have descended to us without further titles +than those of 'A Venetian Senator,' 'A Lady,' etc., etc., yet of the +individual life of the originals no one can doubt. With regard to +Titian's portraits of women, I have already referred to those of his +beautiful daughter, Lavinia. In one portrait, in the Berlin Museum, she +is holding a plate of fruit; in another, in England, the plate of fruit +is changed into a casket of jewels; in a third, at Madrid, Lavinia is +Herodias, and bears a charger with the head of John the Baptist. A +'Violante'--as some say, the daughter of Titian's scholar, Palma, though +dates disprove this--sat frequently to Titian, and is said to have been +loved by him. + +I have written, in connection with Lionardo's 'Jaconde' and Raphael's +'Fornarina,' of Titian's 'Bella Donna.' He has various 'Bellas,' but, as +far as I know, this is _the_ 'Bella Donna,'--'a splendid, serious +beauty, in a red and blue silk dress,' in the Sciarra Gallery, Rome. + +I have read that critics were at one time puzzled by the singular +yellow, almost straw colour, appearing profusely in the hair of the +women of the Venetian painters of this time, and that it was only by +consulting contemporary records that it was learnt that the Venetian +women indulged in the weak and false vanity of dyeing their black hair a +pale yellow--a process, in the course of which the women drew the hair +through the crown of a broad-brimmed hat, and spreading it over the +brim, submitted patiently to bleaching the hair in a southern sun. + +Among Titian's portraits of men, those of the 'Emperor Charles V.' and +the 'Duke of Alva' are among the most famous. + +Titian painted, and painted wonderfully, to the very last. He was +eighty-one when he painted the 'Martyrdom of St Lawrence,' one of his +largest and grandest compositions, and in the last year of his life he +painted--leaving it not quite completed,--a 'Pietà;' showing that his +hand owned the weight of years,[16] but the conception of the subject is +still animated and striking, the colours still glowing; while, +Titian-like, the light still flows around the mighty group in every +gradation of tone. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +GERMAN ART--ALBRECHT DÜRER, 1471-1528. + + +Albrecht Dürer carries us to a different country and a different race. +And he who has been called the father of German painting is thoroughly +German, not only in his Saxon honesty, sedateness, and strength, but in +the curious mixture of simplicity, subtlety, homeliness, and +fantasticalness, which are still found side by side in German genius. + +Albrecht Dürer was born at that fittest birth-place for the great German +painter, quaint old Nuremberg, in 1471. He was the son of a goldsmith, +and one of a family of eighteen children; a home school in which he may +have learnt early the noble, manly lessons of self-denial and endurance, +which he practised long and well. He was trained to his father's trade +until the lad's bent became so unmistakable that he was wisely +transferred to the studio of a painter to serve his apprenticeship to +art. + +When the Nuremberg apprenticeship was completed, Albrecht followed the +German custom, very valuable to him, of serving another and a 'wandering +apprenticeship,' which carried him betimes through Germany, the +Netherlands, and Italy, painting and studying as he went. He painted his +own portrait about this time, showing himself a comely, pleasant, and +pleased young fellow, in a curious holiday suit of plaited low-bodied +shirt, jerkin, and mantle across the shoulder, with a profusion of long +fair curls, of which he was said to have been vain, arranged elaborately +on each side, the blue eyes looking with frank confidence out of the +blonde face. He painted himself a little later with the brave kindly +face grown mature, and the wisdom of the spirit shining in the eyes, and +weighing on the brows. + +On his return from his travels, Albrecht Dürer's father arranged his +son's marriage with the daughter of a musician in Nuremberg. The +inducement to the marriage seems to have been, on the father's part, the +dowry, and on the son's the beauty of the bride. How unhappy the union +proved, without any fault of Albrecht's, has been the theme of so many +stories, that I am half inclined to think that some of us must be more +familiar with Albrecht Dürer's wedded life than with any other part of +his history. It seems to me, that there is considerable exaggeration in +these stories, for granted that Agnes Dürer was a shrew and a miser, was +Albrecht Dürer the man to be entirely, or greatly, at such a woman's +mercy? Taking matters at their worst, dishonour and disgrace did not +come near the great painter. He was esteemed, as he deserved to be; he +had a true friend in his comrade Pirkheimer; he had his art; he had the +peace of a good conscience; he had the highest of all consolations in +his faith in Heaven. Certainly it is not from Albrecht himself that the +tale of his domestic wretchedness has come. He was as manfully patient +and silent as one might have expected in a man upright, firm, and +self-reliant as he was tender. I do not think it is good for men, and +especially for women, to indulge in egotistical sentimentality, and to +believe that such a woman as Agnes Dürer could utterly thwart and wreck +the life of a man like Albrecht. It is not true to life, in the first +place; and it is dishonouring to the man, in the second; for although, +doubtless, there are men who are driven to destruction or heart-broken +by even the follies of women, these men have not the stout hearts, the +loyal spirits, the manly mould of Albrecht Dürer. + +But making every allowance for the high colours with which a tale that +has grown stale is apt to be daubed, I am forced to admit the inference +that a mean, sordid, contentious woman probably did as much as was in +her power to harass and fret one of the best men in Germany, or in the +world. Luckily for himself, Albrecht was a severe student, had much +engrossing work which carried him abroad, and travelled once at least +far away from the harassing and galling home discipline. For anything +further, I believe that Albrecht loved his greedy, scolding wife, whose +fair face he painted frequently in his pictures, and whom he left at +last well and carefully provided for, as he bore with her to the end. + +In 1506 Albrecht Dürer re-visited Italy alone, making a stay of eight +months in Venice, where he formed his friendship with the old Gian +Bellini, and where Albrecht had the misfortune to show the proofs and +plans of his engravings to the Italian engraver, Raimondi, who engraved +Raphael's paintings, and who proved himself base enough to steal and +make use of Albrecht Dürer's designs to the German's serious loss and +inconvenience. + +A little later Albrecht Dürer, accompanied by his wife, visited the +Netherlands. The Emperor Maximilian treated the painter with great +favour, and a legend survives of their relations:--Dürer was painting so +large a subject that he required steps to reach it. The Emperor, who was +present, required a nobleman of his suite to steady the steps for the +painter, an employment which the nobleman declined as unworthy of his +rank, when the Emperor himself stepped forward and supplied the +necessary aid, remarking, 'Sir, understand that I can make Albrecht a +noble like and above you' (Maximilian had just raised Albrecht Dürer to +the rank of noble of the empire), 'but neither I nor any one else can +make an artist like him.' We may compare this story with a similar and +later story of Holbein and Henry VIII., and with another earlier story, +having a slight variation, of Titian and Charles V. The universality of +the story shakes one's belief in its individual application, but at +least the legend, with different names, remains as an indication of +popular homage to genius. + +While executing a large amount of work for the great towns and sovereign +princes of Germany, some of whom were said to consult the painter on +their military operations, relying on his knowledge of mathematics, and +his being able to apply it to military engineering and fortification, +Albrecht Dürer was constantly improving and advancing in his art, laying +down his prejudices, and acquiring fresh ideas, as well as fresh +information, according to the slow but sure process of the true German +mind, till his last work was incomparably his best. + +Germany was then in the terrible throes of the Reformation, and Albrecht +Dürer, who has left us the portraits of several of the great Reformers, +is believed to have been no uninterested spectator of the struggle, and +to have held, like his fellow-painter, Lucas Cranach--though in Albrecht +Dürer's case the change was never openly professed--the doctrines of the +Reformation. + +There is a portrait of Albrecht Dürer, painted by himself, in his later +years. (By the way, Albrecht was not averse to painting his own portrait +as well as that of his friend Pirkheimer, and of making the fullest +claim to his work by introducing into his religious and historical +pictures his own figure holding a flag or tablet, inscribed with his +name in the quiet self-assertion of a man who was neither ashamed of +himself, nor of anything he did.) In that last portrait, Albrecht is a +thoughtful, care-worn man, with his fair locks shorn. Some will +attribute the change to Agnes Dürer, but I imagine it proceeds simply +from the noble scars of work and time; and that when Albrecht Dürer died +in his fifty-seventh year, if it were in sourness and bitterness of +spirit, as some of his biographers have stated, that sourness and +bitterness were quite as much owing to the grievous troubles of his time +and country, which so large-minded a man was sure to lay to heart, as to +any domestic trouble. Albrecht Dürer was greatly beloved by his own city +of Nuremberg, where his memory continues to be cherished. His quaint +house still stands, and his tomb bears the motto 'Emigravit,' + + 'For the great painter never dies.' + +Albrecht Dürer's name ranks with the names of the first painters of any +time or country, though his work as a painter was, as in the case of +William Hogarth, subservient to his work as an engraver. With the +knowledge of a later generation to that of the earliest Italian and +Flemish painters, Albrecht Dürer had much of their singleness of +purpose, assiduity of application, and profound feeling. He had to +labour against a tendency to uncouthness in stiff lines and angular +figures; to petty elaboration of details; and to that grotesqueness +which, while it suited in some respects his allegorical engravings, +marred his historical paintings, so that he was known to regret the +wasted fantastic crowding and confusion of his earlier work. From the +Italians and Flemings he learnt simplicity, and a more correct sense of +material beauty. The purity, truth, and depth of the man's spirit, from +which ideal beauty proceeds, no man could add to. + +Among Albrecht Dürer's greatest paintings are his 'Adoration of the +Trinity' at Vienna, his 'Adam and Eve' at Florence, and that last +picture of 'The Apostles,' presented by Albrecht Dürer to his native +city, 'in remembrance of his career as an artist, and at the same time +as conveying to his fellow-citizens an earnest and lasting exhortation +suited to that stormy period.' The prominence given to the Bible in the +picture, points to it as the last appeal in the great spiritual +struggle. With regard to this noble masterly picture, Kugler has +written, 'Well might the artist now close his eyes. He had in this +picture attained the summit of art; here he stands side by side with the +greatest masters known in history.' + +But I prefer to say something of Albrecht Dürer's engravings, which are +more characteristic of him and far more widely known than his paintings; +and to speak first of those two wonderful and beautiful allegories, +'Knight, Death, and the Devil,' and 'Melancolia.' In the first, which is +an embodiment of weird German romance as well as of high Christian +faith, the solitary Knight, with his furrowed face and battered armour, +rides steadfastly on through the dark glen, unmoved by his grisly +companions, skeleton Death on the lame horse, and the foul Fiend in +person. Contrast this sketch and its thoughtful touching meaning with +the hollow ghastliness of Holbein's 'Dance of Death.' + +In 'Melancolia' a grand winged woman sits absorbed in sorrowful thought, +while surrounded by all the appliances of philosophy, science, art, +mechanics, all the discoveries made before and in Albrecht Dürer's day, +in the book, the chart, the lever, the crystal, the crucible, the plane, +the hammer. The intention of this picture has been disputed, but the +best explanation of it is that which regards the woman as pondering on +the humanly unsolved and insoluble mystery of the sin and sorrow of +life. + +In three large series of woodcuts, known as the Greater and the Lesser +Passion of the Lord, and the Life of the Virgin, and taken partly from +sacred history and partly from tradition, Albrecht Dürer exceeded +himself in true beauty, simple majesty, and pathos. Photographs have +spread widely these fine woodcuts, and there is, at least, one which I +think my readers may have seen, 'The Bearing of the Cross,' in which the +blessed Saviour sinks under his burden. In the series of the Life of the +Virgin there is a 'Repose in Egypt,' which has a naïve homeliness in its +grace and serenity. The woodcut represents a courtyard with a dwelling +built in the ruins of an ancient palace. The Virgin sits spinning with +a distaff and spindle beside the Holy Child's cradle, by which beautiful +angels worship. Joseph is busy at his carpenter's work, and a number of +little angels, in merry sport, assist him with his labours.[17] + +I shall mention only one more work of Albrecht Dürer's, that which is +known as the Emperor Maximilian's Prayer Book. This is pen-and-ink +sketches for the borders of a book (as the old missals were +illuminated), which are now preserved in the Royal Library, Munich. In +these little drawings the fancy of the great artist held high revel, by +no means confining itself to serious subjects, such as apostles, monks, +or even men in armour, but indulging in the most whimsical vagaries, +with regard to little German old women, imps, piping squirrels, with +cocks and hens hurrying to listen to the melody. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +LATER ITALIAN ART--GIORGIONE, 1477-1511--CORREGGIO. ABOUT +1493-1534--TINTORETTO, 1512-1574--VERONESE, 1530-1588. + + +Giorgio Barbarelli, known as 'Giorgione,--in Italian, 'big,' or, as I +have heard it better translated, 'strapping George'--was born at +Castelfranco, in Treviso, about 1477, the same year in which Titian was +born. Nothing is known of his youth before he came to Venice and studied +in the school of Gian Bellini along with Titian. + +The two men were friends in those days, but soon quarrelled, and +Giorgione's early death completed their separation. Titian was impatient +and arrogant; Giorgione seems to have been one of those proud, shy, +sensitive men--possibly morbidly sensitive, with whom it is always +difficult to deal; but it is recorded of him, as it is not recorded of +his great compeer, that Giorgione was frank and friendly as an artist, +however moody and fitful he might be as a man. + +Giorgione soon became known. According to one account, he painted the +façade of the house which he dwelt in, for an advertisement of his +abilities as a painter, a device which was entirely successful in +procuring him commissions; but unfortunately for posterity, these were +frequently to paint other façades, sometimes in company with Titian; +grand work, which has inevitably perished, if not by fire, by time and +by the sea-damp of Venice, for to Venice Giorgione belonged, and there +is no sign that he ever left it. + +He had no school, and his love of music and society--the last taste +found not seldom, an apparent anomaly, in silent, brooding +natures--might tend to withdraw him from his art. He has left a trace of +his love for music in his pictures of 'Concerts' and of 'Pastorals,' in +which musical performances are made prominent. In Giorgione, with his +romantic, idealizing temperament, genre[18] pictures took this form, +while he is known to have painted from Ovid and from the Italian tales +of his time. He was employed frequently to paint scenes on panels, for +the richly ornamented Venetian furniture. Giorgione was not without a +bent to realism in his very idealism, and is said to have been the first +Italian painter who 'imitated the real texture of stuffs and painted +draperies from the actual material.' + +Giorgione died at the early age of thirty-three years, in 1511. One +account represents him as dying of the plague, others attribute his +death to a sadder cause. He is said to have had a friend and +fellow-painter who betrayed their friendship, and carried off the girl +whom Giorgione loved. Stung to the quick by the double falsehood, the +tradition goes on to state that Giorgione fell into despair with life +and all it held, and so died. + +A portrait of Giorgione is in the Munich Gallery; it is that of a very +handsome beardless lad, 'with a peculiar melancholy in the dark glowing +eyes.' + +Giorgione was, like Titian, grand and free in drawing and composition, +and superb in colour.[19] Mrs Jameson has drawn a nice distinction +between the two painters as colourists. That the colours of Giorgione +'appear as if lighted from within, and those of Titian from without;' +that 'the epithet glowing applies best to Giorgione, that of golden to +Titian.' + +Giorgione's historic pictures are rare, his sacred pictures rarer still; +among the last is a 'Finding of Moses,' now in Milan, thus described by +Mrs Jameson: 'In the centre sits the princess under a tree; she looks +with surprise and tenderness on the child, which is brought to her by +one of her attendants; the squire, or seneschal, of the princess, with +knights and ladies, stand around; on one side two lovers are seated on +the grass; on the other are musicians and singers, pages with dogs. All +the figures are in the Venetian costume; the colouring is splendid, and +the grace and harmony of the whole composition is even the more +enchanting from the naïveté of the conception. This picture, like many +others of the same age and style, reminds us of those poems and tales +of the middle ages, in which David and Jonathan figure as _preux +chevaliers_, and Sir Alexander of Macedon and Sir Paris of Troy fight +tournaments in honour of ladies' eyes and the "blessed Virgin." They +must be tried by their own aim and standard, not by the severity of +antiquarian criticism.' + +In portraits Giorgione has only been exceeded by Titian. In the National +Gallery there is an unimportant 'St Peter the Martyr,' and a finer +'Maestro di Capella giving a music lesson,' which Kugler assigns to +Giorgione, though it has been given elsewhere to Titian. The 'refined +voluptuousness and impassioned sombreness' of Giorgione's painting have +instituted a comparison between him and Lord Byron as a poet. + +Correggio's real name was Antonio Allegri, and he has his popular name +from his birth-place of Correggio, now called Reggio; although at one +time there existed an impression that Correggio meant 'correct,' from +the painter's exceedingly clever feats of fore-shortening. + +His father is believed to have been a well-to-do tradesman, and the lad +is said to have had an uncle a painter, who probably influenced his +nephew. But Correggio had a greater master, though but for a very short +time, in Andrea Mantegna, who died when Correggio was still a young boy. +Mantegna's son kept on his father's school, and from him Correggio might +have received more regular instruction. He early attained excellence, +and in the teeth of the legends which lingered in Parma for a full +century, his genius received prompt notice and patronage. He married +young, and from records which have come to light, he received a +considerable portion with his wife. + +The year after his marriage, when he was no more than six-and-twenty, +Correggio was appointed to paint in fresco the cupola of the church of +San Giovanni at Parma, and chose for his subject the 'Ascension of +Christ;' for this work and that of the 'Coronation of the Virgin,' +painted over the high altar, Correggio got five hundred gold crowns, +equivalent to £1500. He was invited to Mantua, where he painted from the +mythology for the Duke of Mantua. Indeed, so far and wide had the +preference for mythological subjects penetrated, that one of Correggio's +earliest works was 'Diana returning from the Chase;' painted for the +decoration of the parlour of the Abbess of the convent of San Paulo, +Parma. + +Correggio was a second time called upon to paint a great religious work +in Parma--this time in the cathedral, for which he selected 'The +Assumption of the Virgin.' A few of the cartoons for these frescoes were +discovered thirty or forty years ago, rolled up and lying forgotten in a +garret in Parma; they, are now in the British Museum. + +In 1533, Correggio, then residing in his native town, was one of the +witnesses to the marriage of his sovereign, the Lord of Correggio. In +the following year the painter had engaged to paint an altar-piece for +an employer, who paid Correggio in advance twenty-five gold crowns, but +the latter dying very soon afterwards, in the forty-first year of his +age, 1534, his father, who was still alive, was in circumstances to +repay the advance on the picture, which had not been painted. + +Correggio is said to have been modest and retiring in disposition, and +this, together with the fact that, like Giorgione, he did not have a +school, has been suggested as the source of the traditions which +prevailed so long in Italy. These traditions described the painter as a +man born in indigent circumstances, living obscurely in spite of his +genius (there is a picture of Correggio's in England, which was said to +have been given in payment for his entertainment at an inn), and leading +to the end a life of such ill-requited labour, that having been paid for +his last picture in copper money, and being under the necessity of +carrying it home in order to relieve the destitution of his family, he +broke down under the burden, and overcome by heat and weariness, drank a +rash draught of water, which caused fever and death. + +The story, disproven as it is, is often alluded to still, and remains as +a foil to those flattering and courtly anecdotes which I have been +repeating of royal and imperial homage paid to Dürer, Titian, and +Holbein. I fancy the last-mentioned stories may have grown from small +beginnings, and circulated purely in the artist world; but that the +former is an utterance of the engrained persuasion of the great world +without, that art as a means of livelihood is essentially +non-remunerative in the sense of money-getting. + +Modest as Correggio may have been, he was not without pride in his art. +After looking for the first time on the St Cecilia of Raphael, Correggio +is reported to have exclaimed with exultation, 'And I too am a painter.' + +He left behind him on his death a son and a daughter, the former living +to be a painter of no great name. In the picture of Correggio in the +attitude of painting, painted by himself, we see him a handsome spare +man with something of a romantic cavalier air, engaged in his chosen +art. + +Correggio's pictures go to prove that under his seemingly quiet exterior +he was a man of the liveliest sensibilities and the keenest perceptions, +His pictures, unlike Titian's in their repose, are full of motion and +excitement. Correggio is spoken of as a painter who delighted 'in the +buoyance of childish glee, the bliss of earthly, the fervour of heavenly +love,' whose radiant sphere of art sorrow rarely clouded; but when +sorrow did enter, it borrowed from the painter's own quivering heart the +very sharpness of anguish. The same authority tells us of Correggio, +that he has painted 'the very heart-throbs of humanity.' But it seems as +if such a nature, with its self-conscious veil of forced stillness, must +have had a tendency to vehemence and excess; and so we hear that +Correggio's fore-shortening was sometimes violent, and the energy of his +actors spasmodic; thus the cruelly smart contemporary criticism was +pronounced on his frescoes of the 'Assumption of the Virgin,' in which +legs and arms in wild play are chiefly conspicuous from below, that +Correggio had prepared for the Parmese 'a fricassée of frogs.' In +addition, the great modern critic, Mr Ruskin, has boldly accused +Correggio 'both of weakness and meretriciousness,' and there is this to +be said of a nature so highly strung as Correggio's was strung, that it +was not a healthily balanced nature. + +But if the painter were really inferior in his sense of form and +expression to his great predecessors, he was so great in one department, +that in it he was held worthy, not only to found the school of Parma, +but to be classed with the first four painters of Italy. + +That chiarascuro, or treatment of light and shade, in which Lionardo and +Andrea Mantegna were no mean proficients, was brought to such perfection +by Correggio, that, as Mrs Jameson has sought to illustrate technical +expressions, 'you seem to look through. Correggio's shadows, and to see +beyond them the genuine texture of the flesh.' In undulating grace of +motion, in melting softness of outline, fixed on a canvas, he surpassed +all rivals, including Raphael; and this widely attractive quality +('luscious refinement,' Mr Ruskin terms it) in connection with +Correggio's ardent, if undisciplined sensibility, has rendered him one +of the most valued of painters; his best paintings being highly prized +and costly as the easel pictures attributed to Raphael. Sir W. Stirling +Maxwell writes that an old Duke of Modena was suspected of having caused +Correggio's 'Notte' to be stolen from a church at Reggio, and that the +princes of Este were wont to carry 'The Magdalene Reading' with them on +their journeys, while the king of Poland kept it under lock and key in a +frame of jewelled silver. + +Among Correggio's masterpieces, besides his frescoes, there is at Parma +his picture called 'Day,' from the broad flood of daylight in the +picture (and doubtless in contrast to his famous 'Notte' or 'Night,' in +the Dresden Gallery). Here is a Virgin and Child, with St Jerome +presenting to them his translation of the Scriptures, and the Magdalene +bending to kiss in adoration the feet of the infant Saviour. + +In the Dresden Gallery in addition to the 'Notte' are five pictures, one +of the marriage of St Catherine as the Church--the bride, espoused with +a ring to the infant Saviour, a favourite subject of Italian painters, +and a specially favourite subject with Correggio; and another, the +Magdalene reading, half shrouded with her flowing hair, so well known +by engravings. I must say a few more words of the 'Notte,'--it is a +nativity illuminated entirely by the unearthly glory shining from the +Child Christ. Virgin and Child are bathed and half lost in the fair +radiance, which falls softly on a shepherd and maiden, leaving the rest +of the figures, the stalled beasts, and the surroundings of the stable, +in dim shadow. + +In our National Gallery there are fine specimens of Correggio. There is +an 'Ecce Homo': Christ crowned with thorns, holding out his bound hands, +with a Roman soldier softening into pity, Pilate hardening in +indifference, and the Virgin fainting with sorrow. There are also 'the +Virgin with the Basket,' so named from the little basket in front of the +picture; and 'a Holy Family;' and there is a highly-esteemed picture +from a mythological subject, 'Mercury teaching Cupid to read in the +presence of Venus.' + +We must return to the Venice of Titian, and see how his successors, with +much more of the true painter in them than the fast degenerating +scholars of other Italian schools, were mere men, if great men, matched +with Titian. + +Tintoretto is only Tintoretto or Tintoret because his father was a dyer, +and 'Il Tintoretto' is in Italian, 'the little dyer.' Tintoretto's real +name was one more in keeping with his pretensions, Jacopo Robusti. He +was born in Venice, in 1512, and early fore-shadowed his future career +by drawing all kinds of objects on the walls of his father's dye-house, +an exercise which did not offend or dismay the elder Robusti, but, on +the contrary, induced him to put the boy into the school of Titian, +where Tintoretto only remained a short time. Titian did not choose to +impart what could be imparted of his art to his scholars, and, in all +probability, Tintoretto was no deferential and submissive scholar. There +is a tradition that Titian expelled this scholar from his academy, +saying of the dyer's son, that 'he would never be anything but a +dauber.' + +Tintoret was not to be daunted. He lived to be a bold-tempered, dashing +man, and he must have been defiant, even in his boyhood, as he was +swaggering in his youth, when he set up an academy of his own, and +inscribed above the door, 'The drawing of Michael Angelo and the +colouring of Titian.' He had studied and taught himself from casts and +theories since he left the school of Titian, and then, with worldly +wisdom equal to his daring, he commenced his artistic career by +accepting every commission, good or bad, and taking what pay he could +get for his work; but, unfortunately for him and for the world, he +executed his work, as might have been expected, in the same headlong, +indiscriminate spirit, acquiring the name of 'Il Furioso' from the +rapidity and recklessness of his manner of painting. Often he did not +even give himself the trouble of making any sketch or design of his +pictures beforehand, but composed as he painted. + +Self-confident to presumption, he took for his inspirations the merest +impulses, and considerably marred the effect of his unquestionably grand +genius by gross haste and carelessness. He was a successful man in his +day, as so energetic and unscrupulous a man was likely enough to be, and +his fellow-citizens, who saw principally on the surface,[20] were +charmed beyond measure by his tremendous capacity for invention, his +dramatic vigour, his gorgeous, rampant richness and glare; or, by +contrast, his dead dulness of ornament and colouring; and were not too +greatly offended by his occasional untruthfulness in drawing and +colouring, and the inequality of his careless, slovenly, powerful +achievements. Yet even Tintoret's fascinated contemporaries said of him +that he 'used three pencils: one gold, one silver, one lead.' + +Naturally Tintoretto painted an immense number of pictures, to only +three of which, however, he appended his name. These were, 'The +Crucifixion,' and 'The Miracle of the Slave,' two of fifty-seven +pictures which he painted for the school of St Roch alone, in Venice; +the other was the 'Marriage at Cana,' in the church of Santa Maria +della Saluto, Venice. + +There is an authentic story told of Tintoretto in his age, which is in +touching contrast to what is otherwise known of the man. Dominico, who +was a painter, Tintoret had a daughter, Marietta, very dear to him, who +was also a painter--indeed, so gifted a portrait painter, as to have +been repeatedly invited to foreign courts to practise her art, +invitations which she declined, because she would not be parted from her +father. To Tintoret's great grief, this daughter died as she was thirty +years of age, and her father was in his seventy-eighth year. When her +end was unmistakably near, the old man took brush and canvas and +struggled desperately to preserve a last impression of the beloved +child's face, over which death was casting its shadow. + +Tintoretto died four years later, in 1594. His portrait is that of a man +who holds his head high and resolutely; he has, strange to say, a +somewhat commonplace face, with its massive nose, full eye, short curly +beard and hail. The forehead is not very broad, but the head is 'long,' +as Scotch people say, and they count long-headedness not only an +indication of self-esteem, but of practical shrewdness. Tintoret's power +was native, and had received little training; it is a proof of the +strength of that power that he could not quench it. His faults, as a +painter, I have already had to chronicle in the sketch of the man. He +was greatest on large canvases, where his recklessness was lost in his +strength; and in portraits, where his quickness in seizing striking +traits more than equalled that rapidity of conclusion in realizing, and +still more notably in classifying, character, which, to say the least, +is liable to error. + +Even before Tintoretto lived sacred subjects and art had entirely +changed places. In the days of Fra Angelico and the Van Eycks, art was +the means by which painters brought before men sacred subjects, to whose +design painters looked with more or less of conviction and feeling. By +the time that Tintoret painted, sacred subjects were the means by which +painters showed their art; means, the design of which was largely lost +sight of, and which might be freely tortured and twisted, falsified, +well-nigh burlesqued, if, by so doing, painters could better display +their originality, skill, and mastery of technicalities. Sacred subjects +had become more and more human in the lower sense, and less and less +divine. A man who had so little reverence as Tintoret showed for his own +higher self, his fellow-men, and his art, would scarcely seem well +qualified to take up sacred subjects. But criticism is entirely and +hopelessly divided on the question, for while some authorities hold that +he made of the awful scene of the Crucifixion a merely historical and +decidedly theatrical procession, other authorities maintain that he +preserved in that 'great composition' 'repose and dignity, solemnity and +reverence.' + +Here is M. Charles Blanc, the French art critic's opinion of Tintoret's +largest work, seventy-four feet in length and thirty feet in height: The +Glory of Paradise, in the great hall or throne-room of the Doge's +Palace:-- + +'If the shadows had not become so black, such a picture would have had +something of sublimity; but that sky, without transparency, the lights +of which, even, are of a burnt and baked colour, has rather the air of a +lit-up Erebus than of a Paradise. Four hundred figures are in motion in +this vast enclosure, some naked, others draped, but draped uniformly in +a staring red or a hard blue, which form as many spots, in some sort +symmetrical. The manner is quick; a little loose, but confident. The +models are neither taken from nature nor from the ideal, they are drawn +from practice, and are in general only turns of the head, without beauty +and without delicacy. The angels are agitated like demons; and the +whole--coarse enough in execution as in thought, is imposing +nevertheless by mass, movement, and number. It is the striking image of +a multitude in the air, a rout in the heavens, or rather in purgatory.' + +Here, again, is Mr Ruskin's unequalled estimate of Tintoret's works: 'I +should exhaust the patience of the reader if Ion the various stupendous +developments of the imagination of Tintoret in the Scuola di San Rocco +alone. I would fain join awhile in that solemn pause of the journey into +Egypt, where the silver boughs of the shadowy trees lace with their +tremulous lines the alternate folds of fair cloud, flushed by faint +crimson light, and lie across the streams of blue between those rosy +islands like the white wakes of wandering ships; or watch beside the +sleep of the disciples among those mossy leaves that lie so heavily on +the dead of the night beneath the descent of the angel of the agony, and +toss fearfully above the motion of the torches as the troop of the +betrayer emerges out of the hollows of the olives; or wait through the +hour of accusing beside the judgment-seat of Pilate, where all is +unseen, unfelt, except the one figure that stands with its head bowed +down, pale like the pillar of moonlight, half bathed in the glory of the +Godhead, half wrapt in the whiteness of the shroud. Of these and all +other thoughts of indescribable power that are now fading from the walls +of those neglected chambers, I may perhaps endeavour at a future time to +preserve some image and shadow more faithfully than by words; but I +shall at present terminate our series of illustrations by reference to a +work of less touching, but more tremendous appeal; the Last Judgment in +the church of Santa Maria dell' Orto.' + +'By Tintoret only has this unimaginable event been grappled with in its +verity; not typically, nor symbolically, but as they may see it who +shall not sleep, but be changed. Only one traditional circumstance he +has received with Dante and Michael Angelo, the Boat of the Condemned; +but the impetuosity of his mind bursts out even in the adoption of this +image; he has not stopped at the scowling ferryman of the one, nor at +the sweeping blow and demon-dragging of the other; but, seized +Hylas-like by the limbs, and tearing up the earth in his agony, the +victim is dashed into his destruction; nor is it the sluggish Lethe, nor +the fiery lake, that bears the cursed vessel, but the oceans of the +earth and the waters of the firmament gathered into one white, ghastly +cataract; the river of the wrath of God, roaring down into the gulf +where the world has melted with its fervent heat, choked with the ruin +of nations, and the limbs of its corpses tossed out of its whirling like +water-wheels. Bat-like, out of the holes, and caverns, and shadows of +the earth, the bones gather, and the clay-heaps heave, rattling and +adhering into half-kneaded anatomies, that crawl, and startle, and +struggle up among the putrid weeds, with the clay clinging to their +clotted hair, and their heavy eyes sealed by the earth darkness yet, +like his of old who went his way unseeing to the Siloam pool; shaking +off one by one the dreams of the prison-house, hardly hearing the +clangour of the trumpets of the armies of God; blinded yet more, as they +awake, by the white light of the new heaven, until the great vortex of +the four winds bears up their bodies to the judgment-seat; the Firmament +is all full of them, a very dust of human souls, that drifts, and +floats, and falls in the interminable, inevitable light; the bright +clouds are darkened with them as with thick snow; currents of atom life +in the arteries of heaven, now soaring up slowly, and higher and higher +still, till the eye and thought can follow no farther, borne up, +wingless, by their inward faith, and by the angel powers invisible, now +hurled in countless drifts of horror before the breath of their +condemnation.' + +There is only one little work, of small consequence, by Tintoretto in +the National Gallery, but there are nearly a dozen in the Royal +Galleries, as Charles I. was an admirer and buyer of 'Tintorettos.' Two +Tintorettos which belonged to King Charles I, are at Hampton Court; the +one is 'Esther fainting before Ahasuerus,' and the other the 'Nine +Muses.' With another 'Esther' I have been familiar from childhood by an +old engraving. In the congenial to Tintoret, and he has certainly +revelled in the sumptuousness of the mighty Eastern tyrant, in royal +mantle and ermine tippet, seated on his throne, and stretching his +jewelled sceptre to Esther, who is in the rich costume of a Venetian +lady of the period, and sinking into the arms of her watchful maids, +with a fair baby face, and little helpless hands, having dainty frills +round the wrists, which scarcely answer to our notion of the attributes +of the magnanimous, if meek, Jewish heroine. + +Paul Cágliari of Verona is far better known as Paul Veronese. He was +born in Verona in 1530, and was the son of a sculptor. He was taught by +his father to draw and model, but abandoned sculpture for the sister art +of painting, which was more akin to his tastes, and which he followed in +the studio of an uncle who was a fair painter. + +Quitting Verona, Paul Veronese repaired to Venice, studying the works of +Titian and Tintoret, and settling in their city, finding no want of +patronage even in a field so fully appropriated before he came to take +his place there. His first great work was the painting of the church of +St Sebastian, with scenes from the history of Esther. Whether he chose +the subject or whether it was assigned to him, it belonged even more to +him than to Tintoret, for Veronese was the most magnificent of the +magnificent Venetian painters. From that date he was kept in constant +employment by the wealthy and luxurious Venetians. He visited Rome in +the suite of the Venetian ambassador in 1563, when he was in his +thirty-fourth year, and he was invited to Spain to assist in the +decoration of the Escurial by Philip II., but refused the invitation. + +Veronese is said to have been a man of kindly spirit, generous and +devout. In painting for churches and convents, he would consent to +receive the smallest remuneration, sometimes not more than the price of +his colours and canvas. For his fine picture now in the Louvre, the +'Marriage of Cana,' he is believed not to have had more than forty +pounds in our money. He died when he was but fifty-eight years of age, +in 1588. He had married and left sons who were painters, and worked with +their father. He had a brother, Benedotto, who was also a painter, and +who is thought to have painted many of the architectural backgrounds to +Veronese's pictures. + +Veronese's portrait, which he has left us, gives the idea of a more +earnest and impressionable man than Tintoret. A man in middle age, +bald-headed, with a furrowed brow, cheeks a little hollowed, head +slightly thrown back, and a somewhat anxious as well as intent +expression of face; what of the dress is seen, being a plain doublet +with turned-over collar, and a cloak arranged in a fold across the +breast, and hanging over the right shoulder like a shepherd's 'maud' or +plaid. Looking at the engraving, and hearing of Paul Veronese's +amiability and piety, one has little difficulty in thinking of the +magnificent painter, as a single-hearted, simple-minded man, neither +vain nor boastful, nor masterful save by the gift of genius. + +I have called Paul Veronese a magnificent painter, and magnificence is +the great attribute of his style; but before going farther into his +merits and defects, I should like to quote to you a passage from Mr +Ruskin, the most eloquent and dogmatic of art critics, prefacing the +passage with the statement that the true lesson which it teaches is +particularly needful for women, who, if they love art at all, are apt to +regard it chiefly for its sentiment, and to undervalue such proper +painter's work, such breadth and affluence and glory of handling, as are +to be met with on the canvases of painters like Veronese and Rubens. +'But I perceive a tendency among some of the more thoughtful critics of +the day to forget the business of a painter is _to paint_, and so +altogether to despise those men, Veronese and Rubens for instance, who +were painters, _par excellence_, and in whom the expressional qualities +are subordinate. Now it is well, when we have strong moral or poetical +feeling manifested in painting, to mark this as the best part of the +work; but it is not well to consider as a thing of small account the +painter's language in which that feeling is conveyed; for if that +language be not good and lovely, the man may indeed be a just moralist +or a great poet, but he is not a _painter_, and it was wrong of him to +paint.' + +It was said of Paul Veronese, that while he had not 'the brilliance and +depth of Titian' or the 'prodigious facility' of Tintoret, yet, in some +respects, Veronese surpassed both. But he was certainly deficient in a +sense of suitability and probability. He, of all painters, carried to an +outrageous extent the practice, which I have defended in some degree, of +painting sacred and historical subjects as if they had happened in his +own day and city. He violated taste and even reason in painting every +scene, lofty or humble, sacred or profane, alike, with the pomp of +splendour and richness of ornament which were the fashion of the time; +but he had a vivid perception of character, and a certain greatness of +mind which redeemed his plethora of gorgeousness from monotony or +vulgarity. + +Veronese is reported to have been far more correct and careful in +drawing than was Tintoret, while Veronese's prodigality of colour was a +mellowed version of Tintoret's glare or deadness. One of Veronese's best +pictures is the 'Marriage of Cana,' painted originally for the refectory +of the convent of San Giorgio, Venice, and now in the Louvre. 'It is not +less than thirty feet long and twenty feet high, and contains about one +hundred and thirty figures, life size. The Marriage Feast of the +Galilean citizen is represented with a pomp worthy of "Ormuz or of Ind." +A sumptuous hall of the richest architecture; lofty columns, long lines +of marble balustrades rising against the sky; a crowd of guests +splendidly attired, some wearing orders of knighthood, are seated at +tables covered with gorgeous vases of gold and silver, attended by +slaves, jesters, pages, and musicians. In the midst of all this dazzling +pomp, this display of festive enjoyment, these moving figures, these +lavish colours in glowing approximation, we begin after a while to +distinguish the principal personages, our Saviour, the Virgin Mary, the +twelve Apostles, mingled with Venetian senators and ladies, clothed in +the rich costume of the sixteenth century; monks, friars, poets, +artists, all portraits of personages existing in his own time; while in +a group of musicians he has introduced himself and Tintoretto playing +the violoncello, while Titian plays the bass. The bride in this picture +is said to be the portrait of Eleanor of Austria, the sister of Charles +V, and second wife of Francis I.'[21] + +Though Veronese is not greatly esteemed as a portrait painter, it so +happens that the highly-prized picture of his in our National Gallery, +called 'The Family of Darius before Alexander,' is understood to be +family portraits of the Pisani family in the characters of Alexander, +the Persian queen, etc., etc. Another of Veronese's pictures in the +National Gallery is 'The Consecration of St Nicholas, Bishop of Myra.' + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +CARRACCI, 1555-1609--GUIDO RENI, 1575-1642--DOMENICHINO, +1581-1641--SALVATOR ROSA, 1615-1673. + + +In the falling away of the schools of Italy, and especially of the +followers of Michael Angelo and Raphael, into mannerism and +exaggeration, fitly expressed in delineation of heathen gods and +goddesses, there arose a cluster of painters in the North of Italy who +had considerable influence on art. + +The Carracci included a group of painters, the founders of the later +Bolognese School. Lodovico, the elder of the three, was born at Bologna, +1555. He was educated as a painter, and was so slow in his education, +that he received from his fellow-scholars the nickname of 'Il Bue' (the +ox). But his perseverance surmounted every obstacle. He visited the +different Italian towns, and studied the works of art which contained, +arriving at the conclusion that he might acquire and combine the +excellences of each. This combination, which could only be a splendid +patch-work without unity, was the great aim of his life, and was the +origin of the term _eclectic_ applied to his school. Its whole tendency +was to technical excellence, and in this tendency, however it might +achieve its end, painting showed a marked decline. As an example of the +motives and objects supplied by the school, I must borrow some lines +from a sonnet of the period written by Agostino Carracci: + + 'Let him, who a good painter would be, + Acquire the drawing of Rome, + Venetian action, and Venetian shadow, + And the dignified colouring of Lombardy, + The terrible manner of Michael Angelo, + Titian's truth and nature, + The sovereign purity of Correggio's style, + And the true symmetry of Raphael; + + * * * * * + + And a little of Parmegiano'a grace, + But without so much study and toil, + Let him only apply himself to imitate the works + Which our Niccolino has left us here.' + +Lodovico opened a school of painting at Bologna, in which he was for a +time largely assisted by his cousins. He died 1619. + +Agostino Carracci, cousin of Lodovico, was born at Bologna in 1559. His +father was a tailor, and Agostino himself began life as a jeweller. He +became a painter and an engraver in turn, devoting himself chiefly to +engraving. Towards the beginning of the seventeenth century he was with +his more famous brother, Annibale, at Rome, where he assisted in +painting the Farnese Gallery, designing and executing the two frescoes +of Galatea and Aurora with such success, according to his +contemporaries, that it was popularly said that 'the engraver had +surpassed the painter in the Farnese.' Jealousy arose between the +brothers in consequence, and they separated, not before Annibale had +perpetrated upon Agostino a small, but malicious, practical joke, which +has been handed down to us. Agostino was fond of the society of people +of rank, and Annibale, aware of his brother's weakness, took the +opportunity, when Agostino was surrounded by some of his aristocratic +friends, to present him with a caricature of the two brothers' father +and mother, engaged in their tailoring work. + +Agostino died at Parma when he was a little over forty, and was buried +in the cathedral there, in 1602. + +Annibale, Agostino's younger brother, was born in 1560. It was intended +by his parents that he should follow their trade and be a tailor, but he +was persuaded by his cousin Lodovico to become a painter. After visiting +Parma, Venice, and Bologna, he worked with his cousin and teacher for +ten years. Annibale was invited to Rome by the Cardinal Odoardo Farnese, +to decorate the great hall of his palace in the Piazza Farnese, with +scenes from the heathen mythology, for which work he received a monthly +salary of ten scudi, about two guineas, with maintenance for himself and +two servants, and a farther gift of five hundred scudi. It was a +parsimonious payment, and the parsimony is said to have preyed on the +mind and affected the health of Annibale, and a visit to Naples, where +he, in common with not a few artists, suffered from the jealous +persecutions of the Neapolitan painters, completed the breaking up of +his constitution. He painted, with the assistance of Albani, the +frescoes in the chapel of San Diego in San Giacomo degli Spagnole, and +pressed upon his assistant more than half of his pay. Annibale's health +had already given way, and after a long illness he died, when forty-nine +years of age, at Rome, 1609, and was buried near Raphael in the +Pantheon. + +The merit of the Carracci lay in their power of execution, and in a +certain 'bold naturalism, or rather animalism,' which they added to +their able imitations, for their pictures are not so much their own, as +'After Titian,' 'After Correggio,' etc. In this intent regard to style, +and this perfecting of means to an end, thought and in a manner +neglected. Yet to the Carracci, and their school, is owing a certain +studied air of solemnity and sadness in 'Ecce Homos,' and 'Pietás,' +which, in proportion to its art, has a powerful effect on many +beholders, who prefer conventionality to freedom; or rather, who fail to +distinguish conventionality in its traces. Annibale was the most +original while the least learned of the Carracci; yet, even of Annibale, +it could be said that he lacked enthusiasm in his subjects. His best +productions are his mythological subjects in the Farnese Palace. A +celebrated picture of his, that of the 'Three Marys' (a dead Christ, the +Madonna, and the two other Marys), is at Castle Howard, and has been +exhibited at Manchester, and I think also at Leeds. At Manchester it +attracted the greatest attention and admiration. I believe this was not +only because Annibale Carracci in the 'Three Marys' does attain to a +most piteous mournfulness of sentiment, but because such work as that of +the Carracci finds readiest acceptance from a general public, which +delights in striking, superficial effects. The same reason, in +conjunction with the decline of Italian art, may account for the great +number of the Carracci school and followers. + +Annibale Carracci was one of the first who practised landscape painting +and genre pictures, such as 'The Greedy Eater,' as separate branches of +art. Two of Annibale's landscapes are in the National Gallery. + +Guido Reni, commonly called 'Guido,' was born at Bologna, 1575. His +father was a musician, and Guido was intended for the same calling, but +finally became a painter and student in the school of the Carracci. He +followed Annibale Carracci to Rome, and dwelt there for twenty years. He +obtained great repute and favour, but taking offence at some supposed +injustice, he left Rome, and settled at last in Bologna, where he +established a large school. Though he made great sums of money, which +might have enabled him to live in the splendour which he coveted, on +account of his addiction to gambling and his grossly extravagant habits, +he was constantly in debt, and driven to tax his genius to the utmost, +and to sell its fruits for what they would bring, irrespective of what +he owed to himself, his art, and to the giver of all good gifts. He died +at Bologna, and was buried with much pomp in the church of San Dominico, +1642. + +Of Guido we hear that he had three styles: the first, after the vigorous +manner of Michael Angelo; the second, in the prevailing ornamental taste +of the Rome of his day and the Carracci. This is considered Guido's best +style, and is distinguished by its subtle management of light and shade. +His third, which is called his 'silvery style,' from its greys, +degenerated into insipidity, with little wonder, seeing that at this +stage he sold his time at so much per hour to picture-dealers, who stood +over him, watch in hand, to see that he fulfilled his bargain, and +carried away the saints he manufactured wet from the easel. Such +manufactory took him only three hours, sometimes less. His charges had +risen from five guineas for a head, and twenty guineas for a whole +figure, to twenty times that amount. He painted few portraits, but many +'fancy' heads of saints. Nearly three hundred pictures by Guido are +believed to be in existence. Guido's individual distinction was his +refined sense of beauty, but it was over-ruled by 'cold calculation,' +and developed into a mere abstract conception of 'empty grace' without +heart or soul. + +His finest work is the large painting of 'Phoebus and Aurora' in a +pavilion of the Rospigliosi Palace at Rome. In our National Gallery +there are nine specimens of Guido's works, including one of his best +'Ecce Homos,' which belonged to the collection of Samuel Rogers. + +Domenico Zampieri, commonly called Domenichino, was another Bolognese +painter, and another eminent scholar of the Carracci. He was born in +1581, and, after studying under a Flemish painter, passed into the +school of the Carracci. While yet a very young man, Domenichino was +invited to Rome, where he soon earned a high reputation, competing +successfully with his former fellow-scholar, Guido. Domenichino's +'Flagellation of St Andrew,' and 'Communion of St Jerome,' in payment of +which he only received about five guineas; his 'Martyrdom of St +Sebastian,' and his 'Four Evangelists,' which are among his +masterpieces, were all painted in Rome, and remain in Rome. + +Domenichino is said to have excited the extreme hostility of rival +painters, and to have suffered especially from the malice of the +Neapolitans, when he was invited to work among them. After a cruel +struggle Domenichino died in Naples, not without a horrible suspicion of +having being poisoned, at the age of sixty, in 1641. One of his +enemies--a Roman on this occasion--destroyed what was left of +Domenichino's work in Naples. + +The painter's fate was a miserable one, and by a coincidence between his +fortune and his taste in subjects, he has identified his name with +terrible representations of martyrdoms. Kugler writes that martyrdom as +a subject for painting, which had been sparingly used by Raphael and his +scholars, had come into fashion in Domenichino's time, for 'painters and +poets sought for passionate emotion, and these subjects (martyrdoms) +supplied them with plentiful food.' Sensationalism is the florid hectic +of art's decay, whether in painting or in literature. + +Domenichino is accredited with more taste than fancy. He made free use +of the compositions of even contemporary artists, while he +individualized these compositions. His good and bad qualities are those +of his school, already quoted, and perhaps it is in keeping with these +qualities that the excellence of Domenichino's works lies in subordinate +parts and subordinate characters. There are examples of Domenichino in +the National Gallery. + +I shall close my long list of the great Italian painters of the past +with one who was quite apart from and opposed to the Carracci school, +and whose triumphs and failures were essentially his own. Salvator Rosa, +born in 1615 near Naples, was the son of an architect. In opposition to +his father Salvator Rosa became a painter. Having succeeded in selling +his sketches to a celebrated buyer, the bold young Neapolitan started +for Rome at the age of twenty years; and Rome, 'the Jerusalem of +Painters,' became thenceforth Salvator Rosa's head-quarters, though the +character of the man was such as to force him to change his quarters not +once or twice only in his life, and thus he stayed some time, in turn, +at Naples, Viterbo, Volterra, and Florence. At Volterra the aggressive +nature of the painter broke forth in a series of written satires on a +medley of subjects--music, poetry (both of which Salvator himself +cultivated), painting, war, Babylon, and envy. These incongruous satires +excited the violent indignation of the individuals against whom +Salvator's wit was aimed, and their efforts at revenge, together with +his own turbulent spirit, drove him from place to place. + +Salvator Rosa was at Naples 1647, and took part in the riots, so famous +in song and story, which made Masaniello, the young fisherman, for a +time Captain-General and Master of Naples, when it was, according to +law, a Spanish dependency governed by a viceroy. Salvator was in the +Compagnia della Morte commanded by Falcone, a battle painter, during the +troubles, a wild enough post to please the wild painter, even had he not +been in addition a personal adherent of the ruling spirit Masaniello, +whom Salvator Rosa painted more than once. After so eventful a life, +the painter died peaceably enough in his fifty-ninth year, of dropsy, at +Rome, and left a considerable fortune to his only son. + +Salvator Rosa was the incarnation of the arrogant, fickle, fierce +Neapolitan spirit, and he carried it out sufficiently in an +undisciplined, stormy life, without the addition of the popular legend +that he had at one time joined a troop of banditti, and indulged in +their excesses. The legend seems to have a familiarity with mountain +passes, and his love of peopling them appropriately with banditti in +action. Salvator Rosa was a dashing battle painter, a mediocre +historical painter, and an excellent portrait painter as well as +landscape painter. But it is chiefly by the savage grandeur of his +mountain or forest landscapes, with their fitting _dramatis personæ_, +that he has won his renown. Mr Ruskin, while he allows Salvator's gift +of imagination, denounces him for the reckless carelessness and +untruthfulness to nature of his painting. Many of Salvator Rosa's +pictures are in the Pitti Palace in Florence, and many are in England. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +RUBENS, 1577-1640--REMBRANDT, 1606 OR 1608-1669--TENIERS, FATHER AND +SON, 1582-1694--WOUVERMAN, 1620-1668--CUYP, 1605; STILL LIVING, +1638--PAUL POTTER, 1625-1654--CORNELIUS DE HEEM, 1630. + + +A long interval elapsed between the Van Eycks and Quintin Matsys, and +Rubens; but if Flemish art was slow of growth and was only developed +after long pauses, it made up for its slowness and delays by the burst +of triumph into which Flemish and Dutch art broke forth in Rubens and +his school, in Rembrandt and Cuyp and Ruysdael. + +Peter Paul Rubens was born at Siegen in Westphalia, on the day of St +Peter and St Paul, 1577. But though Rubens was born out of Antwerp, he +was a citizen of Antwerp by descent as well as by so many later +associations. His father, John Rubens, a lawyer, an imprudent, +thriftless man in character and habits, had been compelled to leave +Antwerp in consequence of religious disturbances which broke out there +about the time that the northern provinces, more at one and more decided +in their union than the southern provinces, established their +independence. Rubens spent his early boyhood at Cologne, but on the +death of his father when he was ten years of age, his mother, a good and +'discreet' woman, to whom the painter owed much, and confessed his debt, +returned with her family to Antwerp. His mother had destined him for his +father's profession, but did not oppose her son's preference for art. + +After studying under two different artists, and becoming a master in the +guild of St Luke, Rubens went to Italy in 1600, when he was a young man +of three-and-twenty years of age. He was eight years absent, entering +the service of the ducal sovereign of Mantua, being sent by him on a +diplomatic mission to Madrid to Philip III, of Spain, visiting on his +own account Rome, where he found the Carracci and Guido[22] at the +height of their fame, Venice and Genoa, 'leaving portraits where he +went.' + +With Genoa, its architecture, and its situation, Rubens was specially +charmed, but he quitted it in haste, being summoned home to attend the +death-bed of his mother, from whom he had parted eight years before; and +arriving too late to see her in life. A man of strong feelings in sorrow +as in joy, he withdrew into retirement, and resided for his season of +mourning in a religious house. + +Loving Italy with a painter's enthusiasm, so that to the latest day of +his life he generally wrote in Italian, and loved to sign his name +'Pietro Paolo Rubens,' he had intended to return and settle in Mantua, +but having been named court painter to the Governess of the Netherlands, +Clara Eugenia, and her husband Albert, Rubens had sufficient patriotism +and sufficient worldly foresight to induce him to relinquish his idea, +and establish himself in his native Antwerp. He was already a man of +eminence in his profession, and a man of mark out of it. Go where he +would he made friends, and he so recommended himself to his royal +patrons by his natural suavity, tact, and sagacity, that he was not only +in the utmost favour with them as a right courtly painter, but was +employed by them, once and again, on delicate, difficult, private +embassies. But it was not only to his patrons that Rubens was endeared, +he was emphatically what men call 'a good fellow,' alike to superiors, +equals, and inferiors; a frank, honest, bountiful, and generous man. His +love of courts and their splendour was the chivalrous homage which a man +of his cast of mind paid to the dignity and picturesqueness of high +estate. + +He married a year after his mother's death, when he was in his +thirty-third year. His first wife, Isabella Brant, was a connection of +his own (and so was his second wife). He built and painted, in fresco, a +fine house in Antwerp, and laid out a pleasant garden, which contained a +rotunda, filled with his collection of pictures by the Italian masters, +antique gems, etc. etc., already gathered abroad. He set himself to keep +house in a liberal fashion, to dispense benefits, and to entertain +friends--above all, to paint with might and main in company with his +great school, the members of which, like those of Raphael's school where +Raphael was concerned, were, for the most part, Rubens' devoted +comrades. Counting his work not only as the great object, but the great +zest of his life, never did painter receive such sweeping and +accumulating commissions, and never, even by Tintoret, were commissions +executed with such undaunted, unhesitating expedition. + +Withal Rubens frequently left his studio and went abroad, either to act +as an unofficial ambassador, or to paint at the special request of some +foreign sovereign. Thus he was residing in Paris in 1620, planning for +Marie de Medici the series of remarkable pictures which commemorated her +marriage with Henry IV. (When I was a little girl, I went occasionally +to a country house, the show place of the neighbourhood, where there +were copies of this series of Rubens' pictures. I can remember yet +looking at them with utter bewilderment, caused by the dubious taste +that impelled Rubens to indulge in the oddest mixture of royal +personages, high church dignitaries, patron saints, and gods and +goddesses.) In 1628 Rubens was in Spain on a mission from his sovereign +to her kinsman, Philip IV.; in the following year he was in England, on +a service of a similar description to Charles I., from whom, even as +Rubens had already received it from King Philip, the painter had the +honour of knighthood. + +In the mean time Rubens' first wife died, after a union of seventeen +years, in 1626; and four years later, in 1630, the painter, when he was +a man of fifty years, re-married another connection of his own, Helena +Fourment, a girl only in her sixteenth year. Both of his wives were +handsome, fair, full-formed Flemish beauties. Elizabeth (in Spanish, +Isabella) Brant's beauty was of a finer order than that of her +successor, expressing larger capacity of affection and intellect. But on +Helena Fourment Rubens doted, while to both women he seems to have been +affectionately attached. He has painted them so often, that the face of +no painter's wife is so familiar to the art world, and even to the +greater world without, as are the faces of these two women, and above +all, that of Helena Fourment. He had seven children, who frequently +figure in their mothers' portraits. He has left notable portraits of his +two sons by his first wife, of his eldest daughter, Clara Eugenia, when +eight years of age, and of his daughter Elizabeth, a buxom baby, dressed +in velvet and point lace, playing with toys. + +After a life of unbroken success and the highest honours, the last +distinction conferred on Rubens was, that he was chosen to arrange the +gala, and to be the right-hand man who should conduct the Cardinal +Infant, the successor of Clara Eugenia, on his first entrance into +Antwerp. But the hand of premature disease and death, which not even he +could resist, was already on the great painter; his constitution had +been undermined by repeated attacks of gout, and he died at the age of +sixty years, in 1640. He was the possessor of great wealth at the time +of his death, and only a part of his collection, which was then sold, +brought so large a sum in those days, as twenty thousand pounds. Rubens' +second wife, Helena Fourment, to whom he had been married ten years, +survived him, a widow at twenty-six years of age Rubens' portrait is +even better known than those of his wives, for, as I have said of +Raphael in his popularity, Rubens in his life is the beau-ideal of a +painter to the many. The portrait is worthy of the man, with something +gallant in the manliness, and with thought tempering what might have +been too much of bravado and too much of débonnaireté in the traits. His +features are handsome in their Flemish fulness, and match well with +hazel eyes, chestnut hair, and a ruddy complexion; his long moustache is +turned up, and he wears the pointed beard which we see so often in the +portraits by Rubens' scholar, Van Dyck. The great flapping hat, worn +alike by men and women, slightly cocked to one side, is the perfection +of picturesque head gear. Equally picturesque, and not in the slightest +degree effeminate on a man like Rubens, is the falling collar of pointed +mechlin, just seen above the cloak draped in large folds. + +In his own day Rubens was without a rival as a painter. In a much later +day Sir Joshua Reynolds pronounced Rubens 'perhaps the greatest master +in the mechanical part of the art, _the best workman with his tools_ +that ever exercised a pencil.' His consummate excellence lay in his +execution and colouring. It is brought as a reproach against his +painting, that his noblest characters, even his sacred characters, were +but big, brawny, red and white Flemings. His imagination only reached a +certain height, and yet, if it were a very earthly Flemish imagination, +it could be grandly, as it was always vigorously, earthly and Flemish. +At the same time he could be deficient where proportion, and even where +all the laws of art, are concerned. + +It is right that I should, with regret and shame, say this of Rubens, +whose geniality bordered on joviality, and whose age was a grosser age +than our own, that he debased his genius by some foul and revolting +pictures. + +Of the general distinction between Rubens and some of his predecessors I +should like to quote Mr Ruskin's passage in his defence: + + 'A man long trained to love the monk's vision of Fra Angelico, + turns in proud and ineffable disgust from the first work of + Rubens, which he encounters on his return across the Alps. But + is he right in his indignation? He has forgotten that, while + Angelico prayed and wept in his _olive shade_, there was + different work doing in the dank fields of Flanders:--wild seas + to be banked out; endless canals to be dug, and boundless + marshes to be drained; hard ploughing and harrowing of the + frosty clay; careful breeding of the stout horses and cattle; + close setting of brick-walls against cold winds and snow; much + hardening of hands, and gross stoutening of bodies in all this; + gross jovialities of harvest homes, and Christmas feasts, which + were to be the reward of it; rough affections, and sluggish + imaginations; fleshy, substantial, iron-shod humanities, but + humanities still,--humanities which God had his eye upon, and + which won perhaps, here and there, as much favour in His sight + as the wasted aspects of the whispering monks of Florence + (Heaven forbid that it should not be so, since the most of us + cannot be monks, but must be ploughmen and reapers still). And + are we to suppose there is no nobility in Rubens' masculine and + universal sympathy with all this, and with his large human + rendering of it, gentleman though he was by birth, and feeling, + and education, and place, and, when he chose, lordly in + conception also? He had his faults--perhaps great and lamentable + faults,--though more those of his time and his country than his + own; he has neither cloister-breeding nor boudoir-breeding, and + is very unfit to paint either in missals or annuals; but he has + an open sky and wide-world breeding in him that we may not be + offended with, fit alike for king's court, knight's camp, or + peasants cottage.' + +Rubens' works are very many, nearly four thousand pictures and sketches +being attributed to him and his scholars. Many are still at Antwerp, +many at Madrid, but most are at Munich, where, in one great saloon and +cabinet, there are ninety-five pictures by Rubens. In England, at +Blenheim, there are fifteen pictures by Rubens, as the great Duchess of +Marlborough would give any price for his works. I can only indicate a +very few examples in the different branches of art which he made his +own. + +First, of his 'Descent from the Cross:' it is a single large group, +distinguished by luminous colouring and correct drawing, and with regard +to which the mass of white sheet against which the body of Christ is in +relief in the picture, has been regarded as a bold artistic venture. An +enthusiastic admirer has called it 'a most wonderful monument of the +daring genius of the painter. The grandest picture in the world for +composition, drawing, and colouring.' Its defects are held to be 'the +bustle of the incidents and the dreadfully true delineation of merely +physical agony--too terrible, real, picturesque, but not sublime--- an +earthly tragedy, not a divine mystery.' + + 'Remit the anguish of that lighted stare; + Close those wan lips! let that thorn-wounded brow + Stream not with blood.' + +There is a tradition that an accident happened to the picture while +Rubens was painting it, and that Van Dyck remedied the accident by +re-painting the cheek and chin of the Virgin and the arm of the +Magdalene. + +With regard to another picture of Rubens at Antwerp, 'The Assumption of +the Virgin,' it is said that he painted it in sixteen days, for sixteen +hundred florins, his usual terms being a hundred florins a-day. + +'The Virgin and Serpent' (from the 12th chapter of Revelation) in the +Munich gallery is very splendid. The Virgin with the new-born Saviour in +her arms is mounting on the wings of an eagle, surrounded by a flood of +light. The serpent, encircling the moon on which she stands, is writhing +beneath her feet. God the Father is extending his protecting sceptre +over her from above. The archangel, clothed in armour, is in fearful +combat with the seven-headed dragon, which is endeavouring to devour the +child. Although struck by lightning, the dragon is striving to twist his +tail round the legs of the angel, and seizes the cloak of the Virgin +with one of his hands. Other infernal monsters are writhing with +impotent rage, and falling with the dragon into the abyss.' + +'Nothing was more characteristic of Rubens than his choice of subjects +from the mythology of the Greeks and the works of the ancient poets; and +in nothing did he display more freedom, originality, and poetry.' Among +his most famous mythological pictures is the 'Battle of the Amazons,' +now at Munich. 'The women are driven back by the Greeks over the river +Thermodon; two horses are in savage combat on the bridge; one Amazon is +torn from her horse; a second is dragged along by a sable steed, and +falling headlong into the river, where others are swimming and +struggling. No other battle-piece, save that of the Amazons, can compare +with Raphael's "Battle of Constantine."' + +Another great picture is The 'Carrying off of Proserpine.' 'Pluto in his +car is driven by fiery brown steeds, and is bearing away the goddess, +resisting and struggling. The picture absolutely glows with genial fire. +The forms in it are more slender than is general with Rubens. Among the +companions of Proserpine the figure of Diana is conspicuous for grace +and beauty. The victorious god of love hovers before the chariot, and +the blue ocean, warmly tinted with the sunbeams, forms a splendid +back-ground.'[23] + +Rubens was famous for the loveliness and grace of his paintings of +children. Perhaps the most beautiful is that of 'The Infant Jesus and +John playing with a Lamb.' + +Rubens was a great animal painter. One of his celebrated animal pictures +is 'Daniel in the Lions' Den,' now at Hamilton Palace, in which each +lion is a king of beasts checked in his fiercest have been painted by +Rubens in a fit of pique at a false report which had been circulated +that he could not paint animals, and that those in his pictures were +supplied by the animal-painter, his friend and scholar, Schneyders. + +Rubens' landscapes are not the least renowned of his pictures. He gave +to his own rich but prosaic Flanders, all the breadth and breeziness and +matchless aerial effects of a master of painting, and a true lover of +nature under every aspect, who can indeed distinguish, under the most +ordinary aspect, those hidden treasures which all but a lover and a man +of genius would pass by. His 'Prairie of Laacken,' 'with the sun of +Flanders piercing the dense yellow clouds with the force of fire,' is of +great repute. + +Among his famous portraits I shall mention that called 'The Four +Philosophers' (Justus Lepsius, Hugo Grotius, Rubens, and his brother), +with peaked beards and moustaches, in turned-over collars, ruffs and +fur-trimmed robes, having books and pens, a dog, and a classic bust as +accessories. The open pillared door is wreathed with a spray from +without, and there is a landscape in the background. This portrait is +full of power, freedom, and splendid painting. + +Another portrait contains that sweetest of Rubens' not often sweet +faces, called 'the Lady in the Straw Hat.' Rubens himself did not name +the picture otherwise in his catalogue. Tradition says the original was +Mdlle Lundens, the beauty of the seventeen provinces, and that she died +young and unmarried. Connoisseurs value the picture because of the +triumph of skill by which Rubens has painted brilliantly a face so much +in the shade; to those who are not connoisseurs I imagine the picture +must speak for itself, in its graceful, tender beauty. Forming part of +the collection of the late Sir Robert Peel (I think he gave three +thousand pounds for 'the Lady in the Straw Hat'), which has been bought +for the country, this beautiful portrait is now in the National Gallery. + +And now I must speak of the picture of the Arundel Family. But first, a +word about Thomas, Earl of Arundel. It is impossible to write an English +work on art and omit a brief account of one of England's greatest art +benefactors. Thomas, Earl of Arundel, representing in his day the great +house of Howard, had a love of art which approached to a mania; and +without being so outrageously vain as Sir Kenelm Digby, there is no +doubt that the Earl counted on his art collection as a source of +personal distinction. James I., himself an art collector, so far +humoured the Earl in his taste as to present him with Lord Somerset's +forfeited collection, valued at a thousand pounds. But Charles I, and +the Earl became rival collectors, and little love was lost between them. +The Earl of Arundel impairing even his great revenues in the pursuit, +employed agents and ambassadors--notably Petty and Evelyn--all over +Europe, to obtain for him drawings, pictures, ancient marbles, gems, +etc., etc. When the civil wars broke out, Lord Arundel conveyed his +priceless collection for safety to Antwerp and Padua. Eventually it was +divided among his sons and scattered far and wide. The only portion of +it which fell to the nation, in the course of another generation, was +the Greek Marbles, known as the Arundel Marbles, which were finally +presented to the University of Oxford. But in Rubens' day all this grand +collection was intact, and displayed in galleries at Arundel House, +which the mob thought fit to nickname 'Tart Hall;' and through these +galleries Rubens was conducted by the Earl. + +Lord Arundel desired to have an Arundel family portrait painted for him +by Rubens. The Earl was rather given to having Arundel family portraits, +for there are no less than three in which he figures. One by Van Somer, +in which the hero is pointing somewhat comically with his truncheon to +the statues of his collection in the background, and the last one +projected by Van Dyck, but executed by an inferior artist, in which +various family pieces of armour, swords, and shields, worn at Flodden, +or belonging to the poet Earl of Surrey, are introduced in the hands of +the sons of the family. + +But it is with Rubens' 'Arundel Family,' which, we must remember, ranks +second in English family pictures, that we have to do. Thomas, Earl of +Arundel, and the Lady Alathea,[24] are under a portico with twisted +columns, like those in Raphael's cartoons; a rich curtain, and a +landscape with a large mansion are seen beyond. The Countess is seated +in a chair of state, with one hand on the head of a white greyhound; she +wears a black satin gown, laced ruff, gold bracelets, and pearl +necklace. Her hair is light, and decked with pearls and plumes. The Earl +stands behind with a hand on her chair. His head is uncovered, the short +hair inclining to grey; the whiskers and beard pointed. His vest is +olive-coloured, and he has a brown mantle lined with crimson over the +shoulders beneath his ruff. There is a little boy--Earl Thomas's +grandson, Philip Howard, afterwards Cardinal Howard, in crimson velvet, +trimmed with gold lace, and a dwarf on the other side of the dog, with +one hand on its back. + +Among other masterpieces of Rubens, including the 'Straw Hat,' which +are in the National Gallery, there are the 'Rape of the Sabines,' and +the landscape 'Autumn,' which has a view of his country château, de +Stein, near Mechlin. In Dulwich Gallery there is an interesting portrait +by Rubens of an elderly lady in a great Spanish ruff, which is believed +to be the portrait of his mother. + +Rembrandt Van Rhyn is said to have been born near Leyden about 1606 or +1608, for there is a doubt as to the exact date. His father was a miller +or maltster, and there is a theory that Rembrandt acquired some of his +effects of light and shade from the impressions made upon him during his +life in the mill. He was a pupil at the Latin school of Leyden, and a +scholar in studios both at Leyden and Amsterdam. + +In 1630, when Rembrandt was a mere lad, he seems to have settled in +Amsterdam, and married there in 1634, when he was six or eight and +twenty years of age, a young Dutchwoman possessed of a considerable +fortune, which, in case of her death and of Rembrandt's re-marriage, was +to pass to her children, a provision that in the end wrought Rembrandt's +ruin. The troubles of his country in the painter's time rendered his +prices comparatively small and precarious, and Rembrandt, like Rubens, +without Rubens' wealth, was eager in making an art collection and +surrounding himself with those very forms of beauty in the great Italian +masters' works, in the appreciation of which the Dutch master--judged by +his own works--might have been reckoned deficient. + +Rembrandt's wife died after eight years of marriage, and left him with +one surviving son, Titus, and Rembrandt, having re-married, was called +upon to give up the lad's inheritance. This call, together with the +expenditure of the sums which Rembrandt had lavished on his collection, +was too heavy upon funds never very ample, and the painter, after +struggling with his difficulties, became a bankrupt in 1656. His son +took possession of Rembrandt's house, and from the sale of the +painter's art collection and other resources eventually recovered his +mother's fortune, but Rembrandt himself never rose above the misery, +degradation, and poverty of this period. He lived thirteen years longer, +but it was in obscurity--out of which the only records which reach us, +are stories of miserly habits acquired too late to serve their purpose, +a desperate resort to low company dating from his first wife's death, +and his gradual downfall. + +Rubens and Rembrandt have been sometimes contrasted as the painters of +light and of darkness; the contrast extended to their lives. + +It will read like a humorous anti-climax after so sad a history, when I +add that no other painter painted his own likeness so often as Rembrandt +painted his. In the engraving before me the face is heavy and +stolid-seeming enough to be that of a typical Dutchman. The eye-brows +are slightly knit over the broad nose; the full lips are scantily shaded +by a moustache; there is no hair on the well-fleshed cheeks and double +chin. Rembrandt wears a flat cap and ear-rings. He has two rows of a +chain across his doublet, and one hand thrust beneath the cloak hanging +across his breast. + +Rembrandt's great merits were his strong truthfulness, and his almost +equally powerful sense of a peculiar kind of picturesqueness. It seems +as if the German weirdness perceptible in Albrecht Dürer had in +Rembrandt taken a homelier, but a more comprehensible and effective +Dutch form. Kugler argues, that the long winter, with its short dark +days, of Northern Europe produces in its inhabitants instinctive delight +in hearth-warmth and light, and that the pleasure in looking at +Rembrandt's pictures is traceable to this influence. It is in scenes by +fire-light, camp-light, torch-light, that he triumphs, and his somewhat +grim but very real romance owes its origin to the endless suggestions of +the deep black shadows which belong to these artificial lights. There is +this objection to be urged to the theory, that Rembrandt was also a good +painter of his own flat Dutch landscape, painting it, however, rather +under the sombre dimness of clouds and tempests than in the brightness +of sunshine. But whatever its source, there is a charm so widely felt in +that wonderfully perfect surrounding of uncertainty, suspicion, and +alarm, with which Rembrandt has encompassed so many of his otherwise +prosaic, coarse, and sometimes vulgar Dutch men and women, that we have +coined a new word to express the charm, and speak of groups and +incidents being _Rembrandtesque_, as we speak of their being +picturesque. + +Rembrandt did not always leave the vague thrill of doubt, terror, or +even horror, which he sought to produce, to imagination working in the +mysterious depths of his shadows. A very famous picture of his is 'Dr +Deeman (an anatomist) demonstrating from a dead subject.' In another +picture a man stealing from the gloom is in the act of stabbing in the +back the unconscious man in the foreground.[25] Rembrandt's originality +is as undoubted as his ability, and he was as great in etching as in +painting. His defect as a painter was the frequent absence of any +evidence in his work of a sense of refinement, grace, or even beauty; +this can be said of him who spent means not his own on gathering +together images of beauty and grace produced by the pencils and brushes +of others. Many of Rembrandt's pictures are in the galleries of +Amsterdam and the Hague, and we have many in London. The National +Gallery has several examples, including two of Rembrandt's portraits. + +Passing over Van Dyck, whom I reserve, as I have reserved Holbein, to +class among the foreign painters resident in or closely connected with +England, I come to the Teniers--father and son. David the elder was born +at Antwerp in 1582, and David the younger also at Antwerp, in 1610. +David the younger is decidedly the more eminent painter, though the +works of the father are often mistaken for those of the son. The two +Teniers' class of subjects was the same, being ordinarily 'fairs, +markets, peasants' merry-makings, beer-houses, guard rooms.' + +David the younger had great popularity, was court painter to the +Archduke of Austria, and earned such an independence, that he bought for +himself a château at the village of Perck, not very far from the Château +de Stein of Rubens, with whom David Teniers was on terms of friendly +intimacy. There Teniers, like his great associate, lived in the utmost +state and bounty, entertaining the noblest of the land. David Teniers +married twice, his first wife being the daughter of one of a family of +Flemish painters, who were known, according to their respective +proclivities in art, by the names of Peasant Breughel, Velvet Breughel, +and Hell Breughel. Teniers had many children. + +The elder Teniers died at Antwerp in 1649; the younger died at Brussels, +and was buried at Perck, in 1694. + +The distinction of the Teniers was the extreme fidelity and cleverness +with which they copied (but did not explain) the life they knew--the +homeliest, humblest aspect of life. They brought out with marvellous +accuracy all its traits, except, indeed, the underlying strain of +poetry, which, while it redeems plainness, sordidness, and even +coarseness, is as true to life as is its veriest prose. With those who +ask a literal copy of life, whether high or low, and ask no more, the +Teniers and their school must always be in the highest favour; and to +those who are wearied and sceptical of blunders and failures in seeking +that underlying strain of life, the mere rugged genuineness of the +Teniers' work recommends itself, and is not without its own pathos; +while to very many superficial observers the simple homeliness of the +life which the Teniers chose to represent, prevents the observers from +missing what should be present in every life. Men and women are only +conscious of the defect when the painters wander, now and then, into +higher spheres and into sacred subjects, and there is the unavoidable +recoil from gross blindness. I have taken the Teniers as the +representatives of a numerous school of Flemish and Dutch artists, whose +works abound in this country. David Teniers the younger appears at his +best, several times, in Dulwich Gallery and the National Gallery. + +Philip Wouverman was born at Haarlem in 1620. He was the son of a +painter, able, but unrecognized in his own day. Philip Wouverman found +few patrons, disposed of his pictures by hard bargains to dealers, was +tempted by his want of success to abjure his art, and even went so far, +according to tradition, as to burn his studies and sketches, in order to +prevent his son pursuing the career which had been to him a career of +bitter disappointment. He died at Haarlem, 1668, when he was no more +than forty-eight years of age. Yet some nine hundred paintings bear +(many of them falsely) Wouverman's name. + +With all the truth and excellent execution of his contemporaries and +countrymen', Philip Wouverman, who had, as he thought, missed his mark, +had something which those successful men lacked--he had not only a +feeling for grace, but a touch of sentiment. His scenes are commonly +'road-side inns, hunts, fights;' but along with an inclination to adopt +a higher class of actors--knights and ladies, instead of peasants--there +is a more refined treatment and a dash of tenderness and melancholy--the +last possibly born of his own disastrous fortunes. In his love of horses +and dogs, as adjuncts to his groups, he had as great a fondness for a +special white horse, as Paul Potter had for black and white cattle. + +Albert Cuyp was born at Dort in 1605. He was a brewer by trade, and only +painted as an amateur. In spite of this, he was a great landscape +painter, and has given delight to thousands by his power of expressing +his own love of nature. Little is known of Cuyp's life, and the date of +his death is uncertain, farther than it was later than 1638. + +In affected enthusiasm, Cuyp has been called the Dutch Claude, but in +reality, Cuyp surpassed, Claude in some respects. The distinction, which +Mr Ruskin draws between them, is that, while Claude, in the sense of +beauty, is the superior to Cuyp, in the sense of truth Claude is the +inferior. Besides Cuyp's landscapes, he painted portraits, and what is +called 'still life' (dead game, fruit or flower pieces, etc.), but Cuyp's +triumph was found in his skies, with their 'clearness and coolness,' and +in 'expressions of yellow sunlight.' Mr Ruskin admits, while he is +proceeding to censure Cuyp, parts might be chosen out of the good +pictures of Cuyp which have never been equalled in art.' On another +occasion, Mr Ruskin has this passage full of dry humour in reference to +Cuyp: + +'Again, look at the large Cuyp in Dulwich Gallery, which Mr Hazlitt +considers "finest in the world," and of which he very complimentarily +says, "the tender green of the valleys, the gleaming lake, the purple +light of the hills" have an effect ought to have apologized before now +for not having studied sufficiently in Covent Garden to be provided with +terms of correct and classical criticism. One of my friends begged me to +observe, the other day, that Claude was "pulpy;" another added the yet +more gratifying information that he was "juicy;" and it is now happily +discovered that Cuyp is "downy." Now I dare say that the sky of this +first-rate Cuyp is very like an unripe nectarine: all that I have to say +about it is, that it is exceedingly unlike a sky. We may see for +ourselves Cuyp's lovely landscapes both in the National Gallery and at +Dulwich. + +Paul Potter was born at Enkhuysen, in North Holland, in 1625, and was +the son of a painter. Paul Potter settled, while still very young, at +the Hague as an animal painter, and died in his thirtieth year, in 1654. +His career, which was thus brief, had promised to be very successful, +and he had established his fame, while no more than twenty-two years of +age, by painting for Prince Maurice of Nassau that which continues his +most renowned, though probably not his best picture, his 'Young Bull,' +for some time in the Louvre, now restored to the painter's native +country, and placed in the Museum at the Hague. This picture is +considered nearly faultless as a vigorous, if somewhat coarse, +representation of animal life in the main figure; but Paul Potter's +later pictures, especially his smaller pictures of pastures with cattle +feeding, having fine colouring and fine treatment of light, are now +regarded as equally good in their essential excellences, and of wider +scope. Paul Potter etched as well as painted. There is no example of +Paul Potter in the National Gallery. + +Jan David de Heem[26] and his son Cornelius, the father born in 1603, +the son in 1630, and Maria Von Oesterwyck, the elder man's pupil, were +eminent Flemish and Dutch flower and fruit painters. The gorgeous bloom +and mellow ripeness in some of the flower and fruit pieces of Flemish +and Dutch painters, like those I have mentioned, are beyond description. +I would have you look at them for yourselves, where they are well +represented, in the Dulwich Gallery; I would have you notice also how, +as travellers declare of the splendour of tropical flowers, that they +are deficient in the tender sweetness and grace of our more sober-tinted +and less lavishly-blossoming English flowers; so these Flemish and Dutch +full blown flower pieces have not a trace of the sentiment which modern +flower painters cannot help seeking, with good result or bad result, to +introduce into every tuft of primroses or of violets, if not into every +cluster of grapes and bunch of cherries. + +From a fact which I have already mentioned, that so many Flemish and +Dutch pictures, which we may often come across, are in England, I am +sorry that my space will not suffer me to give a few special words to +other famous painters of these schools or school, for they merge into +one, to Snyders, Jan Steen, Gerard Dow, Ruysdael, Hobbema, Van de Velde, +etc., etc. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +SPANISH ART--VELASQUEZ, 1599-1660--MURILLO, 1618-1682. + + +Spanish art, from its dawn to the time of Velasquez, had been of a +'severely devotional character,' austere and formal; and although one +man did not work a revolution by his independent example, he did +something to humanize and widen art. In the rich city of Seville in +1599, Diego Rodriguez, de Silva y Velasquez,--and not, as he is +incorrectly called, Diego Velasquez de Silva, was born, and, according +to an Andalusian fashion, took his mother's name of Velasquez, while his +father was of the Portuguese house de Silva. Velasquez was gently born, +though his father was in no higher position than that of a lawyer in +Seville. + +The painter was well educated, though, according to his English +biographer (Sir W. Stirling Maxwell), 'he was still more diligent in +drawing on his grammars and copybooks than in turning them to their +legitimate use.' The lad's evident bent induced his father to painter. +He studied in two different Spanish studios, and married the daughter of +his second master, whom the talents, assiduity, and good qualities of +Velasquez had already strongly attached to the young painter. + +From the first, Velasquez struck out what was then a new line in Spanish +art. He gave himself up to the materialistic studies, to which the +Flemish and Dutch painters were prone, painting diligently 'still life' +in every form, taking his living subjects from the streets and +way-sides, and keeping a peasant lad as an apprentice, 'who served him +for a study in different actions and postures (sometimes crying, +sometimes laughing), till Velasquez had grappled with every variety of +expression.' The result of those studies was Velasquez's famous picture +of the 'Aguador,' or water-carrier of Seville, which was carried off by +Joseph Buonaparte in his flight from Spain, taken in his carriage at +Vittoria, and finally presented by Ferdinand VII, of Spain, as a +grateful offering to the Duke of Wellington, in whose gallery at Apsley +House the picture remains. 'It is a composition of three figures,' Sir +W. Stirling Maxwell writes; 'a sunburnt way-worn seller of water, +dressed in a tattered brown jerkin, with his huge earthen jars, and two +lads, one of whom receives a sparkling glass of the pure element, whilst +his companion quenches his thirst from a pipkin. The execution of the +heads and all the details is perfect; and the ragged trader dispensing a +few maravidi's worth of his simple stock, maintains, during the +transaction, a grave dignity of deportment, highly Spanish and +characteristic, and worthy of an emperor pledging a great vassal in +Tokay.' + +Just such a group may still be seen, or was to be seen till very lately, +in the quaint streets of Seville. I have read an anecdote of Velasquez +and this picture, which is quite probable, though I cannot vouch for +its accuracy. It is said that, while painting the water-carrier day +after day, when he had been engaged with his work for several hours, +Velasquez found himself vexed by perceiving, as it were, the effect of a +shadow cast by some of the drapery. Small flaw as it might have been, it +appeared to him to interfere with and spoil the picture. Again and +again, in endeavouring to do away with this 'shadow,' Velasquez undid +portions of his work, and had to repeat them next day, but always, +towards the end of his task, the invidious shadow stole upon his vision. +At last a friend, who was present and full of admiration for the +picture, heard Velasquez exclaim, 'That shadow again!' and saw him seize +a brush and prepare to dash it across the canvas. The friend +remonstrated, besought, and by main force held back the painter, and at +last induced him to leave the picture untouched till next day, when +Velasquez discovered, to his great relief, that the shadow had been in +his own wearied young eyes, and not in his admirable representation of +the 'Water-carrier.' + +Velasquez was in Madrid in 1623, when he was in his twenty-fifth year, +and having been introduced by the Prime Minister, Olivares, to the King +of Spain, Philip IV., a king who was only known to smile once or twice +in his lifetime, whose government was careless and blundering, but who +had the reputation of being a man of some intelligence and very +considerable taste,--Velasquez was received into the king's service with +a monthly salary of twenty ducats, and employed to paint the royal +portrait. + +From the time that he became court painter, Velasquez was largely +occupied in painting portraits of members of the royal family, with +special repetitions of the likeness of his most Catholic Majesty. With +Velasquez's first portrait of Philip in armour, mounted on an Andalusian +charger, the king was so pleased, that he permitted the picture to be +publicly exhibited, amidst the plaudits of the spectators, in front of +the church of San Felipe el Real in Madrid. Nor was the exhibition a +barren honour to the painter, for the king not only 'talked of +collecting and in future Velasquez should have the monopoly of the royal +countenance,' he paid three hundred ducats for the picture. + +About this time our own Charles I., then Prince of Wales, went in his +incognito of Charles Smith to Madrid on his romantic adventure of +seeking to woo and win, personally, the Infanta of Spain, and Velasquez +is said to have gained Charles's notice, and to have at least begun a +portrait of him. If it were ever completed it has been lost, a +misfortune which has caused spurious pictures, purporting to be the real +work, to be offered to the public. Sir W. Stirling Maxwell holds, with +great show of truth, that this visit of Charles to Madrid, when its +altars were 'glowing' with the pictures of Titian, confirmed the unhappy +king's taste for art. + +In 1628 Rubens came to Madrid as an envoy from the governess of the +Netherlands, and the two painters, who had many points in common, and +who had already corresponded, became fast friends. By the advice of +Rubens, Velasquez was induced to put into execution his cherished +desire of visiting Italy, the king granting his favourite painter leave +of absence, the continuance of his salary, and a special sum for his +expenses. + +Velasquez went to Venice first, and afterwards to Rome, where he was +offered, and declined, a suite of apartments in the Vatican, asking only +free access to the papal galleries. There he copied many portions of +Michael Angelo's 'Last Judgment'--not a hundred years old, and 'yet +undimmed by the morning and evening incense of centuries,' and portions +of the frescoes of Raphael. At Rome Velasquez found there before him, +Domenichino, Guido Reni, alternating 'between the excitements of the +gaming table and the sweet creations of his smooth flowing pencil;' +'Nicolas Poussin, an adventurer fresh from his Norman village; and +Claude Gelée, a pastry-cook's runaway apprentice from Lorraine.'[27] +Velasquez remained a year in Rome. Besides his studies he painted three +original pictures, one of them, 'Joseph's Coat,' well known among the +painter's comparatively rare religious works, and now in the Escurial. +In this picture his biographer acknowledges, that 'choosing rather to +display his unrivalled skill in delineating vulgar forms than to risk +his reputation in the pursuit of a more refined and idealized style,' +Velasquez's 'Hebrew patriarchs are swineherds of Estramadura or +shepherds of the Sierra Morena.' + +From Rome Velasquez proceeded to Naples, where he was enabled by his +prudence and forbearance to face without injury the disgraceful 'reign +of terror' which the Neapolitan artists had established in the south of +Italy. The Neapolitan artists more than any other Italian artists are +believed to have influenced Velasquez's style. + +In 1639 Velasquez painted his principal religious work, 'The +Crucifixion,' for the nunnery of San Placido in Madrid, a painting in +which his power has triumphed successfully over his halting imagination. + +With regard to the many court groups which Velasquez was constantly +taking, I may quote Sir W. Stirling Maxwell's amusing paragraph about a +curious variety of human beings in the Court Gallery. 'The Alcazar of +Madrid abounded with dwarfs in the days of Philip IV., who was very fond +of having them about him, and collected curious specimens of the race, +like other rarities. The Queen of Spain's gallery is, in consequence, +rich in portraits of these little monsters, executed by Velasquez. They +are, for the most part, very ugly, displaying, sometimes in an extreme +degree, the deformities peculiar to their stunted growth. Maria Barbola, +immortalized by a place in one of Velasquez's most celebrated pictures, +was a little dame about three feet and a half in height, with the head +and shoulders of a large woman, and a countenance much underjawed, and +almost ferocious in expression. Her companion, Nicolasito Pertusano, +although better proportioned than the lady, and of a more amicable +aspect, was very inferior in elegance as a royal plaything to his +contemporary, the valiant Sir Geoffrey Hudson; or his successor in the +next reign, the pretty Luisillo of Queen Louisa of Orleans. Velasquez +painted many portraits of these little creatures, generally seated on +the ground; and there is a large picture in the Louvre representing two +of them leading by a cord a great spotted hound, to which they bear the +same proportion that men of the usual size bear to a horse.' + +In 1648 Velasquez again visited Italy, sent by the king this time to +collect works of art for the royal galleries and the academy about to be +founded. Velasquez went by Genoa, Milan, Venice (buying there chiefly +the works of Tintoret), and Parma, to Rome and Naples, returning to +Rome. At Rome Velasquez painted his splendidly characteristic portrait +of the Pope Innocent X., 'a man of coarse features and surly expression, +and perhaps the ugliest of all the successors of St Peter.' + +Back at Madrid, Philip continued to load Velasquez and his family with +favours, appointing the painter Quarter-Master-General of the king's +household with a salary of three thousand ducats a year, and the right +of carrying at his girdle a key which opened every lock in the palace. + +Philip is said to have raised Velasquez to knighthood in a manner as +gracious as the manner of Charles V, when he lifted up Titian's pencil. +In painting one of his most renowned pictures, to which I shall refer +again, 'The Maids of Honour,' Velasquez included himself at work on a +large picture of the royal family. The painter represented himself with +the key of his office at his girdle, and on his breast the red cross of +the Order of Santiago. Philip, who came every day to see the progress of +this picture, remarked in reference to the figure of the artist, that +'one thing was yet wanting, and taking up the brush painted the knightly +insignia with his own royal fingers, thus conferring the accolade with a +weapon not recognized in chivalry.' + +As it is believed, Velasquez's court office, with all its prestige and +influence, helped in causing his death. King Philip went in June, 1660, +to the Isle of Pheasants in the river Bidassa, where, on ground which +was neither Spanish nor French, the Spanish and French courts were to +meet and celebrate with the greatest magnificence the marriage of the +Grand Monarque and the Infanta Maria Teresa. One of Velasquez's +official duties was to prepare lodgings for the king on his journeys, +and in this instance the lodging included not only the decoration of the +castle of Fuenterrabia, but the erection of a sumptuous pavilion in +which the interviews of the assembled kings and queens and their +revelries were to be held. Velasquez did his part of the preparations, +and doubtless shared in the royal festivities, but returned to Madrid so +worn out by his undertaking, and by constant attendance on his master, +that he was seized with tertian fever, of which he died a few days +later, while but in his sixty-first year, to the great grief of his +countrymen, and above all of his king. Velasquez's wife, Doña Juana, +died eight days after her husband, and was buried in his grave. The +couple left one surviving child, a daughter, married to a painter. + +In one picture, now at Vienna, Velasquez gives a glimpse of his family +life at a time when it would seem that he had four sons and two +daughters, so that the fortunate painter's home had not been free from +one shadow--that of death, which must have robbed him of five of his +children. In this pleasant picture, 'his wife dressed in a brown tunic +over a red petticoat, sits in the foreground of a large room, with a +pretty little girl leaning on her knees, and the rest of her children +grouped around her; behind are the men in deep shadow, one of them, +perhaps, being Mazo, the lover or the husband of the eldest daughter, +and a nurse with a child; and in an alcove Velasquez himself appears, +standing before his easel, at work on a portrait of Philip IV. This is +one of the most important works of the master out of the Peninsula; the +faces of the family sparkle on the sober background like gems. As a +piece of easy actual life, the composition has never been surpassed, and +perhaps it excels even "The Meninas," inasmuch as the hoops and dwarfs +of the palace have not intruded upon the domestic privacy of the +painter's home, in the northern gallery.'[28] + +Velasquez seems to have been a man of honour and amiability. He filled +a difficult office at the most jealous court in Europe with credit. He +was true to his friends, and helpful to his brother artists. His +biographer writes of Velasquez as handsome in person, and describes his +costume when he appeared for the last time with his king in the galas at +Pheasants' Isle:--'over a dress richly laced with silver he wore the +usual Castilian ruff, and a short cloak embroidered with the red cross +of Santiago; the badge of the order, sparkling with brilliants, was +suspended from his neck by a gold chain; and the scabbard and hilt of +his sword were of silver, exquisitely chased, and of Italian +workmanship.' In the likeness of Velasquez, which is the frontispiece of +Sir W. Stirling Maxwell's 'Life,' the painter appears as a man of +swarthy complexion, with a long compressed upper lip, unconcealed by his +long, elaborately trimmed moustache; his hair, or wig, is arranged in +two large frizzed bunches on each side of a face which is inclined to be +lantern-jawed. He wears a dark doublet with a 'standing white collar.' + +Velasquez's excellence as a painter was to be found, like that of +Rembrandt, in his truth to nature; but the field of truth presented to +the stately Spaniard, while it had its own ample share of humour, was a +widely different field from that which offered itself to the Dutch +burgher. Together with absolute truth, Velasquez had the ease and +facility in expressing truth which are only acquired by a great master. +Like Rubens, Velasquez made essays in many branches of painting. In +sacred art, if we except his 'Crucifixion,' he did not attain a high +place. With regard to his landscapes, Sir David Wilkie bore +witness:--'Titian seems his model, but he has also the breadth and +picturesque effect for which Claude and Salvator Rosa are remarkable;' +and Sir David added of those landscapes, 'they have the very same sun we +see, and the air we breathe, the very soul and spirit of nature.' + +Velasquez's _genre_ pictures, to which I shall refer by and by, are +excellent, but the fate was kind which confined him largely to portrait +painting. It was brought as a reproach against Velasquez in his +lifetime, that he could paint a head and nothing else, to which he +replied with mingled spirit, sense, and good nature, that his detractors +flattered him, 'for he knew nobody of whom it could be said that he +painted a head thoroughly well.' + +Sir W. Stirling Maxwell asserts of Velasquez's portrait painting, that +no artist 'ever followed nature with more catholic fidelity; his +cavaliers are as natural as his boors; he neither refined the vulgar, +nor vulgarized the refined,' and goes on to quote this among other +criticism:--'his portraits baffle description and praise; he drew the +minds of men; they live, breathe, and are ready to walk out of the +frames.' Sir William winds up with the enthusiastic declaration, 'Such +pictures as these are real history; we know the persons of Philip IV, +and Olivares, as familiarly as if we had paced the avenues of the Pardo +with Digby and Howell, and perhaps we think more favourably of their +characters.' + +I shall borrow still further from Sir W. Stirling Maxwell's graphic and +entertaining book, descriptions of two of Velasquez's _genre_ pictures, +'The Maids of Honour,' and the more celebrated 'Spinners,' both at +Madrid. 'The scene (of the first) is a long room in a quarter of the old +palace which was called the prince's quarter, and the subject, Velasquez +at work on a large picture of the royal family. To the extreme right of +the composition is seen the back of the easel and the canvas on which he +is engaged; and beyond it spalette, pausing to converse, and to observe +the effect of his performance. In the centre stands the little Infanta +Maria Margarita, taking a cup of water from a salver which Doña Maria +Augustina Sarmiento, maid of honour to the queen, presents kneeling. To +the left, Doña Isabel de Velasco, another meniña, seems to be dropping a +courtesy; and the dwarfs, Maria Barbolo and Nicolas Pertusano, stand in +the foreground, the little man putting his foot on the quarters of a +great tawny hound, which despises the aggression, and continues in a +state of solemn repose. Some paces behind these figures, Doña Marcela de +Ulloa, a lady of honour in nun-like weeds, and a _guardadimas,_ are seen +in conversation; at the far end of the room an open door gives a view of +a staircase, up which Don Josef Nieto, queen's apasentador, is retiring; +and near this door there hangs on the wall a mirror, which, reflecting +the countenance of the king and queen, shows that they form part of the +principal group, although placed beyond the bounds of the picture. The +room is hung with paintings which Palomino assures us are works of +Rubens; and it is lighted by three windows in the left wall, and by the +open door at the end, an arrangement of which an artist will at once +comprehend the difficulties. The perfection of art which conceals art, +was never better attained than in this picture. Velasquez seems to have +anticipated the discovery of Daguerre, and taking a real room, and real +chance grouped people, to have fixed them, as it were by magic, for all +time on his canvas. The little fair-haired Infanta is a pleasing study +of childhood; with the hanging-lip and full cheek of the Austrian +family, she has a fresh complexion and lovely blue eyes, and gives a +promise of beauty which as empress she never fulfilled. Her young +attendants, girls of thirteen or fourteen, contrast agreeably with the +ill-favoured dwarf beside them; they are very pretty, especially Doña +Isabel de Velasco, who died a reigning beauty, and their hands are +painted with peculiar delicacy. Their dresses are highly absurd, their +figures being concealed by long stiff corsets and prodigious hoops; for +these were the days when the mode was-- + + "Supporters, pooters, fardingales, above the loynes to weare;" + +and the _guardainfante_, the oval hoop peculiar to Spain, was in full +blow; and the robes of a dowager might have curtained the tun of +Heidelberg, and the powers of Velasquez were baffled by the perverse +fancy of "Fribble, the woman's tailor." The gentle and majestic hound, +stretching himself and winking drowsily, is admirably painted, and seems +a descendant of the royal breed immortalized by Titian in portraits of +the Emperor Charles and his son.' + +'The Spinners:' 'The scene is a large weaving-room, in which an old +woman and young one sit, the first at her spinning-wheel, and the +second winding yarn, with three girls beside them, one of whom plays +with a cat. In the background, standing within an alcove filled with the +light from an unseen window, are two other women displaying a large +piece of tapestry to a lady customer, whose graceful figure recalls that +which has given its name to Terburg's picture of "The Satin Gown." Of +the composition, the painter Mengs observed, "it seemed as if the hand +had no part in it, and it had been the work of pure thought."' +Velasquez, who must have seen many a bull fight, has left the world a +fine example of field sports in 'The Boar Hunt,' in our National +Gallery, a picture which was bought for two thousand two hundred pounds +from Lord Cowley. When ambassador at the Court of Spain, it was given to +him by Ferdinand VII. In a circular pen in the Pardo, 'Philip IV. and a +party of cavaliers display their skill in slaying boars, to a few +ladies, who sit secure in heavy old-fashioned blue coaches,' while +motley groups of courtiers and peasants, huntsmen and hounds, postilions +and their mules fill the foreground. Sir Edwin Landseer remarked of +this picture that he had never before seen 'so much large art on so +small a scale.' + +Bartolomé Estévan Murillo was born at Seville in 1618, and was therefore +nearly twenty years younger than his great countryman Velasquez. Murillo +seems to have been of obscure origin, and to have begun his life in +humble circumstances. There are traditions of his being self-taught, of +his studying ragged boys, himself little more than a boy, in the gypsy +quarter of Triana in Seville; of his painting in the marketplace, where +he probably found the originals of the heads of saints and Madonnas (by +which he made a little money in selling them for South America) in the +peasants who came to Seville with their fruit and vegetables. In 1642, +Murillo, then twenty-four years of age, visited Madrid, and was kindly +received, and aided in his art by his senior and fellow artist, the +court painter, Velasquez. It had been Murillo's intention to proceed to +England to study under Van Dyck, but the death of the latter put a stop +to the project. Murillo was prevented from making the painter's +pilgrimage to Italy by want of means, but the loss of culture was so far +supplied by the instructions given to him by Velasquez. + +In 1645, when Murillo was twenty-seven years of age, he returned to +Seville, and settled there, becoming as successful as he deserved; and +being acknowledged as the head of the school of Seville, where he +established the Academy of Art, and was its first president. Murillo +married, in 1648, a lady of some fortune, and was accustomed to +entertain at his house the most exclusive society of Seville. + +In 1682, Murillo was at Cadiz painting a picture of the marriage of St +Catherine in the church of the Capuchins there, when, in consequence of +the accidental fall of the scaffolding, he received so severe an injury, +that he was forced to leave his work incomplete, and to return to +Seville, where he died within a few weeks, aged sixty-four years. He had +two sons, and an only daughter, who was a nun, having taken the veil +eight years before her father's death. + +Murillo appears to have been in character a gentle, enthusiastic man, +not without a touch of fun and frolic. He would remain for hours in the +sacristy of the cathedral of Seville before 'the solemn awful picture of +the 'Deposition from the Cross,' by Pedro de Campana. When Murillo was +asked by the sacristan why he stood thus gazing there, the painter +answered, 'I am waiting till these holy men have finished their work.' +By his own desire, Murillo was buried before this picture. Before +another 'too truthful picture of Las dos Cadaveres' in the small church +of the hospital of the Caridad, Murillo used to hold his nose. One of +Murillo's pictures has the odd name of 'La Virgen Sarvilleta,' or the +Virgin of the Napkin. Murillo was working at the Convento de la Merced, +which is almost filled with his works, when the cook of the convent +begged a memorial of him, offering as the canvas a napkin, on which +Murillo at once painted a 'brilliant glowing Madonna,' with a child, +'which seems quite to bound forward out of the picture.'[29] + +Murillo's portrait by himself represents him in a dark doublet having +wide sleeves and a square collar closed in front. His thumb is in his +pallet, and the other hand, with fingers taper and delicate as those of +a hand by Van Dyck, holds one of his brushes. The smooth face, with +regular features, is pale and thoughtful, and with the womanliness of +the aspect increased from the dark hair, which is divided slightly to +one side, being allowed to fall down in long wavy curls on the +shoulders. + +In spite of the naturalistic studies of his early youth, and even of the +naturalistic treatment which he gave to his first religious work, +Murillo was possessed of greater and higher imagination than Velasquez +could claim, and the longer Murillo lived and worked the more refined +and exalted his ideas became. Unlike Velasquez, Murillo was a great +religious painter, and during the last years of his life he painted +sacred subjects almost exclusively. But, like Velasquez, Murillo was +eminently a Spanish painter--his virgins are dark-eyed, +olive-complexioned maidens, and even his Holy Child is a Spanish babe. + +Without the elevation and the training of the best Italian painters, +Murillo has left abundant proofs of great original genius. The painter's +works are widely circulated, but the chief are still in Seville. Six are +in the church of the Caridad, and these six include his famous 'Moses +striking the Rock,' and his 'Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes;' seven +'Murillos' are in the Convento de la Merced, among them Murillo's own +favourite picture, which he called 'Mi Cicadro' of 'St Thomas of +Villaneuva.' 'St Thomas was the favourite preacher of Charles V., and +was created Archbishop of Valencia, where he seemed to spend the whole +of his revenues in charity, yet never contracted any debt, so that his +people used to believe that angels must minister to his temporal wants. +He is represented at his cathedral door, distributing alms, robed in +black, with a white mitre. A poor cripple kneels at his feet, and other +mendicants are grouped around.' + +In the cathedral, Seville, is Murillo's 'Angel de la Guarda,' 'in which +a glorious seraph, with spreading wings, leads a little trustful child +by the hand, and directs him to look beyond earth into the heavenly +light;' and his 'St Antonio.' 'The saint is represented kneeling in a +cell, of which all the poor details are faithfully given, while the long +arcade of the cloister can be seen through the half-open door. Above, in +a transparent light, which grows from himself, the Child Jesus appears, +and descends, floating through wreaths of angels, drawn down by the +power of prayer.'[30] + +Another of Murillo's renowned pictures is that of the patron saints of +Seville, 'Santa Rufina and Santa Justina,' who were stoned to death for +refusing to bow down to the image of Venus. + +With regard to Murillo's pictures of flower-girls and beggar-boys, I +think my readers are sure to have seen an engraving of one of the +former, '_The_ Flower-Girl,' as it is called, with a face as fresh and +radiant as her flowers. In the National Gallery there is a large Holy +Family of Murillo's, and in Dulwich Gallery there is a laughing boy, an +irresistible specimen of brown-cheeked, white-teethed drollery. + + + + +CHAPTER X. + +ART--NICOLAS POUSSIN, 1594-1665--CLAUDE[31] LORRAINE, 1600-1682--CHARLES +LE BRUN, 1619-1690--WATTEAU, 1684-1721--GREUZE, 1726-1805. + + +Nicolas Poussin was born at Andely in Normandy in 1594. Of his parentage +little seems to have been ascertained, but it is believed that he was +well educated, and his classical learning in after life was reckoned +great. He was regularly trained to be a painter under a master in his +native town, and afterwards in Paris. + +Dissatisfied with the patronage which he received in Paris, Poussin went +to Rome when he was about thirty years of age. In Rome he is said to +have lived on familiar terms with a sculptor whose devotion to antique +art influenced his taste, and lent it the strong classical bent which it +retained. Poussin studied regularly in the school of Domenichino. After +some delay in attracting public notice, 'The Death of Germanicus,' and +'The Capture of Jerusalem,' which Poussin painted for Cardinal +Barberini, won general approval. In 1629, when Nicolas Poussin was in +his thirty-fifth year, he married the sister of his pupil, Gaspar +Dughet, who took Poussin's name, and is known as a painter, inferior to +his master, by the name of Gaspar Poussin. + +Nicolas Poussin returned to Paris when he was a middle-aged man, was +presented to the king, Louis XIII., by Cardinal Richelieu, and offered +apartments in the Tuileries, with the title of painter in ordinary, and +a salary of a hundred and twenty pounds a year. Poussin agreed to settle +in Paris, but on his going back to Rome to fetch his wife, and on the +King of France's dying, the attractions of the Eternal City proved too +great for the painter, and in place of removing his home to his native +country, he lived for the rest of his years in Rome, and died there in +1665, when he was seventy-one years of age. Except what can be judged of +him from his work, I do not know that much has been gathered of the +private character and life of Nicolas Poussin, notwithstanding that +there was a biography written of him fifty years ago by Lady Calcott, +and that his letters have been published in Paris. In the absence of +conclusive testimony one may conclude with some probability that he was +'quiet,' like his best paintings; a man who minded his own business, and +did not trouble the world by astonishing actions, good or bad.[32] + +In painting his own picture, from which an engraving has been taken, +Poussin's classical preferences seem to have passed into the likeness, +for in the dress of the seventeenth century, the cloak (not unlike a +toga), the massive hand with the heavy signet-ring resting on what looks +like a closed portfolio, the painter has something of the severe air and +haughty expression of an old Roman; still more, perhaps, of the +French-Romans, if I may call them so, of whom revolutionary times +nearly two centuries later, afforded so many examples. This is a +handsome, dignified face, with austerity in its pride. The slightly +curled hair is thrown back with a certain consciousness from the knit +brow, and from the shoulders. There is only the faintest shadow of a +moustache over the cleanly cut, firmly closed mouth. + +Poussin painted largely, and his pictures have been often engraved. With +harmonious composition, good drawing and colouring, his pictures alike +profited and suffered from the classical atmosphere in which they had +their being. They gained in that correctness which in its highest form +becomes noble truthfulness, but they lost in freedom. The figures in the +pictures had frequently the statuesqueness which in sculpture suits the +material, but in painting is stiffness. + +Nicolas Poussin had an exceptional reputation for a historical painter +in his day. As a landscape painter, Mr Ruskin, while waging war with +Nicolas Poussin's brother-in-law and assumed namesake, Gaspar, notably +excepts Nicolas from his severest strictures, and treats his efforts in +landscape painting with marked respect. At the same time, however, the +critic censures the painter for a want of thorough acquaintance with +nature, and the laws of nature, ignorance not uncommon in any day, and +nearly universal in Nicolas Poussin's day. 'The great master of elevated +ideal landscape,' Mr Ruskin calls Nicolas Poussin, and illustrates his +excellence in one respect, after contrasting it with the slovenliness of +Sir Joshua Reynolds, by describing the vine in Poussin's 'Nursing of +Jupiter,' in the Dulwich Gallery, thus:-- + +'Every vine-leaf, drawn with consummate skill and untiring diligence, +produces not only a true group of the most perfect grace and beauty, but +one which in its pure and simple truth belongs to every age of nature, +and adapts itself to the history of all time.' 'One of the finest +landscapes that ancient art has produced, the work of a really great +mind,' Mr Ruskin distinguishes the 'Phocian' of Nicolas Poussin in the +National Gallery, before proceeding to point out its faults. + +Again, Mr Ruskin, writing of the street in the centre of another +landscape by Nicolas Poussin, indicates it with emphasis:--'the street +in the centre of the really great landscape of Poussin (great in +feeling, at least) marked 260 in the Dulwich Gallery,' The criticism +with which Mr Ruskin follows up this praise is so perfect a bit of +word-painting, that I cannot refrain from writing it down here. 'The +houses are dead square masses, with a light side and a dark side, and +black touches for windows. There is no suggestion of anything in any of +the spaces, the light wall is dead grey, the dark wall dead grey, and +the windows dead black. How differently would nature have treated us. +She would have let us see the Indian corn hanging on the walls, and the +image of the Virgin of the tiled eaves, and the deep ribbed tiles with +the doves upon them, and the carved Roman capital built into the wall, +and the white and blue stripes of the mattresses stuffed out of the +windows, and the flapping corners of the neat blinds. All would have +been there; not as such, not like the corn, nor blinds, nor tiles, not +to be comprehended nor understood, but a confusion of yellow and black +spots and strokes, carried far too fine for the eye to follow; +microscopic in its minuteness, and filling every atom and space with +mystery, out of which would have arranged itself the general impression +of truth and life.' Once more, Mr Ruskin freely admits that 'all the +landscape of Nicolas Poussin is imagination.' + +Mr Ruskin's first definition of ideal landscape is in this manner. Every +different tree and leaf, every bud, has a perfect form, which, were it +not for disease or accident, it would have attained; just as every +individual human face has an ideal form, which but for sin and suffering +it would present: and the ideal landscape-painter has realized the +perfect form, and offers it to the world, and that in a sense quite +distinct from the fallacy of improving nature. + +But I wish to take my readers further into imaginative landscape, and to +show it to them, if possible, under additional lights. I despair of +succeeding if I cannot do it by one or two simple examples. In passing +through a gallery we may stop before a picture to be struck, almost +startled, by the exact copy which it presents of some scene in nature; +how like the clouds in the sky, the leaves on the trees, the very +plumage of the birds! But pass on to another picture which may or may +not have the same exact likeness, and we are possessed with quite +another feeling; instead of being merely surprised by the cleverness of +the imitation, we feel a thrill of delight at a reproduction of nature. +In this picture there are not only the clouds we remember, but we can +almost feel the shadows which they cast, and the air which stirs them. +These tree-leaves are not only green, or yellow, or russet, they are +tender, or crisp living leaves. One half expects to see the birds' +throats swell, and hear the sweetness or the shrillness of their songs. + +The first picture, with all its correctness, brightness, richness, or +delicacy it may be, remains bare, hard, and barren, compared to the +second. I cannot explain to my readers the cause of the difference, I +can Only show it to them as they may see it for themselves, and say +that I suppose it proceeds from this--that the second painter has seen +farther into the heart of nature than the first, and has been able by +subtler touches to make us see with his eyes. + +But imaginative landscape is much more than this vivid feeling and +expression of nature; there is not a cloud, or leaf, or bird too many or +out of keeping with the place and the hour. The clouds are the very +clouds of sunset, or sunrise, or high noon--clouds differing widely from +each other, as you have no doubt observed. The trees are the beeches, or +chestnuts, or pines, which would grow on the conformation of rocks, in +the sheltered nook, or on the breezy upland; the birds are the linnets +or the larks, the thrushes or the lapwings, which frequent these special +trees, and may be seen and heard at this particular hour. + +Again, landscape often tells a story, and tells it inimitably. My +readers have heard of the ballad of the 'Two Corbies,' which the writer +of the ballad has made to meet and tell gruesomely where and on what +carrion their feast has been. Suppose the writer of the ballad had been +a painter, he might have painted the story as intelligibly by the lone +hill-side, the bleaching bones of the faithful hound and gallant grey, +the two loathly blue-black birds satiated with their prey. There is a +significant old Scotch song with a ballad ring, by Lady Nairne, two +verses of which form each a complete picture not only of different +seasons, but of different phases of feeling--happiness and misery. + + 'Bonnie ran the burnie down, + Wandering and winding; + Sweetly sang the birds aboon, + Care never minding. + + 'But now the burn comes down apace, + Roaring and reaming, + And for the wee birdies' sang + Wild howlets screaming.' + +Imagine these two verses painted, and the painter, from a lack of +comprehension, introducing the 'wild howlets screaming' _beside the +burnie_, 'wandering and winding,' and the 'wee birdies' foolishly and +inconsequently singing with their feeble song drowned in the rush of the +burn (no longer a burnie), 'roaring and reaming,' when the 'spate' is +spreading desolation on every side. Don't you see how the picture would +be spoilt, and the story of complete contrast left untold? I have taken +advisedly an extreme and, therefore an unlikely case of halting +imagination. But in imaginative landscape every 'white flower with its +purple stain,' every crushed butterfly, is made to play its part in the +whole, and at the same time due proportion is never lost sight of, and +the less is always kept subordinate to the greater. + +I have already had occasion to mention examples of Nicolas Poussin in +the National Gallery and in Dulwich Gallery. + +Claude Gelée, better known as Claude Lorraine, was a native of Lorraine, +and was born at Chateau de Chamagne in the Vosges, in 1600. His parents +were in humble life, and apprenticed Claude to a baker and pastry-cook. +According to some biographers the cooks of Lorraine were in such request +that they occasionally repaired to Rome with their apprentices in their +train to serve the successor of St Peter, and Claude was thus carried, +in the way of trade, to the city which might well have been the goal of +his ambition. According to other writers of art histories, Claude +abandoned the kneading-trough and the oven; and it was as a runaway +apprentice that by some occult means he reached Rome. And when he had +arrived he entered into the service of a landscape painter of good +repute, to whom he was colour-boy as well as cook. The last is the +account, so far, which Claude gave of himself to a friend, and it is +hardly likely either that he misrepresented his history, or that his +friend invented such details, though lately French authorities have +questioned the authenticity of the narrative. Claude remained for nearly +the entire remainder of a long life in Rome. He only once re-visited +France, while he was yet a young man, under thirty years of age, in 1625 +or 1627. He is supposed to have painted his earliest pictures and +executed his etchings about this time, 1630 and to have painted his best +pictures fifteen years later, when he was in the maturity of his life +and powers. He was counted successful during his life time, as a +landscape painter, but did not amass a larger fortune than about two +thousand pounds.[33] He was a slow and careful painter (working a +fortnight at a picture with little apparent progress); his painstaking +work, and his custom of keeping a book, in which he verified his +pictures, are about the most that I can tell you of the habits of one of +the foreign painters, who has been most fully represented in England, +and was long in the highest favour with English lovers of art. Claude +Lorraine died at Rome in the eighty-third year of his age, in 1682. + +Claude Lorraine's name has become a very vexed name with art critics. +There was a time when he had an unsurpassed reputation as a landscape +painter. The possession of a Claude was enough to confer art glory on a +country-house, and possibly for this reason England, in public and +private collections, has more 'Claudes' than are held by any other +country. But Claude's admirers, among whom Sir George Beaumont, the +great art critic of his generation, took the lead, have had their day, +and, if they have not by any means passed away, are on the wane. + +The wrathful indignation of the English landscape painter, Turner, at +the praise which was so glibly lavished on Claude--an indignation that +caused Turner to bequeath two of his own landscape paintings to the +trustees of the National Gallery, on the caustic condition that they +should always be placed between the two celebrated 'Claudes,' known as +'The Marriage of Isaac and Rebecca' and 'The Embarkation of the Queen of +Sheba'--helped to shake the English art world's faith in its former +idol. Mr Ruskin's adoption and proclamation of Turner's opinion shook +the old faith still further. This reversal of a verdict with regard to +Claude is peculiar; it is by no means uncommon for the decision of +contemporaries to be set aside, and we shall hear of an instance +presently, in the case of the painter Le Brun. In fact, it is often +ominous with regard to a man's future fame, when he is 'cried up to the +skies' in his own day. The probability may be that his easy success has +been won by something superficial and fleeting. But Claude's great +popularity has been in another generation, and with another nation. +English taste may have been in fault; or another explanation seems +preferable--that Claude's sense of beauty was great, with all its faults +of expression, and he gave such glimpses of a beautiful world as the +gazers on his pictures were capable of receiving, which to them proved +irresistible. + +While Claude adopted an original style as a landscape painter, so far as +his contemporaries were concerned, he was to such a degree self taught, +and only partially taught, that it is said he never learnt to paint +figures--those in his pictures were painted by other painters, and that +Claude even painted animals badly. + +Mr Ruskin has been hard on Claude, whether justly or unjustly, I cannot +pretend to say. + +The critic denies the painter not only a sense of truth in art, but all +imagination as a landscape painter 'Of men of name,' Mr Ruskin writes, +'Perhaps Claude is the best instance of a want of imagination, nearly +total, borne out by painful but untaught study of nature, and much +feeling for abstract beauty of form, with none whatever for harmony of +expression.' Mr Ruskin condemns in the strongest terms 'the mourning and +murky olive browns and verdigris greens, in which Claude, with the +industry and intelligence of a Sèvres china painter, drags the laborious +bramble leaves over his childish foreground.' But Mr Ruskin himself +acknowledges, with a reservation, Claude's charm in foliage, and +pronounces more conditionally his power, when it was at its best, in +skies--a region in which the greater, as well as the less, Poussin was +declared to fail signally; 'a perfectly genuine and untouched sky of +Claude,' Mr Ruskin writes, 'is indeed most perfect, and beyond praise, +in all qualities of air; though even with him I often feel rather that +there is a great deal of pleasant air between me and the firmament, than +that the firmament itself is only air.' + +When all has been said that can be said, let us look at a mellow or a +sunny Claude on any wall where it may hang, and judge for ourselves of +the satisfaction it is calculated to give. + +Claude was fond of painting scenes on the Tiber and in the Roman +Campagna, but while he tried to reproduce the hills and woodlands of +Italy, he did not seek to paint the mountain landscapes of the +Apennines. + +Besides Claude's numerous works in England and scattered through other +countries, some of his finest paintings are in the Doria and Sciarra +palaces in Rome. He rarely put his name to his works; when he did so he +signed it frequently 'Claudio,' sometimes 'Claudius.' I have spoken of +his book of sketches, in which he had been wont to note on the back of +the sketch the date of the completed picture, and to whom sold. This +book he called the 'Libro di Verita,' or, Book of Truth, and its +apparent use was to check the sale of spurious paintings in Claude's +name, even during his lifetime. The 'Book of Truth' is in possession of +the Duke of Devonshire, and has been employed in recent years with +reference to the end for which it seemed designed, so woe to that +country-house which has long pride that 'Claude' does not happen to have +a place in the 'Book of Truth,' though I do not know that it is at all +certain that Claude took the precaution of inscribing _every_ painting +which he painted after a certain date in the 'Book of Truth.' + +Claude Lorraine is well represented in the National Gallery. Engravings +of his pictures are common. + +Charles le Brun was born in Paris, in 1619. He was trained to be a +painter, and went young to Rome, studying there for six years under the +guidance of Nicolas Poussin. Le Brun returned to Paris, and, through the +patronage of the Chancellor Segnier, was introduced to the court, and +got the most favourable opportunities of practising his profession with +worldly success. He speedily acquired a great name, and was appointed +painter to the King, Louis XIV. Le Brun had enough influence with his +royal master, and with the great minister Colbert, to succeed in +establishing, while the painter was yet a young man, the Royal Academy +of Art, of which he was the first member, and virtually the head, +holding, in his own person, the directorship of the Gobelin tapestry +works, which was to be the privilege of a member of the Academy. Le Brun +continued in the utmost favour with the King, who, not content with +employing the painter largely at Fontainebleau and in Versailles, +invested him with the order of St Michael, bestowed on him letters of +nobility, and visited him frequently at his work, occasions when there +were not wanting adroit courtiers to liken the Grand Monarque to the +Emperor Charles V., and Le Brun to Titian. + +Le Brun seems to have been a man of energy, confidence, and industry, +neither mentally before nor after his time, and by no means too +retiring, meditative, or original, to fail to profit by his outward good +fortune. He wrote, as well as painted, artistic treatises, which were +received as oracular utterances, and entirely deferred to in the schools +of his day. He died at Paris in 1690, when he was in his seventieth +year. + +Le Brun's real merits as a painter were limited to respectable abilities +and acquirements, together with florid quickness and ease, and such an +eye to what was splendid and scenic as suited admirably a decorator of +palaces in an age which prized sumptuousness, and an exaggeration of +dramatic effect, over every other quality. Nicolas Poussin's quiet +refinement of style became in Le Brun what is called academic +(conventionally learned), pompous, and grandiose, and men decidedly +preferred the degeneration. But later critics, who have not the natural +partiality of the French to the old master, return to their first loves, +and condemn Le Brun's swelling violence, both in the tints and poses of +his figures. Among his most famous works, which have been magnificently +engraved, are his 'Battles of Alexander.' + +Antoine Watteau was born at Valenciennes in 1684. A very different +painter from Le Brun, he was yet as characteristic of French art in the +reign of Louis XIV. I think my readers must be familiar with his name, +and I dare say they associate it, as I do, not only with the fans which +were painted largely after his designs, but with mock pastorals and +Sèvres china. I don't know if his birth-place at Valenciennes, with its +chief product of dainty lace, had anything to do with it, but the other +items of poor Watteau's history are considerably removed from the very +artificial grace which one connects with his name. He was the son of a +carpenter, and struggled up, by the hard instrumentality of third-rate +masters and of picture-dealers, to the rank which he attained among +artists, taking his stand from the first, however, as the painter of +well-bred, well-apparelled people--the frequenters of _bals masqués,_ +and _fêtes champêtres,_ who were only playing at shepherds and +shepherdesses. + +Watteau was elected an Academician in 1717, when he was thirty-three +years of age, and he afterwards came to England, but did not remain +there. He died of consumption at Nogent-sur-Marne in 1721, when he was +thirty-six years of age.[34] Watteau's gifts were his grace and +brilliance on a small scale. He did not draw well; as to design, his +composition may be said to be suited to such a work as the collection of +'fashionable figures,' which he engraved and left behind him. Yet, if we +were to see at this moment some of his exquisite groups of ladies in +sacques and Watteau hats, and cavaliers in flowing wigs and lace, +cravats, I have no doubt that the most of us would admire them much, for +they are exceedingly pretty, and exceeding prettiness is attractive, +particularly to women. But I would have my readers to remember that this +art is a finical and soulless art, after all. I would fain have them +take this as their maxim, 'That the art is greatest which conveys to the +mind of the spectator, by any means whatsoever, the greatest number of +the greatest ideas.' + +Jean Baptiste Greuze was born at Tournus in Burgundy in 1726. He studied +painting from his youth in the studios of artists at Lyons, Paris, and +Rome, and his studies resulted in his being a celebrated genre painter. +He only painted one historical picture, but, with the touchy vanity +which seemed natural to the man, he ranked his genre pictures as high +art; and when he was placed in the ordinary list of genre painters on +his election as a member of the French Academy of Painting, Greuze +resented the imputation, and withdrew from the Academy. He died in 1805, +aged seventy-nine years. Greuze was a showy, clever, but neither earnest +nor truthful painter of domestic subjects and family pictures. His +pictures of women and heads of girls, the expression in some of which +has been severely condemned, are among his best known works, and by +these he is represented in the National Gallery.[35] + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + +HOLBEIN, 1494-1543--VAN DYCK, 1599-1641--LELY, 1618-1680--CANALETTO, +1697-1768--KNELLER, 1646-1723. + + +Hans Holbein, sometimes entitled Hans the Younger, was born at Augsburg +about 1494 or 1495. He was the son of a painter, and belonged to a +family of painters, one or more of whom had preceded Hans Holbein in +leaving Augsburg, and taking up his residence at Basle. There Holbein +was under the patronage of, and on terms of friendly intercourse with, +the great scholar Erasmus. One bad result proceeded from this friendly +familiarity, that of establishing or originating the charge that +Holbein, as a young man, at least, was coarse and dissipated in his +habits. The evidence is sufficiently curious. There is still in +existence the copy of a Latin book, called the 'Praise of Folly,' +written by Erasmus, which Holbein, not being a scholar, could not have +read for himself, but which, according to tradition, Erasmus himself, +or some other friend, read to him, while Holbein was so delighted with +the satire that he covered the margin of the book with illustrative +sketches. (The sketches remain, and are unmistakably Holbein's.) +Opposite a passage, recording the want of common sense and energy in +many learned men, Holbein had drawn the figure of a student, and written +below, '_Erasmus_.' The book coming again into the hands of Erasmus, he +was offended with the liberty taken by the painter., and sought to +retaliate in kind by writing below the sketch of a rude boor drinking, +'_Holbein_.' In spite of the rough jesting, the friendship between +scholar and painter was not interrupted. + +In these early days Holbein sometimes practised painting on glass, after +the example of some of his kinsmen. At Basle, Holbein painted what is +considered his finest work, the 'Meier Madonna,' now at Darmstadt, with +a copy in the Dresden Gallery, and there he executed the designs for his +series of woodcuts of the 'Dance of Death.' + +At Basle Holbein married, while still a young man. The presumption that +the painter's marriage, like that of his countryman, Albert Dürer, was +unhappy, has rested on the foundation that he left his wife and her +children behind when he repaired to England, and that although he +re-visited Basle, and saw his wife and family, they did not return with +him to England. A fancied confirmation to the unhappiness of the +marriage is found in the expression of the wife in a portrait which +Holbein painted of her and his children when he was at Basle. +'Cross-looking and red-eyed,' one critic calls the unlucky woman; +another describes her as 'a plain, coarse-looking, middle-aged woman,' +with an expression 'certainly mysterious and unpleasant.' Holbein's +latest biographer[36] has proved that the forsaken wife, Elssbeth +Schmid, was a widow with one son when Holbein married her, and has +conjectured that she was probably not only older than Holbein, but in +circumstances which rendered her independent of her husband. So far the +critic has done something to clear Hans Holbein from the miserable +accusation often brought against him, that he abandoned his wife and +children to starve at Basle, while he sunned himself in such court +favour as could be found in England. But, indeed, while Hans Holbein may +have been honest and humane enough to have been above such base +suspicions, there is no trace of him which survives that goes to +disprove the probability that he was a self-willed, not over-scrupulous +man, if he was also a vigorous and thorough worker. + +Holbein came to England about 1526 or 1527, when he must have been +thirty-one or thirty-two years of age, and repaired to Chelsea to the +house of Sir Thomas More, to whom the painter brought a letter of +introduction, and still better credentials in the present, from Erasmus +to More, of the portrait of Erasmus, painted by Hans Holbein. There are +so many portraits and copies of portraits of Erasmus, not only by +Holbein, but by other painters--for Erasmus was painted by Albert Dürer +and Quintin Matsys,--that this special portrait, like the true Holbein +family portrait of the More family, remains very much a subject of +speculation. Most of us must be well acquainted with the delightful +account which Erasmus gave of Sir Thomas More's country-house at +Chelsea, and the life of its occupants. It has been cited hundreds of +times as an example of what an English family has been, and what it may +be in dutiful discipline, simple industry, and high cultivation, when +Sir Thomas's young daughters repeated psalms in Latin to beguile the +time in the drudging process of churning the butter. During Holbein's +residence in or visits to the Mores' house at Chelsea, he sketched or +painted the original of the More family picture. + +Holbein was introduced to Henry VIII, by Sir Thomas More, and was +immediately taken into favour by the king, and received into his +service, with a lodging in the palace, a general salary of thirty pounds +a year, and separate payment for his paintings. According to Horace +Walpole, Holbein's palace lodging was probably 'the little study called +the new library' of square glazed bricks of different colours, designed +by the painter at Whitehall. (This gateway, with the porch at Wilton, +were the painter's chief architectural achievements.) By another +statement, Holbein's house was on London Bridge, where it was destroyed +in the great fire. + +I have already alluded to the anecdote of the value which Henry VIII, +put on Holbein. It was to this effect: that when an aggrieved courtier +complained to the king that the painter had taken precedence of him--a +nobleman, the king replied, 'I have many noblemen, but I have only one +Hans Holbein.' In fact, Holbein received nothing save kindness from +Henry VIII.; and for that matter, there seemed to be something in common +between bluff King Hal and the equally bluff German Hans. But on one +occasion Hans Holbein was said to have run the risk of forfeiting his +imperious master's favour by the too favourable miniature which the +painter was accused of painting of Anne of Cleves. + +At Henry's court Holbein painted many a member of the royal family, +noble and knight, and English gentleman and lady. His fortune had made +him a portrait painter, but he was fully equal to other branches of art, +as shown by his 'Meier Madonna,' and still more by the designs which +have been preserved of his famous allegory of 'the Triumphs of Riches +and Poverty,' painted for the hall of the Easterling Steelyard, the +quarters of the merchants of Allemagne, then traders in London. In +addition to painting portraits Holbein designed dagger hilts, clasps, +cups, as some say after a study of the goldsmith's work of Cellini. + +For a long time it was believed that Hans Holbein died after Mary Tudor +succeeded to the English throne; indeed, some said that his death had +been occasioned or hastened by that change in the affairs of men, which +compelled him to quit his lodgings in the palace to make room for 'the +new painter,' Sir Antony More, who came in the suite of Mary's +well-beloved husband, Philip of Spain. There was even a theory, +creditable to Hans Holbein, drawn from this conclusion, that he might +have adopted the Protestant views of his late gracious master, and have +stood by them stoutly, and so far forfeited all recognition from the +bitter Catholic Mary. But, unfortunately for the tradition and theory, +and for the later pictures attributed to Hans Holbein, his will has been +discovered, and that quite recently, proving, from the date of its +administration, his death of the plague (so far only the tradition had +been right), when yet only in his forty-eighth year, as early as 1543, +four years before the death of Henry VIII. In spite of court patronage +Holbein did not die a rich man, and there is an impression that he was +recklessly improvident in his habits. + +Holbein had re-visited Basle several times, and the council had settled +on him a pension of fifty florins a year, provided he would return and +reside in Basle within two years, while his wife was to receive a +pension of forty florins a year during Holbein's two years' absence. +Holbein did not comply with the terms of the settlement. About the time +of his death his son Philip, then a lad of eighteen, was a goldsmith in +Paris. Of Hans Holbein's portraits I have two to draw from; one, +painted in his youth at Basle, shows the painter in an open doublet, and +curious stomacher-like shirt, and having on his head a great flapping +hat. His face is broad and smooth-skinned, with little hair seen, and +the features, the eyes especially, rather small for such an expanse of +cheek and chin. The other picture of Holbein to which I have referred +belongs certainly to a considerably later period of his life, and +represents him with short but bushy hair, and short bushy beard and +moustache, a man having a broad stout person with a mixture of +dauntlessness and _bonhommie_ in his massive face. + +Mr Ruskin says of Holbein, as a painter, that he was complete in +intellect; what he saw he saw with his whole soul, and what he painted +he painted with his whole might. + +In deep and reverential feeling Holbein was far behind his countryman +Albert Dürer, but Holbein was far more fully furnished than Dürer +(unless indeed as Albrecht Dürer showed himself in that last picture of +'the Apostles') in the means of his art; he was a better draughtsman in +the maturity of his powers, and a far better colourist. For Hans Holbein +was not more famous for the living truthfulness of his likenesses ('a +man very excellent in making physiognomies'), than for the 'inimitable +bloom' that he imparted to his pictures, which 'he touched, till not a +touch became discernible.' Yet beneath this bloom, along with his +truthfulness, there was a dryness and hardness in Holbein's treatment of +his subjects, and he is far below Titian, Rubens, and even Rembrandt as +a portrait painter. + +Holbein was in the habit of painting his larger portraits on a peculiar +green, and his miniatures on a blue background. He drew his portrait +sketches with black and red chalk on a paper tinted flesh-colour. It is +said, that with the exception, of Philip Wouwermann, no painter has been +so unfortunate in having the works of other painters attributed to him +as Hans Holbein has been, and 'that three out of every four pictures +ascribed to him are misnamed.'[37] + +The 'Meier, or Meyer Madonna,' is otherwise called 'the Meier Family +adoring the infant Christ in the arms of the Virgin.' The subject is +understood to prove that it must have been painted in Holbein's youth, +before Protestantism was triumphant at Basle. The figures are the +Burgomaster Meier and his wife, whom Holbein painted twice; their son, +with a little boy _nude_ beside him; another woman, elderly, conjectured +to be a grandmother of the family, and beside her the young daughter of +the house. In the centre on a turkey carpet stands the Madonna, holding +in her arms an infant stretching out its left hand to the group of +worshippers. In course of time, and in its transfer from hand to hand, a +doubt has arisen with regard to the subject of this picture. Some +critics have regarded it as a votive picture dedicated in a private +chapel to commemorate the recovery from sickness or the death of a +child. This conjecture seems to rest mainly on the fact, that the child +in the Dresden copy (it is said to be otherwise in the Darmstadt +picture) is of an aspect so sickly, as to have given rise to the +impression that it represented an ailing, or even a dead child, and no +glorious child Christ. Critics have gone still farther, and imagined +that the child is a figure of the soul of a dead child (souls were +sometimes painted by the old painters as new-born children), or of the +soul of the elder and somewhat muffled-up woman who might have been +recently dead. Mr Ruskin regards the picture as an offering for the +recovery of a sick child, and thus illustrates it: + + 'The received tradition respecting the Holbein Madonna is + beautiful, and I believe the interpretation to be true. A father + and a mother have prayed to her for the life of their sick child. + She appears to them, her own child Christ in her arms; she puts + down her child beside them, takes their child into her arms + instead; it lies down upon her bosom, and stretches its hand to + its father and mother, saying farewell.' + +Yet another much more prosaic and less attractive interpretation of the +picture has been suggested by Holbein's biographer, that the two +children may represent the same child. The child standing by his brother +may be the boy restored to health, the feeble child in the arms of the +Virgin may indicate the same child in its sickness, while the extended +arm may point to the seat of the disease in an arm broken or injured. +After all, the child may simply be a child Christ, marred in execution. +I have given this dispute at length, because I think it is interesting, +and, so far as I know, unique in reference to such a picture. By an odd +enough mistake this very picture was once said to be the famous More +Family picture. + +The idea of the 'Dance of Death' did not originate with Holbein, neither +is he supposed to have done more than touch, if he did touch, the +paintings called the 'Dance of Death,' on the wall of the Dominican +burial-ground, Basle, painted long before Holbein's day, by the order of +the council after the plague visited Basle, and considered to have for +its meaning simply a warning of the universality of death. But Holbein +certainly availed himself of the older painting, to draw from it the +grim satire of his woodcuts. Of these there are thirty-seven designs, +the first, 'The Creation;' the second, 'Adam and Eve in Paradise;' the +third, 'The Expulsion from Paradise;' the fourth, 'Adam Tilling the +Earth;' the fifth, 'The Bones of all People;' till the dance really +begins in the sixth. Death, a skeleton, as seen through the rest of the +designs, sometimes playing on a guitar or lute, sometimes carrying a +drum, bagpipes, a dulcimer, or a fiddle, now appearing with mitre on +head and crozier in hand to summon the Abbot; then marching before the +parson with bell, book, and candle; again crowned with ivy, when he +seizes the Duke, claims his partners, beginning with the Pope, going +down impartially through Emperor of Francis I., nobleman, advocate, +physician, ploughman, countess, old woman, little child, etc., etc., and +leading each unwilling or willing victim in turn to the terrible dance. +One woman meets her doom by Death in the character of a robber in a +wood. Another, the Duchess, sits up in bed fully dressed, roused from +her sleep by two skeletons, one of them playing a fiddle. + +Granting the grotesqueness, freedom, variety, and wonderful precision of +these woodcuts, I beg my readers to contrast their spirit with that of +Albrecht Dürer's 'The Knight, Death, and the Devil,' or Orcagna's +'Triumph of Death.' In Holbein's designs there is no noble consoling +faith; there is but a fierce defiance and wild mockery of inevitable +fate, such as goes beyond the levity with which the Venetians in the +time of the plague retired to their country-houses and danced, sung, and +told tales, till the pestilence was upon them. It has a closer +resemblance to the piteous madness with which the condemned prisoners +during the French Reign of Terror rehearsed the falling of the +guillotine, or the terrible pageant with which the same French, as +represented by their Parisian brethren, professed to hail the arrival of +the cholera. + +Of the 'More Family' there are so many duplicates or versions, that, as +in the case of Erasmus's picture, it is hard to say which is the +original picture, or whether Holbein did more than sketch the original, +or merely sketch the various heads to be afterwards put together by an +inferior artist. A singular distribution of the light in the best +authenticated picture has been supposed to favour this conjecture. But +under any supposition, this, the second of the three noted English +family pictures, is of the greatest interest. I shall record a minute +and curious description given of this 'More Family,' which is still in +the possession of a descendant of the Mores and Ropers. + +'The room which is here represented seemed to be a large dining-room. At +the upper end of it stands a chamber-organ on a cupboard, with a curtain +drawn before it. On each end of the cupboard, which is covered with a +carpet of tapestry, stands a flower-pot of flowers, and on the cupboard +are laid a lute, a base-viol, a pint pot or ewer covered in part with a +cloth folded several times, and _Boetius de Consolatione Philosophiæ_, +with two other books upon it. By this cupboard stands a daughter of Sir +Thomas More's, putting on her right-hand glove, and having under her arm +a book bound in red Turkey leather and gilt, with this inscription round +the outside of the cover--_Epistolica Senecæ_. Over her head is written +in Latin, _Elizabeth Dancy_, daughter of Sir Thomas More, aged 21. + +'Behind her stands a woman holding a book open with both her hands, over +whose head is written _Spouse of John Clements_.[38] + +'Next to Mrs Dancy is Sir John More in his robes as one of the justices +of the King's Bench, and by him Sir Thomas in his chancellor's robes, +and collar of SS, with a rose pendant before. They are both sitting on a +sort of tressel or armed bench, one of the arms and legs and one of the +tassels of the cushion appear on the left side of Sir Thomas. At the +feet of Sir John lies a cur-dog, and at Sir Thomas's a Bologna shock. +Over Sir John's head is written, _John More, father, aged_ 76. Over Sir +Thomas's, _Thomas More, aged_ 50. Between them, behind, stands the wife +of John More, Sir Thomas's son, over whose head is written _Anne +Cresacre, wife of John More, aged_ 15. Behind Sir Thomas, on his left +hand stands his only son, John More, pictured with a very foolish +aspect, and looking earnestly in a book which he holds open with both +his hands. Over his head is written, _John, son of Thomas More, aged_ +19.' (The only and witless son of the family, on whom Sir Thomas made +the comment to his wife:--'You long wished for a boy, and you have got +one--for all his life.') + +'A little to the left of Sir Thomas are sitting on low stools his two +daughters, Cecilia and Margaret. Next him is Cecilia, who has a boot in +her lap, clasped. By her side sits her sister Margaret, who has likewise +a book on her lap, but wide open, in which is written, _L. An. +Senecæ--Oedipus--Fata si liceat mihi fingere arbitrio meo, temperem +zephyro levi_. On Cecilia's petticoat is written, _Cecilia Heron, +daughter of Thomas More, aged_ 20, and on Margaret's, _Margaret Roper_, +_daughter of Thomas More, aged_ 22.' (The best beloved, most +amiable, and most learned of Sir Thomas's daughters, who visited +him in the Tower and encouraged him to remain true to his +convictions, while her step-mother urged him to abjure his faith. +Margaret Roper intercepted her father on his return to the Tower +after his trial, and penetrating the circle of the Guards, hung on +his neck and bade him farewell. There is a tradition that she +caused her father's head to be stolen from the spike of the bridge +on which it was exposed, and, getting it preserved, kept it in a +casket. She and her husband, William Roper, wrote together the +biography of her father, Sir Thomas More.) + +'Just by Mrs Roper sits Sir Thomas's lady in an elbow-chair (?), holding +a book open in her hands. About her neck she has a gold chain, with a +cross hanging to it before. On her left hand is a monkey chained, and +holding part of it with one paw and part of it with the other. Over her +head is written '_spouse of Thomas More, aged_ 57.' + +(Dame Alice More, the second wife of Sir Thomas More, a foolish and +mean-spirited woman.) + +'Behind her is a large arched window, in which is placed a flower-pot (a +vase) of flowers, and a couple of oranges. Behind the two ladies stands +Sir Thomas's fool, who, it seems, was bereft of his judgment by +distraction. He has his cap on, and in it are stuck a red and white +rose, and on the brim of it is a shield with a red cross on it, and a +sort of seal pendant. About his neck he wears a black string with a +cross hanging before him, and his left thumb is stuck in a broad +leathern girdle clasp'd about him. Over his head is written _Henry +Pattison, servant_ of Thomas More. At the entrance of the room where Sir +Thomas and his family are, stands a man in the portal who has in his +left hand a roll of papers or parchments with two seals appendant, as if +he was some way belonging to Sir Thomas as Lord Chancellor. Over his +head is written _Joannes Heresius, Thomae Mori famulus_. In another room +at some distance is seen through the door-case a man standing at a large +sleeved gown of a sea-green colour, and under it a garment of a +blossom-colour, holding a book open in his hands written or printed +in the black letter, and reading very earnestly in it. About the +middle of the room, over against Sir Thomas, hangs a clock with +strings and leaden weights without any case.'[39] + +It is notable that not one of Sir Thomas's sons-in-law is in this +picture, neither is there a grandchild, though one or more is known to +have been born at the date. + +The miniature of Anne of Cleves, if it ever existed, is lost; it is +probable that what was really referred to was the portrait of Anne by +Holbein in the Louvre, where she appears 'as a kindly and comely woman +in spite of her broad nose and swarthy complexion, but by no means such +a painted Venus as might have deceived King Hal.'[40] + +A well-known portrait by Holbein is that of a 'Cornish Gentleman,' with +reddish hair and beard. I saw this portrait not long ago, as it was +exhibited among the works of the Old Masters, and so much did it look +as though the figure would step from the frame, that it was hard to +believe that more than three hundred years had passed since the original +walked the earth.[41] + +Doubtless the last of Holbein's portrait pieces, which it is reported he +left uncompleted when he died, is that of the 'Barber Surgeons,' painted +on the occasion of the united company receiving their charter from the +king, and including the king's portrait. This picture still hangs in the +old company's hall. + +I have only to say a few more words of those sketches which survive the +destruction of the picture--Holbein's allegory of the 'Triumph of +Riches,' and the 'Triumph of Poverty,' and of his portrait sketches. In +the 'Triumph of Riches,' Plutus, an old man bent double, drives in a +car, drawn by four white horses; before him, Fortune, blind, scatters +money. The car is followed by Croesus, Midas, and other noted misers and +spendthrifts--for Cleopatra, the only woman present, is included in the +group. In the 'Triumph of Poverty,' Poverty is an old woman in squalor +and rags, who is seated in a shattered vehicle, drawn by asses and oxen, +and guided by Hope and Diligence. The designs are large and bold. In the +first, a resemblance to Henry VIII, is found in Croesus. If the +resemblance were intentional on Holbein's part, it showed the same want +of tact and feeling which the painter early betrayed in his caricature +of Erasmus. + +But the best of Holbein's drawings are his portrait sketches with +chalks, on flesh-tinted paper. These sketches have a history of their +own, subsequent to their execution by Holbein. After being in the +possession of the art-loving Earl of Arundel, and carried to France, +they were lost sight of altogether for the space of a century, until +they were discovered by Queen Caroline, wife of George II., in a bureau +at Kensington. You will hear a little later that the finest collection +of miniatures in England went through the same process of disappearance +and recovery.[42] These original sketches, in addition to their great +artistic merit, form a wonderful collection of speaking likenesses, +belonging to the court of Henry VIII.,--likenesses which had been +happily identified in time by Sir John Cheke (in the reign of +Elizabeth), since the names of the originals have been inscribed on the +back of each drawing, as it is believed, by Sir John Cheke's hand. The +collection is now in the Queen's library, Windsor, with photographs at +Kensington Museum. There are one or two of Holbein's reputed portraits +at Hampton Court. + +I must pass over some painters as not being sufficiently represented for +my purpose. Among these is Sir Antony More, Philip II, of Spain's +friend. It is recorded that Philip having rested his hand on the +shoulder of More while at work, the bold painter turned round, and +daubed the royal hand with vermilion. This gave rise to the +courtier-saying that Philip 'made slaves of his friends, and friends of +his painters.' Another is Zucchero, one of the painters who was +requested by Queen Elizabeth to paint her picture without shade, the +result being 'a woman with a Roman nose, a huge ruff and farthingale, +and a bushel of pearls.' There are also Van Somer,--Janssens, who +painted Lady Bowyer, named for her exquisite beauty, 'The star of the +East,' and Susanna Lister, the most beautiful woman at court, when +presented in marriage to Sir Geoffrey Thornhurst by James I, in +person,[43]--and Daniel Myttens, all foreigners, Flemish or Dutch, whom +we must thus briefly dismiss. And now we come to Van Dyck. + +Antony Van Dyck was born at Antwerp, in 1599. His father was a merchant; +his mother was famous for painting flowers in small, and for needlework +in silk. The fashion of painting 'in small' had prevailed for some time. +Horace Walpole mentions that the mother of Lucas de Heere, a Flemish +painter, born in 1534, could paint with such 'diminutive neatness' that +she had executed 'a landscape with a windmill, miller, a cart and horse, +and passengers,' which half a grain of corn could cover. At ten years of +age, Van Dyck began to study as a painter, and he soon became a pupil, +and afterwards a favourite pupil, of Rubens. In 1618, when Van Dyck was +but a lad of seventeen years, he was admitted as a master into the +painters' guild of St Luke. Two years later, he was still working with +Rubens, who, seeing his lameness of invention, counselled him to abide +by portrait painting, and to visit Italy. A year later, in 1621, when +Van Dyck was twenty years of age, he came to London, already becoming a +resort of Flemish painters, and lodging with a countryman of his own, +worked for a short time in the service of James I. + +On Van Dyck's return to Flanders, and on the death of his father, he was +able to take Rubens' advice, and in 1623, when Van Dyck was still only +twenty-two years of age, he set out for Venice, the Rome of the Flemish +painters. Before quitting Antwerp, Van Dyck, in proof of the friendship +which existed between the painters, presented Rubens with several of the +former's pictures, among them his famous portrait of 'Rubens' wife.' As +a pendant to this generosity, when Van Dyck came back to Antwerp, and +complained to Rubens that he--Van Dyck--could not live on the profits of +his painting, Rubens went next day and bought every picture of Van +Dyck's which was for sale. + +Van Dyck spent five years in Italy, visiting Venice, Florence, Rome, and +Palermo, but residing principally at Genoa. In Italy, he began to +indulge in his love of splendid extravagance, and in the fastidious +fickleness which belonged to the evil side of his character. At Rome he +was called 'the cavalier painter,' yet his first complaint on his return +to Antwerp was, that he could not live on the profits of his painting! +He avoided the society of his homelier countrymen. + +At Palermo, Van Dyck knew, and according to some accounts, painted the +portrait of Sophonisba Anguisciola, who claimed to be the most eminent +portrait painter among women. She was then about ninety years of age, +and blind, but she still delighted in having in her house a kind of +academy of painting, to which all the painters visiting Palermo +resorted. Van Dyck asserted that he owed more to her conversation than +to the teaching of all the schools. A book of his sketches, which was +recovered, showed many drawings 'after Sophonisba Anguisciola.' She is +said to have been born at Cremona, was invited at the age of twenty-six +by Philip II, to Spain, and was presented by him with a Spanish don for +a husband, and a pension of a thousand crowns a-year from the customs of +Palermo. + +The plague drove Van Dyck from Italy back to Flanders, where he painted +for a time, and presented his picture of the 'Crucifixion' to the +Dominicans as a memorial gift in honour of his father, but in Flanders +Rubens' fame overshadowed that of every other painter, and Van Dyck, +recalling an invitation which he had received from the Countess of +Arundel while still in Italy, came a second time to England, in 1630, +when he was about thirty years of age, and lodged again with a +fellow-countryman and painter named Gildorp. But his sensitive vanity +was wounded by his not at once receiving an introduction to the king, or +the countenance which the painter considered his due, and the +restlessness, which was a prominent feature in his character, being +re-awakened, he withdrew once more from England, and returned to the Low +Countries in 1631. At last, a year later, in 1632, Van Dyck's pride was +propitiated by receiving a formal invitation from Charles I., through +Sir Kenelm Digby, to visit England, and this time the painter had no +cause to complain of an unworthy reception. He was lodged by the king +among his artists at Blackfriars, having no intercourse with the city, +save by water. He had the king, with his wife and children, to sit to +him, and was granted a pension of two hundred a-year, with the +distinction of being named painter to his Majesty. + +A year later Van Dyck was knighted. Royal and noble commissions flowed +upon him, and the king, who had a hereditary love of art, visited the +painter continually, and spent some of the happiest and most innocent +hours of his brief and clouded life in Van Dyck's company. Thus began +Van Dyck's success in England. + +To give you an example of how often, and in how many different manners, +Van Dyck painted the king and royal family, I shall quote from a list of +his pictures-- + + 'King Charles in coronation robes.' + + 'King Charles in armour' (twice). + + 'King Charles in white satin, with his hat on, just + descended from his horse; in the distance, view of the + Isle of Wight.' + + 'King Charles in armour, on a white horse; Monsieur + de St Antoine, his equerry, holding the king's + helmet.' + + 'The King and Queen sitting; Prince Charles, + very young, standing at the King's side; the Duke of + York, an infant, on the Queen's knee.' + + 'The King and Queen holding a crown of laurel + between them.' + + 'The Queen in white.' + + 'Prince Charles in armour' (two or three times). + + 'King, Queen, Prince Charles, and Princess Mary.' + + 'Queen with her five children.' + + 'Queen with dwarfs,[44] Sir Geoffrey Hudson having + a monkey on his shoulder.' + +Van Dyck had several great patrons, after the king. For the Earl of +Arundel, in addition to portraits of the Earl and Countess, the painter +designed a second Arundel family picture, which was painted by +Fruitiers. For George, Duke of Buckingham, Van Dyck painted one of his +finest double portraits of the Duke's two sons, when children. For the +Northumberland family Van Dyck painted, besides portraits of Henry and +Algernon, Earls of Northumberland, another famous picture, that of the +two beautiful sisters, Lady Dorothy Percy, afterwards Countess of +Leicester, and her sister, Lady Lucy Percy, afterwards Countess of +Carlisle, whose charms figure frequently in the memoirs of her time. +William and Philip, Earls of Pembroke, were also among his patrons, and +for the second he painted his great family picture, 'The Wilton +Family.' Sir Kenelm Digby, too, whose wife Venitia was more frequently +painted than any woman of her day, and was not more distinguished for +her beauty than for her lack of nobler qualities. Van Dyck alone painted +her several times, the last after her sudden death, for her vain and +eccentric, if gallant, husband, who in the end was no friend to Van +Dyck. + +But these high names by no means exhaust the list of patrons of a +painter who, among various contradictory qualities, was indefatigably +industrious. His work is widely distributed among the Scotch as well as +the English descendants of the nobility whom he painted, so that the +possession of at least one ancestral 'Van Dyck' accompanies very many +patents of nobility, and is equivalent to a warrant of gentle birth. + +The Earl of Clarendon, in the next reign, had a great partiality for Van +Dyck's pictures, and was said to be courted by gifts of them until his +apartments at Cornbury were furnished with full-length 'Van Dycks.' A +third of his collection went to Kitty Hyde, Duchess of Queensberry, one +of the Earl's three co-heiresses. Through the Rich family many of these +'Van Dycks' passed to Taymouth Castle, where by a coincidence they were +lodged in the company of numerous works of George Jamieson of Aberdeen, +who is said to have been for a short time a fellow-pupil of Van Dyck's +under Rubens, who has been called 'the Scotch Van Dyck,' and who is +certainly the first native painter who deserves honourable mention. +Since the death of the last Marquis of Breadalbane these travelled 'Van +Dycks' have gone back to the English representative of the Rich family. + +Van Dyck had forty pounds for a half, and sixty pounds for a +whole-length picture;--for a large piece of the King, Queen, and their +children, he had a hundred pounds. For the Wilton family picture he had +five hundred and twenty-five pounds. But Van Dyck soon impaired his +fortune. He was not content with having a country-house at Eltham in +Kent, where he spent a portion of each summer; he would emulate in his +expenditure the most spendthrift noble of that reign. 'He always went +magnific so good a table in his apartment that few princes were more +visited and better served.' His marriage was not calculated to teach him +moderation. In his thirty-ninth year the King gave him the hand of Marie +Ruthven, who was nearly related to the unhappy Earl of Gowrie. She was +his niece, her father having been the scarcely less unhappy younger +brother Patrick, a physician, who, apprehended when a young man on the +charge of being concerned in the treason of his elder brothers, spent +his manhood in the Tower. He was kept a prisoner there from 1584 to +1619, nearly forty years, and was only released in his age and infirmity +when his mind was giving way. Patrick Ruthven's infant daughter had been +adopted, either through charity or perversity, by Anne of Denmark, and +brought up first at the court of Anne, and afterwards at that of +Henrietta Maria. The assertion that Marie Ruthven was a very beautiful +woman has been contradicted. It was said that 'she was bestowed in +marriage on Sir Antony Van Dyck as much to humble further the already +humbled and still detested family of Ruthven, as to honour the painter; +but this does not seem consistent with King Charles's known favour for +Van Dyck. Yet such a view might have been entertained by Marie Ruthven +herself, who, according to tradition, held herself degraded by the +marriage, and never forgave the degradation. She was not a loving wife +to a man who could hardly have been a very loving or loyal husband. And +certainly the marriage did not unite the painter closer to the king. + +With his professional industry, Van Dyck combined an equally +unquenchable love of pleasure, which, with his luxurious and sedentary +habits, induced paroxysms of gout, from which Rubens also suffered +severely. This must have ultimately disqualified him for good work, and +when his debts accumulated in greater proportion even than his receipts, +in place of having recourse, like Rubens, to his painting-room, Van Dyck +tried a shorter road to get rich, by following the idle example of Sir +Kenelm Digby in his pursuit of alchemy and the philosopher's stone. + +In the year of his marriage, Van Dyck re-visited Flanders, in company +with his wife, and then repaired to France, it is understood with the +intention of settling there. He was instigated to the step by his wife, +and his own ambition of rivalling Rubens' triumphs at the Luxembourg; +but the preference which the French gave to the works of their +countryman, Nicolas Poussin, roused his latent jealousy, and so +mortified him as to induce him to renounce his intention. He determined +to return to England, and was, to his credit, confirmed in his +resolution by the threatening civil war which was to shake his royal +master's throne to the foundation, rather than deterred from it. + +Again in England, Van Dyck employed Sir Kenelm Digby to make an offer on +the painter's part that for eight hundred pounds he would paint the +history, and a procession of the Knights of the Garter on the walls of +the Knights' banqueting-room at Whitehall--that palace which was to +have surpassed the Louvre, the Tuileries, and the Escurial, and from one +of the windows of which Charles stepped out on his scaffold. But the +proposal was rejected, and immediately afterwards the civil war broke +out, and was speedily followed by the death of Van Dyck, about a year +after his marriage, when he was a little over forty years old, at +Blackfriars, in 1641. He was buried in old St Paul's, near the tomb of +John of Gaunt. His daughter, Justiniana, was born a short time--some say +only eight days--before her father died, and was baptized on the day of +his death. Van Dyck left effects and sums due to him to the amount of +twenty thousand pounds; but the greater part of the debts were found +beyond recovery at the close of the civil war. His daughter grew up, and +married a Mr Stepney, 'who rode in King Charles's life guards.' His +widow re-married; her second husband was a Welsh knight. + +Van Dyck's contradictory elements. He was actuated by opposite motives +which are hard to analyze, and which in their instability have within +themselves, whatever their outward advantages, the doom of failure in +the highest excellence. He was a proud man, dissatisfied both with +himself and his calling, resenting, with less reason than Hans Holbein +showed, that he should be condemned to portrait painting, yet by no +means undervaluing or slurring over his work. He 'would detain the +persons who sat to him to dinner for an opportunity of studying their +countenances and re-touching their pictures,' 'would have a sitter, +sitting to him seven entire days, mornings and evenings, and would not +once let the man see the picture till it pleased the painter.' Van Dyck +appears to have been a man with the possibilities in him of greater +things than he attained, possibilities which were baffled by his +weakness and self-indulgence, leaving him with such a sense of this as +spoiled his greatest successes. + +I have the varying indications of two pictures of Van Dyck from which to +get an impression of his personal appearance. The first picture is that +of a youthful face, soft, smiling, with dark eyes, finely-formed nose, +a slightly open mouth, having a full-cleft under lip, the hair profuse +and slightly curled, but short, and no beard or moustache. The dress is +an open doublet, without a collar, a lace cravat, and one arm half bare. +The second is the picture of Van Dyck in the Louvre, which is judged the +best likeness of the painter. In this his person is slender, his +complexion fair, his eyes grey, his hair chestnut brown, his beard and +whiskers red. He wears a vest of green velvet, with a plain collar. + +In his art, Van Dyck, with something of the glow of Rubens, and with a +delicacy peculiarly his own, was decidedly inferior to his great master, +both in power and in fertility of genius. In the superficial refinement +which was so essential a part of Van Dyck, he had the capacity of +conferring on his sitters a reflection of his own outward stateliness +and grace. When he painted at his best his portraits were solid, true, +and masterly, but he has been reproached with sacrificing truth to the +refining process which he practised. Even in the case of Charles I., +whose portraits are our most familiar examples of Van Dyck, and who thus +lives in the imagination of most people as the very personification of a +noble and handsome cavalier, there have not been wanting critics who +have maintained that Charles,--the son of a plain uncouth father, and of +a mother rather floridly buxom than delicately handsome, and who was in +his childhood a sickly rickety child,--was by no means so well endowed +in the matter of manly beauty as we have supposed. These students of old +gossip and close investigation, have alleged that Charles was long and +lanky, after he had ceased to be Baby Charles; that his nose was too +large, and, alas! apt to redden; that his eyes were vacillating; and his +mouth, the loosely hung mouth of a man who begins by being irresolute, +and ends by being obstinate.[45] Again, in the hands of a sitter, which +Van Dyck was supposed to paint with special care and elegance, it has +been argued that he copied always the same hand, probably his own, in +ignorance, or in defiance of the fact that hands have nearly as much and +as varying character as a painter can discover in faces. Though Van Dyck +painted many beautiful women, he did not excel in rendering them +beautiful on canvas, so that succeeding generations, in gazing on Van +Dyck's versions of Venitia, Lady Digby, and Dorothy Sydney--Waller's +Sacharissa,--have wondered how Sir Kenelm, Waller, and their +contemporaries, could find these ladies so beautiful. + +Van Dyck certainly owed something of the charm of his pictures to the +dress of the period, with regard to which he received this credit that +'Van Dyck was the first painter who e'er put ladies' dress into a +careless romance.' But in reality never was costume better suited for a +painter like Van Dyck. + +The hair in the men was allowed to flow to the shoulders or gathered in +a love knot, while the whiskers and beard formed a point. In the women +the hair was crisped in curls round the face. The ruff in men and women +had yielded to the broad, rich, falling collar, with deep scallops of +point lace. Vest and cloak were of the richest velvet or satin, or else, +on the breaking out of the civil war, men appeared in armour. The man's +hat was broad and flapping, usually turned up at one side, and having an +ostrich feather in the band; his long wide boots were of Spanish +leather, and he wore gauntlet gloves, and rich ruffles at his wrists. +The women wore hoods and mantles, short bodices, ample trains, and wide +sleeves terminating in loose ruffles at the elbow, which left half of +the arm bare. Pearl necklaces and bracelets, round feather fans, and +'knots of flowers,' were the almost universal ornaments of women. +Another ornament of both men and women, which belonged to the day, and +was very common in the quarters I have been referring to, was a +miniature enclosed in a small case of ivory or ebony, carved like a +rose, and worn on the left side in token of betrothal.[46] Van Dyck, +along with the appreciation of black draperies which he held in common +with Rubens, was specially fond of painting white or blue satin. He is +said to have used a brown preparation of pounded peach-stones for +glazing the hair in his pictures. + +In the end, with all the aids that critics may have given him, and all +the faults they may find in him, Van Dyck was a great, and in the main +an earnest portrait painter. Perhaps 'Charles in white satin, just +descended from his horse,' is the best of the single portraits which +were held to be Van Dyck's forte. + +I must try to give my readers some idea of Van Dyck's 'Wilton Family.' +It has been so praised, that some have said 'it might have been covered +with gold as a price to obtain it;' on the other hand, it has not +escaped censure. One critic asserts that there is no common action +uniting the figures, and that the faces are so different in +complexion--one yellow-faced boy appearing either jaundiced or burnt by +a tropical sun, that the family might have lived in different climates. + +This is the story of the picture. 'Earl Philip of Pembroke having +caused his family to meet, informs them with great emotion of the +necessity of his eldest son Charles, Lord Herbert, going into the army +of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, there to acquire military honour and +experience, notwithstanding his having just married Mary, daughter of +George, Duke of Buckingham. Lord Herbert is receiving the news with +ardour, the young bride is turning aside her fair face to hide her +tears. (Charles Lord Herbert was married Christmas, 1634, went to +Florence, and died there of small pox, January, 1636.) + +'In the Pembroke picture (or "Wilton Family") there are ten figures. The +Earl and Countess are seated on a dais, under a coat of arms. He wears a +great lace collar, an order on his breast, a key at his girdle, and has +great shoes with roses. She has flowing curls, hanging sleeves, arms +crossed, necklace on the bare neck. (The Countess of Pembroke was the +Earl's second wife, Anne Clifford, daughter of George, Earl of +Cumberland, the brave lady who defied Cromwell, and was fond of signing +her name with the long string of titles derived from her two husbands, +"Anne Dorset, Pembroke, Montgomery.") Robert Dormer, Earl of Carnarvon, +is introduced with his wife, Lady Anne Sophia Herbert, daughter of Earl +Philip; they are on the Countess's left hand. The daughter-in-law, about +to be parted from her husband, stands on the lowest step of the dais; +she is elegantly dressed, with hanging sleeves knotted with bows from +shoulder to elbow. Two young men, the bridegroom and his brother, are at +their father's right hand; they wear great falling collars and cloaks. +There are three half-grown boys in tunics without collars, and great +roses in their shoes, with a dare three daughters of the family who died +in infancy.' + +Van Dyck's finest sacred pictures were his early 'Crucifixion,' and a +Pieta, at Antwerp. In these he gave a promise of nobler and deeper +pathos than he afterwards fulfilled. His pictures are to be found +freely, as I have written, in old English mansions, such as Arundel and +Alnwick Castles, Knowsley, Knole, Petworth, etc. A head said to be by +Van Dyck is in the National Gallery. + +Van Dyck had few pupils: one, an Englishman named Dobson, earned an +honourable reputation as a painter. + +From Sir Antony More's time down to that of Leíly and Kneller, the rage +for portraits was continually increasing, and took largely the form of +miniatures, which were painted chiefly by foreigners; notably by +Hilliard and two Olivers or Oliviers, a father and son of French +extraction, and by a Swiss named Petitot. A collection of miniatures by +the Oliviers, including no less than six of Venitia, Lady Digby, had a +similar fate to that of Holbein's drawings. The miniatures had been +packed in a wainscot box and conveyed to the country-house in Wales of +Mr Watkin Williams, who was a descendant of the Digby family. In course +of time the box with its contents, doubtless forgotten, had been +transferred to a garret, where it had lain undiscovered for, it has been +supposed, fully a hundred years. It was two hundred years after the +date of the painting of the miniatures, that on some turning over of the +lumber in the garret, the exquisite miniatures, fresh as on the day when +they were painted, were accidentally brought to light.[47] + +Sir Peter Lely was born in Westphalia in 1618. His real name was Vander +Facs, and his father was a 'Captain of Foot,' who, having chanced to be +born in rooms over a perfumer's shop which bore the sign of a lily, took +fantastically enough the name of Du Lys, or Lely, which he transmitted +to his son. Sir Peter Lely, after studying in a studio at Haarlem, came +to England when he was twenty-three years of age, in 1641, and set +himself to copy the pictures of Van Dyck, who died in the year of Lely's +arrival in England, and whom he succeeded as court painter. Lely was +knighted by Charles II., married an English woman, and had a son and a +daughter, who died young. He made a large fortune, dying at last of +apoplexy, with which he was seized as he was painting the Duchess of +Somerset, when he was sixty-two years of age, in 1680. + +With regard to Lely's character, we may safely judge from his works that +he was such a man as Samuel Pepys, 'of easy virtue,' a man holding a low +enough standard by which to measure himself and others. Mr Palgrave +quotes from Mr Leslie the following characteristic anecdote of Lely, +which seems to prove that he was aware of, and coolly accepted, the +decline of art in his generation and person. A nobleman said to Lely, +'How is it that you have so great a reputation, when you know, as well +as I do, that you are no painter?' 'True, but I am the best you have,' +was the answer. Lely's punishment followed him into his art, for +beginning by copying Van Dyck, it is said of Lely that he degenerated in +his work till it bore the very 'stamp of the depravity of the age.' + +Lely's sitters were mostly women. Among them was one who deserved a +fitter painter, Mistress Anne Killigrew, Dryden's-- + + 'Youngest virgin daughter of the skies.' + +In Lely's portrait of her, she is a neat, slightly prim, delicate +beauty, with very fine features, and such sleepy eyes, as were probably +the gift of Lely, since he has bestowed them generally on the women whom +he painted. Mistress Anne Killigrew's hair is in curls, piled up in +front, but hanging down loosely behind. Her bodice is gathered together +by a brooch, and she has another brooch on one shoulder. She wears a +light pearl necklace, and 'drops' shaped like shamrocks in her ears. + +Lely painted both Charles I, and Cromwell, who desired his painters to +omit 'no pimple or wart,' but to paint his face as they saw it. + +Among less notable personages Lely painted Monk, Duke of Albemarle, and +his rough Duchess, once a camp follower, according to popular rumour, +and named familiarly by the contemptuous wits of the day 'Nan Clarges.' +It is with not more honourable originals than poor 'Nan Clarges' that +Lely's name as a painter is chiefly associated. We know what an evil +time the years after the Restoration proved in England, and it was to +immortalize, as far as he could, the vain, light women of the +generation that Lely lent what skill he possessed. There their pictures +hang in what has been called 'the Beauty Room' at Hampton Court, and no +good man or woman can look at them without holding such beauty +detestable. + +At Hampton Court also there are several of the eleven portraits of +Admirals whom Lely painted for James II, when Duke of York. + +Antonio Canal, called Canaletto, incorrectly Canaletti, was born at +Venice in 1697. He was the son of a scene painter at the theatre. In his +youth he worked under his father; a little later he went to Rome, and +studied for some time there. Then he came to England, where he remained +only for two years. I have hesitated about placing his name among those +of the foreign painters resident in England, but so many of his works +are in this country that he seems to belong to it in an additional +sense. He is said to have 'made many pictures and much money.' He died +at Venice when he was seventy years of age, in 1768. As a painter he +was famous for his correctness of perspective and precision of outline +(in which it is alleged he aided himself by the use of the camera), +qualities specially valuable in the architectural subjects of which he +was fond, drawing them principally from his native Venice. But his very +excellence was mechanical, and he showed so little originality or, for +that matter, fidelity of genius, that he painted his landscapes in +invariable sunshine. + + * * * * * + +The great wood-carver Grinling Gibbons deserves mention among the +artists of this date. He was a native of Rotterdam, where he was born in +1648. He came to London with other carvers the year after the great fire +of London, and was introduced by Evelyn to Charles II., who took him +into his employment. 'Gibbons was appointed master carver in wood to +George I., with a salary of eighteen-pence a day.' He died at his house +in Bow Street in the sixty-third year of his age, in 1721. It is said +that no man before Gibbons 'gave to wood the lightness of flowers.' For +the great houses of Burghley, Petworth, and Chatsworth, Gibbons carved +exquisite work, in festoons for screens, and chimney-pieces, and panels +for pictures, of fruit, flowers, shells, and birds. + + * * * * * + +Sir Godfrey Kneller was born at Lübeck in 1646, and was the son of an +architect. He is said to have studied under Rembrandt; but if this be +true, it must have been in Kneller's early youth. It is more certain +that he travelled in Italy and returned to settle in Hamburg, but +changing his plans, he came to England, when he was about thirty years +of age, in 1675. London became his home. There he painted portraits with +great success; his prices being fifteen guineas for a head, twenty if +with one hand, thirty for a half, and sixty for a whole-length portrait. +Charles II, sat at the same time to Kneller and to Lely. Not Titian +himself painted more crowned heads than it fell to the lot of Kneller to +paint--not less than six reigning kings and queens of England, and, in +addition, Louis XIV. of France, Charles VI, of Spain, and the Czar Peter +of Russia. + +William III, created Kneller a knight, and George I, raised the +painter's rank to that of a baronet. Sir Godfrey was notorious for his +conceit, irritability, and eccentricity, and for the wit which sparkled +more in his conversation than in any originality of observation +displayed in his painting. Walpole attributes to Kneller the opposite +qualities of great negligence and great love of money. The negligence or +slovenliness, whether in the man or the artist, did not interfere with +an immense capacity for work, such as it was, but if Horace Walpole be +right, that Kneller employed many Flemish painters under him to +undertake the wigs, draperies, etc. etc., the amount of work in portrait +painting which Sir Godfrey Kneller accomplished is so far explained. He +attained the end of being a very rich man, and married an English woman, +but left no family to succeed to his wealth and his country-seat of +Whitton, when he died at his house in London in his seventy-eighth year, +in 1723. + +As a painter Sir Godfrey Kneller showed considerable talent in drawing, +and a certain cumbrous dignity of design, but he had much more industry +of a certain kind than artistic feeling or taste. When he and Lely +painted Charles II, together, Kneller's application and rapidity of +execution were so far before those of Lely, who was technically the +better painter of the two, that Kneller's picture was finished when +Lely's was dead-coloured only. Kneller was highly praised by Dryden, +Addison, Prior, and Steele. Apropos of these writers, among the most +famous works of Kneller are the forty-three portraits, painted +originally for Tonson, the bookseller, of the members of the Kit Cat +club, the social and literary club of the day, which got its name from +the chance of its holding its meetings in a house the owner of which +bore the unique name of Christopher Cat. Another series of portraits by +Kneller are what ought to be, in their designation, the Hampton Court +Beauties. These are still, like the other 'Beauties,' at Hampton. The +second series was proposed by William's Queen Mary, and included +herself, Sarah Jennings, Duchess of Marlborough, and Mary Bentinck. To +Sarah Jennings men did award the palm of beauty, but poor Queen Mary, +who had a modest, simple, comely, English face as a princess, had lost +her fresh youthful charm by the time she became Queen of England, and +was still further disfigured by the swelling of the face to which she +was liable. Her proposal to substitute the worthier women of her court +for the unworthy beauties of her uncle King Charles' court was not +relished, and helped to render Mary unpopular--among the women, at +least, of her nobility. Neither was Sir Godfrey Kneller qualified to +enhance the attractions of Mary's maids of honour and ladies in waiting, +who, to complete their disadvantages, lived at a period when it had +become the fashion for women to crown their persons by an erection on +their natural heads of artificial 'edifices of three heads.' + +To Kneller, as I have already written, we owe the preservation of +Raphael's cartoons. + + + + +CHAPTER XII.[48] + +ITALIAN MASTERS FROM THE FOURTEENTH TO THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES--TADDEO +GADDI, 1300, SUPPOSED TO HAVE DIED 1366--FRA FILIPPO, 1412-1469--BENOZZO +GOZZOLI, 1424-1496--LUCA SIGNORELLI, 1441, SUPPOSED TO HAVE DIED ABOUT +1524--BOTTICELLI, 1447-1515--PERUGINO, 1446-1522--CARPACCIO, DATE AND +PLACE OF BIRTH AND DEATH UNKNOWN--CRIVELLI--FILIPPINO LIPI, EARLIER THAN +1460--ANTONELLA DA MESSINA, BELIEVED TO HAVE DIED AT VENICE, +1496--GAROPALO, 1481-1559--LUINI, DATE OF BIRTH UNKNOWN, SUPPOSED TO +HAVE DIED ABOUT 1530--PALMA, ABOUT 1480-1528--PARDENONE, 1483-1538--LO +SPAGNA, DATE OF BIRTH UNKNOWN, 1533--GIULIO ROMANO, 1492-1546--PARIS +BORDONE, 1500-1570--IL PARMIGIANINO, 1503-1540--BAROCCIO, +1528-1612--CARAVAGGIO, 1569-1609--LO SPAGNOLETTO, 1593-1656--GUERCINO, +1592-1666--ALBANO, 1578-1660--SASSOFERRATO, 1605-1685--VASARI, +1513-1574--SOFONISBA ANGUISCIOLA, 1535, ABOUT 1620--LAVINIA FONTANA, +1552-1614. + + +Taddeo Gaddi, the most important of Giotto's scholars, was born in 1300, +and was held at the baptismal font by Giotto himself. Gaddi rather went +back on earlier traditions and faults. His excellence lay in his purity +and simplicity of feeling. His finest pictures are from the life of the +Virgin, in S. Croce, Florence. He was, like his master, a great +architect as well as painter. He furnished the plans for the Ponte +Vecchio and Campanile, Florence, after Giotto's death. He was possessed +of great activity and industry. He is supposed to have died in 1366, and +rests in the scene of his labours, since he was buried in the cloisters +of S. Croce. + +Fra Filippo, 1412-1469, a Carmelite friar. The romantic, scandalous +life, including his slavery in Barbary, attributed to him by Vasari, the +great biographer of the early Italian painters, has received no +corroboration from modern researches. It is rather refuted. He always +signed his pictures 'Frater Filippus,' and his death is entered in the +register of the Carmine convent as that of 'Frater Filippus.' In all +probability he was from first to last a monk, and not a disreputable +one. He describes himself as the poorest friar in Florence, with six +marriageable nieces dependent on him, and he is said to have been +involved in debt. + +His colouring was 'golden and broad,' in anticipation of that of Titian; +his draperies were fine. He was wanting in the ideal, but full of human +feeling, which was apt to get rude and boisterous; his angels were 'like +great high-spirited boys.' Withal, his style of composition was stately. +Among the best examples of his work are scenes from the life of St John +the Baptist in frescoes in the choir of the Duomo at Prato. His panel +pictures are rather numerous. There are two lunette[49] pictures by Fra +Filippo in the National Gallery. + +Benozzo Gozzoli, 1424-1496, a scholar of Fra Angelico, but resembling +him only in light and cheerful colouring. He is said to have been the +first Italian painter smitten with the beauty of the natural world. He +was the first to create rich landscape backgrounds, and he enlivened +his landscapes with animals. He displayed a fine fancy for architectural +effects, introducing into his pictures open porticoes, arcades, +balconies, and galleries. He liked to have subsidiary groups and circles +of spectators about his principal figures. In these groups he introduced +portraits of his contemporaries, true to nature and full of expression +and delicate feeling. His best work is in the Campo Santo, Pisa, scenes +from the history of the Old Testament, ranging from Noah to the Queen of +Sheba. The Pisans were so pleased with his work as to present him, in +1478, with a sarcophagus intended to contain his remains when they +should be deposited in the Campo Santo. He survived the gift eighteen +years, dying in 1496. His easel pictures are rare, and do not offer good +representations of the master. There is one in the National Gallery--a +Virgin and Child, with saints and angels. + +Luca d'Egidio di Ventura, called also Luca 'da Cortona,' from his +birth-place, and Luca Signorelli, 1441, supposed to have died about +1524. His is a great name in the Tuscan School. He played an important +part in the painting of the Sistine Chapel, though he is only +represented by one wall picture, the History of Moses. At his best he +anticipated Michael Angelo in power and grandeur, but he was given to +exaggeration. His fame rests principally on his frescoes at Orvieto, +where, by a strange chance, he was appointed, after an interval of time, +to continue and complete the work begun by Fra Angelico, the master most +opposed to Signorelli in style. Luca added the great dramatic scenes +which include the history of Antichrist, executed with a grandeur which +'only Lionardo among the painters sharing a realistic tendency could +have surpassed.' These scenes, which contain The Resurrection, Hell, and +Paradise, bear a strong resemblance to the work of Michael Angelo. In +his fine drawing of the human figure Signorelli may be known by 'the +squareness of his forms in joints and extremities.' A conspicuous detail +in his pictures is frequently a bright-coloured Roman scarf. His work is +rarely seen north of the Alps. + +Sandro Filipepi, called Botticelli, 1447-1515. He was an apprentice to +a goldsmith, and then became a scholar of Filippo Lipi's. Botticelli was +vehement and impetuous, full of passion and poetry, seeking to express +movement. He was the most dramatic painter of his school. Occasionally +he rises to a grandeur that allies him to Signorelli and Michael Angelo. +His circular pictures of the Madonna and Child, with angels, are +numerous. Like Fra Filippo, Botticelli's angels are noble youths, some +of them belonging to the great families of the time. They are prone to +be ecstatic with joy or frantic with grief. There is a grand Coronation +of the Virgin, by Botticelli at Hamilton Palace, and a beautiful +Nativity by the old master belongs to Mr Fuller Maitland. His Madonna +and Child are grand and tragic figures always. Botticelli's noble +frescoes in the Sistine Chapel are apt to be overlooked because of +Michael Angelo's 'sublime work' on the ceiling. There has been a revival +of Botticelli's renown within late years, partly due to the new +interest in the earlier Italian painters which Mr Browning has done +something to stimulate. + +I quote some thoughtful remarks on Botticelli by W.C. Lefroy in +_Macmillan's Magazine_: 'Mr Ruskin, we know, divides Italian art into +the art of faith, beginning with Giotto, and lasting rather more than +200 years, and the art of unbelief, or at least of cold and inoperative +faith, beginning in the middle of Raphael's life. But whatever division +we adopt, we must remember that the revival of Paganism, as a matter of +fact, affected men in different ways. Right across the schools this new +spirit draws its line, but the line is not a hard and sharp one. Some +men lie wholly on one side of it, with Giotto, Angelico, and Orcagna; +some wholly upon the other, with Titian and Correggio, but there are +some on whom it seems to fall as a rainbow falls upon a hill-side. Such, +for instance, is Botticelli. Now he tries to paint as men painted in the +old days of unpolluted faith, and then again he breaks away and paints +like a very heathen. + +'The interest which this artist has excited in the present generation +has been exaggerated into something like a fashion, and recent criticism +has delighted to find or imagine in him the idiosyncrasies of recent +thought. To us it may be he does in truth say more than he or his +contemporaries dreamed of, but while true criticism will sternly refuse +to help us to see in his pictures that which is purely subjective, it +will, I think, recognise the fact that a day like ours is capable of +reading in the subtle suggestions of ancient art thoughts which have +only now come to be frankly defined or exquisitely analysed. To us, +moreover, Botticelli presents not only the poem of the apparition of the +young and beautiful manhood of humanism before the brooding and +entranced, yet half expectant, maidenhood of mediævalism, but also the +poem of the painter's own peculiar relation to that crisis. For us there +is the poetry of the thing itself, and also the poetry of Botticelli's +attempt to express it. The work of Botticelli does not supply a +universal utterance for mankind like Shakespeare's plays, but when we +stand before the screen on which his "Nativity" is hung, or contemplate +in the adjoining room his two perplexed conceptions of "Aphrodite," we +are face to face with a genuine outcome of that memorable meeting, +mediævalism, humanism, and Savonarola, which no generation can afford to +ignore, and our own especially delights to contemplate. There has been +much dispute about the date of Botticelli's "Nativity," and some +defenders of Savonarola have hoped to read 1511 in the strange character +of its inscription, so that this beautiful picture, standing forth as +the work of one for many years under the influence of "the Frate," may +refute the common calumny that that influence was unfriendly to art. Our +catalogue, indeed, unhesitatingly asserts of Botticelli, that "he became +a follower of Savonarola and no doubt suffered from it;" but though +there seems to be really little doubt that the "Nativity" was painted in +1500, the inscription, with its mystic allusion to the Apocalypse, and +the whole character of the picture, afford unmistakable evidence of the +influence of Savonarola.' + +Pietro Perugino, 1446, died of the plague at Frontignano in 1522. +Perugino is another painter who has been indebted to the last +Renaissance. His fame, in this country rested chiefly on the +circumstance that he was Raphael's master, whom the generous prince of +painters delighted to honour, till the tide of fashion in art rose +suddenly and floated old Pietro once more to the front. At his best he +had luminous colour, grace, softness, and enthusiastic earnestness, +especially in his young heads. His defects were monotony, and formality, +together with comparative ignorance of the principles of his art. His +conception of his calling in its true dignity was not high. His attempts +at expressing ardour degenerated into mannerism, and he acquired habits +and tricks of arrangement and style, among which figured his favourite +upturned heads, that in the end were ill drawn, and, like every other +affectation, became wearisome. In the process of falling off as an +artist, when mere manual dexterity took the place of earnest devotion +and honest pains, Perugino had a large studio where many pupils executed +his commissions, and where, working for gain instead of excellence in +art, he had the satisfaction, doubtless, of amassing a large fortune. +Among his finest works is the picture of an enthroned Madonna and Child +in the gallery of the Uffizi. Another fine Madonna with Saints is at +Cremona. His frescoes in the Sala del Campio at Perugia are among his +best works. The subjects of these frescoes are partly scriptural; partly +mythological. In the execution there is excellence alike in drawing, +colouring, and the disposal of drapery. A _chef d'oeuvre_ by the master +is the Madonna of the Certosa at Pavia, now in, the National Gallery. +Yet it is said to have been painted at the very period when Michael +Angelo ridiculed Perugino's work as 'absurd and antiquated.' Vittore +Carpaccio, date and place of birth unknown, though he is said to have +been a native of Istria. He was a historical painter of the early +Venetian School and a follower of the Bellini. His romantic _genre_ +pictures show the daily life of the Venice of his time, and are +furnished with landscape and architectural backgrounds. His masterly and +rich work is mostly in Venice. He introduces animals freely and well in +his designs. + +Carlo Crivelli was another master of the fifteenth century who deserves +notice. He had strong individuality, yet was influenced by the Paduan +and Venetian Schools. He displayed an old-fashioned preference for +painting in tempera. Sometimes his drawing approaches that of Mantegna, +while he has a gorgeousness of colouring all his own. His pictures +occasionally show dignity of composition in combination with grace and +daintiness; but he could be guilty of exaggerated vehemence of +expression. He frequently introduced fruit, flowers, and birds in his +work. He is fully represented in the National Gallery, his works there +ranging from 'small tender pictures of the dead Christ with angels, to a +sumptuous altar-piece in numerous compartments.' + +Filippino Lipi was an adopted son and probably a relation of Fra +Filippo's, though a scholar's use of his master's name was not uncommon. +The date of his birth is earlier than 1460. Filippino was also a pupil +of Botticelli's, while there was a higher sense of beauty and grace in +the pupil than in the teacher. Among his last works is the Vision of St +Bernard, an easel picture in the Badia at Florence. The apparition of +the Madonna in this picture is said to be 'full of charm.' In his larger +works he is one of the greatest historical painters of his country. +Roman antiquities had the same keen interest for him which they held for +the greatest of his contemporaries, and he made free use of them in the +architecture of his pictures. He has fine work in the Carmelite Church, +Florence, and in S. Maria Sopra Minerva, Rome. Much of some of his +pictures is painted over. The National Gallery has a picture of +Filippino's 'of grand execution,' though almost colourless--the Madonna +and Child, with St Jerome and St Francis. + +Antonella da Messina was the Neapolitan painter who brought the practice +of painting in oils from the Netherlands into Italy, though it is now +believed, from stubborn discrepancies in dates, that the story of his +great friendship with Jan Van Eyck, as given by Vasari, is apochryphal. +Very likely Hans Memling, called also 'John of Bruges,' was the real +friend and leader of Antonella. His best work consisted of portraits. He +is believed to have died at Venice in 1496. + +Benvenuto Tisio, surnamed from the place of his birth Garofalo, was born +in 1481, and died in 1559. He passed from the early school of Ferrara to +that of Raphael. His conception was apt to be fantastic, while his +colouring was vivid to abruptness, and he was deficient in charm of +expression. He fell into the fault of monotonous ideality. At the same +time his heads are beautiful, and his drapery is classic. His finest +work is an 'Entombment' in the Borghese Palace, Rome. There is an +altar-piece by Garofalo, a Madonna and Child with angels, in the +National Gallery. + +Bernardo Luini, who stands foremost among the scholars of Lionardo da +Vinci, was born by the Lago Maggiore, the date unknown, came to Milan in +1500, was elderly in 1525, and is supposed to have died not long after +1530. His work is chiefly found in Milan. His great merit has been only +lately acknowledged. He is not 'very powerful or original,' but for +'purity, grace, and spiritual expression,' he ranks very high. He unites +the earnestness of the older masters with the prevailing feeling for +beauty of the great masters of Italian Art. His pictures were long +mistaken for those of his master, Lionardo, though it is said that when +the difference between them is once pointed out, it is easily +recognised; indeed, the resemblance is confined to a smiling beatific +expression in the countenances, which abounds more in Luini's pictures. +His heads of women, children, and angels present every degree of +serenity, sweet cheerfulness and happiness, up to ecstatic rapture. +'Christ Disputing with the Doctors,' in the National Gallery, formerly +called a Lionardo, is now known to be a Luini. He painted much, whether +in tempera, fresco, or oil. His favourite subjects in oil were the +Madonna and Child, with St John and the Lamb, and the Marriage of St +Catherine. Probable he appears to greatest advantage in frescoes. He is +said to have reached his highest perfection in the figure of St John in +a Crucifixion in the Monasterio Maggiore, Milan. + +Jacopo Palma, called Il Palma Vecchio, was born about 1480 near Bergamo, +and died in 1528. He is believed to have studied under Giovanni Bellini, +while he is also the chief follower of Giorgione. His characteristics +are ample forms and gorgeous breadth of drapery. His female saints, with +their large rounded figures, have a soft yet commanding expression. He +had an enchanting feeling for landscape, which seems to have been the +birthright of the Venetian painters. To Palma is owing what are called +'Santa Conversazione,' where there are numerous groups round the Virgin +and Child, as if they are holding a court in a retired and beautiful +country nook. Palma rivalled Giorgione and Titian as a painter of +women's portraits. Among these is that of his daughter Violante, +believed to have been loved by Titian. 'Palma's three Daughters,' in the +Dresden Gallery, is a masterpiece of 'fair, full-blown beauty.' The hair +of the women is of the curiously bleached yellow tint affected then by +the Venetian ladies. Palma painted many pictures, leaving at his death +forty-our unfinished. + +Giovanni Antonio da Pardenone, born 1483, died 1538. He had many names, +'Pardenone' from his birth-place, 'Corticellis' from that of his father, +and he is believed to have assumed the name 'Regillo' after he received +knighthood from the King of Hungary. He was Venetian in his artistic +qualities. Many of his works are in his native Pardetowns near. All have +suffered and some are now hidden by whitewash. His chief strength lay in +fresco. His scenes from the Passion in the cathedral, Cremona, are +greatly damaged and wretchedly restored, but they still reveal the +painter as a great master. They have 'fine drawing, action, excellent +colouring, grand management of light and shade, with freedom of hand and +dignity of conception.' In the prophets and sibyls around the cupola of +the Madonna di Campagna, Piacenza, Pardenone's power is fully proven. +His immense works in fresco account for the rarity of his oil pictures +and their comparative inferiority. There is only one picture, and that a +portrait, indisputably assigned to Pardenone in England, in the Baring +Collection. + +Giovanni di Pietro, known as Lo Spagna (the Spaniard), was a +contemporary of Raphael's, a fellow-pupil of his under Perugino. There +is no record of the time and place of Lo Spagna's birth. He died in +1533. He was a careful, conscientious follower of Perugino and Raphael, +doing finished and delicate work; an 'Assumption' in a church at Trevi +is a fine example of his qualities. His best picture was painted in +1516, and is at Assisi. It represents the Madonna enthroned with three +saints on each side. In his later works he betrayed feebleness. Pictures +by Lo Spagna are often attributed to Raphael. + +Giulio Pippi, surnamed Romano, born in 1492, died in 1546, was a very +different painter, while he was the most celebrated of Raphael's +scholars. He had a vigorous, daring spirit, with a free hand and a bold +fancy. So long as he painted under Raphael, Giulio followed his master +closely, especially in his study of the antique, but he lacked the +purity and grace of his teacher, on whose death, the pupil leaving Rome, +pursued his own coarser, more vehement impulses. The frescoes in the +Villa Modama, Rome, are good examples of his style, so is the +altar-piece of the Martyrdom of St Stephen in S. Stefano, Genoa. Giulio +Romano was the architect who designed the rebuilding of half Mantua. +His best easel picture in England is the 'Education of Jupiter by Nymphs +and Corybantes,' in the National Gallery. In Raphael's lifetime his +principal scholar was accustomed to work on the master's pictures, and +on his death Giulio, together with another pupil, Gianfrancesco Penni, +were left executors of Raphael's will and heirs of his designs. + +Paris Bordone was born at Treviso in 1500 and died in 1570. He was +educated in the Venetian School, and remained remarkable for delicate +rosy colour in his flesh tints and for purple, crimson, and shot hues in +his draperies, which were usually small and in crumpled folds. His _chef +d'oeuvre_ is in the Venetian Academy. It is a fisherman presenting a ring +to the Doge, and is a large and fine picture with many figures. He dealt +frequently in mythological or poetic subjects. There is an example of +the first in the National Gallery. He was great in single female +subjects and women's portraits. There is a portrait by Bordone of a +lovely woman of nineteen belonging to the Brignole family, in the +National Gallery. He had often fine landscape and grand architecture in +his pictures. + +Il Parmigianino, born 1503, died 1540, was a follower of Correggio's. In +Parmigianino's case the danger of the master's peculiarities became +apparent by the lapse into affectation and frivolity. 'His Madonnas are +empty and condescending, his female saints like ladies in waiting.' +Still there were certain indestructible beauties of the master which yet +clung to the scholar. He had clear warm colouring, decision, and good +conception of human life. He was highly successful in portraits. There +is a splendid portrait by Parmigianino, said to be Columbus, in Naples. +Among his celebrated pictures is 'The Madonna with the Long Neck,' in +the Pitti Palace. An altar-piece in the National Gallery, which +represents a Madonna in the clouds with St John the Baptist appearing +to St Jerome, is a good example of Parmigianino. It is said that he was +engrossed with this picture during the siege of Rome in 1527. The +soldiers entered the studio intent on pillage, but surprising the +master at his work, respected his enthusiasm and protected him. + +Federigo Baroccio, of Urbino, born in 1528, died in 1612, was also a +follower of Correggio's, and made a stand against the decline of art in +his day. He was tender and idyllic, though apt in his turn to be +affected and sentimental. When painting in the Vatican, Rome, his rivals +sought to take his life by poison. The attempt caused Baroccio to return +to Urbino, where he established himself and executed his commissions. + +Amirighi da Caravaggio was born at Caravaggio in 1569, and died at Porto +Ercole in 1609. He was chief of the naturalistic school, the members of +which painted common nature and violent passions in bitter opposition to +the eclectics, especially the Caracci. The feud was sometimes carried on +appositely enough on the side of the naturalistic painters by poison and +dagger. Caravaggio was distinguished by his wild temper and stormy life, +in keeping with his pictures. He resided principally in Rome, but dwelt +also in Naples. He is vulgar but striking, even pathetic in some of his +pictures. The 'Beheading of John the Baptist,' in the Cathedral, Malta, +is one of his masterpieces. His Holy Families now and then resemble +gipsy _ménages_. + +Guiseppe Ribiera, a Spaniard, and so called Lo Spagnoletto, was born +1593 and died 1656. He followed Caravaggio, while he retained +reminiscences of the Spanish School and of the Venetian masters. Some of +his best pictures, such as 'the Pieta with the Marys and the Disciples,' +and his 'Last Supper,' are in Naples. He had a wild fancy with a +preference for horrible subjects--executions, tortures--in this respect +resembling Domenichino. Lo Spagnoletto is said to be particularly +unpleasant in his mythological scenes. Many of his pictures have +blackened with time. His 'Mary of Egypt standing by her open Grave' is a +remarkable picture in the Dresden Gallery. + +Giovanni Francesco Barbiera, surnamed Guercino da Cinto, approached the +school of the Caracci. In his art he resembled Guido Reni, with the same +sweetness, greater liveliness, and fine chiaroscuro. 'Dido's Last +Moments' and 'St Peter raising Tabitha' in Rome and in the Pitti Palace +are fine examples of Guercino's work. His later pictures, like Guido's, +are fascinating in softness, delicate colouring and tender sentiment, +degenerating, however, into mannerism and insipidity, while his +colouring becomes at last pale and washy. + +Albano, born 1578, died 1660. He had elegance and cheerfulness which +hardly rose to grace. He painted mostly scenes from ancient mythology, +such as 'Venus and her Companions.' Religious subjects were +comparatively rare with him; one, however, often repeated was the +'Infant Christ sleeping on the Cross.' + +Giovanni Battista Salvi, surnamed from his birth-place Sassoferrato, was +born in 1605 and died in 1685. He followed the scholars of the Caracci, +but with some independence, returning to older and greater masters. His +art was distinguished by a peculiar but slightly affected gentleness of +conception, pleasing and sweet--with the sweetness verging on weakness. +He finished with minute care. He gave constant representations of the +Madonna and Child and Holy Families in a domestic character. In one of +his pictures in Naples the Madonna is engaged in sewing. His most +celebrated, 'Madonna del Rosario,' is in S. Sabina, Rome. The Madonna +bending in ecstatic worship over an infant Christ lying on a cushion is +in the Dresden Gallery. + +Giorgio Vasari was born at Arezzo in 1512 and died at Florence in 1574. +He was an architect, or jeweller, and a historical painter of heavy +crowded pictures. His lives of the early Italian painters and sculptors +up to his own time, the sixteenth century, though full of traditional +gossip, are invaluable as graphic chronicles of much interesting +information which would otherwise have been lost. + +Sofonisba Anguisciola, born 1535, died about 1620, was a pupil of +Bernardino Campi about the close of the sixteenth century at Cremona. +She is justly praised by Vasari. Though her works are rare there are a +few in England and Scotland. Three of her pictures which are mentioned +with high commendation by Dr. Waagen are, 'a nun in the white robes of +her order, nobly conceived and delicately coloured,' in Lord +Yarborough's collection; in Mr Harcourt's collection, 'her own +portrait, still very youthful, delicate, charming, and clear;' and in +the collection of the late Sir W. Stirling Maxwell, 'another portrait of +herself at an easel painting the Virgin and Child on wood, delicately +conceived, clear in colour, and very careful.' + +Lavinia Fontana, born in 1552, died 1614, was a daughter of Prospero +Fontana, who belonged to the fast degenerating Bolognese artists at the +close of the sixteenth and beginning of the seventeenth century. She was +a better artist than her fellow painters, worked cleverly and boldly, +and showed truth to nature. She has left excellent portraits. In the +late Sir W. Stirling Maxwell's collection there is a picture by her, +'Two girls in a boat with a youth rowing,' on wood, 'of very graceful +motive and careful treatment.' + + + + +CHAPTER XIII.[50] + +GERMAN, FLEMISH, AND DUTCH ARTISTS FROM THE FIFTEENTH TO THE EIGHTEENTH +CENTURY--VAN DER WEYDEN, A CONTEMPORARY OF THE VAN EYCKS, 1366-1442--VAN +LEYDEN, 1494-1533--VAN SOMER, 1570-1624--SNYDERS, 1579-1657--G. +HONTHORST, 1592-1662--JAN STEEN, 1626-1679--GERARD DOW, 1613-1680--DE +HOOCH, DATES OF BIRTH AND DEATH UNKNOWN--VAN OSTADE, 1610-1685--MAAS, +1632-1693--METZU, 1615, STILL ALIVE IN 1667--TERBURG, +1608-1681--NETCHER, 1639-1684--BOL, 1611-1680--VAN DER HELST, +1613-1670--RUYSDAEL, 1625 (?)-1682--HOBBEMA, 1638-1709--BERCHEM, +1620-1683--BOTH, 1610 (?)-1650 (?)--DU JARDIN, 1625-1678--ADRIAN VAN DE +VELDE, 1639-1672--VAN DER HEYDEN, 1637-1712--DE WITTE, 1607-1692--VAN +DER NEER, 1619(?)-1683--WILLIAM VAN DE VELDE THE YOUNGER, +1633-1707--BACKHUYSEN, 1631-1708--VAN DE CAPELLA, ABOUT +1653--HONDECOETER, 1636-1695--JAN WEENIX, 1644-1719--PATER SEGERS, +1590-1661--VAN HUYSUM, 1682-1749--VAN DER WERFF, 1659-1722--MENGS, +1728-1774. + + +Roger van der Weyden was a contemporary of the Van Eycks, born at +Tournai. His early pictures in Brussels are lost. He visited Italy in +1439, and was treated with distinction at Ferrara. His Flemish realistic +cast of mind and artistic power remained utterly unaffected by the grand +Italian pictures with which he came in contact; so did his profound +earnestness, which must have been great indeed, since its effects are +felt through all impediments down to the present day. His expressive +realism chose subjects in which the sentiments of grief and pity could +be most fitly shown. He sternly rejected any suggestion to idealise the +human form, and paint heads, hands, or feet different from those in +ordinary life. 'It is the simplicity with which he gives expression by +large and melancholy eyes, thought by projections of the forehead, grief +by contracted muscles, and suffering by attenuation of the flesh which +touches us.' The deadly earnestness of the man impresses the spectator +at this distant date. 'There is no smile in any of his faces, but there +is many a face wrung with agony, and there is many a tear.' He objected +to shadow in every form, and filled his pictures with an invariable +atmosphere and light--those which belong to dawn before sunrise. Among +his finer works are a triptych[51] belonging to the Duke of Westminster, +a 'Last Judgment' in the Hospital at Bearne, and a large 'Descent from +the Cross' in Madrid. In the triptych in the centre is Christ with black +hair, which is unusual, in his left hand the globe. On his right is the +Virgin Mary, on his left St John the Evangelist; on the right wing is +St John the Baptist, on his left the Magdalene. + +Lucas Van Leyden was born in 1494 and died in 1533. He painted both +scriptural subjects and everyday scenes, being a man of varied powers. +He worked admirably for his time, and added to his art that of an +engraver. He followed the Van Eycks, but lowered their treatment of +sacred subjects. In incidents taken from common life he showed himself +full of observation, and possessed of some humour. His pictures are +rare. A 'Last Judgment,' in the Town House, Leyden, is a striking but +unpleasant example of Lucas Van Leyden's work. + +Paul Van Somer was born at Antwerp in 1570, and died in 1624. He worked +for many years in England, where his best works--portraits--remain. He +was truthful, a good colourist, and finished carefully. His portraits of +Lord Bacon at Panshanger and of the Earl and Countess of Arundel at +Arundel Castle are well known. + +Frans Snyders was born in 1579, and died, at Antwerp in 1657. After +Rubens, Snyders was the greatest Flemish animal painter. He painted +along with Rubens often, Snyders supplying the animals and Rubens the +figures. Frans Snyders paid a visit to Italy and Rome, from which he +seems to have profited, judging by his skill in arrangement. This skill +he displayed also in his kitchen-pieces (magnificent shows of fruit, +vegetables, game, fish, etc.), which, like his animal pictures, are +numerous. In one of these kitchen-pieces in the Dresden Gallery, Rubens +and his second wife are said to figure as the cooks. Princes and nobles +bade for Snyders' pictures. There is a famous 'Boar Hunt' in the Louvre, +in Munich 'Lionesses Pursuing a Roebuck,' in Vienna 'Boar attacked by +Nine Dogs.' Snyders' animal pictures are full of energetic action and +fierce passion. To these qualities is frequently added hideous realism +in detail. There are many Snyders in English galleries. + +Gerard Honthorst was born at Utrecht in 1592, and died in 1662. He was a +follower of Caravaggio. He visited Italy and found favour in Rome, where +he got from his night-pieces Correggio's name, 'Della Notte.' Honthorst +was summoned to England by Charles I., for whom he painted several +pictures. He entered the service of Prince Frederick Henry of Orange, +and painted also for the King of Denmark. He left an extraordinary +number of works, sacred, mythological, historical, and latterly many +portraits. He drew well and painted powerfully, but was coarsely +realistic in his treatment. At Hampton Court there are two of his best +portraits, those of the unfortunate Queen of Bohemia and the Duke of +Buckingham and his family. Gerard Honthorst's younger brother, William, +was a portrait painter not unlike the elder brother in style. + +Jan Steen was born at Leyden in 1626, and died in 1679. He was great as +a _genre_ painter. He is said to have been, after Rembrandt, the most +humorous of Dutch painters, full of animal spirits and fun. At his best, +composition, colouring, and execution were all in excellent keeping. At +his worst, he was vulgar and repulsive in his heads, and careless and +faulty in his work. He was very rarely either kindly or reverent in his +subjects, though, in spite of what is known to have been his riotous +life, he is comparatively free from the grossness which is often the +shame of Flemish and Dutch art. Jan Steen succeeded his father as a +brewer and tavern-keeper at Delft. He renounced the brewery, in which he +did not succeed, and joined the Painters' Guild, Haarlem; but his +position as a tavern-keeper is reflected in his pictures, of which +eating and drinking, card-playing, etc., are frequently the _motifs_. +His family relations were not conducive to higher principles and tastes. +He is said to have been so lost to common feeling as to have painted his +first wife when she was in a state of intoxication.[52] His second wife +may have been a worthier woman, but she was drawn from the lowest class, +and had been accustomed to sell sheeps' heads and trotters in the +butchers' market. Without doubt Jan Steen had extraordinary genius +coexisting with his coarse, careless nature and jovial habits, and he +must have worked with great facility, since, in spite of his idleness +and comparatively early death, he left as many as two hundred pictures, +rendered him extremely popular. Besides his favourite subjects, such as +'The Family Jollification,' 'The Feast of the Bean King,' 'Game of +Skittles,' he has pictures in a slightly higher atmosphere, such as 'A +Pastor Visiting a Young Girl,' 'The Parrot,' 'Schoolmaster with +Unmanageable Boys,' 'The Pursuit of Alchemy.' Among the latter a good +example is 'The Music Master' in the National Gallery. + +Gerard Dow was born in 1613 and died in 1680. He was a _genre_ painter +of great merit. He belonged to Leyden, and was a pupil of Rembrandt. He +began with portraiture, often painting his own face, and went on to +scenes from low and middle-class life, but rarely attempted to represent +high society. Compared to Jan Steen, however, he is refined. He had a +curious fondness for painting hermits. The lighting of his pictures is +frequently by lantern or candle. They are mostly small, and without +animated action, but are full of picturesqueness. He was a good +colourist, 'with a rare truth to nature and a marvellous distinctness of +eye and precision of hand.' Minute as his execution was, his touch was +'free and soft.' His best pictures are 'like nature's self seen through +the camera obscura.' An instance often given of his exquisite finish is +that of a broom in the corner of one of his pictures. Some contemporary +had remarked how careful and elaborate was the labour bestowed on it, +when the painter answered that he was still to give it several hours' +work. He must have been exceedingly industrious as well as painstaking, +since he left two hundred pictures as his contribution to Dutch art. +Among his finer pictures are 'An Old Woman reading the Bible to her +Husband,' in the Louvre; 'The Poulterer's Shop,' in the National +Gallery. His _chef d'oeuvre_, 'The Woman Sick of the Dropsy,' is in the +Louvre. His candlelight is the finest rendered by any master. There is a +good example of it in 'The Evening School,' in the Amsterdam Gallery. + +Peter de Hooch--spelt often, De Hooge--was the _genre_ painter of full, +clear sunlight. The dates of his birth and death can only be guessed by +those of his pictures, which extend from 1656 to 1670. His groups are +generally playing cards, smoking, drinking, or engaged in domestic +occupations--almost always in the open air. No other _genre_ painter can +compare with him in reproducing the effects of sunlight. His prevailing +colour is red, varied and repeated with great delicacy. English lovers +of art brought De Hooch into favour, and many of his pictures are in +England. There are fine examples--'The Court of a Dutch House' and 'A +Courtyard'--in the National Gallery. + +Adrian van Ostade was born at Haarlem in 1610 and died in his native +town in 1685. He has been called 'the Rembrandt of _genre_ painters,' +and, like Rembrandt, he was without the sense of human beauty and grace, +for even his children are ugly; yet it is the purer, happier side of +national life which he constantly represents, and he had great feeling +for nature, with picturesqueness and harmony of design and colouring, as +well as mastery of the technique of his art. He suffered many hardships +in his youth, and grew up a quiet, industrious, family man. He left a +very large number of pictures, nearly four hundred, many of them good, +and not a few in England. 'The Alchemist'[53] is in the National +Gallery. + +Maas, born in 1632, died in 1693, is a much-prized _genre_ painter, +whose pictures are rare. He was a pupil of Rembrandt. He is said to have +treated 'very simple subjects with naïve homeliness and kindly humour.' +His pictures are 'well lit, with deep warm harmony, and a vigorous +touch.' 'The Idle Servant-maid,' in the National Gallery, is a +masterpiece. + +Metzu, like Terburg, is _par excellence_ one of the two painters of +Dutch high life. Metzu was born in 1615, and is known to have been alive +in 1667. He painted both on a large and a small scale, and occasionally +departed from his peculiar province to represent market-scenes, etc. He +is the most refined and picturesque of _genre_ painters on a small +scale. Among his _chefs d'oeuvre_ are a 'Lady holding a Glass of Wine and +receiving an Officer,' in the Louvre; and a 'Girl writing, a Gentleman +leaning on her chair and another girl opposite playing the Lute,' in the +Hague Gallery. The fine 'Duet,' and the 'Music Lesson' are both in the +National Gallery. + +Gerard Terburg was born at Zwol, in 1608, and died in 1681. He visited +Germany and Italy in his youth. His small groups and single figures, +taken from the wealthier classes, with their luxurious surroundings, are +'given with exquisite delicacy and refinement.' Included in his +masterpieces are a 'Girl in white satin (a texture which he rendered +marvellously) washing her hands in a basin held before her by a +maid-servant,' in the Dresden Gallery; an 'Officer in confidential talk +with a Young Girl, and a Trumpeter who has brought him a Letter,' in the +Hague Gallery; a 'Young Lady in white satin sitting playing the Lute,' +in the Chateau of Wilhelmshöe, at Cassell. There are twenty-three +Terburgs in England and Scotland. + +Caspar Netcher, born in 1639, died in 1684. He formed himself upon Metzu +and Terburg. He is the great Dutch painter of childhood. His finest +works are in the Dresden Gallery. In the National Gallery is his +'Children blowing Bubbles.' + +Ferdinand Bol was born at Dordrecht in 1611, and died at Amsterdam in +1680. He was a student of Rembrandt's, and distinguished himself in +sacred and historical pictures, and especially in portraits. He followed +his master in his youth, fell off in his art in middle life, but became +again excellent in his later years. Among his fine pictures are 'David's +Charge to Solomon,' in the Dublin National Gallery; and 'Joseph +presenting his father Jacob to Pharaoh,' in the Dresden Gallery. His +last portraits are considered very fine. They are taken in the fullest +light, and have a surprising amount of animation. Such a portrait, +called 'The Astronomer,' is in the National Gallery.[54] + +Jacob Ruysdael was born in 1625(?) at Haarlem. In 1668 he was in +Amsterdam, and acted as witness to the marriage of Hobbema, whose lack +of worldly prosperity Ruysdael shared. He himself was unmarried, and +maintained his father in his old age. In the prime of life Jacob +Ruysdael in turn fell into extreme poverty, and died an inmate of the +Haarlem Almshouse in 1682--a sad record of Holland's greatest landscape +painter, for 'beyond dispute' Ruysdael is the first of the famous Dutch +landscape painters. + +'In no other is there the feeling for the poetry of Northern nature +united with perfect execution, admirable drawing, great knowledge of +chiaroscuro, powerful colouring, and a mastery of the brush which ranged +from the minutest touch to broad, free execution.' His prevailing tone +of colour is a full, decided green, though age has given many of his +pictures a brown tone. A considerable number of his pictures are in a +greyish, clear, cool tone (good examples of the last are to be seen in +the Dresden Gallery). He generally painted the flat Dutch country in +tranquil repose. He dealt usually in heavy clouded skies which told of +showers past and coming, and dark sheets of water overshadowed by +trees, lending a melancholy sentiment to the picture. He was fond of +wide expanses of land and water, fond also of introducing the spires of +his native Haarlem, touching the horizon line. He has left a few +sea-pieces, always with cloudy heavens and heaving or raging seas;[55] +where he has given sketches of sea, and shore, the ærial perspective is +rendered in tender gradations 'full of pathos.' He has other pictures +representing hilly, even mountainous, landscapes. In these foaming +waterfalls form a prominent feature. Ruysdael was weak in his drawing of +men and animals, in which he was occasionally assisted by +fellow-artists, such as Berchem and Van de Velde. Among his finest +pictures are 'A View of the Country round Haarlem,' in the Museum of the +Hague; 'A flat country, with a road leading to a village and fields with +wheat sheaves,' in the Dresden Gallery; 'A hilly bare country through +which a river runs; the horseman and beggar on a bridge, by +Wouvermans,' in the Louvre. His most remarkable waterfall is in the +Hague Museum. In the Dresden Gallery there is 'A Jewish Cemetery,' 'full +of melancholy.' Three of Ruysdael's fine waterfalls are in the National +Gallery. Of two very grand storms which he painted one is in the Louvre, +the other in the collection of the Marquis of Lansdowne at Bowood. There +are many of Ruysdael's pictures in England. In the great landscape +painter, as in the other renowned Dutch artists of the seventeenth +century, the influence of Rembrandt is marked. + +Meindert Hobbema was born in 1638, married in 1638, and died in poverty +at Amsterdam in 1709. His works, which were neglected in his lifetime, +now fetch much more than their weight in gold. Sums as large as four +thousand pounds have been paid more than once for a Hobbema, yet his +name was not found in any dictionary of art or artists for more than a +century after his death. The English were the first to acknowledge +Hobbema's merit, and nine-tenths of his works are in England, where he +is the most popular Dutch landscape painter. But he is said by judges to +have less invention and less poetic sensibility than his contemporary +and friend Ruysdael. Hobbema's subjects are usually villages surrounded +by trees like those in Guelderland, water-mills, a slightly broken +country, with groups of trees, wheatfields, meadows, and small pools, +more rarely portions of towns, and still more seldom old castles and +stately mansions.[56] He has all the lifelike truthfulness of the Dutch +artists. In tone he is as warm and golden as Ruysdael is cool in his +greens. In the National Gallery there are excellent specimens of +Hobbema, such as 'The Avenue Middelharnis' and 'A Landscape in Showery +Weather.' + +Nicolas Berchem, often spelt Berghem, was born at Haarlem in 1620, and +died at Amsterdam in 1683. He was an excellent Dutch landscape painter. +He had evidently visited Italy, and displayed great fondness for +Italian subjects. His pictures show 'varied composition, good drawing, +fine ærial effects, freedom, playfulness, and spirit.' As a colourist he +was unequal, being often warm and harmonious, but at other times heavy +and cold. It is clear that he was no student of life, from the monotony +of his shepherds and shepherdesses and the sameness of his animals. He +was naturally industrious, and was spurred on, as a still greater artist +is said to have been, by the greed of his wife. He painted upwards of +four hundred pictures, besides doing figures and animals for other +painters. The great northern European galleries are rich in his works. +One of his best pictures, 'A Shepherdess driving her cattle through a +ford in a rocky landscape,' where the cool tone of the landscape is +contrasted with the golden tone of the cattle, is in the Louvre. Another +fine picture, 'Crossing the Ford,' is in the National Gallery. + +Jan Both, born in 1610 (?), died in 1650 (?), was another Dutch +landscape painter still more spellbound by Italy,[57] which he visited, +and where he fell under the influence of Claude Lorraine. Both devoted +himself thenceforth to Italian landscape to a greater degree than was +practised by any other Dutch painter. He was excellent in drawing and +skilful in rendering the golden glories of Italian sunsets. He painted +freely and with solidity. The figures of men and animals in his pictures +were often introduced by his brother Andreas. Jan Both excelled both in +large and small pictures, but he was most uninterestingly uniform in +design. He had generally a foreground of lofty trees, and for a +background a range of mountains rising step by step, with a wide plain +at their feet. Sometimes he introduced a waterfall or a lake. He rarely +painted particular points in a landscape. His life was not a long one, +so that his pictures do not number more than a hundred and fifty. +Occasionally his warm tone of colouring degenerates to a foxy red. One +of Both's best pictures--a landscape in which the fresh light of +morning is apparent--is in the National Gallery. + +Karil du Jardin, born in 1625, died in 1678, is a third great Dutch +landscape painter, whose fancy Italy laid hold of, so that he settled in +the country, dying at Venice. He was, it is said, a pupil of Berchem's, +from whom he may have first drawn his Italian proclivities. He has more +truth and feeling for animated nature than Berchem. Indeed, in this +respect Du Jardin followed Paul Potter. According to contemporary +accounts, Du Jardin, who had his share of the national humour, wasted +his time in the pursuit of pleasure, and did not leave more pictures +behind him than Both left. Du Jardin's best works are in the Louvre, but +there are also many of his pictures in England. Among his masterpieces, +'Cattle of all kinds in a meadow surrounded by rocks, and watered by a +cascade; a horseman giving alms to a peasant boy;' and his celebrated +'Charlatan,' full of observation and humour, are in the Louvre. A fine +picture, 'Figures of Animals under the shade of a Tree,' is in the +National Gallery. + +Adrian Van de Velde, born in 1639, died in 1672, the younger brother of +a great marine painter, ranks almost as high as Paul Potter in cattle +painting. If 'inferior in modelling and solidity' to his rival, Adrian +Van de Velde is superior in variety, taste, and feeling. Like the great +English animal painter, Landseer, Van de Velde was a distinguished +artist when a mere boy of fourteen. Like his compatriot, Paul Potter, +Van de Velde died young, at the age of thirty-two. He generally disposed +of his cattle among broken ground with trees and pools of water. +Sometimes he has a herdsman or a shepherdess, sometimes there is a +hunting party passing. His scenery is reckoned masterly. It is mostly +taken from the coast of Scheveningen. He often painted in men, horses, +and dogs for other painters. He must have been very industrious, with +great facility in his work, since, in spite of his premature death, he +had painted nearly two hundred pictures. 'A brown cow grazing and a +grey cow resting,' which is in the Berlin Museum, was done at the age of +sixteen, yet it is full of observation, delicacy, and execution. 'Cattle +grazing before a peasant's cottage,' which is in the Dresden Gallery, is +considered very fine. A fine 'Winter Landscape,' and a 'Farm Cottage,' +are in the National Gallery. Some of Adrian Van de Velde's best work, as +well as his brother's, is in England. + +Jan Van der Heyden, 'the Gerard Dow of architectural painters,' was born +in 1637 and died in 1712. He combined an unspeakable minuteness of +detail with the closest observation of nature. His subjects, which he +selected with great taste, were chiefly well-known buildings, palaces, +churches, and canal banks in Holland and Belgium. He painted in a warm +transparent tone, with close application of the laws of perspective. The +figures in his pictures, in excellent keeping, were often introduced by +Adrian Van de Velde. Van der Heyden's productiveness as a painter was +lessened by the circumstance that his mechanical talent led him to make +an invention by which the construction of the fire-engines of his day +was greatly improved. In consequence he was placed by the magistrates of +Amsterdam at the head of their fire-engine establishment, which had thus +many claims on his time. A beautiful 'Street in Cologne' is in the +National Gallery. + +Emanuel De Witte, born in 1607, died in 1692, was great in architectural +interiors, especially in churches of Italian architecture. He stood to +this branch of Dutch art in the same relation that Ruysdael did to +landscape and William Van de Velde to seascape. + +Aart Van der Neer was born in 1619(?), died in 1683. He is famous for +his canal banks by moonlight, and fine disposal of broad masses of +shadow. After his moonlights come his sunsets, conflagrations, and +winter scenes. He rarely painted full daylight. He sometimes painted on +the same Van der Neer in the National Gallery. Many of his works are in +England. + +William Van de Velde the younger, the elder brother of Adrian Van de +Velde, the cattle painter, was born at Amsterdam in 1633, and died at +Greenwich in 1707. His early life was spent in Holland. He followed his +father, William Van de Velde, a painter also, to England, where, under +the patronage of Charles II, and James II., William the younger painted +the naval victories of the English over the Dutch, just as in Holland he +had already painted the naval victories of the Dutch over the English. +He was a greater and more consistent artist than he was a patriot. +Without question he is the first marine painter of the Dutch School. He +was untiring in his study of nature, so that his perfect knowledge of +perspective and the incomparable mastery of technical qualities which he +inherited from his school, enabled him to render sea and sky under every +aspect. His vessels 'were drawn with a knowledge which extended to every +rope.' He has been an exceedingly popular painter both with the Dutch +and the English. Of upwards of three hundred pictures left by him many +are in Holland and still more in England, where in his lifetime he was +largely employed by the English nobility and gentry. William Van de +Velde has a great picture in the Amsterdam Museum, where the English +flag-ship, the _Princess Royal_, is represented as striking her colours +to the Dutch fleet in 1666. In the companion picture, also by Van de +Velde, 'Four English men-of-war brought in as prizes,' the painter +introduces himself in the small boat from which he witnessed the fight. +William Van de Velde's triumphs in calm seas are seen especially in his +pictures at the Hague and in Munich. Some of Van de Velde's best works +are in the National Gallery. + +Backhuysen born in 1631, died at Amsterdam in 1708, was another +admirable marine painter. He did not study painting till he had followed +a trade up to the age of eighteen years; he then gave himself with +ardour to art, making many studies of skies, coasts, and vessels. He was +inferior to William Van de Velde in his colouring, which was heavy, with +a cold effect. But he had in full a Dutch painter's truthfulness, while +his 'stormy waves and rent clouds' are given with poetic feeling. He was +an industrious and successful man, painting nearly two hundred pictures, +and receiving many commissions from the King of Prussia, Grand Duke of +Tuscany, etc. One of his finest works, 'A View of the River from the +Landing-place called the Mosselsteiger,' is in Amsterdam Museum. In the +Louvre is 'A view of the Mouth of the Texel, with ten Men-of-war Sailing +before a Fresh Wind.' 'Dutch Shipping' is in the National Gallery. + +Van de Capella is another capital marine painter, though little is known +of him. He was a native of Amsterdam about 1653. His favourite subject +is a quiet sea in sunny weather. His work bears some resemblance to that +of Cuyp. His best pictures are in England. 'A Calm at Low Water' is in +the National Gallery. + +Melchior de Hondecoeter, born in 1636, died in 1695, chose the feathered +tribe for his subjects. He has been called 'the Raphael of bird +painters.' He painted especially poultry, peacocks, turkeys, and +pigeons, which he usually represented alive, and treated with great +truthfulness and picturesque feeling. Among his best pictures are 'The +Floating Feather,' a feather given with singular lightness drifting in a +pool, with different birds on the water and the shore--a pelican +prominent--in Amsterdam Museum, and 'A Hen defending her Chickens +against the attacks of a Pea-hen, with a Peacock, a Pigeon, a Cassowary, +and a Crane,' also in Amsterdam. + +Jan Weenix, born in 1644, died in 1719. He was a painter of 'still +life,' and was especially famous for his dead hares, 'which in form and +colour, down to the rendering of every hair, are marvels of execution.' +He painted sometimes, though rarely, a living dog in his pieces. A fine +Weenix sometimes painted flower pieces.[58] + +Pater Segers, so called because he was a Father in a Jesuit convent, +which he entered at twenty-four years of age. He was born in 1590, and +died in the Jesuit convent, Antwerp, 1661. He was a famous flower +painter, but did not paint flowers by themselves; he painted them in +conjunction with the historical and sacred subjects of other painters. +He added many a wreath to the Virgin and Child. He worked in this +fashion with Rubens, but painted more frequently along with painters of +a lower rank in art. Pater Segers' flowers are finely drawn and +tastefully arranged. The red of his roses has remained unchanged by +years, while the roses of other painters have become violet or faded +altogether. He had endless royal commissions. There are six of his +pictures of much merit in the Dresden Gallery. + +Besides the elder and younger De Heem and Maria Von Oesterwyck mentioned +at page 258, Jan Van Huysum, 1682-1749, was great in flower painting, +choosing flowers rather than fruit for his brush. If De Heem has been +called the Titian, Van Huysum has been defined as the Correggio, of +flowers and fruit. He reversed the ordinary course of artists by +beginning in a broad style, and progressing into an execution of the +finest details. In masterly drawing and truthfulness he was not inferior +to De Heem, though hardly reckoned his equal in other respects. Even in +Van Huysum's lifetime there was an eager demand for his pictures, of +which he left more than a hundred. There is an excellent fruit and +flower piece by him in Dulwich Gallery, and a masterpiece, 'A Vase with +Flowers,' is in the National Gallery. + +Andrian Van der Werff was born in 1659, and died in 1722. He is +honourably distinguished for his pursuit of the ideal, in which he stood +alone among the Dutch artists of his day. He showed much sense of beauty +and elegance of form with great finish, but he had more than +counterbalancing faults. His grouping was artificial, his heads +monotonous, his colouring 'cold and heavy,' with 'a frosty feeling' in +his pictures. His flesh tints resembled ivory, yet his elegance was so +highly prized that he had many royal and noble patrons, for whom he +executed sculptural and mythological pieces. Many of his pictures are in +the Munich Gallery. + +Anton Raphael Mengs was born in Bohemia 1728, and died in Rome 1774. His +father was a distinguished miniature painter, and gave his son a careful +education, training him to copy the masterpieces of Michael Angelo and +Raphael from his twelfth year. Unfortunately he remained a copyist and +an eclectic. He drew well, learnt chiaroscuro from studying Correggio, +and colouring from analysing Titian. He was acquainted with the best +technical processes in oil and fresco. All that teaching could do for a +man was done, and to a great extent in vain. For though he worked with +great conscientiousness, fancy and feeling were either originally +lacking, or they were overlaid and stifled by his excess of culture and +severe education. The most successful of his works are portraits, in +which masterly treatment makes up to some extent for the absence of +originality and subtle sympathy. But in his day, and with some reason, +Raphael Mengs was greatly prized, since he figured among a host of +ignorant, careless, and conceited painters. At the age of seventeen he +was appointed court painter to King Augustus of Saxony. He was summoned +to Spain by Charles III., who gave him a high salary. Among his good +works is an 'Assumption' on the high altar of the Catholic Church, +Dresden. An allegorical subject in fresco on the ceiling of the Camera +de Papini in the Vatican has 'beauty of form, delicate observation, and +masterly modelling.' Mengs wrote well on art, though in his writing also +his eclecticism comes out. + + + + +NOTE TO PAGE 96. + + + 'I have been told that I have not done justice to Lionardo in + this short sketch. I give in an abridged form the accurate + appreciative analysis of the man and his work in Sir C, and Lady + Eastlake.'--KUGLER. It is stated that the versatility of + Lionardo was against him. He attempted too much for one man and + one life. An additional impediment was produced by his + temperament, 'dreamy, perfidious, procrastinating,' withal + desirous of shining in society. His ideal of the Lord's head is + the highest that art has realised. The apostles' heads are among + the truest and noblest. The countenances of his Madonnas are full + of ineffable sweetness and pathos. 'At the same time he analysed + the monstrous and misshapen, and has left us caricatures in which + he seems to have gloated over hideousness half human, half + brute. He altered and retouched without ceasing, always deferring + the conclusion of the task which he executed with untiring labour + and ceaseless dissatisfaction.' The wonder is not that he should + have left so little, but that he left enough to prove the + transcendent nature of his art. 'There is nothing stranger in + history than the fact that his great fame rests on one single + picture--long reduced to a shadow--on half-a-dozen pictures for + which his hand is alternately claimed and denied, and on + unfinished fragments which he himself condemned.' Lionardo was + too universal to be of any school. + + + + +INDEX. + + PAGE + + Albino 387 + Angelico, Fra 36 + Anguisciola 388 + Backhuysen 415 + Baroccio 385 + Bartolommeo, Fra 77 + Bellini, The 54 + Berchem 407 + Bol 402 + Bordone 393 + Both 418 + Botticelli 369 + Canaletto 358 + Capella, Van de 416 + Caravaggio 385 + Carpaccio 375 + Carracci, The 212 + Cellini 69 + Claude Loraine 296 + Correggio 185 + Crivelli 375 + Cuyp 255 + Domenichino 220 + Dow 398 + Du Jardin 410 + Dürer 169 + Eycks, The Van 41 + Filippo, Fra 365 + Fontana 389 + Francia, Il 73 + Gaddi 374 + Garofalo 377 + Ghiberti 31 + Ghirlandajo 69 + Gibbons, Grinling 359 + Giorgione 181 + Giotto 8 + Gozzoli 366 + Greuze 307 + Guercino 386 + Guido 218 + Heem, De 258 + Helst, Van der 403 + Heyden, Van der 412 + Hobbema 406 + Holbein 309 + Hondecoeter 416 + Honthorst 395 + Hooch 399 + Huysum, Van 418 + Kneller 359 + Le Brun 303 + Lely 355 + Leyden, Van 393 + Lionardo da Vinci 83 + Lipi 376 + Luini 378 + Maas 401 + Mabuse 48 + Mantegna 64 + Masaccio 34 + Matsys 50 + Memling 48 + Mengs 420 + Messina, Da 377 + Metzu 259, 401 + Michael Angelo 96 + Murillo 280 + Netcher 402 + Orcagna 24 + Ostade, Van 400 + Palma 379 + Pardenone 380 + Parmigianino 384 + Perugino 373 + Pisano 23 + Potter 257 + Poussin 286 + Raphael 125 + Rembrandt 245 + Romano 382 + Rubens 225 + Ruysdael 403 + Salvator Rosa 222 + Sarto, Del 81 + Sassa errato 387 + Segers 418 + Signorelli 367 + Snyders 394 + Somer, Van 394 + Spagna 381 + Spagnoletto 386 + Steen 396 + Teniers, Father and Son 251 + Terburg 259, 402 + Tintoretto 194 + Titian 157 + Van Dyck 333 + Vasari 388 + Velasquez 360 + Velde, Van de 411 + Velde, Van de, The Younger 414 + Veronese 205 + Watteau 305 + Wouvermans 253 + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] It is in their unconsciousness and earnestness that a parallel is +drawn between the first Italian painters and the Elizabethean poets. In +other respects the comparison may be reversed, for the early Italian +painters, from their restriction to religious painting, with even that +treated according to tradition, were as destitute of the breadth of +scope and fancy attained by their successors, as the Elizabethean poets +were distinguished by the exuberant freedom which failed in the more +formal scholars of Anne's reign. + +[2] Kugler's Handbook of Art. + +[3] While writing of goldsmiths that became painters, I may say a word +of a goldsmith who, without quitting his trade, was an unrivalled artist +in his line. I mean Benvenuto Cellini, 1500--1571, a man of violent +passions and little principle, who led a wild troubled life, of which he +has left an account as shameless as his character, in an autobiography. +Cellini was the most distinguished worker in gold and silver of his day, +and his richly chased dishes, goblets, and salt cellars, are still in +great repute. + +[4] Kugler's _Handbook of Painting_. + +[5] Kugler's _Handbook of Painting_. + +[6] See note, page 422. + +[7] Mrs Roscoe's _Life of Vittoria Colonna_ + +[8] Michael Angelo's will was very simple. 'I bequeath my soul to God, +my body to the earth, and my possessions to my nearest relations.' + +[9] Lady Eastlake, _History of Our Lord_. + +[10] Hare, _Walks in Rome_. + +[11] Lanzi, in Hare's _Walks in Rome_. + +[12] Rio. _Poetry of Christian Art_, in Hare's _Walks in Rome._ + +[13] Mrs Jameson. + +[14] Dean Alford. + +[15] _Imperial Biographical Dictionary_. + +[16] Titian's age is variously given; some authorities make it +ninety-nine years, placing the date of his death in 1570 or 7. + +[17] Kugler. + +[18] The term originated in the French expression, '_du genre bas_.' + +[19] He had a peculiar fondness for blue and bronze hues. + +[20] It is due to Tintoret to say, that there are modern critics, who +look below the surface, and are at this date deeply enamoured of his +pictures. Tintoret's name now stands very high in art. + +[21] Mrs Jameson. + +[22] Guido said of Rubens: 'Does this painter mix blood with his +colours?' + +[23] _Life of Rubens_. + +[24] If I mistake not, this is the same Countess of Arundel who, in her +widowhood, resided in Italy in order to be near her young sons then at +Padua. Having provoked the suspicion of the Doge and Council of Venice, +she was arrested by them on a charge of treason, and brought before the +tribunal, where she successfully pled her own cause, and obtained her +release, the only woman who ever braved triumphantly the terrible 'ten.' + +[25] Here is the description of a very different Rembrandt which appears +in this year's Exhibition of the Works by Old Masters: 'There is no +portrait here which equals Rembrandt's picture, from Windsor, "A Lady +Opening a Casement;" a not particularly appropriate name, because the +picture represents no such action. The lady is simply looking from an +open window, her left hand raised and resting at the side of the +opening. We believe there is nothing left to tell who this lady was, +with the grave, sad eyes, and lips that seem to quiver with a trouble +hardly yet assuaged collar, almost a tippet, for it falls below her +shoulders, together with lace cuffs. A triple band of large pearls goes +about her neck, and she has similar ornaments round each wrist. She +wears a mourning robe and black jewellery.... This picture, which +resembles in most of its qualities a pair, of somewhat larger size, +which were here last year, and also came from the Royal collection, is +signed and dated "Rembrandt, F. 1671." It is, therefore, a late work of +his. What wonderful harmony is here, of light, of colour, of tone. How +nearly perfect is the keeping of the whole picture; as a whole, and also +in respect of part to part. Could anything be truer than the breadth of +the chiaroscuro? Notice how beautifully, and with what subtle +gradations, the light reflected from her white collar strikes on her +slightly faded cheek; how tenderly it seems to play among the soft +tangles of the hair that time has thinned.'--_Athenæum_. + +[26] He had been called the Titian of flower and fruit painters. He +preferred fruit for his subject. His works are not common in England. +His masterpiece, 'The Chalice of the Sacrament,' crowned with a stately +wreath, and sheaves of corn and bunches of grapes among the flowers, is +at Vienna. + +[27] Sir W. Stirling Maxwell. + +[28] Sir W. Stirling Maxwell. + +[29] Hare, _Wanderings in Spain_. + +[30] Hare's _Wanderings in Spain_. + +[31] The spelling is an English corruption of the French Claude. + +[32] Poussin had a villa near Ponte Molle, and the road by which he used +to go to it is still called in Rome 'Poussin's walk.' + +[33] Claude's summer villa is still pointed out near Rome. + +[34] _Imperial Biographical Dictionary_. + +[35] Madame Le Brun, whose maiden name was Vigée, born 1755, died 1842, +was an excellent portrait painter. + +[36] Wornum. + +[37] Wornum. + +[38] Supposed to be a niece of Sir Thomas More's. + +[39] Rev. J. Lewis, 1731. + +[40] Wornum. + +[41] A still more famous picture by Holbein is that called 'The Two +Ambassadors,' and believed to represent Sir Thomas Wyatt and his +secretary. + +[42] Walpole. + +[43] Walpole. + +[44] Dwarfs figured at Charles's court, as at the court of Philip IV. of +Spain. + +[45] The notion that Van Dyck sacrificed truth to grace is absolutely +contradicted by certain critics, who bring forward as a proof of their +contradiction what they consider the 'over-true' picture of the Queen +Henrietta Maria, shown at the last exhibition of the works of Old +Masters. The picture seems hardly to warrant the strong opinion of the +critics. + +[46] Walpole. + +[47] Walpole. + +[48] Lady Eastlake and Dr. Waagen's works on Italian, Flemish, and Dutch +Art, modelled on Kugler. + +[49] A lunette is a small picture, generally semicircular, surmounting +the main picture in an altar-piece. + +[50] The Dutch still more than the Italian artists belonged largely to +families of artists bearing the same surnames. + +[51] A picture with one door of two panels is called a diptych, with two +doors of three panels a triptych, with many doors and panels a +polyptych. + +[52] Fairholt's 'Homes and Haunts of Foreign Artists.' + +[53] Alchemists, like hermits, still existed in the seventeenth century. + +[54] Bartholomew Van der Helst, 1613-1670, was another great Dutch +portrait painter. His portrait pieces with many figures are famous. An +'Archery Festival,' commemorating the Peace of Westphalia, includes +twenty-four figures full of individuality and finely drawn and coloured. +One of his best works is 'In the Workhouse,' at Amsterdam. Two women and +two men are conversing together in the foreground. There is a man with a +book, and a preacher delivering a sermon in the background. + +[55] It may be that Ruysdael's straggling life was reflected in his +lowering skies and stormy seas. + +[56] Other eminent painters, such as Van de Velde, Wouvermans, and +Berchem often supplied cattle and figures to Hobbema's landscapes. + +[57] Was the apparently greater success of these partly denaturalised +Dutch landscape painters, as contrasted with the adversity of Ruysdael +and Hobbema, due to the classic mania? + +[58] Peter Gysels was another painter of 'still life.' 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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 + + +Title: The Old Masters and Their Pictures + For the Use of Schools and Learners in Art + +Author: Sarah Tytler + +Release Date: November 19, 2006 [EBook #19863] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE OLD MASTERS AND THEIR PICTURES *** + + + + +Produced by Peter Yearsley, Ted Garvin and the Online +Distributed Proofreaders Europe at http://dp.rastko.net + + + + + + +</pre> + +<h1>THE OLD MASTERS AND THEIR PICTURES</h1> + +<h4><i>For the Use of Schools and Learners in Art</i> +</h4> + +<h2>BY SARAH TYTLER</h2> + +<h3>AUTHOR OF "PAPERS FOR THOUGHTFUL GIRLS" ETC.</h3> + + +<h3><i>NEW AND ENLARGED EDITION</i></h3> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p class="center">LONDON</p> + +<p class="center">ISBISTER AND COMPANY LIMITED</p> + +<p class="center">15 & 16 TAVISTOCK STREET COVENT GARDEN</p> + +<h3>1893</h3> + +<h5>[<i>The Right of Translation is Reserved</i>]</h5> + +<p class="center">LONDON:<br /> + +PRINTED BY J.S. VIRTUE AND CO., LIMITED,<br /> + +CITY ROAD.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="PREFACE_TO_FIRST_EDITION" id="PREFACE_TO_FIRST_EDITION"></a>PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION.</h2> + + +<p>I wish to say, in a very few words, that this book is intended to be a +simple account of the great Old Masters in painting of every age and +country, with descriptions of their most famous works, for the use of +learners and outsiders in art. The book is not, and could not well be, +exhaustive in its nature. I have avoided definitions of schools, +considering that these should form a later and more elaborate portion of +art education, and preferring to group my 'painters' according to what I +hold to be the primitive arrangements of time, country, and rank in +art.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="PREFACE_TO_NEW_EDITION" id="PREFACE_TO_NEW_EDITION"></a>PREFACE TO NEW EDITION.</h2> + + +<p>The restrictions with regard to space under which the little volume +called "The Old Masters" was originally written, caused me to omit, to +my regret, many names great, though not first, in art. The circulation +which the book has attained induces me to do what I can to remedy the +defect, and render the volume more useful by adding two chapters—the +one on Italian and the other on German, Dutch, and Flemish masters. +These chapters consist almost entirely of condensed notes taken from two +trustworthy sources, to which I have been already much indebted—Sir C, +and Lady Eastlake's version of Kugler's "Handbook of Italian Art," and +Dr. Waagen's "Handbook,"—remodelled from Kugler—of German, Dutch, and +Flemish art, revised by J.A. Crowe. I have purposely given numerous +records of those Dutch painters whose art has been specially popular in +England and who are in some cases better represented in our country than +in their own.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></a>CONTENTS.</h2> + + + + + + +<p><a href="#CHAPTER_I"><b>CHAPTER I.</b></a> EARLY ITALIAN ART—GIOTTO, 1276-1337—ANDREA PISANO, +1280-1345—ORCAGNA, 1315-1376—GHIBERTI, 1381-1455—MASACCIO, 1402-1428 +<i>OR</i> 1429—FRA ANGELICO, 1387-1455 1</p> + +<p><a href="#CHAPTER_II"><b>CHAPTER II.</b></a> EARLY FLEMISH ART—THE VAN EYCKS, 1366-1442—MABUSE, <i>ABOUT</i> +1470-1532—MEMLING, <i>ABOUT</i> 1478-1499—QUINTIN MATSYS, 1460-1530 OR 31 +41</p> + +<p><a href="#CHAPTER_III"><b>CHAPTER III.</b></a> IN EARLY SCHOOLS OF ITALIAN ART—THE BELLINI, 1422-1512—MANTEGNA, +1431-1506—GHIRLANDAJO, 1449-1498—- IL FRANCIA, 1450-1518—FRA +BARTOLOMMEO, 1469-1517—ANDREA DEL SARTO, 1488-1530 53</p> + +<p><a href="#CHAPTER_IV"><b>CHAPTER IV.</b></a> LIONARDO DA VINCI. 1452-1519—MICHAEL ANGELO, 1475-1564—RAPHAEL, +1483-1520—TITIAN, 1477-1566 83</p> + +<p><a href="#CHAPTER_V"><b>CHAPTER V.</b></a> GERMAN ART—ALBRECHT DÜRER, 1471-1528 169</p> + +<p><a href="#CHAPTER_VI"><b>CHAPTER VI.</b></a> LATER ITALIAN ART—GIORGIONE, 1477-1511—CORREGGIO, <i>ABOUT</i> +1493-1534—TINTORETTO, 1512-1594—VERONESE, 1530-1588 181</p> + +<p><a href="#CHAPTER_VII"><b>CHAPTER VII.</b></a> CARRACCI, 1555-1609—GUIDO RENI, 1575-1642—DOMENICHINO, +1581-1641—SALVATOR ROSA, 1615-1673 212</p> + +<p><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII"><b>CHAPTER VIII.</b></a> LATER FLEMISH ART—RUBENS, 1577-1640—REMBRANDT, 1606 <i>OR</i> +1608-1669—TENIERS, FATHER AND SON, 1582-1694—WOUVERMAN, +1620-1668—CUYP, 1605; <i>STILL LIVING</i>, 1638—PAUL POTTER, +1625-1654—CORNELIUS DE HEEM, 1630 225</p> + +<p><a href="#CHAPTER_IX"><b>CHAPTER IX.</b></a> SPANISH ART—VELASQUEZ, 1599-1660—MURILLO, 1618-1682 260</p> + +<p><a href="#CHAPTER_X"><b>CHAPTER X.</b></a> FRENCH ART—NICOLAS POUSSIN, 1594-1665—CLAUDE LORRAINE, +1600-1682—CHARLES LE BRUN, 1619-1690—WATTEAU, 1684-1721—GREUZE, +1726-1805 286</p> + +<p><a href="#CHAPTER_XI"><b>CHAPTER XI.</b></a> FOREIGN ARTISTS IN ENGLAND—HOLBEIN, 1494-1543—VAN DYCK, +1599-1641—LELY, 1618-1680—CANALETTO, 1697-1768—KNELLER, 1646-1723 309</p> + +<p><a href="#CHAPTER_XII48"><b>CHAPTER XII.</b></a> ITALIAN MASTERS FROM THE FOURTEENTH TO THE SEVENTEENTH +CENTURIES—TADDEO GADDI, 1300, SUPPOSED TO HAVE DIED 1366—FRA FILIPPO, +1412-1469—BENOZZO GOZZOLI, 1424-1496—LUCA SIGNORELLI, 1441, SUPPOSED +TO HAVE DIED ABOUT 1524—BOTTICELLI, 1447-1515—PERUGINO, +1446-1522—CARPACCIO, DATE AND PLACE OF BIRTH AND DEATH +UNKNOWN—CRIVELLI, FILIPPINO LIPI, EARLIER THAN 1460—ANTONELLA DA +MESSINA, BELIEVED TO HAVE DIED AT VENICE, 1416—GAROPALO, +1481-1559—LUINI, DATE OF BIRTH UNKNOWN, SUPPOSED TO HAVE DIED ABOUT +1530—PALMA, ABOUT 1480-1528—PARDENONE, 1483-1538—LO SPAGNA, DATE OF +BIRTH UNKNOWN, 1533—GIULIO ROMANO, 1492-1546—PARIS BORDONE, +1500-1570—IL PARMIGIANINO, 1503-1540—BAROCCIO, 1528-1612—CARAVAGGIO, +1569-1609—LO SPAGNOLETTO, 1593-1656—GUERCINO, 1592-1666—ALBANO, +1578-1660—SASSOFERRATO, 1605-1615—VASARI, 1512-1574—SOFONISBA +ANGUISCIOLA, 1535, ABOUT 1626—LAVINIA FONTANA, 1552-1614 364</p> + +<p><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII50"><b>CHAPTER XIII.</b></a> GERMAN, FLEMISH, AND DUTCH ARTISTS FROM THE FIFTEENTH TO THE +EIGHTEENTH CENTURY—VAN DER WEYDEN, A CONTEMPORARY OF THE VAN EYCKS, +1366-1442—VAN LEYDEN, 1494-1533—VAN SOMER, 1570-1624—SNYDERS, +1579-1657—G. HONTHORST, 1592-1662—JAN STEEN, 1626-1679—GERARD DOW, +1613-1680—DE HOOCH, DATES OF BIRTH AND DEATH UNKNOWN—VAN OSTADE, +1610-1685—MAAS, 1632-1693—METZU, 1615. STILL ALIVE IN 1667—TERBURG, +1608-1681—NETCHER, 1639-1684—BOL, 1611-1680—VAN DER HELST, +1613-1670—RUYSDAEL, 1625 (?)-1682—HOBBEMA, 1638-1709—BERCHEM, +1620-1683—BOTH 1600 (?)-1650(?) DU JARDIN, 1625-1678—ADRIAN VAN DE +VELDE, 1639-1672—VAN DER HEYDEN, 1637-1712—DE WITTE, 1607-1692—VAN +DER NEER, 1619 (?)-1683—WILLIAM VAN DE VELDE, THE YOUNGER, +1633-1707—BACKHUYSEN, 1631-1708—VAN DE CAPELLA, ABOUT +1653—HONDECOETER, 1636-1695—JAN WEENIX, 1644-1719—PATER SEGERS, +1590-1661—VAN HUYSUM, 1682-1749—VAN DER WERFF, 1659-1722—MENGS, +1728-1774 391</p> + +<p><a href="#INDEX"><b>INDEX.</b></a></p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + + +<h2>THE OLD MASTERS AND THEIR PICTURES.</h2> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I.</h2> + +<p>EARLY ITALIAN ART—GIOTTO, 1276-1337—ANDREA PISANO. 1280-1345—ORCAGNA, +1315-1376 GHIBERTI, 1381-1455—MASACCIO, 1402-1428 OR 1429—FRA +ANGELICO, 1387-1455.</p> + + +<p>A pencil and paper, a box of colours, and a scrap-book, form so often a +child's favourite toys that one might expect that a very large portion +of men and women would prove painters. But, as we grow in years and +knowledge, the discrepancy between nature and our attempts to copy +nature, strike us more and more, until we turn in dissatisfaction and +disgust from the vain effort.</p> + +<p>There was only one old woman in an Esquimaux tribe who could be called +forward to draw with a stick on the sand a sufficiently graphic likeness +of the Erebus and the Terror. It is only a few groups of men belonging +to different countries, throughout the centuries, who have been able to +give us paintings to which we turn in wonder and admiration, and say +that these are in their degree fair exponents of nature. The old +painter's half-haughty, half-humble protest was true—it is 'God +Almighty,' who in raising here and there men above their fellows, 'makes +painters.'</p> + +<p>But let us be thankful that the old propensity to delight in a +facsimile, or in an idealized version of nature, survives in the very +common satisfaction and joy—whether cultivated or uncultivated—- +derived from looking at pictures, thinking over their details, striving +to understand the meaning of the painters, and proceeding farther to +consider the lives and times which throw light on works of genius. Music +itself is not more universally and gladly listened and responded to, +than pictures are looked at and remembered.</p> + +<p>Thus I have no fear of failing to interest you, my readers, in my +subject if I can only treat it sympathetically,—enter at a humble +distance into the spirit of the painters and of their paintings, and +place before you some of the paintings by reverent and loving +word-painting such as others have achieved, and such as I may strive to +attain to, that you may be in a sort early familiar with these +paintings, before you see them in engravings and photographs, and on +canvas and in fresco, as I trust you may be privileged to see many of +them, when you may hail them not only for what they are, the glories of +art, but for what they have been to you in thoughts of beauty and high +desires.</p> + +<p>Of the old Greek paintings, of which there are left isolated specimens +dug up in Herculaneum and Pompeii, I cannot afford to say anything, and +of the more modern Greek art which was spread over Europe after the fall +of Constantinople I need only write a few words. While Greece was to +Europe the birthplace of painting as of other arts, that Greek painting +which illustrated early Christianity, was painting in its decline and +decay, borrowing not only superstitious conventionalities, but barbaric +attributes of gilding and blazoning to hide its infirmity and poverty. +Virgins of the same weak and meaningless type, between attenuated saints +or angels, and doll-like child-Christs in the one invariable attitude +holding up two fingers of a baby hand to bless the spectator and +worshippers, were for ever repeated. In a similar manner the instances +of rude or meagre contemporary paintings with which the early Christians +adorned their places of worship and the sepulchres of their dead in the +basilicas and catacombs of Rome, are very curious and interesting for +their antiquity and their associations, and as illustrations of faith; +but they present no intrinsic beauty or worth. They are not only clumsy +and childish designs ill executed, but they are rendered unintelligible +to all save the initiated in such hieroglyphics, by offering an +elaborate ground-work of type, antitype, and symbol, on which the artist +probably spent a large part of his strength. Lambs and lilies, serpents, +vines, fishes, dolphins, phœnixes, cocks, anchors, and javelins played +nearly as conspicuous a part in this art as did the dead believer, or +his or her patron saint, who might have been supposed to form the +principal figure in the picture.</p> + +<p>Italian art existed in these small beginnings, in the gorgeous but +quaintly formal or fantastic devices of illuminated missals, and in the +stiff spasmodic efforts of here and there an artist spirit such as the +old Florentine Cimabue's, when a great man heralded a great epoch. But +first I should like to mention the means by which art then worked. +Painting on board and on plastered walls, the second styled painting in +fresco, preceded painting on canvas. Colours were mixed with water or +with size, egg, or fig-juice—the latter practices termed <i>tempera</i> (in +English in distemper) before oil was used to mix colours. But painters +did not confine themselves then to painting with pencil or brush, else +they might have attained technical excellence sooner. It has been well +said that the poems of the middle ages were written in stone; so the +earlier painters painted in stone, in that mosaic work which one of them +called—referring to its durability—'painting for eternity;' and in +metals. Many of them were the sons of jewellers or jewellers themselves; +they worked in iron as well as in gold and silver, and they were +sculptors and architects as well as painters; engineers also, so far as +engineering in the construction of roads, bridges, and canals, was known +in those days. The Greek knowledge of anatomy was well-nigh lost, so +that drawing was incorrect and form bad. The idea of showing degrees of +distance, and the management of light and shade, were feebly developed. +Even the fore-shortening of figures was so difficult to the old Italian +painters that they could not carry it into the extremities, and men and +women seem as though standing on the points of their toes. +Landscape-painting did not exist farther than that a rock or a bush, or +a few blue lines, with fishes out of proportion prominently interposed, +indicated, as on the old stage, that a desert, a forest, or a sea, was +to play its part in the story of the picture. So also portrait-painting +was not thought of, unless it occurred in the likeness of a great man +belonging to the time and place of the painter, who was the donor of +some picture to chapel or monastery, or of the painter himself, alike +introduced into sacred groups and scenes; for pictures were uniformly of +a religious character, until a little later, when they merged into +allegorical representations, just as one remembers that miracle plays +passed into moral plays before ordinary human life was reproduced. Until +this period, what we call dramatic expression in making a striking +situation, or even in bringing the look of joy or sorrow, pleasure or +pain, into a face, had hardly been attained.</p> + +<p>Perhaps you will ask, what merit had the old paintings of the middle +ages to compensate for so many great disadvantages and incongruities? +Certainly before the time I have reached, they have, with rare +exceptions, little merit, save that fascination of pathos, half-comic, +half-tragic, which belongs to the struggling dawn of all great +endeavours, and especially of all endeavours in art. But just at this +epoch, art, in one man, took a great stride, began, as I shall try to +show, to exert an influence so true, deep, and high that it extends, in +the noblest forms, to the present day, and much more than compensates to +the thoughtful and poetic for a protracted train of technical blunders +and deficiencies.</p> + +<p><b>Giotto,</b> <a name="Giot" id="Giot"></a>known also as Magister Joctus, was born in 1276 near Florence. I +dare say many have heard one legend of him, and I mean to tell the +legends of the painters, because even when they are most doubtful they +give the most striking indications of the times and the light in which +painters and their paintings were regarded by the world of artists, and +by the world at large; but so far as I have heard this legend of Giotto +has not been disproven. The only objection which can be urged against +it, is that it is found preserved in various countries, of very +different individuals—a crowning objection also to the legend of +William Tell. Giotto was a shepherd boy keeping his father's sheep and +amusing himself by drawing with chalk on a stone the favourites of the +flock, when his drawings attracted the attention of a traveller passing +from the heights into the valley. This traveller was the well-born and +highly-esteemed painter Cimabue, who was so delighted with the little +lad's rough outlines, that getting the consent of Giotto's father, +Cimabue adopted the boy, carried him off to the city of Florence, +introduced him to his studio, and so far as man could supplement the +work of God, made a painter of the youthful genius. I may add here a +later legend of Giotto. Pope Boniface VIII, requested specimens of skill +from various artists with the view to the appointment of a painter to +decorate St Peter's. Giotto, either in impatient disdain, or to show a +careless triumph of skill, with one flourish of his hand, without the +aid of compass, executed a perfect circle in red chalk, and sent the +circle as his contribution to the specimens required by the Pope. The +audacious specimen was accepted as the most conclusive, Giotto was +chosen as the Pope's painter for the occasion, and from the incident +arose the Italian proverb 'round as the o of Giotto.' Giotto was the +friend of Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio, especially of Dante, to whom +the grandeur of some of the painter's designs has been vaguely enough +attributed. The poet of the 'Inferno' wrote of his friend:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i4">'—— Cimabue thought<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To lord it over painting's field; and now<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The cry is Giotto's, and his name eclipsed.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<p>Petrarch bequeathed in his will a Madonna by Giotto and mentioned it as +a rare treasure of art. Boccaccio wrote a merry anecdote of his comrade +the painter's wit, in the course of which he referred with notable +plain-speaking to Giotto's 'flat currish' plainness of face.</p> + +<p>The impression handed down of Giotto's character is that of an +independent, high-spirited man, full of invention, full of imagination, +and also, by a precious combination, full of shrewdness and common +sense; a man genial, given to repartee, and at the same time not +deficient in the tact which deprives repartee of its sting. While he was +working to King Robert of Naples, the king, who was watching the painter +on a very hot day, said, with a shrug, 'If I were you, Giotto, I would +leave off work and rest myself this fine day, 'And so would I, sire, if +I were <i>you</i>,' replied the wag.</p> + +<p>I need scarcely add that Giotto was a man highly esteemed and very +prosperous in his day; one account reports him as the head of a family +and the father of four sons and four daughters. I have purposely written +first of the fame, the reputed character, and the circumstances of +Giotto before I proceed to his work. This great work was, in brief, to +breathe into painting the living soul which had till then—in mediæval +times—been largely absent. Giotto went to Nature for his inspiration, +and not content with the immense innovation of superseding by the actual +representation of men and women in outline, tint, and attitude, the +rigid traditions of his predecessors, he put men's passions in their +faces—the melancholy looked sad, the gay glad. This result, to us so +simple, filled Giotto's lively countrymen, who had seldom seen it, with +astonishment and delight. They cried out as at a marvel when he made the +commonest deed even coarsely life-like, as in the case of a sailor in a +boat, who turned round with his hand before his face and spat into the +sea; and when he illustrated the deed with the corresponding +expression, as in the thrill of eagerness that perceptibly pervaded the +whole figure of a thirsty man who stooped down to drink. But Giotto was +no mere realist though he was a great realist; he was also in the +highest light an idealist. His sense of harmony and beauty was true and +noble; he rose above the real into 'the things unseen and eternal,' of +which the real is but a rough manifestation. He was the first to paint a +crucifixion robbed of the horrible triumph of physical power, and of the +agony which is at its bidding, and invested with the divinity of awe and +love.</p> + +<p>Giotto's work did not end with himself; he was the founder of the +earliest worthy school of Italian art, so worthy in this very glorious +idealism, that, as I have already said, the men whose praise is most to +be coveted, have learned to turn back to Giotto and his immediate +successors, and, forgetting and forgiving all their ignorance, +crudeness, quaintness, to dwell never wearied, and extol without measure +these oldest masters' dignity of spirit, the earnestness of their +originality, the solemnity and heedfulness of their labour. It would +seem as if skill and polish, with the amount of attention which they +appropriate, with their elevation of manner over matter, and thence +their lowered standard, are apt to rob from or blur in men these highest +qualifications of genius, for it is true that judges miss even in the +Lionardo, Michael Angelo, and Raphael of a later and much more +accomplished generation, and, to a far greater extent, in the Rubens of +another and still later day, the perfect simplicity, the unalloyed +fervour, the purity of tenderness in Giotto, Orcagna, Fra Angelico, and +in their Flemish brethren, the Van Eycks and Mabuse.</p> + +<p>The difference between the two classes of painters in not so wide as +that between the smooth and brilliant epigrammatic poets of Anne's and +the ruggedly rich dramatists of Elizabeth's reign, neither was there the +unmistakable preponderance of such a mighty genius as that of +Shakespeare granted to the first decade, still the distinction was the +same in kind.<a id="footnotetag1" name="footnotetag1"></a> +<a href="#footnote1"><sup class="sml">1</sup></a></p> + +<p>I wish you, my readers, to note it in the very commencement, and to +learn, like the thoughtful students of painting, to put aside any +half-childish over-estimate of the absurdity of a blue stroke +transfixing a huge flounder-like fish as a likeness of a sea, (which you +have been accustomed to see translucid, in breakers and foam, in modern +marine pictures,) or your quick sense of the ugliness of straight +figures with long hands, wooden feet, and clinging draperies, while your +eyes have been familiar with well-modelled frames and limbs and flowing +lines. But we must look deeper if we would not be slaves to superficial +prettiness, or even superficial correctness; we must try to go into the +spirit of a painting and value it more in proportion as it teaches art's +noblest lesson—the divinity of the divine, the serenity of utmost +strength, the single-heartedness of passion.</p> + +<p>I have only space to tell you of three or four of the famous works of +Giotto. First, his allegories in the great church, in honour of St +Francis, at Assisi, in relation to which, writing of its German +architect, an author says: 'He built boldly against the mountain, piling +one church upon another; the upper vast, lofty, and admitting through +its broad windows the bright rays of the sun: the lower as if in the +bowels of the earth—low, solemn, and almost shutting out the light of +day. Around the lofty edifice grew the convent, a vast building, resting +upon a long line of arches clinging to the hill-sides. As the evening +draws nigh, casting its deep shadows across the valley, the traveller +beneath gazes upwards with feelings of wonder and delight at this +graceful arcade supporting the massy convent; the ancient towers and +walls of the silent town gathering around, and the purple rocks rising +high above—all still glowing in the lingering sunbeams—a scene +scarcely to be surpassed in any clime for its sublime beauty.' The +upper church contains frescoes wonderfully fresh, by Cimabue, of +Scriptural subjects, and frescoes of scenes from the life vowed to +poverty of St Francis. In the lower church, over the tomb of St Francis, +are the four master-pieces with which we have to do. These are the three +vows of the order figuratively represented. Mark the fitness and +grandeur of two of the figures, the suggestion of which has been +attributed to Dante, the woman Chastity seated beyond assault in her +rocky fortress, and Obedience bowing the neck to curb and yoke. The +fourth fresco pictures the saint who died, 'covered by another's cloak +cast over his wasted body eaten with sores,' enthroned and glorified +amidst the host of Heaven.</p> + +<p>I have chosen the second example of the art of Giotto because you may +with comparative ease see it for yourselves. It is in the National +Gallery, London, having belonged to the collection of the late Samuel +Rogers. It is a fragment of an old fresco which had been part of a +series illustrating the life of John the Baptist in the church of the +Carmine, Florence, a church which was destroyed by fire in 1771. The +fragment in the National Gallery has two fine heads of apostles bending +sorrowfully over the body of St John. Though it is not necessary to do +it, in strict justice, because good work rises superior to all accidents +of comparison as well as accidents of circumstance, one must remember in +regarding this, the stilted and frozen figures and faces, which, before +Giotto broke their bonds and inspired them, had professed to tell the +Bible's stories.</p> + +<p>The third instance I have chosen to quote is Giotto's portrait of Dante +which was so strangely lost for many years. The portrait occurs in a +painting, the first recorded performance of Giotto's, in which he was +said to have introduced the likeness of many of his contemporaries, on +the wall of the Palazzo dell' Podestà or Council Chamber of Florence. +During the banishment of Dante the wall was plastered or white-washed +over, through the influence of his enemies, and though believed to +exist, the picture was hidden down to 1840, when, after various futile +efforts to recover it, the figures were again brought to light.</p> + +<p>This portrait of Dante is altogether removed from the later portraits of +the indignant and weary man, of whom the Italian market-women said that +he had been in Hell as well as in exile. Giotto's Dante on the walls of +the Council Chamber is a noble young man of thirty, full of ambitious +hope and early distinction. The face is slightly pointed, with broad +forehead, hazel eyes, straight brows and nose, mouth and chin a little +projecting. The close cloak or vest with sleeves, and cap in folds +hanging down on the shoulder, the hand holding the triple fruit, in +prognostication of the harvest of virtue and renown which was to be so +bitter as well as so glorious, are all in keeping and have a majesty of +their own. The picture is probably known by engravings to many of my +readers.</p> + +<p>The last example of Giotto's, is the one which of all his works is most +potent and patent in its beauty, and has struck, and, in so far as we +can tell, will for ages strike, with its greatness multitudes of widely +different degrees of cultivation whose intellectual capacity is as far +apart as their critical faculty. I mean the matchless Campanile or +bell-tower 'towering over the Dome of Brunelleschi' at Florence, formed +of coloured marbles—for which Giotto framed the designs, and even +executed with his own hands the models for the sculpture. With this +lovely sight Dean Alford's description is more in keeping than the +prosaic saying of Charles V., that 'the Campanile ought to be kept under +glass.' Dean Alford's enthusiasm thus expresses itself:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>'A mass of varied light written on the cloudless sky of +unfathomed blue; varied but blended, as never in any other +building that we had seen; the warm yellow of the lighter marbles +separated but not disunited by the ever-recurring bands of dark; +or glowing into red where the kisses of the sun had been hottest; +or fading again into white where the shadows mostly haunted, or +where the renovating hand had been waging conflict with decay.'</p></div> + +<p>It is known that Giotto, together with his friend Dante, died before +this—Giotto's last great work—was finally constructed by Giotto's +pupil, Taddeo Gaddi, and that therefore neither of the friends could +have really looked on 'Giotto's Tower,' though Italian Ciceroni point +out, and strangers love to contemplate, the very stone on which 'Grim +Dante' sat and gazed with admiration in the calm light of evening on the +enduring memorial of the painter.</p> + +<p>Giotto died in the year 1336 or 1337, his biographer adds, 'no less a +good Christian than an excellent painter,' and in token of his faith he +painted one crucifixion in which he introduced his own figure 'kneeling +in an attitude of deep devotion and contrition at the foot of the +Cross.' The good taste of such an act has been questioned, so has been +the practice which painted the Virgin Mother now as a brown Italian, now +as a red and white Fleming, and again as a flaxen-haired German or as a +swarthy Spaniard, and draped her and all the minor figures in the +grandest drama the world ever saw—as well as the characters in older +Scripture histories, in the Florentine, Venetian, and Antwerp fashions +of the day. The defence of the practice is, that the Bible is for +universal time, that its Virgin Mother, its apostles and saints, were +types of other mothers and of other heroes running down the stream of +history; that even the one central and holy figure, if He may be +represented at all, as the Divine brother of all humanity, may be clad +not inaptly in the garments of all. It appears to me that there is +reason in this answer, and that viewed in its light the criticism which +constantly demands historic fidelity is both carping and narrow. I do +not mean, however, to underrate historic accuracy in itself, or to +depreciate that longing for completeness in every particular, which +drives our modern painters to the East to study patiently for months the +aspects of nature under its Oriental climate, with its peculiar people +and animals, its ancient costumes and architecture.</p> + +<p>Giotto was buried with suitable honours by a city which, like the rest +of the nation, has magnified its painters amongst its great men, in the +church of Santa Maria del Fiore, where his master Cimabue had been +buried. Lorenzo de' Medici afterwards placed over Giotto's tomb his +effigy in marble.</p> + +<p>In chronicling ancient art I must here diverge a little. I have already +mentioned how closely painting was in the beginning allied with working +in metals as well as with sculpture and architecture. It is thus +necessary to write of a magnificent work in metal, the study and +admiration of generations of painters, begun in the life of Giotto, and +completed in two divisions, extending over a period of nearly a hundred +years. We shall proceed to deal with the first division, and recur to +the second a little later.</p> + +<p>Let me first say a word to explain the extent of the treasures of art in +the old Italian cities. They were then the great merchant cities of the +world, more or less republican in their constitution. They stood to the +citizens, who rarely left their walls, at once as peculiar possessions +and as native countries rather than as cities alone, while they excited +all the patriotism, pride, and love that were elsewhere expended on a +whole country—which after all was held as belonging largely to its king +and nobles. The old Italian merchant guilds, and wealthy merchants as +individuals, vied with each other in signalizing their good citizenship +by presenting—as gifts identified with their names—to their cities, +those palace buildings, chapels, paintings, gates, which are the delight +of the world to this day. It was a merchant guild which thought happily +of giving to Florence the bronze gates to the baptistery of San Giovanni +or St John the Baptist, attached to the Cathedral. After some +competition the gates were intrusted to <b>Andrea Pisano,</b><a name="Pis" id="Pis"></a> one of a great +group of painters, sculptors, and architects linked together and named, +as so often happened in Italy, for their place of birth, Pisa. Andrea +executed a series of beautiful reliefs from the life of John the +Baptist, which were cast in 1330, gilt, and placed in the centre +door-way. I shall leave the rest of the gates, still more exquisitely +wrought, till their proper time, only observing that the Pisani group of +carvers and founders are supposed to have attained their extraordinary +superiority in skill and grace, even over such a painter as Giotto, in +consequence of one of them, Nicola Pisano, having given his attention to +the study of some ancient Greek sarcophagi preserved at Pisa.</p> + +<p>Passing for a while from the gates of St John of Florence, we come back +to painting and a painter, and with them to another monument—in itself +very noble and curious in its mouldering age, of the old Italians' love +to their cities. <b>Andrea Orcagna,</b><a name="Orc" id="Orc"></a> otherwise known as <b>Andrea di Cione,</b> one +of a brotherhood of painters, was born in Florence about 1315. His +greatest works are in the Campo Santa of Pisa.</p> + +<p>This wonderful 'holy field' is a grand legacy, so far as dilapidation, +alas, will let it be, of the old painters. Originally a place of burial, +though no longer used as such, it is enclosed by high walls and an +arcade, something like the cloisters of a cathedral or college running +round, and having on the north and east sides chapels where masses for +the dead were celebrated. The space in the centre was filled with earth +brought from the Holy Land by the merchant ships of Pisa. It is covered +with turf, having tall cypress-trees at the corners, and a little cross +in the centre. The arcade is pierced with sixty-two windows, and +contains on its marble pavement hundreds of monuments—among them the +Greek sarcophagi studied by Nicola Pisano. But the great distinction of +the Campo Santa (of which there are many photographs) are the walls +opposite the windows of the arcade painted with Scriptural subjects by +artists of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, for the decoration of +the walls was continued at intervals, during two hundred years. The +havoc wrought by time and damp has been terrible; not only are the +pictures faded and discoloured, but of the earliest only mutilated +fragments, 'here an arm and there a head,' remain. Giotto's +illustrations of the book of Job have thus perished. Still Orcagna's +work has partially escaped, and left us indications of what it was in +his and its youth, when Michael Angelo and Raphael did not disdain to +borrow from it in design and arrangement. Dean Alford has thus described +Orcagna's mournful, thoughtful 'Triumph of Death:'</p> + +<p>'The picture is one of crowded action, and contains very many +personages. The action may be supposed to begin in the lower corner on +the right hand. There we see what appears to be a wedding-party seated +in festivity under a grove of orange-trees laden with fruit. Over two of +them a pair of winged loves flutter in the air, and musicians are +entertaining them with merry strains. But close to them on the left +comes swooping down on bats' wings, and armed with the inevitable +scythe, the genius of Death. Her wild hair streams in the wind, her +bosom is invulnerable, being closed in a trellised armour of steel. +Beneath her, on the ground, are a heap of corpses, shown by their attire +to be the great and wealthy of the world. Three winged figures, two +fiends and one angel, are drawing souls, in the form of children, out +of the mouths of three of these corpses. Above, the air is full of +flying spirits, angels and demons: the former beautiful and saintly, the +latter hideous and bestial. Some are dragging, or bearing upwards, human +souls: others are on their way to fetch them from the heaps of dead: +others, again, are flying about apparently without aim. Further yet to +the left, a company of wretched ones, lame and in rags, are invoking +Death with outstretched arms to come to their relief; but she sweeps by +and heeds them not.</p> + +<p>'Dividing one half of the picture from the other, is a high range of +rocks, terminating in a fiery mountain, into which the demons are +casting the unhappy souls which they have carried off. Beyond that seems +to be a repetition of the same lesson respecting Death in another form. +A party of knights and dames are issuing on horseback from a mountain +pass. In the left hand of the picture there lie in their path three +corpses in coffins, with coronets on their heads. One is newly dead; on +the second, decay has begun its work; the third is reduced to a +grinning skeleton. The impression produced on the gay party by the sight +is very various. Some look on carelessly; one holds his nose in disgust; +one, a lady jewelled and crowned, leans her head on her hand in solemn +thought. Above, on a rising ground, an aged monk (it is said, Saint +Macarius) is holding a scroll, and pointing out to passengers the moral +of the sight which meets them. The path winds up a hill crowned with a +church, and by its side at various points are hermits sitting in calm +security, or following peaceful occupations. One of them is milking a +doe; another is reading; a third is calmly contemplating from a distance +the valley of Death. About them are various animals and birds. The idea +evidently intended to be conveyed is that deliverance from the fear of +death is to be found not in gaiety and dissipation, but in contemplation +and communion with God.</p> + +<p>'Such is the wonderful fresco, and the execution is as wonderful as the +conception. Belonging as the painter did to a rude and early period of +art, he yet had the power of endowing his figures with both majesty and +tenderness of expression.'</p> + +<p>The Last Judgment is no less solemn and sad, with hope tempering its +sadness. Mrs Jameson's note of it is: 'Above, in the centre, Christ and +the Virgin are throned in separate glories. He turns to the left, +towards the condemned, while he uncovers the wound in his side, and +raises his right arm with a menacing gesture, his countenance full of +majestic wrath. The Virgin, on the right of her Son, is the picture of +heavenly mercy, and, as if terrified at the words of eternal +condemnation, she turns away. On either side are ranged the Prophets of +the Old Testament, the Apostles and other saints, severe, solemn, +dignified figures. Angels, holding the instruments of the Passion, hover +over Christ and the Virgin; under them is a group of archangels. The +archangel Michael stands in the midst holding a scroll in each hand; +immediately before him another archangel, supposed to represent Raphael, +the guardian angel of humanity, cowers down, shuddering, while two +others sound the awful trumpets of doom. Lower down is the earth where +men are seen rising from their graves; armed angels direct them to the +right and left. Here is seen King Solomon, who, whilst he rises, seems +doubtful to which side he should turn; here a hypocritical monk, whom an +angel draws back by the hair from the host of the blessed; and there a +youth in a gay and rich costume, whom another angel leads away to +Paradise. There is wonderful and even terrible power of expression in +some of the heads; and it is said that among them are many portraits of +contemporaries, but unfortunately no circumstantial traditions as to +particular figures have reached us.'</p> + +<p>One of Orcagna's altar-pieces, that of 'the coronation of the Virgin,' +containing upwards of a hundred figures, and with the colouring still +rich, is in our National Gallery. As an architect, Orcagna designed the +famous Loggia de' Lanzi of the grand ducal palace at Florence.</p> + +<p>Now I must take you back to the bronze gates of the Baptistery in their +triumphant completion nearly a hundred years after the first gate was +executed by Andrea Pisano. I should have liked, but for our limits, to +tell in full the legend of the election of Lorenzo Ghiberti, <a name="Ghib" id="Ghib"></a>the +step-son of a goldsmith, and skilled in chasing and enamelling, to +design the second gate; when yet a lad of twenty-three, how he and two +other young men, one of them still younger than Ghiberti, were declared +the most promising competitors in the trial for the work; how the last +two voluntarily withdrew from the contest, magnanimously proclaiming +Lorenzo Ghiberti their superior; how all the three lived to be famous, +the one as a founder in metal, the others as an architect and a +sculptor, and remained sworn brothers in art till death.</p> + +<p>Lorenzo Ghiberti has left us an expression of the feeling with which he +set about his task, an expression so suggestive that, even had we no +other indication, it is enough to stamp the true and tender nature of +the man. He prepared for his achievement 'with infinite diligence and +love'—the words deserve to be pondered over. He took at least +twenty-two years to his work, receiving for it eleven hundred florins. +He chose his subjects from the life and death of the Lord, working them +out in twenty panels, ten on each side of the folding doors, and below +these were eight panels containing full-length figures of the four +evangelists and four doctors of the Latin Church, with a complete border +of fruit and foliage, having heads of prophets and sibyls interspersed. +So entire was the satisfaction the superb gate gave, that Lorenzo was +not merely loaded with praise, he received a commission to design and +cast a third and central gate which should surpass the others, that were +thenceforth to be the side entrances.</p> + +<p>For his second gate Lorenzo Ghiberti repaired to the Old Testament for +subjects, beginning with the creation and ending with the meeting of +Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, and represented them in ten compartments +enclosed in a rich border of fruit and foliage, with twenty-four +full-length figures of the Hebrew heroes and prophets, clearly and +delicately designed and finished, occupying corresponding niches. This +crowning gate engaged the founder upwards of eighteen years—forty-nine +years are given as the term of the work of both the gates.</p> + +<p>The single defect which is found in those marvellous gates—left to us +as a testimony of what the life-long devotion of genius could +produce—is that they abound floridly both in ornament and action, in +place of being severely simple and restrained according to the classical +standard.</p> + +<p>Michael Angelo called these gates 'worthy to be the gates of Paradise,' +and they are still one of the glories of Florence. Casts of the gates +are to be found in the School for Art at Kensington, and at the Crystal +Palace.</p> + +<p>A young village boy learned to draw and model from Ghiberti's gates. He +in his turn was to create in the Brancacci Chapel of the Church of the +Carmine at Florence a school of painters scarcely less renowned and +powerful in its effects than that produced by the works in the Campo +Santa. You will find the Italian painters not unfrequently known by +nicknames, quite as often by their father's trades as by their father's +surnames, and still oftener by the town which was their place of birth +or nurture. This <b>Tommaso Guido</b>, or Maso de San Giovanni (from his +village birth-place), was commonly called Masaccio, <a name="Mas" id="Mas"></a>short for +Tomasaccio, 'hulking Tom,' as I have heard it translated, on account of +his indifferent, slovenly habits. I think there is a tradition that he +entered a studio in Florence as a colour boy, and electrified the +painter and his scholars, by <i>brownie</i> like freaks of painting at their +unfinished work, in their absence, better than any of his masters, and +by the dexterity with which he perpetrated the frolic of putting the +facsimile of a fly on one of the faces on the easels. His end was a +tragic conclusion to such light comedy. At the age of twenty-six, he +quitted Florence for Rome so suddenly that he left his finest frescoes +unfinished. It was said that he was summoned thither by the Pope. At +Rome, where little or nothing of Masaccio's life is known, he died +shortly afterwards, not without a suspicion of his having been +poisoned.</p> + +<p>A curious anecdote exists of the identification of the time when he +forsook Florence to meet his death in Rome. Just as we have read, that +the period of the death of Massinger the dramatist has been settled by +an entry in an old parish register, 'died, Philip Massinger a stranger,' +so there has been found some quaint equivalent to a modern tax-paper +which had been delivered at the dwelling of Masaccio when the word +'gone' was written down.</p> + +<p>There is a further tradition—not very probable under the +circumstances—that Masaccio is buried, without name or stone, under the +Brancacci Chapel. Be that as it may, he very early rose to eminence, +surpassing all his predecessors in drawing and colouring, and he +combined with those acquirements such animation and variety of +expression in his characters, that it was said of him 'he painted souls +as well as bodies,' while his invention was not less bold and fresh.</p> + +<p>It is difficult to indicate Masaccio's pictures because some of them +have been repainted and destroyed. As to those in the Brancacci Chapel +from the life of St Peter, (with the exception of two,) considerable +confusion has arisen as to which are Masaccio's, and which belong to +his scholar Filippino Lippi. The fresco which Masaccio left unfinished, +that of the Apostles Peter and Paul raising a dead youth (from +traditional history), was finished by Lippi. In the fresco of Peter +baptizing the converts, generally attributed to Masaccio, there is a lad +who has thrown off his garments, and stands shivering with cold, whose +figure, according to authority, formed an epoch in art. Lionardo da +Vinci, Michael Angelo, Andrea del Sarto, Fra Bartolommeo, all studied +their art in this chapel. Raphael borrowed the grand figure of St Paul +preaching at Athens in one of the cartoons, from one of Masaccio's or +Filippo Lippi's frescoes. Masaccio's excellence as an artist, reached at +an immature age, is very remarkable.</p> + +<p>I have come to the last and probably the best appreciated among modems +of the early Italian painters. Fra <a name="Angelico" id="Angelico"></a><b>Angelico da Fiesole</b>, the gentle +devout monk whom Italians called '<i>Il Beato</i>,' the Blessed, and who +probably did receive the distinction of beatification, a distinction +only second in the Roman Catholic Church to that of canonization. He was +born at the lovely little mountain-town of Fiesole near Florence, 1387, +and his worldly name, which he bore only till his twenty-first year, was +Guido Petri de Mugello. In his youth, with his gift already recognized, +so that he might well have won ease and honour in the world, he entered +the Dominican Convent of St Mark, Florence, for what he deemed the good +and peace of his soul. He seldom afterwards left it, and that only as +directed by his convent superior, or summoned by the Pope. He was a man +devoid of personal ambition, pure, humble, and meek. When offered the +Archbishopric of Florence as a tribute to his sanctity, he declined it +on account of his unworthiness for the office. He would not work for +money, and only painted at the command of his prior. He began his +painting with fasting and prayer. Believing himself inspired in his +work, he steadfastly refused to make any alteration in the originals. It +is said that he was found dead at his easel with a completed picture +before him. It is not wonderful, that from such a man should come one +side of the perfection of that idealism which Giotto had begun. Fra +Angelico's angels, saints, Saviour, and Virgin are more divinely calm, +pure, sweet, endowed with a more exulting saintliness, a more immortal +youth and joy, and a more utter self-abnegation and sympathetic +tenderness than are to be found in the saints and the angels, the +Saviour and the Virgin of other painters. Neither is it surprising that +Fra Angelico's defects, besides that of the bad drawing which shows more +in his large than in his small pictures, are those of a want of human +knowledge, power, and freedom. His wicked—even his more earthly-souled +characters, are weak and faulty in action. What should the reverent and +guileless dreamer know, unless indeed by inspiration of the rude +conflicts, the fire and fury of human passions intensified in the malice +and anguish of devils? But Fra Angelico's singular successes far +transcend his failures. In addition to the sublime serenity and positive +radiance of expression which he could impart to his heads, his notions +of grouping and draping were full of grace, sometimes of splendour and +magnificence. In harmony with his happy temperament and fortunes, he was +fond of gay yet delicate colours 'like spring flowers,' and used a +profusion of gold ornaments which do not seem out of keeping in his +pictures. The most of Fra Angelico's pictures are in Florence—the best +in his own old convent of St Mark, where he lovingly adorned not only +chapter-hall and court, but the cells of his brother friars. A crucifix +with adoring saints worshipping their crucified Saviour is regarded as +his master-piece in St Mark's. A famous coronation of the Virgin, which +Fra Angelico painted for a church in his native town, and which is now +in the Louvre, Paris, is thus described by Mrs Jameson: 'It represents a +throne under a rich Gothic canopy, to which there is an ascent of nine +steps; on the highest kneels the Virgin, veiled, her hands crossed on +her bosom. She is clothed in a red tunic, a blue robe over it, and a +royal mantle with a rich border flowing down behind. The features are +most delicately lovely, and the expression of the face full of humility +and adoration. Christ, seated on the throne, bends forward, and is in +the act of placing the crown on her head; on each side are twelve +angels, who are playing a heavenly concert with guitars, tambourines, +trumpets, viols, and other musical instruments; lower than these, on +each side, are forty holy personages of the Old and New Testament; and +at the foot of the throne kneel several saints, male and female, among +them St Catherine with her wheel, St Agnes with her lamb, and St Cecilia +crowned with flowers. Beneath the principal picture there is a row of +seven small ones, forming a border, and representing various incidents +in the life of St Dominic.'</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II.</h2> + +<p>EARLY FLEMISH ART—THE VAN EYCKS, 1366-1442—MABUSE, MATSYS, 1460-1530 +OR 31.</p> + + +<p>In the Low Countries painting had very much the same history that it had +in Italy, but the dates are later, and there may be a longer interval +given to each stage of development. Religious painting, profuse in +symbolism, with masses of details elaborately worked in, meets us in the +first place. This style of painting reached its culmination, in which it +included (as it did not include in its representation in the Italian +pictures) many and varied excellencies, among them the establishment of +painting in oil in the pictures of the Flemish family of painters—the Van Eycks.</p> +<p><a name="Eycks" id="Eycks"></a> +Before going into the little that is known of the family history of the +<b>Van Eycks,</b> I should like to call attention to the numerous painter +families in the middle ages. What a union, and repose, and happy +sympathy of art-life it indicates, which we appear to have lost in the +restlessness and separate interests of modern life. The Van Eycks +consisted of no less than four members of a family, three brothers, +Hubert, John, and Lambert, and one sister, Margaret, devoted, like her +brothers, to her art. There is a suggestion that they belonged to a +small village of Limburg called Eyck, and repaired to Bruges in order to +pursue their art. Hubert was thirty years older than John, and it is +said that he was a serious-minded man as well as an ardent painter, and +belonged to the religious fraternity of our Lady of Ghent. He died in +1426. John, though of so much consideration in his profession as to be +believed to be 'the Flemish Painter' sent by Duke Philip the Good of +Flanders and Burgundy with a mission to Portugal to solicit the hand of +a princess in marriage, is reported to have died very poor in 1449, and +has the suspicion attached to him of having been a lover of pleasure and +a spendthrift. Of Lambert, the third brother, almost nothing is known; +indeed, the fact of his existence has only lately come to light. +Margaret lived and died unmarried, and belonged, like her brother +Hubert, to the religious society of our Lady of Ghent. She died about +1432.</p> + +<p>The invention of painting in oil, for which the Van Eycks are commonly +known, was not literally that of mixing colours with oil, which was +occasionally done before their day. It was the combining oil with resin, +so as to produce at once a good varnish, and avoid the necessity of +drying pictures in the sun, a bright thought, which may stand in the +same rank with the construction, by James Watt, of that valve which +rendered practicable the application of steam to machinery. The thought, +occasioned by the cracking of a picture in tempera exposed to the sun, +is due to Hubert Van Eyck.</p> + +<p>The great picture of the Van Eycks, which was worked at for a number of +years by both Hubert and John, and, as some reckon, touched by the whole +family, is the 'Adoration of the Lamb,' at St Bavon's, Ghent. I should +like to give a faint idea of this extraordinary picture, which was +painted for a burgomaster of Ghent and his wife in order to adorn their +mortuary chapel in the cathedral. It was an altar piece on separate +panels, now broken up and dispersed, only a portion of it being retained +in Ghent.</p> + +<p>It may strike some as strange that a picture should be on panels, but +those of the old pictures which were not on plastered walls were +commonly on panels, many of them on the lids and sides of chests and +presses which were used to hold sacred vessels and priestly raiment.</p> + +<p>When the wings of the Van Eycks' altar-piece of the 'Adoration of the +Lamb' were opened on festivals, the subjects of the upper central +picture were seen, consisting of the Triune God, a majestic figure, and +at his side in stately calm the Virgin and the Baptist. On the inside of +the wings were angels, at the two extremities Adam and Eve. The lower +central picture shows the Lamb of the Revelation, whose blood flows into +a cup; over it is the dove of the Holy Spirit. Angels, who hold the +instruments of the Passion, worship the Lamb. Four groups of many +persons advance from the sides, these are the holy martyrs, men and +women, priests and laymen. In the foreground is the fountain of life; in +the distance are the towers of the heavenly Jerusalem. On the wings +other groups are coming up to adore the Lamb; on the left those who have +laboured for the Kingdom of the Lord by worldly deeds—the soldiers of +Christ led by St George, St Sebastian, and St Michael, the patron saints +of the old Flemish guilds, followed by emperors and kings—a goodly +company. Beyond the soldiers and princes, on the left, are the righteous +judges, also on horseback. In front of them, on a splendidly caparisoned +gray, rides a mild, benevolent old man in blue velvet trimmed with fur. +This is the likeness of Hubert Van Eyck, painted after his death by his +brother John, and John himself is in the group, clothed in black, with a +shrewd, sharp countenance. On the right are the saints who by +self-renunciation have served the Lamb in the spirit, hermits and +pilgrims, among them St Christopher, St Anthony, St Paul the hermit, +Mary Magdalene, and St Mary of Egypt. A compartment underneath, which +represented hell, finished the whole—yet only the whole on one side, +for the wings when closed presented another series of finely thought-out +and finished pictures—the Annunciation; figures of Micah and Zechariah; +statues of the two St Johns, with the likenesses of the donors who gave +to the world so great a work of art, kneeling humbly side by side, the +burgomaster somewhat mean-looking in such company in spite of the proof +of his liberality, but his wife noble enough in feature and expression +to have been the originator of this glory of early Flemish painting. The +upper part of the picture is painted on a gold ground, round the central +figure of the Lamb is vivid green grass with masses of trees and +flowers—indeed there is much lovely landscape no longer indicated by a +rock or a bush, but betokening close observation of nature, whether in a +fruitful valley, or a rocky defile, or mountain ridges with fleecy +clouds overhead. The expression of the immense number of figures is as +varied and characteristic as their grouping.<a id="footnotetag2" name="footnotetag2"></a> +<a href="#footnote2"><sup class="sml">2</sup></a></p> + +<p>Hubert Van Eyck died while this work was in progress, and it was +finished by his brother John six years after Hubert's death. When one +thinks of the intense application and devotion which such a work costs, +and recalls the bronze gates of St John that occupied Lorenzo Ghiberti +49 years, and when we read, as we shall read a few chapters farther on, +of large paintings which were begun and ended in so many days—even so +many hours, one can better understand what is the essential difference +between the works of the early and the later painters, a difference +which no skill, no power even can bridge over. John Van Eyck, who had +lived late enough to have departed from the painting of sacred pictures +alone, so that he left portraits and an otter hunt among his works, is +three times represented in our National Gallery, in three greatly +esteemed portraits, one a double portrait, believed to be the likenesses +of the painter and his wife, standing hand in hand with a terrier dog +at their feet.</p> + +<p><b>Gossaert,</b> called <b>de Mabuse</b> <a name="Mab" id="Mab"></a> from his native town of Mabeuze, sometimes +signing his name Joannes Malbodius, followed in the steps of the Van +Eycks, particularly in his great picture of the 'Adoration of the +Kings,' which is at Castle Howard, the seat of the Earl of Carlisle. +Mabuse was in England and painted the children of Henry VII, in a +picture, which is at Hampton Court. There is a picture in the palace of +Holyrood, Edinburgh, which has been attributed to Mabuse. It represents +on the sides of a triptych or diptych (somewhat like a folding screen) +James III. and his queen with attendants. The fur on the queen's dress +displays already that marvellous technical skill for which Flemish +painting is so celebrated.</p> + +<p>Hans Memling <a name="Mem" id="Mem"></a>belonged to Bruges. There is a tradition of him, which is +to a certain extent disproven, that he was a poor soldier relieved by +the hospital of St John, Bruges, and that in gratitude he executed for +the hospital the well-known reliquary of St Ursula. However it might +have originated, this is the most noted work of a painter, who was +distinguished frequently by his minute missal-like painting (he was also +an illuminator of missals), in which he would introduce fifteen hundred +small figures in a picture two feet eight inches, by six feet five +inches in size, and work out every detail with the utmost niceness and +care. The reliquary, or 'chasse,' is a wooden coffer or shrine about +four feet in length, its style and form those of a rich Gothic church, +its purpose to hold an arm of the saint. The whole exterior is covered +with miniatures by Memling, nearly the whole of them giving incidents in +the legendary history of St Ursula, a 'virgin princess of Brittany,' or +of England, who, setting out with eleven thousand virgins—her +companions, her lover, and an escort of knights on a pilgrimage to Rome, +was, with her whole company, met and murdered, by a horde of heathen +Huns, when they had reached Cologne, on their return. My readers may be +aware that the supposed bones of the virgins and St Ursula form the +ghastly adornment of the church founded in her honour at Cologne. It is +absolutely filled with bones, built into the walls, stowed under the +pavement, ranged in glass cases about the choir. Hans Memling's is a +pleasanter commemoration of St Ursula.</p> + +<p><b>Quintin Matsys,</b><a name="Matsys" id="Matsys"></a> the blacksmith of Antwerp, was born at Louvain about +1460. Though he worked first as a smith he is said by Kugler to have +belonged to a family of painters, which somewhat takes from the romance, +though it adds to the probability of his story. Another painter in +Antwerp having offered the hand and dowry of his daughter—beloved by +Quintin Matsys—as a prize to the painter who should paint the best +picture in a competition for her hand, the doughty smith took up the +art, entered the lists, and carried off the maiden and her portion from +all his more experienced rivals. The vitality of the legend is indicated +by the inscription on a tablet to the memory of Quintin Matsys in the +Cathedral, Antwerp. The Latin inscription reads thus in English:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'´Twas love connubial taught the smith to paint,'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Quintin Matsys lived and died a respected burgher of Antwerp, a member +of the great Antwerp painters' guild of St Luke. He was twice married, +and had thirteen children.</p> + +<p>Whatever might have been his source of inspiration, Quintin Matsys was +an apt scholar. His 'Descent from the Cross,' now in the Museum, +Antwerp, was <i>the</i> 'Descent from the Cross,' and <i>the</i> picture in the +Cathedral, until superseded by Rubens´ master-piece on the same subject. +Still Quintin Matsys´ version remains, and is in some respects an +unsurpassed picture. There is a traditional grouping of this Divine +tragedy, and Quintin Matsys has followed the tradition. The body of the +Lord is supported by two venerable old men—Joseph of Arimathea and +Nicodemus—while the holy women anoint the wounds of the Saviour; the +Virgin swooning with grief is supported by St John. The figures are full +of individuality, and their action is instinct with pathos. For this +picture Quintin Matsys—popular painter as he was—got only three +hundred florins, equivalent to twenty-five pounds (although, of course, +the value of money was much greater in those days). The Joiners´ +Company, for whom he painted the 'Descent from the Cross,' sold the +picture to the City of Antwerp for five times the original amount, and +it is said Queen Elizabeth offered the City nearly twenty times the +first sum for it, in vain.</p> + +<p>Quintin Matsys painted frequently half-length figures of the Virgin and +Child, an example of which is in the National Gallery. He excelled in +the 'figure painting' of familiar subjects, then just beginning to be +established, affording a token of the direction which the future +eminence of the Flemish painters would take. One of his famous pictures +of this kind is 'The Misers,' in the Queen's collection at Windsor. Two +figures in the Flemish costume of the time, are seated at a table; +before them are a heap of money and a book, in which one is writing with +his right hand, while he tells down the money with his left. The faces +express craft and cupidity. The details of the ink-horn on the table, +and the bird on its perch behind, have the Flemish graphic exactness.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III.</h2> + +<p>IN EARLY SCHOOLS OF ITALIAN ART—THE BELLINI, 1422-1512—MANTEGNA, +1431-1506—GHIRLANDAJO, 1449-1498—IL FRANCIA, 1450-1518—FRA +BARTOLOMMEO, 1469-1517—ANDREA DEL SARTO, 1488-1530.</p> + + +<p>I have come to the period when Italian art is divided into many +schools—Paduan, Venetian, Umbrian, Florentine, Roman, Bolognese, &c., +&c. With the schools and their definitions I do not mean to meddle, +except it may be to mention to which school a great painter belonged. +Another difficulty meets me here. I have been trying so far as I could +to give the representative painters in the order of time. I can no +longer follow this rule strictly, and the grouping of this chapter is +made on the principle of leading my readers up by some of the +predecessors who linked the older to the later Italian painters, and by +some of the contemporaries of these later painters, to that central +four, Lionardo da Vinci, Michael Angelo, Raphael, and Titian, who +occupy so great a place in the history of art.</p> + +<p><a name="Bellini" id="Bellini"></a>In the brothers <b>Bellini</b> and their native Venice, we must first deal with +that excellence of colouring for which the Venetian painters were +signally noted, while they comparatively neglected and underrated +drawing. A somewhat fanciful theory has been started, that as Venice, +Holland, and England have been distinguished for colour in art, and as +all those States are by the sea, so a sea atmosphere has something to do +with a passion for colour. Within more reasonable bounds, in reference +to the Venetians, is the consideration that no colouring is richer, +mellower, more exquisitely tinted than that which belongs to the blue +Italian sky over the blue Adriatic, with those merged shades of violet, +green, and amber, and that magical soft haze which has to do with a +moist climate.</p> + +<p>The two brothers <b>Gentile</b> and <b>Gian</b> or <b>John Bellini,</b> the latter the more +famous of the two, were the sons of an old Venetian painter, with regard +to whom the worthy speech is preserved, that he said it was like the +Tuscans for son to beat father, and he hoped, in God's name, that +Giovanni or Gian would outstrip him, and Gentile, the elder, outstrip +both. The brothers worked together and were true and affectionate +brothers, encouraging and appreciating each other.</p> + +<p>Gentile was sent by the Doge at the request of the Sultan—either +Mahommed II, or Bajazet II., to Constantinople, where Gentile Bellini +painted the portrait of the Sultan and the Sultana his mother, now in +the British Museum. The painter also painted the head of John the +Baptist in a charger as an offering—only too suitable—from him to the +Grand Turk. The legend goes on to tell that in the course of the +presentation of the gift, an incident occurred which induced Gentile +Bellini to quit the Ottoman Court with all haste. The Sultan had +criticized the appearance of the neck in John the Baptist's severed +head, and when Gentile ventured to defend his work, the Sultan proceeded +to prove the correctness of his criticism, by drawing his scimitar and +cutting off at a stroke the head of a kneeling slave, and pointing to +the spouting blood and the shrinking muscle, gave the horrified painter +a lesson in practical anatomy. On Gentile's return from the East, he was +pensioned by his State, and lived on painting, till he was eighty years +of age, dying in 1501.</p> + +<p>Gian Bellini is said to have obtained by a piece of deceit, which is not +in keeping with his manly and honourable character, the secret, +naturally coveted by a Venetian, of mixing colours with resin and oil. A +Venetian painter had brought the secret from Flanders, and communicated +it to a friend, who, in turn, communicated it to a third painter, and +was murdered by that third painter for his pains, so greedy and criminal +was the craving, not only to possess, but to be as far as possible the +sole possessor of, the grand discovery. Gian Bellini was much less +guilty, if he were really guilty. Disguised as a Venetian nobleman, he +proposed to sit for his portrait to that Antonella who first brought the +secret from Flanders, and while Antonella worked with unsuspicious +openness, Gian Bellini watched the process and stole the secret.</p> + +<p>Gian Bellini lived to the age of ninety, and had among his admirers the +poet Ariosto and Albrecht Dürer. The latter saw Gian Bellini in his age, +and said of him, when foolish mockers had risen up to scout at the old +man, and his art now become classic, 'He is very old, but he is still +the best of our painters.' Gian Bellini had illustrious pupils, +including in their number Titian and Giorgione.</p> + +<p>The portraits of Gentile and Gian, which are preserved in a painting by +Gian, show Gentile fair-complexioned and red-haired, and Gian with dark +hair.</p> + +<p>Gian Bellini is considered to have been less gifted with imagination +than some of his great brother artists; but he has proved himself a man +of high moral sense, and while he stopped short at the boundary between +the seen and the unseen, it is certain he must still have painted with +much of 'the divine patience' and devout consecration of all his powers, +and of every part of his work, which are the attributes of the earliest +Italian painters. When he and his brother began to paint, Venetian art +had already taken its distinctive character for open-air effects, rich +scenic details in architecture, furniture and dress (said to be +conspicuous in commercial communities), and a growing tendency to +portraiture. Gian went with the tide, but he guided it to noble results. +His simplicity and good sense, with his purity and dignity of mind, were +always present. He introduced into his pictures 'singing boys, dancing +cherubs, glittering thrones, and dewy flowers,' pressing the outer world +into his service and that of religious art. It is said also that his +Madonnas seem 'amiable beings imbued with a lofty grace;' while his +saints are 'powerful and noble forms.' But he never descended to the +paltry or the vulgar. He knew from the depths of his own soul how to +invest a face with moral grandeur. Especially in his representations of +our Saviour Gian Bellini 'displays a perception of moral power and +grandeur seldom equalled in the history of art.' The example given is +that of the single figure of the Lord in the Dresden Gallery, where the +Son of God, without nimbus, or glory, stands forth as the 'ideal of +elevated humanity.'</p> + +<p>The greater portion of Gian Bellini's pictures remain in the churches +and galleries of Venice. But the first great work at which the two +brothers in their youth worked in company—the painting of the Hall of +Council in the palace of the Doge, with a series of historical and +legendary pictures of the Venetian wars with the Emperor Frederick +Barbarossa (1177), including the Doge Ziani's receiving from the Pope +the gold ring with which the Doge espoused the Adriatic, in token of +perpetual dominion over the sea—was unfortunately destroyed by fire in +1577. Giovanni Bellini's greatest work, now at St Salvatore, is Christ +at Emmaus, with Venetian senators and a Turkish dragoman introduced as +spectators of the risen Lord.</p> + +<p>Of another great work at Vicenza, painted in Gian Bellini's old age, +when neither his skill nor his strength was abated, 'The Baptism of +Christ,' Dean Alford writes thus:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>'Let us remain long and look earnestly, for there is indeed much +to be seen. That central figure, standing with hands folded on +His bosom, so gentle, so majestic, so perfect in blameless +humanity, oh what labour of reverent thought; what toil of +ceaseless meditation; what changes of fair purpose, oscillating +into clearest vision of ideal truth, must it have cost the great +painter, before he put forth that which we see now! It is as +impossible to find aught but love and majesty in the Divine +countenance, as it is to discover a blemish on the complexion of +that body, which seems to give forth light from itself, as He +stands in obedience, fulfilling all righteousness.</p> + +<p>'And even on the accessories to this figure, we see the same +loving and reverent toil bestowed. The cincture, where alone the +body is hidden from view, is no web of man's weaving; or, if it +were, it is of hers whose heart was full of divine thoughts as +she wove: so bright and clear is the tint, so exquisitely careful +and delicate every fold where</p></div> +<div class="blockquot"><p>light may play or colour vary. And look under the sacred feet, on +the ground blessed by their pressure; no dash of hurrying brush +has been there: less than a long day's light, from morn to dewy +eve, did not suffice to give in individual shape and shade every +minutest pebble and mote of that shore of Jordan. Every one of +them was worth painting, for we are viewing them as in the light +of His presence who made them all and knew them all.</p> + +<p>'And now let us pass to the other figures: to that living and glowing +angelic group in the left hand of the picture. Three of the heavenly +host are present, variously affected by that which they behold. The +first, next the spectator, in the corner of the picture, is standing in +silent adoration, tender and gentle in expression, the hands together, +but only the points of the fingers touching, his very reverence being +chastened by angelic modesty; the second turns on that which he sees a +look of earnest inquiry, but kneels as he looks; and indeed that which +he sees is one of the things which angels</p></div> +<div class="blockquot"><p>desire to look into. The third, a majestic herald-like figure, +stands, as one speaking, looking to the spectator, with his right +hand on his garment, and his left out as in demonstration, +unmistakeably saying to us who look on, "Behold what love is here!" +Then, hardly noticing what might well be much noticed, the grand +dark figure of the Baptist on the right, let us observe how +beautifully and accurately all the features of the landscape are +given.'</p></div> + +<p>Of the same work another critic records: 'The attendant angels in this +work (signed by the artist) are of special interest, instinct with an +indefinable purity and depth of reverential tenderness elsewhere hardly +rivalled. But the picture, like that in S. Giovanni Crisostomo, with +which it is nearly contemporary, is almost more interesting from the +astonishing truth and beauty of its landscape portions. <i>These</i> form +here a feature more important, perhaps, than in any work of that period; +the stratification and form of the rocks in the fore-ground, the palms +and other trees relieved against the lucid distance, and the +mountain-ranges of tender blue beyond, are as much beyond praise for +their beauty and their truth, as they have been beyond imitation from +the solidity and transparent strength of their execution! The minute +finish is Nature's, and the colouring more gem-like than gems.'</p> + +<p>No praise can exceed that bestowed on Gian Bellini's colouring for its +intensity and transparency. 'Many of his draperies are like crystal of +the clearest and deepest colour,' declares an authority; and another +states' his best works have a clear jewel brightness, an internal +gem-like fire such as warms a summer twilight. The shadows are intense +and yet transparent, like the Adriatic waves when they lie out of the +sun under the palace bridges.'</p> + +<p>Portrait-painting, just beginning, was established in Venice, its later +stronghold, by Gian Bellini. His truthful portrait of the Doge Loredano, +one of the earliest of that series of Doges' portraits which once hung +in state in the ducal palace, is now in our National Gallery.</p> + +<p>Of Gentile Bellini, whose work was softer, but less vigorous than his +brother's, the best painting extant is that at Milan of St Mark +preaching at Alexandria, in which the painter showed how he had profited +by his residence at Constantinople in the introduction of much rich +Turkish costume, and of an animal unknown to Europe at the time—a +camelopard.</p> + +<p><b>Andrea Mantegna</b><a name="Mantegna" id="Mantegna"></a> was born near Padua. He was the son of a farmer. His +early history, according to tradition, is very similar to that of +Giotto. Just as Cimabue adopted Giotto, Squarcione, a painter who had +travelled in Italy and Greece, and made a great collection of antiques, +from which he taught in a famous school of painters, adopted Andrea +Mantegna at the early age of ten years. It was long believed that +Mantegna, in the end, forfeited the favour of his master by marrying +Nicolosa Bellini, the sister of Gentile and Gian Bellini, whose father +was the great rival of Squarcione; and farther, that Mantegna's style of +painting had been considerably influenced by his connection with the +Bellini. Modern researches, which have substituted another surname for +that of Bellini as the surname of Andrea Mantegna's wife, contradict +this story.</p> + +<p>Andrea Mantegna, a man of much energy and fancy, entered young into the +service of the Gonzaga lords of Mantua, receiving from them a salary of +thirty pounds a year and a piece of land, on which the painter built a +house, and painted it within and without—the latter one of the first +examples of artistic waste, followed later by Tintoret and Veronese, +regardless of the fact that painting could not survive in the open air +of Northern Italy.</p> + +<p>Andrea Mantegna had his home at Mantua, except when he was called to +Rome to paint for the Pope, Innocent VIII. An anecdote is told by Mrs +Jameson of this commission. It seems the Pope's payments were irregular; +and one day when he visited his painter at work, and his Holiness asked +the meaning of a certain allegorical female figure in the design, Andrea +answered, with somewhat audacious point, that he was trying to +represent <i>Patience</i>. The Pope, understanding the allusion, paid the +painter in his own coin, by remarking in reply, 'If you would place +Patience in fitting company, you would paint Discretion at her side.' +Andrea took the hint, said no more, and when his work was finished not +only received his money, but was munificently rewarded.</p> + +<p>Andrea Mantegna had two sons and a daughter. One of his sons painted +with his father, and, after Andrea Mantegna's death, completed some of +his pictures.</p> + +<p>Andrea Mantegna's early study of antique sculpture moulded his whole +life's work. He took great delight in modelling, in perspective, of +which he made himself a master, and in chiaroscuro, or light and shade. +Had his powers of invention and grace not kept pace with his skill, he +would have been a stiff and formal worker; as it was, he carried the +austerity of sculpture into painting, and his greatest work, the +'Triumph of Julius Cæsar,' would have been better suited for the +chiselled frieze of a temple than it is for the painted frieze of the +hall of a palace. Yet he was a great leader and teacher in art, and the +true proportions of his drawing are grand, if his colouring is harsh. I +am happy to say that Mantegna's 'Triumph of Julius Cæsar' is in England +at Hampton Court, having been bought from the Duke of Mantua by Charles +I. These cartoons, nine in number, are sketches in water-colour or +distemper on paper fixed on cloth. They are faded and dilapidated, as +they well may be, considering the slightness of the materials and their +age, about four hundred years. At the same time, they are, after the +cartoons of Raphael (which formed part of the same art collection of +Charles I.), perhaps the most valuable and interesting relic of art in +England.</p> + +<p>The series of the 'Triumph' contain the different parts, originally +separated by pillars, of a long and splendid procession. There are +trumpeters and standard bearers, the statues of the gods borne aloft, +battering-rams and heaps of glittering armour, trophies of conquest in +huge vases filled with coin, garlanded oxen, and elephants. The second +last of the series, presents the ranks of captives forming part of the +show, rebellious men, submissive women, and unconscious children—a +moving picture. In the last of the series comes the great conqueror in +his chariot, a youth in the crowd following him, carrying his banner, on +which is inscribed Cæsar's notable despatch, 'Veni, vidi, vici;' 'I +came, I saw, I conquered.'</p> + +<p>Another of Mantegna's best pictures is in distemper—in which, and on +fresco, Mantegna chiefly painted,—and is in the Louvre, Paris. It is +the Madonna of Victory, so called from its being painted to commemorate +the deliverance of Italy from the French army under Charles VIII., a +name which has acquired a sardonic meaning from the ultimate destination +of the picture. This picture—which represents the Virgin and Child on a +throne, in an arbour of fruit and flowers, between the archangels, +Michael and St Maurice, in complete armour, with the patron saints of +Mantua and the infant St John in the front, and the Marquis Ludovico of +Mantua and his wife, Isabella D'Este, kneeling to return thanks—was +painted by Mantegna at the age of seventy years; and, as if the art of +the man had mellowed with time, it is the softest and tenderest of his +pictures in execution. A beautiful Madonna of Mantegna's, still later in +time, is in the National Gallery.</p> + +<p>When Mantegna was sixty years old he took up the art of engraving, and +prosecuted it with zeal and success, being one of the earliest painters +who engraved his own pictures, and this accomplishment spread them +abroad a hundredfold.</p> + +<p><b>Domenico Ghirlandajo</b> <a name="dajo" id="dajo"></a>was properly <b>Domenico Bicordi,</b> but inherited from +his father, a goldsmith in Florence,<a id="footnotetag3" name="footnotetag3"></a> +<a href="#footnote3"><sup class="sml">3</sup></a> the by-name of <b>Ghirlandajo</b> or +Garland-maker—a distinctive appellation said to have been acquired by +the elder man from his skill in making silver garlands for the heads of +Florentine women and children. Domenico Ghirlandajo worked at his +father's craft till he was twenty-four years of age, when, having in the +mean time evinced great cleverness in taking the likenesses of the +frequenters of Ghirlandajo the elder's shop, the future painter +abandoned the goldsmith's trade for art pure and simple. He soon +vindicated the wisdom of the step which he had taken by giving proofs of +something of the strength of Masaccio, united with a reflection of the +feeling of Fra Angelico.</p> + +<p>Ghirlandajo was summoned soon to Rome to paint in the Sistine Chapel, +afterwards to be so glorious; but his greatest works were done in the +prime of his manhood, in his native city, Florence, where he was chosen +as the teacher of Michael Angelo, who was apprenticed to Ghirlandajo for +three years.</p> + +<p>While still in the flower of his age and crowned with golden opinions, +being, it is said with effusion, 'the delight of his city,' Ghirlandajo +died after a short illness, in Ghirlandajo's time Florence had reached +her meridian, and her citizens outvied each other in the magnificence of +their gifts to their fair mother city. Ghirlandajo was fitted to be +their painter; himself a generous-spirited artist, in the exuberance of +life and power, he wished that his fellow-citizens would give him all +the walls of the city to cover with frescoes. He was content with the +specified sum for his painting, desiring more the approbation of his +employers than additional crowns. His genius lying largely in the +direction of portrait painting, he introduced frequently the portraits +of contemporaries, causing them to figure as spectators of his sacred +scenes. One of these contemporaries thus presented, was Amerigo +Vespucci, who was to give his name to a continent. Another was a +Florentine beauty, a woman of rank, Ginevra de Benci.</p> + +<p>Ghirlandajo was lavish in his employment of rich Florentine costumes and +architecture. He even made the legends of the saints and the histories +of the Bible appear as if they had happened under the shadow of +Brunelleschi's duomo and Giotto's campanile, and within sound of the +flow of the Arno. In the peculiar colouring used in fresco painting +Ghirlandajo excelled.</p> + +<p>He painted a chapel for a Florentine citizen, Francesco Sasetti, in the +church of the Trinità, Florence, with scenes from the life of St +Francis. Of these, the death of St Francis, surrounded by the sorrowing +monks of his order, with the figures of Francesco Sasetti and his wife, +Madonna Nera, on one side of the picture, is considered the best. As a +curious illustration of the modernizing practice of Ghirlandajo, he has +painted an old priest at the foot of the bier, chanting the litanies for +the dying, with spectacles on his nose, the earliest known +representation of these useful instruments.</p> + +<p>Ghirlandajo painted during four years the choir of the church of Santa +Maria Novella, Florence, for one of the great Florentine benefactors, +Giovanni Tornabuone, and there are to be seen some of Ghirlandajo's +finest frescoes from the history of John the Baptist and the Virgin.</p> + +<p>A Madonna and Child with angels in the National Gallery is attributed to +Ghirlandajo.</p> + +<p><b>Francesco Francia,</b> or <b>Il Francia,</b> was born at Bologna, and was the son +<a name="Fran" id="Fran"></a>of a carpenter, whose surname was Raibaloni, but Francesco assumed the +name of his master, a goldsmith, and worked himself at a goldsmith's +trade till he was forty years of age. Indeed he may be said never to +have relinquished his connection with the trade, and certainly he was no +more ashamed of it than of his calling as a painter, for he signed +himself indiscriminately 'goldsmith' and 'painter,' and sometimes +whimsically put 'goldsmith' to his paintings and 'painter' to his +jewellery. He was a famous designer of dies for coins and medals, and it +is quite probable, as a countryman of his own has sought to prove, that +he was the celebrated type-cutter, known as 'Francesco da Bologna.' But +it is with Francesco '<i>pictor</i>' that we have to do.</p> + +<p>Though he only began to prosecute the painter's art in middle age, he +rose with remarkable rapidity to eminence, was the great painter of +Lombardy in his day, rivalling Squarcione, Mantegna's teacher in his +school, which numbered two hundred scholars, and becoming the founder of +the early Bolognese school of painters.</p> + +<p>Francia is said to have been very handsome in person, with a kindly +disposition and an agreeable manner. He was on terms of cordial +friendship with Raphael, then in his youth, and thirty years Il +Francia's junior. Il Francia addressed an enthusiastic sonnet to +Raphael, and there is extant a letter of Raphael's to Il Francia, +excusing himself for not sending his friend Raphael's portrait, and +making an exchange of sketches, that of his 'Nativity' for the drawing +of Il Francia's 'Judith;' while it was to Il Francia's care that Raphael +committed his picture of St Cecilia, when it was first sent to Bologna. +These relations between the men and their characters throw discredit on +the tradition that Il Francia died from jealous grief caused by the +sight of Raphael's 'St Cecilia.' As Il Francia was seventy years of age +at the time of his death, one may well attribute it to physical causes. +Il Francia had at least one son, and another kinsman, painters, whose +paintings were so good as to be occasionally confounded with those of Il +Francia.</p> + +<p>Il Francia is thought to have united, in his works, a certain calm +sedateness and frank sincerity to the dreamy imaginativeness of some of +his contemporaries. His finest works are considered to be the frescoes +from the life of St Cecilia in the church of St Cecilia at Bologna.</p> + +<p>Of a Madonna and Child, by Francia, at Bologna, I shall write down +another of Dean Alford's descriptions,—many of which I have given for +this, among other reasons, that these descriptions are not technical or +professional, but the expression of the ardent admiration and grateful +comprehension of a sympathetic spectator. 'He,' speaking of the Divine +Child, 'is lying in simple nakedness on a rich red carpet, and is +supported by a white pillar, over which the carpet passes. Of these +accessories every thread is most delicately and carefully painted; no +slovenly washes of meretricious colour where He is to be served, before +whom all things are open; no perfunctory sparing of toil in serving Him +who has given us all that is best. On his right hand kneels the Virgin +Mother in adoration, her very face a magnificat—praise, lowliness, +confidence; next to her, Joseph, telling by his looks the wonderful +story, deeply but simply. Two beautiful angels kneel, one on either +side—hereafter, perhaps, to kneel in like manner in the tomb. Their +faces seemed to me notable for that which I have no doubt the painter +intended to express,—the pure abstraction of reverent adoration, +unmingled with human sympathies. The face and figure of the Divine +Infant are full of majesty, as he holds his hands in blessing towards +the spectator, who symbolizes the world which He has come to save. Close +to him on the ground, on his right, two beautiful goldfinches sit on a +branch in trustful repose; on his left springs a plant of the +meadow-trefoil. Thus lightly and reverently has the master touched the +mystery of the Blessed Trinity: the goldfinch symbolizing by its +colours, the trefoil by the form of its leaf.'</p> + +<p>In our own National Gallery is a picture by Il Francia of the enthroned +Virgin and Child and her mother, St Anne, who is presenting a peach to +the infant Christ; at the foot of the throne is the little St John; to +the right and left are St Paul with the sword, St Sebastian bound to a +pillar and pierced with arrows, and St Lawrence with the emblematical +grid-iron, &c. &c. Opposite this picture hangs, what once formed part of +it, a solemn, sorrowful Pietà, as the Italians call a picture +representing the dead Redeemer mourned over by the Virgin and by the +other holy women. These pictures were bought by our Government from the +Duke of Lucca for three thousand five hundred pounds.</p> + +<p><a name="Bartolommeo" id="Bartolommeo"></a><b>Fra Bartolommeo.</b> We come to a second gentle monk, not unlike Fra +Angelico in his nature, but far less happy than Fra Angelico, in having +been born in stormy times. Fra Bartolommeo, called also <b>Baccio della +Porta,</b> or Bartholomew of the gate, from the situation of his lodgings +when a young man, but scarcely known in Italy by any other name than +that of <b>Il Frate</b>, or the Friar, was born near Florence, and trained from +his boyhood to be a painter. In his youth, however, a terrible public +event convulsed Florence, and revolutionized Baccio della Porta's life. +He had been employed to paint in that notable Dominican convent of St +Mark, where Savonarola, its devoted friar, was denouncing the sins of +the times, including the profligate luxury of the nobles and the +degradation of the representatives of the Church. Carried away by the +fervour and sincerity of the speaker, Baccio joined the enthusiasts who +cast into a burning pile the instruments of pride, vanity, and godless +intellect denounced by the preacher. Baccio's sacrifice to the flaming +heap of splendid furniture and dress, and worldly books, was all his +designs from profane subjects and studies of the undraped figure. A +little later Savonarola was excommunicated by the Pope and perished as +a martyr; and Baccio, timid from his natural temper, distracted by +doubt, and altogether horror-stricken, took a monk's vows, and entered +the same convent of St Mark, where for four years he never touched a +pencil.</p> + +<p>At the request of his superior Fra Bartolommeo painted again, and when +Raphael visited Florence, and came with all his conquering sweetness and +graciousness to greet the monk in his cell, something of Il Frate's old +love for his art, and delight in its exercise, returned. He even visited +Rome, but there his health failed him, and the great works of Lionardo, +Michael Angelo, and Raphael, when he compared his own with theirs, +seemed to crush and overwhelm him. But he painted better for his visit +to Rome, even as he had painted better for his intimacy with Raphael. +Nay, it is said Raphael himself painted better on account of his +brotherly regard for, and confidence in, Fra Bartolommeo.</p> + +<p>Fra Bartolommeo died aged forty-eight years. Among his best pupils was a +nun of St Catherine's, known as Suor Plautilla.</p> + +<p>To Il Frate, as a painter, is attributed great softness and harmony, and +even majesty, though, like Fra Angelico, he was often deficient in +strength. He was great in the management of draperies, for the better +study of which he is said to have invented the lay figure. He indulged +in the introduction into his pictures of rich architecture. He was fond +of painting boy-angels—in which he excelled—playing frequently on +musical instruments, or holding a canopy over the Virgin. Very few of +his works are out of Italy; the most are in Florence, especially in the +Pitti Palace. His two greatest works are the Madonna della Misericordia, +or the Madonna of Mercy, at Lucca, where the Virgin stands with +outstretched arms pleading for the suppliants, whom she shelters under +the canopy, and who look to her as she looks to her Son,—and the grand +single figure of St Mark, with his Gospel in his hand, in the Pitti +Palace, Florence. Sir David Wilkie said of the Madonna of Mercy, 'that +it contained the merits of Raphael, of Titian, of Rembrandt, and of +Rubens.'</p> + +<p><a name="Sarto" id="Sarto"></a><b>Andrea Vanucchi,</b> commonly called<b> Andrea del Sarto,</b> from the occupation +of his father, who was a tailor (in Italian, <i>sarto</i>), was born at +Florence in 1488. He was first a goldsmith, but soon turned painter, +winning early the commendatory title of 'Andrea senza errori,' or +'Andrea the Faultless.' His life is a miserable and tragic history. In +the early flush of his genius and industry, with its just crown of fame +and success, he conceived a passion for a beautiful but worthless woman, +whom, in spite of the opposition of his friends, he married. She +rendered his home degraded and wretched, and his friends and scholars +fell off from him. In disgust he quitted Florence, and entered the +service of Francis I, of France; but his wife, for whom his regard was a +desperate infatuation, imperiously summoned him back to Florence, to +which he returned, bringing with him a large sum of money, entrusted to +him by the king for the purchase of works of art. Instigated by his +wife, Andrea del Sarto used this money for his, or rather her, purposes, +and dared not return to France. Even in his native Florence he was +loaded with reproach and shame. He died of the plague at the age of +fifty-five years, according to tradition, plundered and abandoned in his +extremity by the base woman for whom he had sacrificed principle and +honour. We may read the grievous story of Andrea del Sarto, written by +one of the greatest of England's modern poets.</p> + +<p>As may be imagined, Andrea del Sarto's excellence lay in the charm of +his execution. His works were deficient in earnestness and high feeling, +and some will have it, that, evilly haunted as he was, he perpetually +painted in his Madonnas the beautiful but base-souled face of the woman +who ruined him. Andrea del Sarto's best works are in Florence, +particularly in the cloisters of the convent of the Annunziata. In the +court of the same convent is his famous Riposo (or rest of the Holy +Family on their way to Egypt), which is known as the 'Madonna of the +Sack,' from the circumstance of Joseph in the picture leaning against a +sack. This picture has held a high place in art for hundreds of years.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV.</h2> + +<p>LIONARDO DA VINCI, 1452-1519—MICHAEL ANGELO, 1475-1564—RAPHAEL, +1483-1520—TITIAN, 1477-1566.</p> + + +<p>We have arrived at the triumph of art, not, indeed, in unconsciousness +and devotion, but in fulness and completeness, as shown in the works of +four of the greatest painters and men whom the world ever saw. Of the +first, <b>Lionardo da Vinci,</b><a name="Lion" id="Lion"></a> born at Vinci in the neighbourhood of +Florence, 1452, it may be said that the many-sidedness which +characterized Italians—above all Italians of his day—reached its +height in him. Not only was he a painter, a sculptor, an architect, and +engineer, but also one of the boldest speculators of the generation +which gave birth to Columbus, and was not less original and ingenious +than he was universally accomplished—an Admirable Crichton among +painters. There is a theory that this many-sidedness is a proof of the +greatest men, indicating a man who might have been great in any way, +who, had his destiny not found and left him a painter, would have been +equally great as a philosopher, a man of science, a poet, or a +statesman. It may be so; but the life of Lionardo tends also to +illustrate the disadvantage of too wide a grasp and diffusion of genius. +Beginning much and finishing little, not because he was idle or fickle, +but because his schemes were so colossal and his aims so high, he spent +his time in preparation for the attainment of perfect excellence, which +eluded him. Lionardo was the pioneer, the teacher of others, rather than +the complete fulfiller of his own dreams; and the life of the proud, +passionate man was, to himself at least, a life of failure and +mortification. This result might, in a sense, have been avoided; but +Lionardo, great as he was, proved also one of those unfortunate men +whose noblest efforts are met and marred by calamities which could have +hardly been foreseen or prevented.</p> + +<p>Lionardo da Vinci was the son of a notary, and early showed a taste for +painting as well as for arithmetic and mathematics. He was apprenticed +to a painter, but he also sedulously studied physics. He is said, +indeed, to have made marvellous guesses at truth, in chemistry, botany, +astronomy, and particularly, as helping him in his art, anatomy. He was, +according to other accounts, a man of noble person, like Ghirlandajo. +And one can scarcely doubt this who looks at Lionardo's portrait painted +by himself, or at any engraving from it, and remarks the grand presence +of the man in his cap and furred cloak; his piercing wistful eyes; +stately outline of nose; and sensitive mouth, unshaded by his +magnificent flowing beard.</p> + +<p>He was endowed with surprising bodily strength, and was skilled in the +knightly exercises of riding, fencing, and dancing. He was a lover of +social pleasure, and inclined to indulge in expensive habits. While a +lad he amused himself by inventing machines for swimming, diving, and +flying, as well as a compass, a hygrometer, &c. &c. In a combination +from the attributes of the toads, lizards, bats, &c. &c., with which +his studies in natural history had made him familiar, he painted a +nondescript monster, which he showed suddenly to his father, whom it +filled with horror. But the horror did not prevent the old lawyer +selling the wild phantasmagoria for a large sum of money. As something +beyond amusement, Lionardo planned a canal to unite Florence with Pisa +(while he executed other canals in the course of his life), and +suggested the daring but not impossible idea of raising <i>en masse</i>, by +means of levers, the old church of San Giovanni, Florence, till it +should stand several feet above its original level, and so get rid of +the half-sunken appearance which destroyed the effect of the fine old +building. He visited the most frequented places, carrying always with +him his sketch-book, in which to note down his observations; he followed +criminals to execution in order to witness the pangs of despair; he +invited peasants to his house and told them laughable stories, that he +might pick up from their faces the essence of comic expression.<a id="footnotetag4" name="footnotetag4"></a> +<a href="#footnote4"><sup class="sml">4</sup></a> A +mania for truth—alike in great and little things—possessed him.</p> + +<p>Lionardo entered young into the service of the Gonzaga family of Milan, +being, according to one statement, chosen for the office which he was to +fill, as the first singer in <i>improvisatore</i> of his time (among his +other inventions he devised a peculiar kind of lyre). He showed no want +of confidence in asserting his claims to be elected, for after declaring +the various works he would undertake, he added with regard to +painting—'I can do what can be done, as well as any man, be he who he +may.' He received from the Duke a salary of five hundred crowns a year. +He was fourteen years at the court of Milan, where, among other works, +he painted his 'Cenacolo,' or 'Last Supper,' one of the grandest +pictures ever produced. He painted it, contrary to the usual practice, +in oils upon the plastered walls of the refectory of the Dominican +convent, Milan. The situation was damp, and the material used proved so +unsuitable for work on plaster, that, even before it was exposed to the +reverses which in the course of a French occupation of Milan converted +the refectory into a stable, the colours had altogether faded, and the +very substance of the picture was crumbling into ruin.</p> + +<p>The equestrian statue of the old Duke of Milan by Lionardo excited so +much delight in its first freshness, that it was carried in triumph +through the city, and during the progress it was accidentally broken. +Lionardo began another, but funds failed for its completion, and +afterwards the French used the original clay model as a target for their +bowmen.</p> + +<p>Lionardo returned to Florence, and found his great rival, Michael +Angelo, already in the field. Both of the men, conscious of mighty +gifts, were intolerant of rivalry. To Lionardo especially, as being much +the elder man, the originator and promoter of many of the new views in +art which his opponent had adopted, the competition was very +distasteful, and to Michael Angelo he used the bitter sarcasm which has +been handed down to us, 'I was famous before you were born.'</p> + +<p>Nevertheless Lionardo consented to compete with Michael Angelo for the +painting in fresco of one side of the council-hall, by the order of the +gonfaloniere for the year. Lionardo chose for his subject a victory of +the Florentines over the Milanese, while Michael Angelo took a scene +from the Pisan campaigns. Not only was the work never done (some say +partly because Lionardo <i>would</i> delay in order to make experiments in +oils) on account of political troubles, but the very cartoons of the two +masters, which all the artists of the day flocked to see, have been +broken up, dispersed, and lost; and of one only, that of Michael Angelo, +a small copy remains, while but a fragment from Lionardo's was preserved +in a copy made by Rubens.</p> + +<p>Lionardo went to Rome in the pontificate of Leo X., but there his +quarrel with Michael Angelo broke out more violently than ever. The Pope +too, who loved better a gentler, more accommodating spirit, seemed to +slight Lionardo, and the great painter not only quitted Rome in disgust, +but withdrew his services altogether from ungrateful Italy.</p> + +<p>At Pavia Lionardo was presented to Francis 1, of France, who, zealous +in patronizing art, engaged the painter to follow Francis's fortunes at +a salary of seven hundred crowns a year. Lionardo spent the remainder of +his life in France. His health had long been declining before he died, +aged sixty-seven years, at Cloux, near Amboise. He had risen high in the +favour of Francis. From this circumstance, and the generous, chivalrous +nature of the king, there doubtless arose the tradition that Francis +visited Lionardo on his death-bed; and that, while in the act of gently +assisting him to raise himself, the painter died in the king's arms. +Court chronicles do their best to demolish this story, by proving +Francis to have been at St Germain on the day when Lionardo died at +Cloux.</p> + +<p>Lionardo was never married, and he left what worldly goods he possessed +to a favourite scholar. Besides his greater works, he filled many MS. +volumes, some with singularly accurate studies and sketches, maps, plans +for machines, scores for music (three volumes of these are in the Royal +Library at Windsor), and some with writing, which is written—probably +to serve as a sort of cipher—from right to left, instead of from left +to right. One of his writings is a valuable 'Treatise' on painting; +other writings are on scientific and philosophic subjects, and in these +Lionardo is believed to have anticipated some of the discoveries which +were reached by lines of close reasoning centuries later.</p> + +<p>Lionardo's genius as a painter was expressed by his uniting, in the very +highest degree, truth and imagination. He was the shrewdest observer of +ordinary life, and he could also realize the higher mysteries and +profounder feelings of human nature. He drew exceedingly well. Of +transparent lights and shadows, or chiaroscuro, he was the greatest +master; but he was not a good colourist. His works are very rare, and +many which are attributed to him are the pictures of his scholars, for +he founded one of the great schools of Milan or Lombardy. There is a +tradition that he was, as Holbein was once believed to be, ambidextrous, +or capable of using his left hand as well as his right, and that he +painted with two brushes—one in each hand. Thus more than fully +armed, Lionardo da Vinci looms out on us like a Titan through the mists +of centuries, and he preaches to us the simple homily, that not even a +Titan can command worldly success; that such men must look to higher +ends as the reward of their travail, and before undertaking it they must +count the cost, and be prepared to renounce the luxurious tastes which +clung to Lionardo, and which were not for him or for such men as he was.</p> + +<p>Lionardo's great painting was his 'Last Supper,' of which, happily, good +copies exist, as well as the wreck of the picture itself. The original +is now, after it is too late, carefully guarded and protected in its old +place in the Dominican convent of the Madonna della Grazia, Milan. The +assembled company sit at a long table, Christ being seated in the +middle, the disciples forming two separate groups on each side of the +Saviour. The gradations of age are preserved, from the tender youth of +John to the grey hairs of Simon; and all the varied emotions of mind, +from the deepest sorrow and anxiety to the eager desire of revenge, are +here portrayed. The well-known words of Christ, 'One of you shall betray +me,' have caused the liveliest emotion. The two groups to the left of +Christ are full of impassioned excitement, the figures in the first +turning to the Saviour, those in the second speaking to each +other,—horror, astonishment, suspicion, doubt, alternating in the +various expressions. On the other hand, stillness, low whispers, +indirect observations, are the prevailing expressions in the groups on +the right. In the middle of the first group sits the betrayer; a +cunning, sharp profile, he looks up hastily to Christ, as if speaking +the words, 'Master, is it I?' while, true to the Scriptural account, his +left hand and Christ's right hand approach, as if unconsciously, the +dish that stands before them.<a id="footnotetag5" name="footnotetag5"></a> +<a href="#footnote5"><sup class="sml">5</sup></a></p> + +<p>A sketch of the head of Christ for the original picture, which has been +preserved on a torn and soiled piece of paper at Brera, expresses the +most elevated seriousness, together with Divine gentleness pain on +account of the faithless disciple, a full presentiment of his own death, +and resignation to the will of the Father. It gives a faint idea of what +the master may have accomplished in the finished picture.</p> + +<p>During his stay at Florence Lionardo painted a portrait of that Ginevra +Benci already mentioned as painted by Ghirlandajo; and a still more +famous portrait by Lionardo was that of Mona Lisa, the wife of his +friend Giocondo. This picture is also known as 'La Jaconde.' I wish to +call attention to it because it is the first of four surpassingly +beautiful portraits of women which four great painters gave in +succession to the world. The others, to be spoken of afterwards, are +Raphael's 'Fornarina,' Titian's 'Bella Donna,' and Rubens' 'Straw Hat.' +About the original of 'La Jaconde' there never has been a mystery such +as there has been about the others. At this portrait the unsatisfied +painter worked at intervals for four years, and when he left it he +pronounced it still unfinished. 'La Jaconde' is now in the Louvre in +nearly ruined condition, yet a judge says of it that even now 'there is +something in this wonderful head of the ripest southern beauty, with its +airy background of a rocky landscape, which exercises a peculiar +fascination over the mind.'</p> + +<p>There is a painting of the Madonna and Child Christ said to be by +Lionardo, and probably, at least, by one of his school, and which +belongs, I think, to the Duke of Buccleuch, and was exhibited lately +among the works of the old masters. The group has at once something +touching and exalted in its treatment. The Divine Child in the Mother's +arms is strangely attracted by the sight of a cross, and turns towards +it with ineffable longing, while the Virgin Mother, with a pang of +foreboding, clasping the child in her arms, seeks to draw him back.</p> + +<p>The fragment of the cartoon in which Lionardo competed with Michael +Angelo, may be held to survive in the fine painting by Rubens called +'the Battle of the Standard.' Of a famous Madonna and St Anne, by +Lionardo, the original cartoon in black chalk is preserved under glass +in our Royal Academy.<a id="footnotetag6" name="footnotetag6"></a> +<a href="#footnote6"><sup class="sml">6</sup></a></p> + +<p><b>Michael Angelo Buonarroti,</b><a name="Michel" id="Michel"></a> born at Castel Caprese near Arezzo in +Tuscany, 1475, is the next of these universal geniuses, a term which we +are accustomed to hold in contempt, because we have only seen it +exemplified in parody. After Lionardo, indeed, Michael Angelo, though he +was also painter, sculptor, architect, engineer, poet, musician, might +almost be regarded as restricted in his pursuits, yet still so manifold +was he, that men have loved to make a play upon his name and call him +'Michael the angel,' and to speak of him as of a king among men.</p> + +<p>Michael Angelo was of noble descent, and though his ancient house had +fallen into comparative poverty, his father was mayor or podesta of +Chiusi, and governor of the castle of Chiusi and Caprese. Michael Angelo +was destined for the profession of the law, but so early vindicated his +taste for art, that at the age of thirteen years he was apprenticed to +Ghirlandajo. Lorenzo the Magnificent was then ruling Florence, and he +had made a collection of antique models in his palace and gardens, and +constituted it an academy for young artists. In this academy Michael +Angelo developed a strong bias for sculpture, and won the direct +patronage of the Medici.</p> + +<p>To this period of his life belong two characteristic anecdotes. In a +struggle with a fellow-student, Michael Angelo received a blow from a +mallet in his face, which, breaking bone and cartilage, lent to his nose +the rugged bend,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'The bar of Michael Angelo.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>An ill-advised member of the Medician house, while entertaining a party +of guests during a snowstorm, sent out the indignant artist to make a +snow man within sight of the palace windows. These anecdotes bear +indirectly on the ruling qualities of Michael Angelo—qualities so +integral that they are wrought into his marble and painted on his +canvas—proud independence and energy.</p> + +<p>Before going farther I wish to guard against a common misapprehension of +Michael Angelo—that he was a haughty, arrogant man, absolutely narrow +in his half-idolatrous, half-human worship of art. Michael Angelo was +severe in place of being sweet; he was impatient of contradiction; he +was careless and scornful of ceremony; and in his very wrath at flattery +and hypocrisy, he was liable to sin against his own honesty and +sincerity. But he was a man with a lofty sense of duty and a profound +reverence for God. He was, unlike Lionardo, consistently simple, frugal, +and temperate, throughout his long life. If he held up a high standard +to others, and enforced it on them with hardness, he held up a higher +standard to himself, and enforced it on himself more hardly still. He +was a thoroughly unworldly man, and actions which had their root in +unworldliness have been ascribed unjustly to a kind of Lucifer pride. +Greed, and the meanness of greed, were unknown to him. He worked for the +last ten years of his life (under no less than five different Popes) at +his designs for St Peter's, steadfastly refusing pay for the work, +saying that he did it for the honour of God and his own honour. He made +many enemies and suffered from their enmity, but I cannot learn that, +except in one instance, he was guilty of dealing an unworthy blow at +his opponents. He was generous to his scholars, and without jealousy of +them, suffering them to use his designs for their own purposes. He said, +'I have no friends, I need none, I wish for none;' but that was in +feeling himself 'alone before Heaven;' and of the friends whom he did +possess, he loved them all the more devotedly and faithfully, because +they were few in number.</p> + +<p>One need only be told of his love for his old servant Urbino, whom he +presented with two thousand crowns to render him independent of service; +and when the servant was seized with his last illness Michael Angelo +nursed him tenderly, sleeping in his clothes on a couch that he might be +ready to attend his patient. When his cares were ended, Michael Angelo +wrote to a correspondent—'My Urbino is dead—to my infinite grief and +sorrow. Living, he served me truly; and in his death he taught me how to +die. I have now no other hope than to rejoin him in Paradise.'</p> + +<p>Of Michael Angelo's more equal friendship with Vittoria Colonna I hope +my readers will read at leisure for themselves. No nobler, truer +friendship ever existed. It began when the high-born and beautiful, +gifted, and devout Marchesa de Pescara—most loyal of wives and widows, +was forty-eight, and Michael Angelo sixty-four years of age. After a few +years of privileged intercourse and correspondence, which were the +happiest years in Michael Angelo's life, it ended for this world when he +stood mourning by her lifeless clay. 'I was born a rough model, and it +was for thee to reform and re-make me,' the great painter had written +humbly of himself to his liege lady.<a id="footnotetag7" name="footnotetag7"></a> +<a href="#footnote7"><sup class="sml">7</sup></a></p> + +<p>Italy, in Michael Angelo's time, as Germany in Albert Dürer's, was all +quickened and astir with the new wave of religious thought which brought +about the Reformation. Ochino and Peter Martyr, treading in the +footsteps of Savonarola, had preached to eager listeners, but 'in Italy +men did not adopt Lutheranism, though they approached it;' and in all +the crowd of great Italian artists of the day, Michael Angelo shows +deepest traces of the conflict—of its trouble, its seriousness, its +nobleness. He only, among his brethren, acted out his belief that the +things of the world sank into insignificance before those thoughts of +God and immortality which were alone fully worthy of the soul. And it +was, as to a religious work for which he was fitted, that he at last +gave himself up to the raising of St Peter's. We shall have next in +order the life of a man who had all the winning qualities which Michael +Angelo wanted, but we shall hardly, through the whole range of history, +find a nobler man than Michael Angelo.</p> + +<p>After his first visit to Rome, 1496, Michael Angelo executed his +colossal statue of David. In 1503 he entered into the competition with +Lionardo for the painting of one end of the Council-hall, in Florence, +which has been already mentioned. For this object he drew as his +cartoon, 'Pisan soldiers surprised while bathing by a sudden trumpet +call to arms.' The grand cartoon, of which only a small copy exists, was +said to have been torn to pieces as an act of revenge by a +fellow-sculptor, whom Michael Angelo had offended.</p> + +<p>Michael Angelo was invited to Rome by Julius II. in 1504 to aid in +erecting the unapproachable monument which the Pope projected raising +for himself. Then commenced a series of contentions and struggles +between the imperious and petulant Pope and the haughty, uncompromising +painter, in which the latter certainly had the best of it. At one time +in the course of the quarrel, Michael Angelo departed from Rome without +permission or apology, and stoutly refused to return, though followed +hotly by no less than five different couriers, armed with threats and +promises, and urged to make the reparation by his own gonfaloniere. At +last a meeting and a reconciliation between Michael Angelo and the Pope +were effected at Bologna. Michael Angelo designed for Pope Julius II, +not only the statue of Pope Julius at Bologna, which was finally +converted into a cannon, and turned against the very man whose effigy it +had originally presented, but also for that tomb which was never +completed, the famous figure of Moses seated, grasping his beard with +one hand.</p> + +<p>While employed at the tomb, Michael Angelo, then in his fortieth year, +was desired by the Pope to undertake the decoration of the ceiling of +the Sistine Chapel. Here, again, the hand of an enemy is said to have +been at work. Michael Angelo, with the first place as a sculptor, was +inexperienced in fresco painting; while Raphael, who was taking the +place of Lionardo as Michael Angelo's most formidable rival (yet whom it +is said Michael Angelo pointed out as the fittest painter of the +ceiling), and who was then engaged in painting the Vatican chambers, had +already achieved the utmost renown. It was anticipated by secret +hostility, so records tradition, that Michael Angelo would fail signally +in the unaccustomed work, and that his merit as an artist would pale +altogether before that of Raphael's. I need hardly write how entirely +malice was balked in the verdict to which posterity has set its seal.</p> + +<p>Michael Angelo brought artists from Florence to help him in his great +undertaking, for over the chapel, whose walls had already been painted +by older artists—among them Ghirlandajo, was an enormous vault of 150 +feet in length by 50 in breadth, which Michael Angelo was required to +cover with designs representing the Fall and Redemption of Man. But the +painter was unable to bear what seemed to him the bungling attempts of +his assistants; so dismissing them all and destroying their work, he +shut himself up, and working in solitude and secrecy, set himself to +evolve from his own inner consciousness the gigantic scenes of a +tremendous drama. In 22 months (or, as Kugler holds, in three years, +including the time spent on the designs) he finished gloriously the +work, the magnitude of which one must see to comprehend. On All Saints' +Day, 1512, the ceiling was uncovered, and Michael Angelo was hailed, +little though he cared for such clamorous hailing, as a painter indeed. +For this piece of work Michael Angelo received 3000 crowns.</p> + +<p>Pope Julius died, and was succeeded by Leo X. of the Medician house, +but, in spite of early associations as well as of mother country, +Michael Angelo was no more acceptable to the Pope—a brilliantly +polished, easy-tempered man of the world, who filled the chair of St +Peter's, than Lionardo had been. Leo X, greatly preferred Raphael, to +whom all manner of pleasantness as well as of courteous deference was +natural, to the two others. At the same time, Leo employed Michael +Angelo, though it was more as an architect than as a painter, and rather +at Florence than at Rome. At Florence Michael Angelo executed for Pope +Clement VII., another Medici, the mortuary chapel of San Lorenzo, with +its six great statues, those of the cousins Lorenzo de Medici and +Giuliano de Medici, the first called by the Florentines 'Il Pensièro,' +or 'Pensive Thought,' with the four colossal recumbent figures named +respectively the Night, the Morning, the Dawn, and the Twilight.</p> + +<p>In 1537 Michael Angelo was employed by his fellow citizens to fortify +his native city against the return of his old patrons the Medici, and +the city held out for nine months.</p> + +<p>Pope Paul III., an old man when elected to the popedom, but bent on +signalizing his pontificate with as splendid works of art as those +which had rendered the reigns of his predecessors illustrious, summoned +another man, grown elderly, Michael Angelo, upwards of sixty years, +reluctant to accept the commission, to finish the decoration of the +Sistine Chapel; and Michael Angelo painted on the wall, at the upper +end, his painting, 'The Last Judgment.' The picture is forty-seven feet +high by forty-three wide, and it occupied the painter eight years. It +was during its progress that Michael Angelo entered on his friendship +with Vittoria Colonna.</p> + +<p>For the chapel called the Paolina or Pauline Chapel Michael Angelo also +painted less-known frescoes, but from that time he devoted his life to +St Peter's. He had said that he would take the old Pantheon and 'suspend +it in air,' and he did what he said, though he did not live to see the +great cathedral completed. His sovereign, the Grand Duke of Florence, +endeavoured in vain with magnificent offers to lure the painter back to +his native city. Michael Angelo protested that to leave Rome then would +be 'a sin and a shame, and the ruin of the greatest religious monument +in Christian Europe.' Michael Angelo, like Lionardo, did not marry; he +died at Rome in 1563, in his eighty-ninth year.</p> + +<p>His nephew and principal heir,<a id="footnotetag8" name="footnotetag8"></a> +<a href="#footnote8"><sup class="sml">8</sup></a> by the orders of the Grand Duke of +Florence, and it is believed according to Michael Angelo's own wish, +removed the painter's body to Florence, where it was buried with all +honours in the church of Santa Croce there.</p> + +<p>The traits which recall Michael Angelo personally to us, are the +prominent arch of the nose, the shaggy brows, the tangled beard, the +gaunt grandeur of a figure like that of one of his prophets.</p> + +<p>While Michael Angelo lived, one Pope rose on his approach, and seated +the painter on his right hand, and another Pope declined to sit down in +his painter's presence; but the reason given for the last condescension, +is that the Pope feared that the painter would follow his example. And +if the Grand Duke Cosmo uncovered before Michael Angelo, and stood hat +in hand while speaking to him, we may have the explanation in another +assertion, that 'sovereigns asked Michael Angelo to put on his cap, +because the painter would do it unasked.'</p> + +<p>The solitary instance in which Michael Angelo is represented as taking +an unfair advantage of an antagonist, is in connection with the +painter's rivalry in his art with Raphael. Michael Angelo undervalued +the genius of Raphael, and was disgusted by what the older man +considered the immoderate admiration bestowed on the younger. A +favourite pupil of Michael Angelo's was Sebastian Del Piombo, who being +a Venetian by birth was an excellent colourist. For one of his +pictures—the very 'Raising of Lazarus' now in the National Gallery, +which the Pope had ordered at the same time that he had ordered +Raphael's 'Transfiguration'—it is rumoured that Michael Angelo gave the +designs and even drew the figures, leaving Sebastian the credit, and +trusting that without Michael Angelo's name appearing in the work, by +the help of his drawing in addition to Sebastian's superb colouring, +Raphael would be eclipsed, and that by a painter comparatively obscure.</p> + +<p>The unwarrantable inference that the whole work was that of one painter, +constituted a stratagem altogether unworthy of Michael Angelo, and if it +had any existence, its getting wind disappointed and foiled its authors. +When the story was repeated to Raphael, his sole protest is said to have +been to the effect that he was glad that Michael Angelo esteemed him so +highly as to enter the lists with him.</p> + +<p>We can judge of Michael Angelo's attainments as a poet, even without +having recourse to the original Italian, by Wordsworth's translations of +some of the Italian master's sonnets, and by Mr John Edward Taylor's +translations of selections from Michael Angelo's poems.</p> + +<p>Michael Angelo was greater as an architect and a sculptor than as a +painter, because his power and delight lay in the mastery of form, and +in the assertion, through that mastery, of the idealism of genius. It is +not necessary to speak here of the mighty harmonies and the ineffable +dignity of simplicity, somewhat marred by the departure from Michael +Angelo's designs, in St Peter's. It has been the fashion to praise them +to the skies, and it has been a later fashion to decry them, in awarding +a preference to the solemn shades and the dim rich dreaminess of Gothic +architecture. Both fashions come to this, after all, that beauty, like +these great men of genius of old, is many-sided.</p> + +<p>In Michael Angelo's works of sculpture a weird charm attaches to his +monuments in honour of the Medici in the chapel of San Lorenzo, +Florence. Perhaps something of this weirdness has to do with the tragic +history of the men, and with a certain mystery which has always shrouded +the sculptor's meaning in these monuments.</p> + +<p>Mrs Jameson quotes an account of Michael Angelo at work. 'An eye-witness +has left us a very graphic description of the energy with which, even in +old age, Michael Angelo handled his chisel:—"I can say that I have +seen Michael Angelo at the age of sixty, and, with a body announcing +weakness, make more chips of marble fly about in a quarter of an hour +than would three of the strongest young sculptors in an hour,—a thing +almost incredible to him who has not beheld it. He went to work with +such impetuosity and fury of manner, that I feared almost every moment +to see the block split into pieces. It would seem as if, inflamed by the +idea of greatness which inspired him, this great man attacked with a +species of fury the marble which concealed the Statue."'—<i>Blaise de +Vigenére</i>.</p> + +<p>In painting Michael Angelo regarded colouring as of secondary +importance. He is not known to have executed one painting in oil, and he +treated oil and easel-painting generally as work only fit for women or +idle men. While he approached the sublime in his painting, it was by no +means faultless. Even in form his efforts were apt to tend to heaviness +and exaggeration, and the fascination which robust muscular delineation +had for him, betrayed him into materialism. Fuseli's criticism of +Michael Angelo's work, that Michael Angelo's women were female men, and +his children diminutive giants, is judged correct. Incomparably the +greatest painting of Michael Angelo's is his ceiling of the Sistine +Chapel. It includes upwards of 200 figures, the greater part colossal, +as they were to be looked at, in the distance, from below.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>'The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel contains the most perfect +works done by Michael Angelo in his long and active life. Here +his great spirit appears in noblest dignity, in its highest +purity; here the attention is not disturbed by that arbitrary +display to which his great power not unfrequently seduced him in +other works. The ceiling forms a flattened arch in its section; +the central portion, which is a plain surface, contains a series +of large and small pictures, representing the most important +events recorded in the book of Genesis—the Creation and Fall of +Man, with its immediate consequences. In the large triangular +compartments at the springing of the vault are sitting figures of +the Prophets and Sibyls, as the</p></div> +<div class="blockquot"><p>foretellers of the coming Saviour. In the soffits of the recesses +between these compartments, and in the arches underneath, +immediately above the windows, are the ancestors of the Virgin, +the series leading the mind directly to the Saviour. The external +of these numerous representations is formed by an architectural +frame-work of peculiar composition, which encloses the single +subjects, tends to make the principal masses conspicuous, and +gives to the whole an appearance of that solidity and support so +necessary, but so seldom attended to in soffit decorations, which +may be considered as if suspended. A great number of figures are +also connected with the framework; those in unimportant +situations are executed in the colour of stone or bronze; in the +more important, in natural colours. These serve to support the +architectural forms, to fill up and to connect the whole. They +may be best described as the living and embodied <i>genii</i> of +architecture. It required the unlimited power of an architect, +sculptor, and painter, to conceive a structural whole of so much +grandeur,</p></div> +<div class="blockquot"><p>to design the decorative figures with the significant repose +required by the sculpturesque character, and yet to preserve +their subordination to the principal subjects, and to keep the +latter in the proportions and relations best adapted to the space +to be filled.'—<i>Kugler</i>.</p></div> + +<p>The pictures from the Old Testament, beginning from the altar, are:—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">1. The Separation of Light and Darkness.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">2. The Creation of the Sun and Moon.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">3. The Creation of Trees and Plants.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">4. The Creation of Adam.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">5. The Creation of Eve.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">6. The Fall and the Expulsion from Paradise.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">7. The Sacrifice of Noah.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">8. The Deluge.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">9. The Intoxication of Noah.</span><br /> +</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>'The scenes from Genesis are the most sublime representations of +these subjects;—the Creating Spirit is unveiled before us. The +peculiar type which the painter has here given of the form of the +Almighty</p></div> +<div class="blockquot"><p>Father has been frequently imitated by his followers, and even by +Raphael, but has been surpassed by none. Michael Angelo has +represented him in majestic flight, sweeping through the air, +surrounded by <i>genii</i>, partly supporting, partly borne along with +him, covered by his floating drapery; they are the distinct +syllables, the separate virtues of his creating word. In the +first (large) compartment we see him with extended hands, +assigning to the sun and moon their respective paths. In the +second, he awakens the first man to life. Adam lies stretched on +the verge of the earth in the act of raising himself; the Creator +touches him with the point of his finger, and appears thus to +endow him with feeling and life. This picture displays a +wonderful depth of thought in the composition, and the utmost +elevation and majesty in the general treatment and execution. The +third subject is not less important, representing the Fall of +Man, and his Expulsion from Paradise. The tree of knowledge +stands in the midst; the serpent (the upper part of the body +being that of a woman) is twined around the</p></div> +<div class="blockquot"><p>stem; she bends down towards the guilty pair, who are in the act +of plucking the forbidden fruit. The figures are nobly graceful, +particularly that of Eve. Close to the serpent hovers the angel +with the sword, ready to drive the fallen beings out of Paradise. +In this double action, this union of two separate moments, there +is something peculiarly poetic and significant: it is guilt and +punishment in one picture. The sudden and lightning-like +appearance of the avenging angel behind the demon of darkness has +a most impressive effect.'—<i>Kugler</i>.</p></div> + + +<p>The lower portion of the ceiling is divided into triangles, occupied by +the Prophets and Sibyls in solemn contemplation, accompanied by angels +and genii. Beginning from the left of the entrance their order is—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">1. Joel.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">2. Sibylla Erythræa.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">3. Ezekiel.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">4. Sibylla Persica.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">5. Jonah.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">6. Sibylla Libyca.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">7. Daniel.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">8. Sibylla Cumæa.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">9. Isaiah.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">10. Sibylla Delphica.</span><br /> +</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>'The prophets and sibyls in the triangular compartments of the +curved portion of the ceiling are the largest figures in the +whole work; these, too, are among the most wonderful forms that +modern art has called into life. They are all represented seated, +employed with books or rolled manuscripts; genii stand near or +behind them. These mighty beings sit before us pensive, +meditative, inquiring, or looking upwards with inspired +countenances. Their forms and movements, indicated by the grand +lines and masses of the drapery, are majestic and dignified. We +see in them beings, who, while they feel and bear the sorrows of +a corrupt and sinful world, have power to look for consolation +into the secrets of the future. Yet the greatest variety prevails +in the attitudes and expression: each figure is full of +individuality. Zacharias is an aged man, busied in calm and +circumspect investigation; Jeremiah is bowed down, absorbed in +thought, the thought of deep and bitter grief; Ezekiel turns with +hasty movements to the genius next to him, who points upwards +with joyful</p></div> +<div class="blockquot"><p>expectation, etc. The sibyls are equally characteristic: the +Persian, a lofty, majestic woman, very aged; the Erythræan, full +of power, like the warrior goddess of wisdom; the Delphic, like +Cassandra, youthfully soft and graceful, but with strength to +bear the awful seriousness of revelation.'—<i>Kugler</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>'The belief of the Roman Catholic Church in the testimony of the +sibyl is shown by the well-known hymn, said to have been composed +by Pope Innocent III, at the close of the thirteenth century, +beginning with the verse—</p></div> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Dies iræ, dies illa,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Solvet sæclum in favilla<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Teste David cum Sibylla."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>It may be inferred that this hymn, admitted into the liturgy of +the Roman Church, gave sanction to the adoption of the sibyls +into Christian art. They are seen from this time accompanying the +prophets and apostles, in the cyclical decorations of the +church.... But the highest honour that art has rendered to the +sibyls has been by the hand of Michael Angelo,</p></div> +<div class="blockquot"><p>on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Here in the conception of a +mysterious order of women, placed above and without all +considerations of the graceful or the individual, the great +master was peculiarly in his element. They exactly fitted his +standard, of art, not always sympathetic, nor comprehensible to +the average human mind, of which the grand in form and the +abstract in expression were the first and last conditions. In +this respect, the sibyls on the Sistine Chapel ceiling are more +Michael Angelesque than their companions the prophets. For these, +while types of the highest monumental treatment, are yet men, +while the sibyls belong to a distinct class of beings, who convey +the impression of the very obscurity in which their history is +wrapt—creatures who have lived far from the abodes of men, who +are alike devoid of the expression of feminine sweetness, human +sympathy, or sacramental beauty; who are neither Christians nor +Jewesses, Witches nor Graces, yet living, grand, beautiful, and +true, according to laws revealed to the great Florentine genius +only.</p></div> +<div class="blockquot"><p>Thus their figures may be said to be unique, as the offspring of +a peculiar sympathy between the master's mind and his subject. To +this sympathy may be ascribed the prominence and size given them, +both prophets and sibyls, as compared to their usual relation to +the subjects they environ. They sit here on twelve throne-like +niches, more like presiding deities, each wrapt in +self-contemplation, than as tributary witnesses to the truth and +omnipotence of Him they are intended to announce. Thus they form +a gigantic frame-work round the subjects of the Creation, of +which the birth of Eve, as the type of the Nativity, is the +intentional centre. For some reason, the twelve figures are not +prophets and sibyls alternately—there being only five sibyls to +seven prophets,—so that the prophets come together at one angle. +Books and scrolls are given indiscriminately to them.</p> + +<p>'The Sibylla Persica, supposed to be the oldest of the sisterhood, holds +the book close to her eyes, as if from dimness of sight, which fact, +contradicted as it is</p></div> +<div class="blockquot"><p>by a frame of obviously Herculean strength, gives a mysterious +intentness to the action.</p> + +<p>'The Sibylla Libyca, of equally powerful proportions, but less closely +draped, is grandly wringing herself to lift a massive volume from a +height above her head on to her knees.</p> + +<p>'The Sibylla Cumana, also aged, and with her head covered, is reading +with her volume at a distance from her eyes.</p> + +<p>'The Sibylla Delphica, with waving hair escaping from her turban, is a +beautiful young being, the most human of all, gazing into vacancy or +futurity. She holds a scroll.</p> + +<p>'The Sibylla Erythræa, grand, bare-headed creature, sits reading +intently with crossed legs, about to turn over her book.</p> + +<p>'The prophets are equally grand in structure, and though, as we have +said, not more than men, yet they are the only men that could well bear +the juxtaposition with their stupendous female colleagues. Ezekiel, +between Erythræa and Persica, has a scroll in his</p></div> +<div class="blockquot"><p>hand that hangs by his side, just cast down, as he turns eagerly to +listen to some voice.</p> + +<p>'Jeremiah, a magnificent figure, with elbow on knee and head on hand, +wrapt in meditation appropriate to one called to utter lamentation and +woe. He has neither book nor scroll.</p> + +<p>'Jonah is also without either. His position is strained and ungraceful, +looking upwards, and apparently remonstrating with the Almighty upon the +destruction of the gourd, a few leaves of which are seen above him. His +hands are placed together with a strange and trivial action, supposed to +denote the counting on his fingers the number of days he was in the +fish's belly. A formless marine monster is seen at his side.</p> + +<p>'Daniel has a book on his lap, with one hand on it. He is young, and a +piece of lion's skin seems to allude to his history.'<a id="footnotetag9" name="footnotetag9"></a> +<a href="#footnote9"><sup class="sml">9</sup></a></p></div> + + +<p>In the recesses between the prophets and sibyls are a series of lovely +family groups, representing the genealogy of the Virgin, and expressive +of calm expectation of the future. The four corners of the ceiling +contain groups illustrative of the power of the Lord displayed in the +especial deliverances of his chosen people. Near the altar are:</p> + +<p>Right, The Deliverance of the Israelites by the Brazen Serpent.</p> + +<p>Left, The Execution of Haman.</p> + +<p>Near the entrance are:</p> + +<p>Right, Judith and Holofernes.</p> + +<p>Left, David and Goliath.<a id="footnotetag10" name="footnotetag10"></a> +<a href="#footnote10"><sup class="sml">10</sup></a></p> + +<p>Michael Angelo was thirty-nine years of age when he painted the ceiling +of the Sistine. When he began to paint the 'Day of Judgment' he was +above sixty years of age, and his great rival, Raphael, had already been +dead thirteen years.</p> + +<p>The picture of the 'Day of Judgment,' with much that renders it +marvellous and awful, has a certain coarseness of conception and +execution. The moment chosen is that in which the Lord says, 'Depart +from me, ye cursed,' and the idea and even attributes of the principal +figure are taken from Orcagna's old painting in the Campo Santo. But +with all Michael Angelo's advantages, he has by no means improved on the +original idea. He has robbed the figure of the Lord of its transcendant +majesty; he has not been able to impart to the ranks of the blessed the +look of blessedness which 'Il Beato' himself might have conveyed. The +chief excellence of the picture is in the ranks of the condemned, who +writhe and rebel against their agonies. No wonder that the picture is +sombre and dreadful.</p> + +<p>Of the allegorical figures of 'Night' and 'Morning' in the chapel of San +Lorenzo, there are casts at the Crystal Palace.</p> + +<p>A comparison and a contrast have been instituted between Michael Angelo +and Milton, and Raphael and Shakespeare. There may be something in them, +but, as in the case of broken metaphors, they will not bear being pushed +to a logical conclusion or picked to pieces. The very transparent +comparison which matches Michael Angelo with his own countryman, Dante, +is after all more felicitous and truer. Michael Angelo with Lionardo are +the great chiefs of the Florentine School.</p> + +<p><a name="Raph" id="Raph"></a><b>Raphael Sanzio,</b> or <b>Santi of Urbino,</b> the head of the Roman School, was +one of those very exceptional men who seem born to happiness, to inspire +love and only love, to pass through the world making friends and +disarming enemies, who are fully armed to confer pleasure while almost +incapable of either inflicting or receiving pain. To this day his +exceptional fortune stands Raphael's memory in good stead, since for one +man or woman who yearns after the austere righteousness and priceless +tenderness of Michael Angelo, there are ten who yield with all their +hearts to the gay, sweet gentleness and generosity of Raphael. No doubt +it was also in his favour as a painter, that though a man of highly +cultivated tastes, 'in close intimacy and correspondence with most of +the celebrated men of his time, and interested in all that was going +forward,' he did not, especially in his youth, spend his strength on a +variety of studies, but devoted himself to painting. While he thus +vindicated his share of the breadth of genius of his country and time, +by giving to the world the loveliest Madonnas and Child-Christs, the +most dramatic of battle-pieces, the finest of portraits, his noble and +graceful fertility of invention and matchless skill of execution were +confined to and concentrated on painting. He did not diverge long or far +into the sister arts of architecture and sculpture, though his classic +researches in the excavations of Rome were keen and zealous (a heap of +ruins having given to the world in 1504 the group of the Laocoon), so +that a writer of his day could record that 'Raphael had sought and found +in Rome another Rome.'</p> + +<p>Raphael was born in the town of Urbino, and was the son of a painter of +the Umbrian School, who very early destined the boy to his future +career, and promoted his destination by all the efforts in Giovanni +Santi's power, including the intention of sending away and apprenticing +the little lad to the best master of his time, Perugino, so called from +the town where he resided, Perugia. Raphael's mother died when he was +only eight years of age, and his father died when he was no more than +eleven years, before the plans for his education were put into action. +But no stroke of outward calamity, or loss—however severe, could annul +Raphael's birthright of universal favour. His step-mother, the uncles +who were his guardians, his clever, perverse, unscrupulous master, all +joined in a common love of Raphael and determination to promote his +interests.</p> + +<p>Raphael at the age of twelve years went to Perugia to work under +Perugino, and remained with his master till he was nearly twenty years +of age. In that interval he painted industriously, making constant +progress, always in the somewhat hard, but finished, style of Perugino, +while already showing a predilection for what was to prove Raphael's +favourite subject, the Madonna and Child. At this period he painted his +famous <i>Lo Sposalizio</i> or the 'Espousals,' the marriage of the Virgin +Mary with Joseph, now at Milan. In 1504 he visited Florence, remaining +only for a short time, but making the acquaintance of Fra Bartolommeo +and Ghirlandajo, seeing the cartoons of Lionardo and Michael Angelo, and +from that time displaying a marked improvement in drawing. Indeed +nothing is more conspicuous in Raphael's genius in contra-distinction to +Michael Angelo's, than the receptive character of Raphael's mind, his +power of catching up an impression from without, and the candour and +humility with which he availed himself unhesitatingly of the assistance +lent him by others.</p> + +<p>Returning soon to Florence, Raphael remained there till 1508, when he +was twenty-five years, drawing closer the valuable friendships he had +already formed, and advancing with rapid strides in his art, until his +renown was spread all over Italy, and with reason, since already, while +still young, he had painted his 'Madonna of the Goldfinch,' in the +Florentine Gallery, and his 'La Belle Jardiniere,' or Madonna in a +garden among flowers, now in the Louvre.</p> + +<p>In his twenty-fifth year Raphael was summoned to Rome to paint for Pope +Julius II. My readers will remember that Michael Angelo in the abrupt +severity of his prime of manhood, was soon to paint the ceiling of the +Sistine Chapel for the same despotic and art-loving Pope, who had +brought Raphael hardly more than a stripling to paint the '<i>Camere</i>' or +'<i>Stanze</i>' chambers of the Vatican.</p> + +<p>The first of the halls which Raphael painted (though not the first in +order) is called the Camera della Segnatura (in English, signature), and +represents Theology, Poetry, Philosophy, with the Sciences, Arts, and +Jurisprudence. The second is the 'Stanza d'Eliodoro,' or the room of +Heliodorus, and contains the grandest painting of all, in the expulsion +of Heliodorus from the Temple of Jerusalem (taken from Maccabees), the +Miracle of Bolsena, Attila, king of the Huns, terrified by the +apparition of St Peter and St Paul, and St Peter delivered from prison. +The third stanza painted by Raphael is the 'Stanza dell' Incendio' (the +conflagration), so called from the extinguishing of the fire in the +Borgo by a supposed miracle, being the most conspicuous scene in +representations of events taken from the lives of Popes Leo III, and +IV.; and the fourth chamber, which was left unfinished by Raphael, and +completed by his scholars, is the 'Sala di Constantino,' and contains +incidents from the life of the Emperor Constantine, including the +splendid battle-piece between Constantine and Maxentius. At these +chambers, or at the designs for them, Raphael worked at intervals, +during the popedoms of Julius II., who died in the course of the +painting of the Camere, and Leo X., for a period of twelve years, till +Raphael's death in 1520, after which the 'Sala di Constantino' was +completed by his scholars.</p> + +<p>Raphael has also left in the Vatican a series of small pictures from the +Old Testament, known as Raphael's Bible. This series decorates the +thirteen cupolas of the 'Loggie,' or open galleries, running round three +sides of an open court. Another work undertaken by Raphael should have +still more interest for us. Leo X., resolving to substitute woven for +painted tapestry round the lower walls of the interior of the Sistine +Chapel, commanded Raphael to furnish drawings to the Flemish weavers, +and thence arose eleven cartoons, seven of which have been preserved, +have become the property of England, and are the glory of the Kensington +Museum. The subjects of the cartoons in the seven which have been saved, +are 'The Death of Ananias,' 'Elymas the Sorcerer struck with Blindness,' +'The Healing of the Lame Man at the Beautiful Gate of the Temple,' 'The +Miraculous Draught of Fishes,' 'Paul and Barnabas at Lystra,' 'St Paul +Preaching at Athens,' and 'The Charge to St Peter.' The four cartoons +which are lost, were 'The Stoning of St Stephen,' 'The Conversion of St +Paul,' 'Paul in Prison,' and 'The Coronation of the Virgin.'</p> + +<p>In those cartoons figures above life-size were drawn with chalk upon +strong paper, and coloured in distemper, and Raphael received for his +work four hundred and thirty gold ducats (about <i>£650</i>), while the +Flemish weavers received for their work in wools, silk, and gold, fifty +thousand gold ducats. The designs were cut up in strips for the +weavers' use, and while some strips were destroyed, the rest lay in a +warehouse at Arras, till Rubens became aware of their existence, and +advised Charles I, to buy the set, to be employed in the tapestry +manufactory established by James I. at Mortlake. Brought to this country +in the slips which the weavers had copied, the fate of the cartoons was +still precarious. Cromwell bought them in Charles I.'s art collection, +and Louis XIV, sought, but failed, to re-buy them. They fell into +farther neglect, and were well-nigh forgotten, when Sir Godfrey Kneller +recalled them to notice, and induced William III, to have the slips +pasted together, and stretched upon linen, and put in a room set apart +for them at Hampton Court, whence they were transferred, within the last +ten years, for the greater advantage of artists and the public, to +Kensington Museum.</p> + +<p>The woven tapestries for which the cartoons were designed had quite as +chequered a career. In the two sacks of Rome by French soldiers, the +tapestries were seized, carried off, and two of them burnt for the +bullion in the thread. At last they were restored to the Vatican, where +they hang in their faded magnificence, a monument of Leo X, and of +Raphael. An additional set of ten tapestry cartoons were supplied to the +Vatican by Raphael's scholars.</p> + +<p>Raphael painted for the Chigi family in their palace, which is now the +Villa Farnesina, scenes from the history of Cupid and Psyche, and the +Triumph of Galatea, subjects which show how the passion for classical +mythology that distinguishes the next generation, was beginning to work. +To these last years belong his 'Madonna di San Sisto,' so named from its +having been painted for the convent of St Sixtus at Piacenza, and his +last picture, the 'Transfiguration,' with which he was still engaged +when death met him unexpectedly.</p> + +<p>Raphael, as the Italians say, lived more like a '<i>principe</i>' (prince) +than a '<i>pittore</i>' (painter). He had a house in Rome, and a villa in the +neighbourhood, and on his death left a considerable fortune to his +heirs. There has not been wanting a rumour that his life of a principe +was a dissipated and prodigal life; but this ugly rumour, even if it had +more evidence to support it, is abundantly disproven by the nature of +Raphael's work, and by the enormous amount of that work, granting him +the utmost assistance from his crowd of scholars. He had innumerable +commissions, and retained an immense school from all parts of Italy, the +members of which adored their master. Raphael had the additional +advantage of having many of his pictures well engraved by a contemporary +engraver named Raimondi.</p> + +<p>Like Giotto, Raphael was the friend of the most distinguished Italians +of his day, including Count Castiglione, and the poet Ariosto. He was +notably the warm friend of his fellow-painters both at home and abroad, +with the exception of Michael Angelo. A drawing of his own, which +Raphael sent, in his kindly interchange of such sketches, to Albert +Dürer, is, I think, preserved at Nüremberg. The sovereign princes of +Italy, above all Leo X., were not contented with being munificent +patrons to Raphael, they treated him with the most marked consideration. +The Cardinal Bibbiena proposed the painter's marriage with his niece, +ensuring her a dowry of three thousand gold crowns, but Maria di +Bibbiena died young, ere the marriage could be accomplished; and +Raphael, who was said to be little disposed to the match, did not long +survive her. He caught cold, as some report, from his engrossing +personal superintendence of the Roman excavations; and, as others +declare, from his courtly assiduity in keeping an appointment with the +Pope, was attacked by fever, and died on his birth-day, April 6th, 1520, +having completed his thirty-seventh year.</p> + +<p>All Rome and Italy mourned for him. When his body lay in state, to be +looked at and wept over by multitudes, his great unfinished picture of +the 'Transfiguration' was hung above the bed. He was buried in a spot +chosen by himself in his lifetime, and, as it happened, not far from the +resting-place of his promised bride. Doubts having been raised as to +Raphael's grave, search was made, and his body was exhumed in 1833, and +re-buried with great pomp. Raphael's life and that of Rubens form the +ideal painter's life—bountiful, splendid, unclouded, and terminating +ere it sees eclipse or decay—to all in whom the artistic temperament is +united to a genial, sensuous, pleasure-loving nature.</p> + +<p>Raphael was not above the middle height, and slightly made. He was +sallow in colour, with brown eyes, and a full yet delicate mouth; but +his beautiful face, like that of our English Shakespeare, is familiar to +most of us. With regard to Raphael's face, the amount of womanliness in +it is a striking characteristic. One hears sometimes that no man's +character is complete without its share of womanliness: surely Raphael +had a double share, for womanliness is the most distinctive quality in +his face, along with that vague shade of pensiveness which we find not +infrequently, but strangely enough, in those faces which have been +associated with the happiest spirits and the brightest fortunes.</p> + +<p>Raphael and his scholars painted and drew about nine hundred pictures +and sketches, including a hundred and twenty Madonnas, eight of which +are in private collections in England. Of Raphael's greatness, Kugler +writes that 'it is not so much in kind as in degree. No master left +behind <i>so many</i> really excellent works as he, whose days were so early +numbered; in none has there been observed so little that is unpleasant.' +All authorities agree in ascribing much of Raphael's power to his purely +unselfish nature and aim. His excellence seems to lie in the nearly +perfect expression of material beauty and harmony, together with +grandeur of design and noble working out of thought. We shall see that +this devotion to material beauty has been made something of a reproach +to Raphael, as it certainly degenerated into a snare in the hands of his +followers, while unquestionably the universal appreciation of Raphael's +work, distinguished from the partial appreciation bestowed on the great +works of others, proceeds from this evident material beauty which is +open to all.</p> + +<p>Then, again, Raphael, far more than Andrea del Sarto, deserved to be +called 'faultless;' and this general absence of defects and equality of +excellence is a great element of Raphael's wide popularity; for, as one +can observe for one's self, in regarding a work of art, there is always +a large proportion of the spectators who will seize on an error, dwell +on it, and be incapable of shaking off its influence, and rising into +the higher rank of critics, who discover and ponder over beauties. I +would have it considered also, that this equality of excellence does not +necessarily proceed always from a higher aim, but may arise rather from +an unconsciously lower aim.</p> + +<p>The single reproach brought against Raphael as a painter is +that—according to some witnesses only, for most deny the +implication—Raphael so delighted in material beauty that he became +enslaved by it, till it diminished his spiritual insight. It is an +incontestable truth that in Raphael, as in all the great Italian +painters of his century, there was a falling away from the simple +earnestness, the exceeding reverence, the endless patience, the +self-abstraction, and self-devotion of the earliest Italian and Flemish +painters. Therefore there has been within the last fifty or sixty years +that movement in modern art, which is called Pre-raphaelitism, and which +is, in fact, a revolt against subjection to Raphael, and his supposed +undue exaltation of material beauty, and subjection of truth to +beauty—so called. But we must not fall into the grave mistake of +imagining that there was any want of vigour and variety in Raphael's +grace and tenderness, or that he could not in his greatest works rise +into a grandeur in keeping with his subject. Tire as we may of hearing +Raphael called the king of painters, as the Greeks tired of hearing +Aristides called 'the just,' this fact remains: no painter has left +behind him such a mass of surpassingly good work; in no other work is +there the same charm of greatest beauty and harmony.</p> + +<p>It is hard for me to give you an idea in so short a space of Raphael's +work. I must content myself with quoting descriptions of two of his +Stanze, those of the Heliodorus and the Segnatura. 'Heliodorus driven +out of the Temple (2 Maccabees iii.). In the background Onias the +priest is represented praying for Divine interposition;—in the +foreground Heliodorus, pursued by two avenging angels, is endeavouring +to bear away the treasures of the temple. Amid the group on the left is +seen Julius II., in his chair of state, attended by his secretaries. One +of the bearers in front is Marc-Antonio Raimondi, the engraver of +Raphael's designs. The man with the inscription, "Jo Petro de Folicariis +Cremonen," was secretary of briefs to Pope Julius. Here you may fancy +you hear the thundering approach of the heavenly warrior, and the +neighing of his steed; while in the different groups who are plundering +the treasures of the temple, and in those who gaze intently on the +sudden consternation of Heliodorus, without being able to divine its +cause, we see the expression of terror, amazement, joy, humility, and +every passion to which human nature is exposed.'<a id="footnotetag11" name="footnotetag11"></a> +<a href="#footnote11"><sup class="sml">11</sup></a></p> + +<p>'The Stanza della Segnatura is so called from a judicial assembly once +held here. The frescoes in this chamber are illustrative of the Virtues +of Theology, Philosophy, Poetry, and Jurisprudence, who are represented +on the ceiling by Raphael, in the midst of arabesques by <i>Sodoma</i>. The +square pictures by Raphael refer:—the Fall of Man to Theology; the +Study of the Globe to Philosophy; the Flaying of Marsyas to Poetry; and +the Judgment of Solomon to Jurisprudence.</p> + +<p>'<i>Entrance Wall</i>.—"The School of Athens." Raphael consulted Ariosto as +to the arrangement of its 52 figures. In the centre, on the steps of a +portico, are seen Plato and Aristotle, Plato pointing to heaven and +Aristotle to earth. On the left is Socrates conversing with his pupils, +amongst whom is a young warrior, probably Alcibiades. Lying upon the +steps in front is Diogenes. To his left, Pythagoras is writing on his +knee, and near him, with ink and pen, is Empedocles. The youth in the +white mantle is Francesco Maria della Rovere, nephew of Julius II. On +the right is Archimedes drawing a geometrical problem upon the floor. +The young man near him with uplifted hands is Federigo II., Duke of +Mantua. Behind these are Zoroaster, Ptolemy, one with a terrestrial, the +other with a celestial globe, addressing two figures, which represent +Raphael and his master Perugino. The drawing in brown upon the socle +beneath this fresco, is by <i>Pierino del Vaga</i>, and represents the death +of Archimedes.</p> + +<p>'<i>Right Wall</i>.—"Parnassus." Apollo surrounded by the Muses; on his +right, Homer, Virgil, and Dante. Below on the right, Sappho, supposed to +be addressing Corinna, Petrarch, Propertius, and Anacreon; on the left +Pindar and Horace, Sannazzaro, Boccaccio, and others. Beneath this, in +grisaille, are,—Alexander placing the poems of Homer in the tomb of +Achilles, and Augustus preventing the burning of Virgil's Æneid.</p> + +<p>'<i>Left Wall</i>.—Above the window are Prudence, Fortitude, and Temperance. +On the left, Justinian delivers the Pandects to Tribonian. On the right, +Gregory IX. (with the features of Julius II.) delivers the Decretals to +a jurist;—Cardinal de' Medici, afterwards Leo X., Cardinal Farnese, +afterwards Paul III., and Cardinal del Monte, are represented near the +Pope. In the socle beneath is Solon addressing the people of Athens.</p> + +<p>'<i>Wall of Egress</i>.—"The Disputa." So called from an impression that it +represents a Dispute upon the Sacrament. In the upper part of the +composition the heavenly host are present; Christ between the Virgin and +St John the Baptist; on the left, St Peter, Adam, St John, David, St +Stephen, and another; and on the right, St Paul, Abraham, St James, +Moses, St Lawrence, and St George. Below is an altar surrounded by the +Latin fathers, Gregory, Jerome, Ambrose, and Augustine. Near St +Augustine stand St Thomas Aquinas, St Anacletus, with the palm of a +martyr, and Cardinal Buenaventura reading. Those in front are Innocent +III., and in the background, Dante, near whom a monk in a black hood is +pointed out as Savonarola. The Dominican on the extreme left is supposed +to be Fra Angelico. The other figures are uncertain.' ...</p> + +<p>'Raphael commenced his work in the Vatican by painting the ceiling and +the four walls in the room called <i>della Segnatura</i>, on the surface of +which he had to represent four great compositions, which embraced the +principal divisions of the encyclopedia of that period; namely, +Theology, Philosophy, Poetry, and Jurisprudence.</p> + +<p>'It will be conceived, that to an artist imbued with the traditions of +the Umbrian School, the first of these subjects was an unparalleled +piece of good fortune: and Raphael, long familiar with the allegorical +treatment of religious compositions, turned it here to the most +admirable account; and, not content with the suggestions of his own +genius, he availed himself of all the instruction he could derive from +the intelligence of others. From these combined inspirations resulted, +to the eternal glory of the Catholic faith and of Christian art, a +composition without a rival in the history of painting, and, we may also +add, without a name; for to call it lyric or epic is not enough, unless, +indeed, we mean, by using these expressions, to compare it with the +allegorical epic of Dante, alone worthy to be ranked with this +marvellous production of the pencil of Raphael.</p> + +<p>'Let no one consider this praise as idle and groundless, for it is +Raphael himself who forces the comparison upon us, by placing the figure +of Dante among the favourite sons of the Muses; and, what is still more +striking, by draping the allegorical figure of Theology in the very +colours in which Dante has represented Beatrice; namely, the white veil, +the red tunic, and the green mantle, while on her head he has placed the +olive crown.</p> + +<p>'Of the four allegorical figures which occupy the compartments of the +ceiling, and which were all painted immediately after Raphael's arrival +in Rome, Theology and Poetry are incontestably the most remarkable. The +latter would be easily distinguished by the calm inspiration of her +glance, even were she without her wings, her starry crown, and her azure +robe, all having allusion to the elevated region towards which it is her +privilege to soar. The figure of Theology is quite as admirably suited +to the subject she personifies; she points to the upper part of the +grand composition, which takes its name from her, and in which the +artist has provided inexhaustible food for the sagacity and enthusiasm +of the spectator.</p> + +<p>'This work consists of two grand divisions,—Heaven and Earth—which are +united to one another by that mystical bond, the Sacrament of the +Eucharist. The personages whom the Church has most honoured for learning +and holiness, are ranged in picturesque and animated groups on either +side of the altar, on which the consecrated wafer is exposed. St +Augustine dictates his thoughts to one of his disciples; St Gregory, in +his pontifical robes, seems absorbed in contemplation of celestial +glory; St Ambrose, in a slightly different attitude, appears to be +chanting the Te Deum; while St Jerome, seated, rests his hands on a +large book, which he holds on his knees. Pietro Lombardo, Duns Scotus, +St Thomas Aquinas, Pope Anacletus, St Buenaventura, and Innocent III., +are no less happily characterized; while, behind all these illustrious +men, whom the Church and succeeding generations have agreed to honour, +Raphael has ventured to introduce Dante with his laurel crown, and, with +still greater boldness, the monk Savonarola, publicly burnt ten years +before as a heretic.</p> + +<p>'In the glory, which forms the upper part of the picture, the Three +Persons of the Trinity are represented, surrounded by patriarchs, +apostles, and saints: it may, in fact, be considered in some sort as a +<i>resumé</i> of all the favourite compositions produced during the last +hundred years by the Umbrian School. A great number of the types, and +particularly those of Christ and the Virgin, are to be found in the +earlier works of Raphael himself. The Umbrian artists, from having so +long exclusively employed themselves on mystical subjects, had certainly +attained to a marvellous perfection in the representation of celestial +beatitude, and of those ineffable things of which it has been said that +the heart of man cannot conceive them, far less, therefore, the pencil +of man portray; and Raphael, surpassing them in all, and even in this +instance, while surpassing himself, appears to have fixed the limits, +beyond which Christian art, properly so called, has never since been +able to advance.'<a id="footnotetag12" name="footnotetag12"></a> +<a href="#footnote12"><sup class="sml">12</sup></a></p> + +<p>Of Raphael's Madonnas, I should like to speak of three. The Madonna di +San Sisto: 'It represents the Virgin standing in a majestic attitude; +the infant Saviour <i>enthroned</i> in her arms; and around her head a glory +of innumerable cherubs melting into light. Kneeling before her we see on +one side St Sixtus, on the other St Barbara, and beneath her feet two +heavenly cherubs gaze up in adoration. In execution, as in design, this +is probably the most perfect picture in the world. It is painted +throughout by Raphael's own hand; and as no sketch or study of any part +of it was ever known to exist, and as the execution must have been, from +the thinness and delicacy of the colours, wonderfully rapid, it is +supposed that he painted it at once on the canvas—a <i>creation</i> rather +than a picture. In the beginning of the last century the Elector of +Saxony, Augustus III., purchased this picture from the monks of the +convent for the sum of sixty thousand florins (about £6000), and it now +forms the chief boast and ornament of the Dresden Gallery'<a id="footnotetag13" name="footnotetag13"></a> +<a href="#footnote13"><sup class="sml">13</sup></a></p> + +<p>The Madonna del Cardellino (our Lady of the Goldfinch): 'The Virgin is +sitting on a rock, in a flowery meadow. Behind are the usual light and +feathery trees, growing on the bank of a stream, which passes off to the +left in a rocky bend, and is crossed by a bridge of a single arch. To +the right, the opposite bank slopes upward in a gentle glade, across +which is a village, backed by two distant mountain-peaks.</p> + +<p>'In front of the sitting matronly figure of the Virgin are the holy +children, our Lord and the Baptist, one on either side of her right +knee. She has been reading, and the approach of St John has caused her +to look off her book (which is open in her left hand) at the new comer, +which she does with a look of holy love and gentleness, at the same +time caressingly drawing him to her with her right hand, which touches +his little body under the right arm. In both hands, which rest across +the Virgin's knee, he holds a captive goldfinch, which he has brought, +with childish glee, as an offering to the Holy Child. The infant Jesus, +standing between his mother's knees, with one foot placed on her foot, +and her hand, with the open book, close above his shoulder, regards the +Baptist with an upward look of gentle solemnity, at the same time that +he holds his bent hand over the head of the bird.</p> + +<p>'So much for mere description. The inner feeling of the picture, the +motive which has prompted it, has surely hardly ever been surpassed. The +Blessed Virgin, in casting her arm round the infant St John, looks down +on him with a holy complacency for the testimony which he is to bear to +her Son. Notice the human boyish glee with which the Baptist presents +the captured goldfinch, and, on the other hand, the divine look, even of +majesty and creative love, with which the infant Jesus, laying his hand +on the head of the bird, half reproves St John, as it were saying, "Love +them and hurt them not." Notice, too, the unfrightened calm of the bird +itself, passive under the hand of its loving Creator. All these are +features of the very highest power of human art.</p> + +<p>'Again, in accompaniments, all is as it should be. The Virgin, modestly +and beautifully draped; St John, girt about the loins, not only in +accord with his well-known prophetic costume, but also as partaking of +sinful humanity, and therefore needing such cincture: the Child +Redeemer, with a slight cincture, just to suggest motherly care, but not +over the part usually concealed, as indeed it never ought to be, seeing +that in Him was no sin, and that it is this spotless purity which is +ever the leading idea in representations of Him as an infant. Notice, +too, his foot, beautifully resting on that of his mother; the unity +between them being thus wonderfully though slightly kept up. Her eye has +just been dwelling on the book of the Prophecies open in her hand; and +thus the spectator's thought is ruled in accordance with the high +mission of the Holy One of God, and thrown forward into the grand and +blessed future. It is a holy and wonderful picture; I had not seen any +in Italy which had struck or refreshed me more.'<a id="footnotetag14" name="footnotetag14"></a> +<a href="#footnote14"><sup class="sml">14</sup></a></p> + +<p>And allow me to write two or three words with regard to the 'Madonna +della Sedia,' or our Lady of the Chair, an engraving of which used to +charm me when a child. The Virgin, very young and simple-looking in her +loveliness, is seated on a low chair, clasping the Divine Child, who is +leaning in weariness on her breast. In the original picture, St John +with his cross is standing—a boy at the Virgin's knee, but he is absent +from the old engraving. The meek adoring tenderness in the face of the +mother, the holy ingenuousness in that of the child, are expressions to +be long studied.</p> + +<p>Of Raphael's cartoons, which, so many of us can see for ourselves, I +cannot trust myself to do more than to repeat what strikes me as a +singularly apt phrase of Hazlitt's, given by Mrs Jameson, that the +cartoons are instances in which 'the corruptible has put on +incorruption.' That from the very slightness of the materials employed, +and the very injuries which the cartoons have sustained, we have the +greatest triumph of art, where 'the sense of power supersedes the +appearance of effort,' and where the result is the more majestic for +being in ruins. 'All other pictures look like oil and varnish, we are +stopped and attracted by the colouring, the penciling, the finishing, +the instrumentality of art; but the painter seems to have flung his mind +on the canvas.... There is nothing between us and the subject; we look +through a frame and see Scripture histories, and amidst the wreck of +colour and the mouldering of material beauty, nothing is left but a +universe of thought, or the broad imminent shadows of calm contemplation +and majestic pains.'</p> + +<p>And that Raphael did not neglect the minutest details in these sketches, +will be seen by the accompanying note: 'The foreground of Raphael's two +cartoons, "The Miraculous Draught of Fishes," and "The Charge to +Peter," are covered with plants of the common sea cole-wort, of which +the sinuated leaves and clustered blossoms would have exhausted the +patience of any other artist; but have appeared worthy of prolonged and +thoughtful labour to the great mind of Raphael.'—<i>Ruskin</i>.</p> + +<p>Whole clusters of anecdotes gather round the cartoons, which, as they +have to do with the work and not the worker, I leave untouched, with +regret. But I must forewarn my readers by mentioning some of the refuted +criticisms which have been applied to the cartoons. Reading the +criticisms and their answers ought to render us modest and wary in +'picking holes' in great pictures, as forward and flippant critics, old +and young, are tempted to pick them. With regard to the 'Miraculous +Draught of Fishes,' a great outcry was once set up that Raphael had made +the boat too little to hold the figures he has placed in it. But Raphael +made the boat little advisedly; if he had not done so, the picture would +have been 'all boat,' a contingency scarcely to be desired; on the +other hand, if Raphael had diminished the figures to suit the size of +the boat, these figures would not have suited those of the other +cartoons, and the cartoon would have lost greatly in dignity and effect.</p> + +<p>In the cartoon of the 'Death of Ananias,' carping objectors were ready +to suggest that Raphael had committed an error in time by introducing +Sapphira in the background counting her ill-gotten gains, at the moment +when her no less guilty husband has fallen down in the agonies of death. +It was hours afterwards that Sapphira entered into the presence of the +apostles. But we must know that time and space do not exist for +painters, who have to tell their story at one stroke, as it were.</p> + +<p>In the treating of the 'Lame Man at the Beautiful Gate of the Temple,' +some authorities have found fault with Raphael for breaking the +composition into parts by the introduction of pillars, and, farther, +that the shafts are not straight. Yet by this treatment Raphael has +concentrated the principal action in a sort of frame, and thus has been +enabled to give more freedom of action to the remaining figures in the +other divisions of the picture. 'It is evident, moreover, that had the +shafts been perfectly straight, according to the severest law of good +taste in architecture, the effect would have been extremely disagreeable +to the eye; by their winding form they harmonize with the manifold forms +of the moving figures around, and they illustrate, by their elaborate +elegance, the Scripture phrase, "the gate which is called +Beautiful."'—<i>Mrs Jameson</i>.</p> + +<p>Of Raphael's portraits I must mention that wonderful portrait of Leo X., +often reckoned the best portrait in the world for truth of likeness and +excellence of painting, and those of the so-called 'Fornarina,' or +'baker'. Two Fornarinas are at Rome and one at Florence. There is a +story that the original of the first two pictures was a girl of the +people to whom Raphael was attached; and there is this to be said for +the tradition, that there is an acknowledged coarseness in the very +beauty of the half-draped Fornarina of the Barberini Palace. The +'Fornarina' of Florence is the portrait of a noble woman, holding the +fur-trimming of her mantle with her right hand, and it is said that the +picture can hardly represent the same individual as that twice +represented in Rome. According to one guess the last 'Fornarina' is +Vittoria Colonna, the Marchesa de Pescara, painted by Sebastian del +Piombo, instead of by Raphael; and according to another, the Roman +'Fornarina' is no Fornarina beloved by Raphael, but Beatrice Pio, a +celebrated improvisatrice of the time.</p> + +<p>An 'innovation of modern times is to spell Raphael's name in England as +the modern Italians spelt it, <i>Raffaelle</i>, a word of four syllables, and +yet to pronounce this Italian word as if it were English, as <i>Raphael</i>. +Vasari wrote Raffaello; he himself wrote Raphael on his pictures, and +has signed the only autograph letter we have of his, Raphaello.'<a id="footnotetag15" name="footnotetag15"></a> +<a href="#footnote15"><sup class="sml">15</sup></a></p> + +<p><b>Titian,</b> or <b>Tiziano Vecelli,</b><a name="Tit" id="Tit"></a> the greatest painter of the Venetian +School, reckoned worthy to be named with Lionardo, Michael Angelo and +Raphael, was born of good family at Capo del Cadore in the Venetian +State, in 1477. There is a tradition that while other painters made +their first essays in art with chalk or charcoal, the boy Titian, who +lived to be a glorious colourist, made his earliest trials in painting +with the juice of flowers. Titian studied in Venice under the Bellini, +and had Giorgione, who was born in the same year, for his +fellow-scholar, at first his friend, later his rival. When a young man +Titian spent some time in Ferrara; there he painted his 'Bacchus and +Ariadne,' and a portrait of Lucrezia Borgia. In 1512, when Titian was +thirty-five years of age, he was commissioned by the Venetians to +continue the works in the great council-hall, which the advanced age of +Gian Bellini kept him from finishing. Along with this commission Titian +was appointed in 1516 to the office of la Sanseria, which gave him the +duty and privilege of painting the portraits of the Doges as long as he +held the office; coupled with the office was a salary of one hundred +and twenty crowns a year. Titian lived to paint five Doges; two others, +his age, equal to that of Gian Bellini, prevented him from painting.</p> + +<p>In 1516, Titian painted his greatest sacred picture, the 'Assumption of +the Virgin.' In the same year he painted the poet Ariosto, who mentions +the painter with high honour in his verse.</p> + +<p>In 1530, Titian, a man of fifty-three years, was at Bologna, where there +was a meeting between Charles V, and Pope Clement VII., when he was +presented to both princes.</p> + +<p>Charles V, and Philip II, became afterwards great patrons and admirers +of Titian, and it is of Charles V. and Titian that a legend, to which I +have already referred, is told. The Emperor, visiting the painter while +he was at work, stooped down and picked up a pencil, which Titian had +let fall, to the confusion and distress of the painter, when Charles +paid the princely compliment, 'Titian is worthy of being served by +Cæsar.' Titian painted many portraits of Charles V., and of the members +of his house. As Maximilian had created Albrecht Dürer a noble of the +Empire, Charles V, created Titian a Count Palatine, and a Knight of the +Order of St Iago, with a pension, which was continued by Philip II., of +four hundred crowns a year. It is doubtful whether Titian ever visited +the Spain of his patrons, but Madrid possesses forty-three of his +pictures, among them some of his finest works.</p> + +<p>Titian went to Rome in his later years, but declined to abandon for Rome +the painter's native Venice, which had lavished her favours on her son. +He lived in great splendour, paying annual summer visits to his +birth-place of Cadore, and occasionally dwelling again for a time at +Ferrara, Urbino, Bologna. In two instances he joined the Emperor at +Augsburgh. When Henry III, of France landed at Venice, he was +entertained <i>en grand seigneur</i> by Titian, then a very old man; and when +the king asked the price of some pictures which pleased him, Titian at +once presented them as a gift to his royal guest.</p> + +<p>Titian married, as has been recently ascertained, and had three +children,—two sons, the elder a worthless and scandalous priest; the +second a good son and accomplished painter; and a daughter, the +beautiful Lavinia, so often painted by her father, and whose name will +live with his. Titian survived his wife thirty-six years; and his +daughter, who had married, and was the mother of several children, six +years. His second son and fellow-painter died of the same plague which +struck down Titian, in 1566, at the ripe age of eighty-nine years.</p> + +<p>Titian is said to have been a man of irritable and passionate temper. +The hatred between him and the painter, Pordenone, was so bitter, that +the latter thought his life in danger, and painted with his shield and +poniard lying ready to his hand. Titian grasped with imperious tenacity +his supremacy as a painter, sedulously kept the secrets of his skill, +and was most unmagnanimously jealous of the attainments of his scholars. +No defect of temper, however, kept Titian from having two inseparable +convivial companions—one of them the architect, Sansovino, and the +other the profligate wit, Aretino, who was pleased to style himself the +'friend of Titian and the scourge of princes.' Though Titian is said, in +the panic of the great plague, to have died not only neglected, but +plundered before his eyes, still Venice prized him so highly, that she +made in his favour the single exception of a public funeral, during the +appalling devastation wrought by the pestilence.</p> + +<p>From an engraving of a portrait of Titian by himself, which is before +me, I can give the best idea of his person. He looks like one of the +merchant princes, whom he painted so often and so well, in richly furred +gown, massive chain, and small cap, far off his broad forehead: a +stately figure, with a face—in its aquiline nose and keen eyes, full of +sagacity and fire, which no years could tame.</p> + +<p>Towards the close of Titian's life, there was none who even approached +the old Venetian painter in the art which he practised freely to the +last. Painting in Italy was everywhere losing its pre-eminence. It had +become, even when it was not so nominally, thoroughly secularized;—and +with reason, for the painters by their art-creed and by their lives were +fitter to represent gods and goddesses, in whom no man believed, than to +give earnest expression to a living faith. Even Titian, great as he was, +proved a better painter of heathen mythology than of sacred subjects.</p> + +<p>But within certain limits and in certain directions, Titian stands +unequalled. He has a high place for composition and for drawing, and his +colouring was, beyond comparison, grand and true. He was great as a +landscape painter, and he was the best portrait painter whom the world +ever saw. In his painting is seen, not, indeed, the life of the spirit, +but the life of the senses 'in its fullest power,' and in Titian there +was such large mastery of this life, that in his freedom there was no +violence, but the calmness of supreme strength, the serenity of perfect +satisfaction. His painting was a reflection of the old Greek idea of the +life of humanity as a joyous existence, so long as the sun of youth, +maturity, health, and good fortune shone, without even that strain of +foreboding pain, and desperate closing with fate, which troubled the +bliss of ancient poet or sculptor. A large proportion of Titian's +principal pictures are at Venice and Madrid.</p> + +<p>Among Titian's finest sacred pictures, are his 'Assumption of the +Virgin,' now in the Academy, Venice, where 'the Madonna, a powerful +figure, is borne rapidly upwards, as if divinely impelled; .., +fascinating groups of infant angels surround her, beneath stand the +apostles, looking up with solemn gestures;' and his 'Entombment of +Christ,' a picture which is also in Venice. Titian's Madonnas were not +so numerous as his Venuses, many of which are judged excellent examples +of the master. His 'Bacchus and Ariadne,' in the National Gallery, is +described by Mrs Jameson, 'as presenting, on a small scale, an epitome +of all the beauties which characterize Titian, in the rich, picturesque, +animated composition, in the ardour of Bacchus, who flings himself from +his car to pursue Ariadne; the dancing bacchanals, the frantic grace of +the bacchante, and the little joyous satyr in front, trailing the head +of the sacrifice.'</p> + +<p>Titian's landscapes are the noble backgrounds to many of his pictures. +These landscapes were not only free, but full. 'The great masters of +Italy, almost without exception, and Titian, perhaps, more than any +other (for he had the highest knowledge of landscape), are in the +constant habit of rendering every detail of their foregrounds with the +most laborious botanical fidelity; witness the Bacchus and Ariadne, in +which the foreground is occupied by the common blue iris, the aquilegia, +and the wild rose; <i>every stamen</i> of which latter is given, while the +blossoms and leaves of the columbine (a difficult flower to draw) have +been studied with the most exquisite accuracy.'—<i>Ruskin</i>.</p> + +<p>In portraits, Titian conveyed to the sitters and transferred to his +canvas, not only a life-likeness, but a positively noble dignity in that +likeness. What in Van Dyck and Sir Joshua Reynolds was the bestowing of +high breeding and dainty refinement, became under Titian's brush +dignity, pure and simple, very quiet, and wonderfully real. There is +this peculiarity in connection with the number of portraits which Titian +executed, that many of them have descended to us without further titles +than those of 'A Venetian Senator,' 'A Lady,' &c., &c., yet of the +individual life of the originals no one can doubt. With regard to +Titian's portraits of women, I have already referred to those of his +beautiful daughter, Lavinia. In one portrait, in the Berlin Museum, she +is holding a plate of fruit; in another, in England, the plate of fruit +is changed into a casket of jewels; in a third, at Madrid, Lavinia is +Herodias, and bears a charger with the head of John the Baptist. A +'Violante'—as some say, the daughter of Titian's scholar, Palma, though +dates disprove this—sat frequently to Titian, and is said to have been +loved by him.</p> + +<p>I have written, in connection with Lionardo's 'Jaconde' and Raphael's +'Fornarina,' of Titian's 'Bella Donna.' He has various 'Bellas,' but, as +far as I know, this is <i>the</i> 'Bella Donna,'—'a splendid, serious +beauty, in a red and blue silk dress,' in the Sciarra Gallery, Rome.</p> + +<p>I have read that critics were at one time puzzled by the singular +yellow, almost straw colour, appearing profusely in the hair of the +women of the Venetian painters of this time, and that it was only by +consulting contemporary records that it was learnt that the Venetian +women indulged in the weak and false vanity of dyeing their black hair a +pale yellow—a process, in the course of which the women drew the hair +through the crown of a broad-brimmed hat, and spreading it over the +brim, submitted patiently to bleaching the hair in a southern sun.</p> + +<p>Among Titian's portraits of men, those of the 'Emperor Charles V.' and +the 'Duke of Alva' are among the most famous.</p> + +<p>Titian painted, and painted wonderfully, to the very last. He was +eighty-one when he painted the 'Martyrdom of St Lawrence,' one of his +largest and grandest compositions, and in the last year of his life he +painted—leaving it not quite completed,—a 'Pietà;' showing that his +hand owned the weight of years,<a id="footnotetag16" name="footnotetag16"></a> +<a href="#footnote16"><sup class="sml">16</sup></a> but the conception of the subject is +still animated and striking, the colours still glowing; while, +Titian-like, the light still flows around the mighty group in every +gradation of tone.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V.</h2> + +<p>GERMAN ART—ALBRECHT DÜRER, 1471-1528.</p> + +<p><a name="Durer" id="Durer"></a> +Albrecht Dürer carries us to a different country and a different race. +And he who has been called the father of German painting is thoroughly +German, not only in his Saxon honesty, sedateness, and strength, but in +the curious mixture of simplicity, subtlety, homeliness, and +fantasticalness, which are still found side by side in German genius.</p> + +<p><b>Albrecht Dürer</b> was born at that fittest birth-place for the great German +painter, quaint old Nuremberg, in 1471. He was the son of a goldsmith, +and one of a family of eighteen children; a home school in which he may +have learnt early the noble, manly lessons of self-denial and endurance, +which he practised long and well. He was trained to his father's trade +until the lad's bent became so unmistakable that he was wisely +transferred to the studio of a painter to serve his apprenticeship to +art.</p> + +<p>When the Nuremberg apprenticeship was completed, Albrecht followed the +German custom, very valuable to him, of serving another and a 'wandering +apprenticeship,' which carried him betimes through Germany, the +Netherlands, and Italy, painting and studying as he went. He painted his +own portrait about this time, showing himself a comely, pleasant, and +pleased young fellow, in a curious holiday suit of plaited low-bodied +shirt, jerkin, and mantle across the shoulder, with a profusion of long +fair curls, of which he was said to have been vain, arranged elaborately +on each side, the blue eyes looking with frank confidence out of the +blonde face. He painted himself a little later with the brave kindly +face grown mature, and the wisdom of the spirit shining in the eyes, and +weighing on the brows.</p> + +<p>On his return from his travels, Albrecht Dürer's father arranged his +son's marriage with the daughter of a musician in Nuremberg. The +inducement to the marriage seems to have been, on the father's part, the +dowry, and on the son's the beauty of the bride. How unhappy the union +proved, without any fault of Albrecht's, has been the theme of so many +stories, that I am half inclined to think that some of us must be more +familiar with Albrecht Dürer's wedded life than with any other part of +his history. It seems to me, that there is considerable exaggeration in +these stories, for granted that Agnes Dürer was a shrew and a miser, was +Albrecht Dürer the man to be entirely, or greatly, at such a woman's +mercy? Taking matters at their worst, dishonour and disgrace did not +come near the great painter. He was esteemed, as he deserved to be; he +had a true friend in his comrade Pirkheimer; he had his art; he had the +peace of a good conscience; he had the highest of all consolations in +his faith in Heaven. Certainly it is not from Albrecht himself that the +tale of his domestic wretchedness has come. He was as manfully patient +and silent as one might have expected in a man upright, firm, and +self-reliant as he was tender. I do not think it is good for men, and +especially for women, to indulge in egotistical sentimentality, and to +believe that such a woman as Agnes Dürer could utterly thwart and wreck +the life of a man like Albrecht. It is not true to life, in the first +place; and it is dishonouring to the man, in the second; for although, +doubtless, there are men who are driven to destruction or heart-broken +by even the follies of women, these men have not the stout hearts, the +loyal spirits, the manly mould of Albrecht Dürer.</p> + +<p>But making every allowance for the high colours with which a tale that +has grown stale is apt to be daubed, I am forced to admit the inference +that a mean, sordid, contentious woman probably did as much as was in +her power to harass and fret one of the best men in Germany, or in the +world. Luckily for himself, Albrecht was a severe student, had much +engrossing work which carried him abroad, and travelled once at least +far away from the harassing and galling home discipline. For anything +further, I believe that Albrecht loved his greedy, scolding wife, whose +fair face he painted frequently in his pictures, and whom he left at +last well and carefully provided for, as he bore with her to the end.</p> + +<p>In 1506 Albrecht Dürer re-visited Italy alone, making a stay of eight +months in Venice, where he formed his friendship with the old Gian +Bellini, and where Albrecht had the misfortune to show the proofs and +plans of his engravings to the Italian engraver, Raimondi, who engraved +Raphael's paintings, and who proved himself base enough to steal and +make use of Albrecht Dürer's designs to the German's serious loss and +inconvenience.</p> + +<p>A little later Albrecht Dürer, accompanied by his wife, visited the +Netherlands. The Emperor Maximilian treated the painter with great +favour, and a legend survives of their relations:—Dürer was painting so +large a subject that he required steps to reach it. The Emperor, who was +present, required a nobleman of his suite to steady the steps for the +painter, an employment which the nobleman declined as unworthy of his +rank, when the Emperor himself stepped forward and supplied the +necessary aid, remarking, 'Sir, understand that I can make Albrecht a +noble like and above you' (Maximilian had just raised Albrecht Dürer to +the rank of noble of the empire), 'but neither I nor any one else can +make an artist like him.' We may compare this story with a similar and +later story of Holbein and Henry VIII., and with another earlier story, +having a slight variation, of Titian and Charles V. The universality of +the story shakes one's belief in its individual application, but at +least the legend, with different names, remains as an indication of +popular homage to genius.</p> + +<p>While executing a large amount of work for the great towns and sovereign +princes of Germany, some of whom were said to consult the painter on +their military operations, relying on his knowledge of mathematics, and +his being able to apply it to military engineering and fortification, +Albrecht Dürer was constantly improving and advancing in his art, laying +down his prejudices, and acquiring fresh ideas, as well as fresh +information, according to the slow but sure process of the true German +mind, till his last work was incomparably his best.</p> + +<p>Germany was then in the terrible throes of the Reformation, and Albrecht +Dürer, who has left us the portraits of several of the great Reformers, +is believed to have been no uninterested spectator of the struggle, and +to have held, like his fellow-painter, Lucas Cranach—though in Albrecht +Dürer's case the change was never openly professed—the doctrines of the +Reformation.</p> + +<p>There is a portrait of Albrecht Dürer, painted by himself, in his later +years. (By the way, Albrecht was not averse to painting his own portrait +as well as that of his friend Pirkheimer, and of making the fullest +claim to his work by introducing into his religious and historical +pictures his own figure holding a flag or tablet, inscribed with his +name in the quiet self-assertion of a man who was neither ashamed of +himself, nor of anything he did.) In that last portrait, Albrecht is a +thoughtful, care-worn man, with his fair locks shorn. Some will +attribute the change to Agnes Dürer, but I imagine it proceeds simply +from the noble scars of work and time; and that when Albrecht Dürer died +in his fifty-seventh year, if it were in sourness and bitterness of +spirit, as some of his biographers have stated, that sourness and +bitterness were quite as much owing to the grievous troubles of his time +and country, which so large-minded a man was sure to lay to heart, as to +any domestic trouble. Albrecht Dürer was greatly beloved by his own city +of Nuremberg, where his memory continues to be cherished. His quaint +house still stands, and his tomb bears the motto 'Emigravit,'</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'For the great painter never dies.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Albrecht Dürer's name ranks with the names of the first painters of any +time or country, though his work as a painter was, as in the case of +William Hogarth, subservient to his work as an engraver. With the +knowledge of a later generation to that of the earliest Italian and +Flemish painters, Albrecht Dürer had much of their singleness of +purpose, assiduity of application, and profound feeling. He had to +labour against a tendency to uncouthness in stiff lines and angular +figures; to petty elaboration of details; and to that grotesqueness +which, while it suited in some respects his allegorical engravings, +marred his historical paintings, so that he was known to regret the +wasted fantastic crowding and confusion of his earlier work. From the +Italians and Flemings he learnt simplicity, and a more correct sense of +material beauty. The purity, truth, and depth of the man's spirit, from +which ideal beauty proceeds, no man could add to.</p> + +<p>Among Albrecht Dürer's greatest paintings are his 'Adoration of the +Trinity' at Vienna, his 'Adam and Eve' at Florence, and that last +picture of 'The Apostles,' presented by Albrecht Dürer to his native +city, 'in remembrance of his career as an artist, and at the same time +as conveying to his fellow-citizens an earnest and lasting exhortation +suited to that stormy period.' The prominence given to the Bible in the +picture, points to it as the last appeal in the great spiritual +struggle. With regard to this noble masterly picture, Kugler has +written, 'Well might the artist now close his eyes. He had in this +picture attained the summit of art; here he stands side by side with the +greatest masters known in history.'</p> + +<p>But I prefer to say something of Albrecht Dürer's engravings, which are +more characteristic of him and far more widely known than his paintings; +and to speak first of those two wonderful and beautiful allegories, +'Knight, Death, and the Devil,' and 'Melancolia.' In the first, which is +an embodiment of weird German romance as well as of high Christian +faith, the solitary Knight, with his furrowed face and battered armour, +rides steadfastly on through the dark glen, unmoved by his grisly +companions, skeleton Death on the lame horse, and the foul Fiend in +person. Contrast this sketch and its thoughtful touching meaning with +the hollow ghastliness of Holbein's 'Dance of Death.'</p> + +<p>In 'Melancolia' a grand winged woman sits absorbed in sorrowful thought, +while surrounded by all the appliances of philosophy, science, art, +mechanics, all the discoveries made before and in Albrecht Dürer's day, +in the book, the chart, the lever, the crystal, the crucible, the plane, +the hammer. The intention of this picture has been disputed, but the +best explanation of it is that which regards the woman as pondering on +the humanly unsolved and insoluble mystery of the sin and sorrow of +life.</p> + +<p>In three large series of woodcuts, known as the Greater and the Lesser +Passion of the Lord, and the Life of the Virgin, and taken partly from +sacred history and partly from tradition, Albrecht Dürer exceeded +himself in true beauty, simple majesty, and pathos. Photographs have +spread widely these fine woodcuts, and there is, at least, one which I +think my readers may have seen, 'The Bearing of the Cross,' in which the +blessed Saviour sinks under his burden. In the series of the Life of the +Virgin there is a 'Repose in Egypt,' which has a naïve homeliness in its +grace and serenity. The woodcut represents a courtyard with a dwelling +built in the ruins of an ancient palace. The Virgin sits spinning with +a distaff and spindle beside the Holy Child's cradle, by which beautiful +angels worship. Joseph is busy at his carpenter's work, and a number of +little angels, in merry sport, assist him with his labours.<a id="footnotetag17" name="footnotetag17"></a> +<a href="#footnote17"><sup class="sml">17</sup></a></p> + +<p>I shall mention only one more work of Albrecht Dürer's, that which is +known as the Emperor Maximilian's Prayer Book. This is pen-and-ink +sketches for the borders of a book (as the old missals were +illuminated), which are now preserved in the Royal Library, Munich. In +these little drawings the fancy of the great artist held high revel, by +no means confining itself to serious subjects, such as apostles, monks, +or even men in armour, but indulging in the most whimsical vagaries, +with regard to little German old women, imps, piping squirrels, with +cocks and hens hurrying to listen to the melody.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI.</h2> + +<p>LATER ITALIAN ART—GIORGIONE, 1477-1511—CORREGGIO. ABOUT +1493-1534—TINTORETTO, 1512-1574—VERONESE, 1530-1588.</p> + + +<p><a name="Gior" id="Gior"></a><b>Giorgio Barbarelli,</b> known as <b>'Giorgione,</b>—in Italian, 'big,' or, as I +have heard it better translated, 'strapping George'—was born at +Castelfranco, in Treviso, about 1477, the same year in which Titian was +born. Nothing is known of his youth before he came to Venice and studied +in the school of Gian Bellini along with Titian.</p> + +<p>The two men were friends in those days, but soon quarrelled, and +Giorgione's early death completed their separation. Titian was impatient +and arrogant; Giorgione seems to have been one of those proud, shy, +sensitive men—possibly morbidly sensitive, with whom it is always +difficult to deal; but it is recorded of him, as it is not recorded of +his great compeer, that Giorgione was frank and friendly as an artist, +however moody and fitful he might be as a man.</p> + +<p>Giorgione soon became known. According to one account, he painted the +façade of the house which he dwelt in, for an advertisement of his +abilities as a painter, a device which was entirely successful in +procuring him commissions; but unfortunately for posterity, these were +frequently to paint other façades, sometimes in company with Titian; +grand work, which has inevitably perished, if not by fire, by time and +by the sea-damp of Venice, for to Venice Giorgione belonged, and there +is no sign that he ever left it.</p> + +<p>He had no school, and his love of music and society—the last taste +found not seldom, an apparent anomaly, in silent, brooding +natures—might tend to withdraw him from his art. He has left a trace of +his love for music in his pictures of 'Concerts' and of 'Pastorals,' in +which musical performances are made prominent. In Giorgione, with his +romantic, idealizing temperament, genre<a id="footnotetag18" name="footnotetag18"></a> +<a href="#footnote18"><sup class="sml">18</sup></a> pictures took this form, +while he is known to have painted from Ovid and from the Italian tales +of his time. He was employed frequently to paint scenes on panels, for +the richly ornamented Venetian furniture. Giorgione was not without a +bent to realism in his very idealism, and is said to have been the first +Italian painter who 'imitated the real texture of stuffs and painted +draperies from the actual material.'</p> + +<p>Giorgione died at the early age of thirty-three years, in 1511. One +account represents him as dying of the plague, others attribute his +death to a sadder cause. He is said to have had a friend and +fellow-painter who betrayed their friendship, and carried off the girl +whom Giorgione loved. Stung to the quick by the double falsehood, the +tradition goes on to state that Giorgione fell into despair with life +and all it held, and so died.</p> + +<p>A portrait of Giorgione is in the Munich Gallery; it is that of a very +handsome beardless lad, 'with a peculiar melancholy in the dark glowing +eyes.'</p> + +<p>Giorgione was, like Titian, grand and free in drawing and composition, +and superb in colour.<a id="footnotetag19" name="footnotetag19"></a> +<a href="#footnote19"><sup class="sml">19</sup></a> Mrs Jameson has drawn a nice distinction +between the two painters as colourists. That the colours of Giorgione +'appear as if lighted from within, and those of Titian from without;' +that 'the epithet glowing applies best to Giorgione, that of golden to +Titian.'</p> + +<p>Giorgione's historic pictures are rare, his sacred pictures rarer still; +among the last is a 'Finding of Moses,' now in Milan, thus described by +Mrs Jameson: 'In the centre sits the princess under a tree; she looks +with surprise and tenderness on the child, which is brought to her by +one of her attendants; the squire, or seneschal, of the princess, with +knights and ladies, stand around; on one side two lovers are seated on +the grass; on the other are musicians and singers, pages with dogs. All +the figures are in the Venetian costume; the colouring is splendid, and +the grace and harmony of the whole composition is even the more +enchanting from the naïveté of the conception. This picture, like many +others of the same age and style, reminds us of those poems and tales +of the middle ages, in which David and Jonathan figure as <i>preux +chevaliers</i>, and Sir Alexander of Macedon and Sir Paris of Troy fight +tournaments in honour of ladies' eyes and the "blessed Virgin." They +must be tried by their own aim and standard, not by the severity of +antiquarian criticism.'</p> + +<p>In portraits Giorgione has only been exceeded by Titian. In the National +Gallery there is an unimportant 'St Peter the Martyr,' and a finer +'Maestro di Capella giving a music lesson,' which Kugler assigns to +Giorgione, though it has been given elsewhere to Titian. The 'refined +voluptuousness and impassioned sombreness' of Giorgione's painting have +instituted a comparison between him and Lord Byron as a poet.</p> + +<p><a name="Corr" id="Corr"></a><b>Correggio's</b> real name was <b>Antonio Allegri,</b> and he has his popular name +from his birth-place of Correggio, now called Reggio; although at one +time there existed an impression that Correggio meant 'correct,' from +the painter's exceedingly clever feats of fore-shortening.</p> + +<p>His father is believed to have been a well-to-do tradesman, and the lad +is said to have had an uncle a painter, who probably influenced his +nephew. But Correggio had a greater master, though but for a very short +time, in Andrea Mantegna, who died when Correggio was still a young boy. +Mantegna's son kept on his father's school, and from him Correggio might +have received more regular instruction. He early attained excellence, +and in the teeth of the legends which lingered in Parma for a full +century, his genius received prompt notice and patronage. He married +young, and from records which have come to light, he received a +considerable portion with his wife.</p> + +<p>The year after his marriage, when he was no more than six-and-twenty, +Correggio was appointed to paint in fresco the cupola of the church of +San Giovanni at Parma, and chose for his subject the 'Ascension of +Christ;' for this work and that of the 'Coronation of the Virgin,' +painted over the high altar, Correggio got five hundred gold crowns, +equivalent to £1500. He was invited to Mantua, where he painted from the +mythology for the Duke of Mantua. Indeed, so far and wide had the +preference for mythological subjects penetrated, that one of Correggio's +earliest works was 'Diana returning from the Chase;' painted for the +decoration of the parlour of the Abbess of the convent of San Paulo, +Parma.</p> + +<p>Correggio was a second time called upon to paint a great religious work +in Parma—this time in the cathedral, for which he selected 'The +Assumption of the Virgin.' A few of the cartoons for these frescoes were +discovered thirty or forty years ago, rolled up and lying forgotten in a +garret in Parma; they, are now in the British Museum.</p> + +<p>In 1533, Correggio, then residing in his native town, was one of the +witnesses to the marriage of his sovereign, the Lord of Correggio. In +the following year the painter had engaged to paint an altar-piece for +an employer, who paid Correggio in advance twenty-five gold crowns, but +the latter dying very soon afterwards, in the forty-first year of his +age, 1534, his father, who was still alive, was in circumstances to +repay the advance on the picture, which had not been painted.</p> + +<p>Correggio is said to have been modest and retiring in disposition, and +this, together with the fact that, like Giorgione, he did not have a +school, has been suggested as the source of the traditions which +prevailed so long in Italy. These traditions described the painter as a +man born in indigent circumstances, living obscurely in spite of his +genius (there is a picture of Correggio's in England, which was said to +have been given in payment for his entertainment at an inn), and leading +to the end a life of such ill-requited labour, that having been paid for +his last picture in copper money, and being under the necessity of +carrying it home in order to relieve the destitution of his family, he +broke down under the burden, and overcome by heat and weariness, drank a +rash draught of water, which caused fever and death.</p> + +<p>The story, disproven as it is, is often alluded to still, and remains as +a foil to those flattering and courtly anecdotes which I have been +repeating of royal and imperial homage paid to Dürer, Titian, and +Holbein. I fancy the last-mentioned stories may have grown from small +beginnings, and circulated purely in the artist world; but that the +former is an utterance of the engrained persuasion of the great world +without, that art as a means of livelihood is essentially +non-remunerative in the sense of money-getting.</p> + +<p>Modest as Correggio may have been, he was not without pride in his art. +After looking for the first time on the St Cecilia of Raphael, Correggio +is reported to have exclaimed with exultation, 'And I too am a painter.'</p> + +<p>He left behind him on his death a son and a daughter, the former living +to be a painter of no great name. In the picture of Correggio in the +attitude of painting, painted by himself, we see him a handsome spare +man with something of a romantic cavalier air, engaged in his chosen +art.</p> + +<p>Correggio's pictures go to prove that under his seemingly quiet exterior +he was a man of the liveliest sensibilities and the keenest perceptions, +His pictures, unlike Titian's in their repose, are full of motion and +excitement. Correggio is spoken of as a painter who delighted 'in the +buoyance of childish glee, the bliss of earthly, the fervour of heavenly +love,' whose radiant sphere of art sorrow rarely clouded; but when +sorrow did enter, it borrowed from the painter's own quivering heart the +very sharpness of anguish. The same authority tells us of Correggio, +that he has painted 'the very heart-throbs of humanity.' But it seems as +if such a nature, with its self-conscious veil of forced stillness, must +have had a tendency to vehemence and excess; and so we hear that +Correggio's fore-shortening was sometimes violent, and the energy of his +actors spasmodic; thus the cruelly smart contemporary criticism was +pronounced on his frescoes of the 'Assumption of the Virgin,' in which +legs and arms in wild play are chiefly conspicuous from below, that +Correggio had prepared for the Parmese 'a fricassće of frogs.' In +addition, the great modern critic, Mr Ruskin, has boldly accused +Correggio 'both of weakness and meretriciousness,' and there is this to +be said of a nature so highly strung as Correggio's was strung, that it +was not a healthily balanced nature.</p> + +<p>But if the painter were really inferior in his sense of form and +expression to his great predecessors, he was so great in one department, +that in it he was held worthy, not only to found the school of Parma, +but to be classed with the first four painters of Italy.</p> + +<p>That chiarascuro, or treatment of light and shade, in which Lionardo and +Andrea Mantegna were no mean proficients, was brought to such perfection +by Correggio, that, as Mrs Jameson has sought to illustrate technical +expressions, 'you seem to look through. Correggio's shadows, and to see +beyond them the genuine texture of the flesh.' In undulating grace of +motion, in melting softness of outline, fixed on a canvas, he surpassed +all rivals, including Raphael; and this widely attractive quality +('luscious refinement,' Mr Ruskin terms it) in connection with +Correggio's ardent, if undisciplined sensibility, has rendered him one +of the most valued of painters; his best paintings being highly prized +and costly as the easel pictures attributed to Raphael. Sir W. Stirling +Maxwell writes that an old Duke of Modena was suspected of having caused +Correggio's 'Notte' to be stolen from a church at Reggio, and that the +princes of Este were wont to carry 'The Magdalene Reading' with them on +their journeys, while the king of Poland kept it under lock and key in a +frame of jewelled silver.</p> + +<p>Among Correggio's master-pieces, besides his frescoes, there is at Parma +his picture called 'Day,' from the broad flood of daylight in the +picture (and doubtless in contrast to his famous 'Notte' or 'Night,' in +the Dresden Gallery). Here is a Virgin and Child, with St Jerome +presenting to them his translation of the Scriptures, and the Magdalene +bending to kiss in adoration the feet of the infant Saviour.</p> + +<p>In the Dresden Gallery in addition to the 'Notte' are five pictures, one +of the marriage of St Catherine as the Church—the bride, espoused with +a ring to the infant Saviour, a favourite subject of Italian painters, +and a specially favourite subject with Correggio; and another, the +Magdalene reading, half shrouded with her flowing hair, so well known +by engravings. I must say a few more words of the 'Notte,'—it is a +nativity illuminated entirely by the unearthly glory shining from the +Child Christ. Virgin and Child are bathed and half lost in the fair +radiance, which falls softly on a shepherd and maiden, leaving the rest +of the figures, the stalled beasts, and the surroundings of the stable, +in dim shadow.</p> + +<p>In our National Gallery there are fine specimens of Correggio. There is +an 'Ecce Homo': Christ crowned with thorns, holding out his bound hands, +with a Roman soldier softening into pity, Pilate hardening in +indifference, and the Virgin fainting with sorrow. There are also 'the +Virgin with the Basket,' so named from the little basket in front of the +picture; and 'a Holy Family;' and there is a highly-esteemed picture +from a mythological subject, 'Mercury teaching Cupid to read in the +presence of Venus.'</p> + +<p>We must return to the Venice of Titian, and see how his successors, with +much more of the true painter in them than the fast degenerating +scholars of other Italian schools, were mere men, if great men, matched +with Titian.</p> + +<p><b>Tintoretto</b><a name="Tint" id="Tint"></a> is only Tintoretto or Tintoret because his father was a dyer, +and 'Il Tintoretto' is in Italian, 'the little dyer.' Tintoretto's real +name was one more in keeping with his pretensions, <b>Jacopo Robusti.</b> He +was born in Venice, in 1512, and early fore-shadowed his future career +by drawing all kinds of objects on the walls of his father's dye-house, +an exercise which did not offend or dismay the elder Robusti, but, on +the contrary, induced him to put the boy into the school of Titian, +where Tintoretto only remained a short time. Titian did not choose to +impart what could be imparted of his art to his scholars, and, in all +probability, Tintoretto was no deferential and submissive scholar. There +is a tradition that Titian expelled this scholar from his academy, +saying of the dyer's son, that 'he would never be anything but a +dauber.'</p> + +<p>Tintoret was not to be daunted. He lived to be a bold-tempered, dashing +man, and he must have been defiant, even in his boyhood, as he was +swaggering in his youth, when he set up an academy of his own, and +inscribed above the door, 'The drawing of Michael Angelo and the +colouring of Titian.' He had studied and taught himself from casts and +theories since he left the school of Titian, and then, with worldly +wisdom equal to his daring, he commenced his artistic career by +accepting every commission, good or bad, and taking what pay he could +get for his work; but, unfortunately for him and for the world, he +executed his work, as might have been expected, in the same headlong, +indiscriminate spirit, acquiring the name of 'Il Furioso' from the +rapidity and recklessness of his manner of painting. Often he did not +even give himself the trouble of making any sketch or design of his +pictures beforehand, but composed as he painted.</p> + +<p>Self-confident to presumption, he took for his inspirations the merest +impulses, and considerably marred the effect of his unquestionably grand +genius by gross haste and carelessness. He was a successful man in his +day, as so energetic and unscrupulous a man was likely enough to be, and +his fellow-citizens, who saw principally on the surface,<a id="footnotetag20" name="footnotetag20"></a> +<a href="#footnote20"><sup class="sml">20</sup></a> were +charmed beyond measure by his tremendous capacity for invention, his +dramatic vigour, his gorgeous, rampant richness and glare; or, by +contrast, his dead dulness of ornament and colouring; and were not too +greatly offended by his occasional untruthfulness in drawing and +colouring, and the inequality of his careless, slovenly, powerful +achievements. Yet even Tintoret's fascinated contemporaries said of him +that he 'used three pencils: one gold, one silver, one lead.'</p> + +<p>Naturally Tintoretto painted an immense number of pictures, to only +three of which, however, he appended his name. These were, 'The +Crucifixion,' and 'The Miracle of the Slave,' two of fifty-seven +pictures which he painted for the school of St Roch alone, in Venice; +the other was the 'Marriage at Cana,' in the church of Santa Maria +della Saluto, Venice.</p> + +<p>There is an authentic story told of Tintoretto in his age, which is in +touching contrast to what is otherwise known of the man. Besides a son, +Dominico, who was a painter, Tintoret had a daughter, Marietta, very +dear to him, who was also a painter—indeed, so gifted a portrait +painter, as to have been repeatedly invited to foreign courts to +practise her art, invitations which she declined, because she would not +be parted from her father. To Tintoret's great grief, this daughter died +as she was thirty years of age, and her father was in his seventy-eighth +year. When her end was unmistakably near, the old man took brush and +canvas and struggled desperately to preserve a last impression of the +beloved child's face, over which death was casting its shadow.</p> + +<p>Tintoretto died four years later, in 1594. His portrait is that of a man +who holds his head high and resolutely; he has, strange to say, a +somewhat commonplace face, with its massive nose, full eye, short curly +beard and hail. The forehead is not very broad, but the head is 'long,' +as Scotch people say, and they count long-headedness not only an +indication of self-esteem, but of practical shrewdness. Tintoret's power +was native, and had received little training; it is a proof of the +strength of that power that he could not quench it. His faults, as a +painter, I have already had to chronicle in the sketch of the man. He +was greatest on large canvases, where his recklessness was lost in his +strength; and in portraits, where his quickness in seizing striking +traits more than equalled that rapidity of conclusion in realizing, and +still more notably in classifying, character, which, to say the least, +is liable to error.</p> + +<p>Even before Tintoretto lived sacred subjects and! art had entirely +changed places. In the days of Fra Angelico and the Van Eycks, art was +the means by which painters brought before men sacred subjects, to whose +design painters looked with more or less of conviction and feeling. By +the time that Tintoret painted, sacred subjects were the means by which +painters showed their art; means, the design of which was largely lost +sight of, and which might be freely tortured and twisted, falsified, +well-nigh burlesqued, if, by so doing, painters could better display +their originality, skill, and mastery of technicalities. Sacred subjects +had become more and more human in the lower sense, and less and less +divine. A man who had so little reverence as Tintoret showed for his own +higher self, his fellow-men, and his art, would scarcely seem well +qualified to take up sacred subjects. But criticism is entirely and +hopelessly divided on the question, for while some authorities hold that +he made of the awful scene of the Crucifixion a merely historical and +decidedly theatrical procession, other authorities maintain that he +preserved in that 'great composition' 'repose and dignity, solemnity and +reverence.'</p> + +<p>Here is M. Charles Blanc, the French art critic's opinion of Tintoret's +largest work, seventy-four feet in length and thirty feet in height: The +Glory of Paradise, in the great hall or throne-room of the Doge's +Palace:—</p> + +<p>'If the shadows had not become so black, such a picture would have had +something of sublimity; but that sky, without transparency, the lights +of which, even, are of a burnt and baked colour, has rather the air of a +lit-up Erebus than of a Paradise. Four hundred figures are in motion in +this vast enclosure, some naked, others draped, but draped uniformly in +a staring red or a hard blue, which form as many spots, in some sort +symmetrical. The manner is quick; a little loose, but confident. The +models are neither taken from nature nor from the ideal, they are drawn +from practice, and are in general only turns of the head, without beauty +and without delicacy. The angels are agitated like demons; and the +whole—coarse enough in execution as in thought, is imposing +nevertheless by mass, movement, and number. It is the striking image of +a multitude in the air, a rout in the heavens, or rather in purgatory.'</p> + +<p>Here, again, is Mr Ruskin's unequalled estimate of Tintoret's works: 'I +should exhaust the patience of the reader if I were to dwell at length +on the various stupendous developments of the imagination of Tintoret +in the Scuola di San Rocco alone. I would fain join awhile in that +solemn pause of the journey into Egypt, where the silver boughs of the +shadowy trees lace with their tremulous lines the alternate folds of +fair cloud, flushed by faint crimson light, and lie across the streams +of blue between those rosy islands like the white wakes of wandering +ships; or watch beside the sleep of the disciples among those mossy +leaves that lie so heavily on the dead of the night beneath the descent +of the angel of the agony, and toss fearfully above the motion of the +torches as the troop of the betrayer emerges out of the hollows of the +olives; or wait through the hour of accusing beside the judgment-seat of +Pilate, where all is unseen, unfelt, except the one figure that stands +with its head bowed down, pale like the pillar of moonlight, half bathed +in the glory of the Godhead, half wrapt in the whiteness of the shroud. +Of these and all other thoughts of indescribable power that are now +fading from the walls of those neglected chambers, I may perhaps +endeavour at a future time to preserve some image and shadow more +faithfully than by words; but I shall at present terminate our series of +illustrations by reference to a work of less touching, but more +tremendous appeal; the Last Judgment in the church of Santa Maria dell' +Orto.'</p> + +<p>'By Tintoret only has this unimaginable event been grappled with in its +verity; not typically, nor symbolically, but as they may see it who +shall not sleep, but be changed. Only one traditional circumstance he +has received with Dante and Michael Angelo, the Boat of the Condemned; +but the impetuosity of his mind bursts out even in the adoption of this +image; he has not stopped at the scowling ferryman of the one, nor at +the sweeping blow and demon-dragging of the other; but, seized +Hylas-like by the limbs, and tearing up the earth in his agony, the +victim is dashed into his destruction; nor is it the sluggish Lethe, nor +the fiery lake, that bears the cursed vessel, but the oceans of the +earth and the waters of the firmament gathered into one white, ghastly +cataract; the river of the wrath of God, roaring down into the gulf +where the world has melted with its fervent heat, choked with the ruin +of nations, and the limbs of its corpses tossed out of its whirling like +water-wheels. Bat-like, out of the holes, and caverns, and shadows of +the earth, the bones gather, and the clay-heaps heave, rattling and +adhering into half-kneaded anatomies, that crawl, and startle, and +struggle up among the putrid weeds, with the clay clinging to their +clotted hair, and their heavy eyes sealed by the earth darkness yet, +like his of old who went his way unseeing to the Siloam pool; shaking +off one by one the dreams of the prison-house, hardly hearing the +clangour of the trumpets of the armies of God; blinded yet more, as they +awake, by the white light of the new heaven, until the great vortex of +the four winds bears up their bodies to the judgment-seat; the Firmament +is all full of them, a very dust of human souls, that drifts, and +floats, and falls in the interminable, inevitable light; the bright +clouds are darkened with them as with thick snow; currents of atom life +in the arteries of heaven, now soaring up slowly, and higher and higher +still, till the eye and thought can follow no farther, borne up, +wingless, by their inward faith, and by the angel powers invisible, now +hurled in countless drifts of horror before the breath of their +condemnation.'</p> + +<p>There is only one little work, of small consequence, by Tintoretto in +the National Gallery, but there are nearly a dozen in the Royal +Galleries, as Charles I. was an admirer and buyer of 'Tintorettos.' Two +Tintorettos which belonged to King Charles I, are at Hampton Court; the +one is 'Esther fainting before Ahasuerus,' and the other the 'Nine +Muses.' With another 'Esther' I have been familiar from childhood by an +old engraving. I think the subject must have been in some respects +congenial to Tintoret, and he has certainly revelled in the +sumptuousness of the mighty Eastern tyrant, in royal mantle and ermine +tippet, seated on his throne, and stretching his jewelled sceptre to +Esther, who is in the rich costume of a Venetian lady of the period, and +sinking into the arms of her watchful maids, with a fair baby face, and +little helpless hands, having dainty frills round the wrists, which +scarcely answer to our notion of the attributes of the magnanimous, if +meek, Jewish heroine.</p> + +<p><a name="Ver" id="Ver"></a><b>Paul Cágliari</b> of Verona is far better known as <b>Paul Veronese.</b> He was +born in Verona in 1530, and was the son of a sculptor. He was taught by +his father to draw and model, but abandoned sculpture for the sister art +of painting, which was more akin to his tastes, and which he followed in +the studio of an uncle who was a fair painter.</p> + +<p>Quitting Verona, Paul Veronese repaired to Venice, studying the works of +Titian and Tintoret, and settling in their city, finding no want of +patronage even in a field so fully appropriated before he came to take +his place there. His first great work was the painting of the church of +St Sebastian, with scenes from the history of Esther. Whether he chose +the subject or whether it was assigned to him, it belonged even more to +him than to Tintoret, for Veronese was the most magnificent of the +magnificent Venetian painters. From that date he was kept in constant +employment by the wealthy and luxurious Venetians. He visited Rome in +the suite of the Venetian ambassador in 1563, when he was in his +thirty-fourth year, and he was invited to Spain to assist in the +decoration of the Escurial by Philip II., but refused the invitation.</p> + +<p>Veronese is said to have been a man of kindly spirit, generous and +devout. In painting for churches and convents, he would consent to +receive the smallest remuneration, sometimes not more than the price of +his colours and canvas. For his fine picture now in the Louvre, the +'Marriage of Cana,' he is believed not to have had more than forty +pounds in our money. He died when he was but fifty-eight years of age, +in 1588. He had married and left sons who were painters, and worked with +their father. He had a brother, Benedotto, who was also a painter, and +who is thought to have painted many of the architectural backgrounds to +Veronese's pictures.</p> + +<p>Veronese's portrait, which he has left us, gives the idea of a more +earnest and impressionable man than Tintoret. A man in middle age, +bald-headed, with a furrowed brow, cheeks a little hollowed, head +slightly thrown back, and a somewhat anxious as well as intent +expression of face; what of the dress is seen, being a plain doublet +with turned-over collar, and a cloak arranged in a fold across the +breast, and hanging over the right shoulder like a shepherd's 'maud' or +plaid. Looking at the engraving, and hearing of Paul Veronese's +amiability and piety, one has little difficulty in thinking of the +magnificent painter, as a single-hearted, simple-minded man, neither +vain nor boastful, nor masterful save by the gift of genius.</p> + +<p>I have called Paul Veronese a magnificent painter, and magnificence is +the great attribute of his style; but before going farther into his +merits and defects, I should like to quote to you a passage from Mr +Ruskin, the most eloquent and dogmatic of art critics, prefacing the +passage with the statement that the true lesson which it teaches is +particularly needful for women, who, if they love art at all, are apt to +regard it chiefly for its sentiment, and to undervalue such proper +painter's work, such breadth and affluence and glory of handling, as are +to be met with on the canvases of painters like Veronese and Rubens. +'But I perceive a tendency among some of the more thoughtful critics of +the day to forget the business of a painter is <i>to paint</i>, and so +altogether to despise those men, Veronese and Rubens for instance, who +were painters, <i>par excellence</i>, and in whom the expressional qualities +are subordinate. Now it is well, when we have strong moral or poetical +feeling manifested in painting, to mark this as the best part of the +work; but it is not well to consider as a thing of small account the +painter's language in which that feeling is conveyed; for if that +language be not good and lovely, the man may indeed be a just moralist +or a great poet, but he is not a <i>painter</i>, and it was wrong of him to +paint.'</p> + +<p>It was said of Paul Veronese, that while he had not 'the brilliance and +depth of Titian' or the 'prodigious facility' of Tintoret, yet, in some +respects, Veronese surpassed both. But he was certainly deficient in a +sense of suitability and probability. He, of all painters, carried to an +outrageous extent the practice, which I have defended in some degree, of +painting sacred and historical subjects as if they had happened in his +own day and city. He violated taste and even reason in painting every +scene, lofty or humble, sacred or profane, alike, with the pomp of +splendour and richness of ornament which were the fashion of the time; +but he had a vivid perception of character, and a certain greatness of +mind which redeemed his plethora of gorgeousness from monotony or +vulgarity.</p> + +<p>Veronese is reported to have been far more correct and careful in +drawing than was Tintoret, while Veronese's prodigality of colour was a +mellowed version of Tintoret's glare or deadness. One of Veronese's best +pictures is the 'Marriage of Cana,' painted originally for the refectory +of the convent of San Giorgio, Venice, and now in the Louvre. 'It is not +less than thirty feet long and twenty feet high, and contains about one +hundred and thirty figures, life size. The Marriage Feast of the +Galilean citizen is represented with a pomp worthy of "Ormuz or of Ind." +A sumptuous hall of the richest architecture; lofty columns, long lines +of marble balustrades rising against the sky; a crowd of guests +splendidly attired, some wearing orders of knighthood, are seated at +tables covered with gorgeous vases of gold and silver, attended by +slaves, jesters, pages, and musicians. In the midst of all this dazzling +pomp, this display of festive enjoyment, these moving figures, these +lavish colours in glowing approximation, we begin after a while to +distinguish the principal personages, our Saviour, the Virgin Mary, the +twelve Apostles, mingled with Venetian senators and ladies, clothed in +the rich costume of the sixteenth century; monks, friars, poets, +artists, all portraits of personages existing in his own time; while in +a group of musicians he has introduced himself and Tintoretto playing +the violoncello, while Titian plays the bass. The bride in this picture +is said to be the portrait of Eleanor of Austria, the sister of Charles +V, and second wife of Francis I.'<a id="footnotetag21" name="footnotetag21"></a> +<a href="#footnote21"><sup class="sml">21</sup></a></p> + +<p>Though Veronese is not greatly esteemed as a portrait painter, it so +happens that the highly-prized picture of his in our National Gallery, +called 'The Family of Darius before Alexander,' is understood to be +family portraits of the Pisani family in the characters of Alexander, +the Persian queen, &c., &c. Another of Veronese's pictures in the +National Gallery is 'The Consecration of St Nicholas, Bishop of Myra.'</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII.</h2> + +<p>CARRACCI, 1555-1609—GUIDO RENI, 1575-1642—DOMENICHINO, +1581-1641—SALVATOR ROSA, 1615-1673.</p> + + +<p>In the falling away of the schools of Italy, and especially of the +followers of Michael Angelo and Raphael, into mannerism and +exaggeration, fitly expressed in delineation of heathen gods and +goddesses, there arose a cluster of painters in the North of Italy who +had considerable influence on art.</p> + +<p><a name="Carr" id="Carr"></a>The <b>Carracci</b> included a group of painters, the founders of the later +Bolognese School. Lodovico, the elder of the three, was born at Bologna, +1555. He was educated as a painter, and was so slow in his education, +that he received from his fellow-scholars the nickname of 'Il Bue' (the +ox). But his perseverance surmounted every obstacle. He visited the +different Italian towns, and studied the works of art which they +contained, arriving at the conclusion that he might acquire and combine +the excellences of each. This combination, which could only be a +splendid patch-work without unity, was the great aim of his life, and +was the origin of the term <i>eclectic</i> applied to his school. Its whole +tendency was to technical excellence, and in this tendency, however it +might achieve its end, painting showed a marked decline. As an example +of the motives and objects supplied by the school, I must borrow some +lines from a sonnet of the period written by Agostino Carracci:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'Let him, who a good painter would be,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Acquire the drawing of Rome,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Venetian action, and Venetian shadow,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the dignified colouring of Lombardy,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The terrible manner of Michael Angelo,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Titian's truth and nature,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The sovereign purity of Correggio's style,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the true symmetry of Raphael;<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<br /> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And a little of Parmegiano'a grace,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But without so much study and toil,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Let him only apply himself to imitate the works<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Which our Niccolino has left us here.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Lodovico opened a school of painting at Bologna, in which he was for a +time largely assisted by his cousins. He died 1619.</p> + +<p>Agostino Carracci, cousin of Lodovico, was born at Bologna in 1559. His +father was a tailor, and Agostino himself began life as a jeweller. He +became a painter and an engraver in turn, devoting himself chiefly to +engraving. Towards the beginning of the seventeenth century he was with +his more famous brother, Annibale, at Rome, where he assisted in +painting the Farnese Gallery, designing and executing the two frescoes +of Galatea and Aurora with such success, according to his +contemporaries, that it was popularly said that 'the engraver had +surpassed the painter in the Farnese.' Jealousy arose between the +brothers in consequence, and they separated, not before Annibale had +perpetrated upon Agostino a small, but malicious, practical joke, which +has been handed down to us. Agostino was fond of the society of people +of rank, and Annibale, aware of his brother's weakness, took the +opportunity, when Agostino was surrounded by some of his aristocratic +friends, to present him with a caricature of the two brothers' father +and mother, engaged in their tailoring work.</p> + +<p>Agostino died at Parma when he was a little over forty, and was buried +in the cathedral there, in 1602.</p> + +<p>Annibale, Agostino's younger brother, was born in 1560. It was intended +by his parents that he should follow their trade and be a tailor, but he +was persuaded by his cousin Lodovico to become a painter. After visiting +Parma, Venice, and Bologna, he worked with his cousin and teacher for +ten years. Annibale was invited to Rome by the Cardinal Odoardo Farnese, +to decorate the great hall of his palace in the Piazza Farnese, with +scenes from the heathen mythology, for which work he received a monthly +salary of ten scudi, about two guineas, with maintenance for himself and +two servants, and a farther gift of five hundred scudi. It was a +parsimonious payment, and the parsimony is said to have preyed on the +mind and affected the health of Annibale, and a visit to Naples, where +he, in common with not a few artists, suffered from the jealous +persecutions of the Neapolitan painters, completed the breaking up of +his constitution. He painted, with the assistance of Albani, the +frescoes in the chapel of San Diego in San Giacomo degli Spagnole, and +pressed upon his assistant more than half of his pay. Annibale's health +had already given way, and after a long illness he died, when forty-nine +years of age, at Rome, 1609, and was buried near Raphael in the +Pantheon.</p> + +<p>The merit of the Carracci lay in their power of execution, and in a +certain 'bold naturalism, or rather animalism,' which they added to +their able imitations, for their pictures are not so much their own, as +'After Titian,' 'After Correggio,' &c. In this intent regard to style, +and this perfecting of means to an end, thought and its expression were +in a manner neglected. Yet to the Carracci, and their school, is owing a +certain studied air of solemnity and sadness in 'Ecce Homos,' and +'Pietás,' which, in proportion to its art, has a powerful effect on many +beholders, who prefer conventionality to freedom; or rather, who fail to +distinguish conventionality in its traces. Annibale was the most +original while the least learned of the Carracci; yet, even of Annibale, +it could be said that he lacked enthusiasm in his subjects. His best +productions are his mythological subjects in the Farnese Palace. A +celebrated picture of his, that of the 'Three Marys' (a dead Christ, the +Madonna, and the two other Marys), is at Castle Howard, and has been +exhibited at Manchester, and I think also at Leeds. At Manchester it +attracted the greatest attention and admiration. I believe this was not +only because Annibale Carracci in the 'Three Marys' does attain to a +most piteous mournfulness of sentiment, but because such work as that of +the Carracci finds readiest acceptance from a general public, which +delights in striking, superficial effects. The same reason, in +conjunction with the decline of Italian art, may account for the great +number of the Carracci school and followers.</p> + +<p>Annibale Carracci was one of the first who practised landscape painting +and genre pictures, such as 'The Greedy Eater,' as separate branches of +art. Two of Annibale's landscapes are in the National Gallery.</p> + +<p><b>Guido Reni</b>, commonly called <b>'Guido,'</b><a name="Guido" id="Guido"></a> was born at Bologna, 1575. His +father was a musician, and Guido was intended for the same calling, but +finally became a painter and student in the school of the Carracci. He +followed Annibale Carracci to Rome, and dwelt there for twenty years. He +obtained great repute and favour, but taking offence at some supposed +injustice, he left Rome, and settled at last in Bologna, where he +established a large school. Though he made great sums of money, which +might have enabled him to live in the splendour which he coveted, on +account of his addiction to gambling and his grossly extravagant habits, +he was constantly in debt, and driven to tax his genius to the utmost, +and to sell its fruits for what they would bring, irrespective of what +he owed to himself, his art, and to the giver of all good gifts. He died +at Bologna, and was buried with much pomp in the church of San Dominico, +1642.</p> + +<p>Of Guido we hear that he had three styles: the first, after the vigorous +manner of Michael Angelo; the second, in the prevailing ornamental taste +of the Rome of his day and the Carracci. This is considered Guido's best +style, and is distinguished by its subtle management of light and shade. +His third, which is called his 'silvery style,' from its greys, +degenerated into insipidity, with little wonder, seeing that at this +stage he sold his time at so much per hour to picture-dealers, who stood +over him, watch in hand, to see that he fulfilled his bargain, and +carried away the saints he manufactured wet from the easel. Such +manufactory took him only three hours, sometimes less. His charges had +risen from five guineas for a head, and twenty guineas for a whole +figure, to twenty times that amount. He painted few portraits, but many +'fancy' heads of saints. Nearly three hundred pictures by Guido are +believed to be in existence. Guido's individual distinction was his +refined sense of beauty, but it was over-ruled by 'cold calculation,' +and developed into a mere abstract conception of 'empty grace' without +heart or soul.</p> + +<p>His finest work is the large painting of 'Phœbus and Aurora' in a +pavilion of the Rospigliosi Palace at Rome. In our National Gallery +there are nine specimens of Guido's works, including one of his best +'Ecce Homos,' which belonged to the collection of Samuel Rogers.</p> + +<p><b>Domenico Zampieri,</b> commonly called <b>Domenichino,</b> was another Bolognese +<a name="Dom" id="Dom"></a>painter, and another eminent scholar of the Carracci. He was born in +1581, and, after studying under a Flemish painter, passed into the +school of the Carracci. While yet a very young man, Domenichino was +invited to Rome, where he soon earned a high reputation, competing +successfully with his former fellow-scholar, Guido. Domenichino's +'Flagellation of St Andrew,' and 'Communion of St Jerome,' in payment of +which he only received about five guineas; his 'Martyrdom of St +Sebastian,' and his 'Four Evangelists,' which are among his +masterpieces, were all painted in Rome, and remain in Rome.</p> + +<p>Domenichino is said to have excited the extreme hostility of rival +painters, and to have suffered especially from the malice of the +Neapolitans, when he was invited to work among them. After a cruel +struggle Domenichino died in Naples, not without a horrible suspicion of +having being poisoned, at the age of sixty, in 1641. One of his +enemies—a Roman on this occasion—destroyed what was left of +Domenichino's work in Naples.</p> + +<p>The painter's fate was a miserable one, and by a coincidence between his +fortune and his taste in subjects, he has identified his name with +terrible representations of martyrdoms. Kugler writes that martyrdom as +a subject for painting, which had been sparingly used by Raphael and his +scholars, had come into fashion in Domenichino's time, for 'painters and +poets sought for passionate emotion, and these subjects (martyrdoms) +supplied them with plentiful food.' Sensationalism is the florid hectic +of art's decay, whether in painting or in literature.</p> + +<p>Domenichino is accredited with more taste than fancy. He made free use +of the compositions of even contemporary artists, while he +individualized these compositions. His good and bad qualities are those +of his school, already quoted, and perhaps it is in keeping with these +qualities that the excellence of Domenichino's works lies in subordinate +parts and subordinate characters. There are examples of Domenichino in +the National Gallery.</p> + +<p>I shall close my long list of the great Italian painters of the past +with one who was quite apart from and opposed to the Carracci school, +and whose triumphs and failures were essentially his own. <a name="Rosa" id="Rosa"></a><b>Salvator Rosa,</b> +born in 1615 near Naples, was the son of an architect. In opposition to +his father Salvator Rosa became a painter. Having succeeded in selling +his sketches to a celebrated buyer, the bold young Neapolitan started +for Rome at the age of twenty years; and Rome, 'the Jerusalem of +Painters,' became thenceforth Salvator Rosa's head-quarters, though the +character of the man was such as to force him to change his quarters not +once or twice only in his life, and thus he stayed some time, in turn, +at Naples, Viterbo, Volterra, and Florence. At Volterra the aggressive +nature of the painter broke forth in a series of written satires on a +medley of subjects—music, poetry (both of which Salvator himself +cultivated), painting, war, Babylon, and envy. These incongruous satires +excited the violent indignation of the individuals against whom +Salvator's wit was aimed, and their efforts at revenge, together with +his own turbulent spirit, drove him from place to place.</p> + +<p>Salvator Rosa was at Naples 1647, and took part in the riots, so famous +in song and story, which made Masaniello, the young fisherman, for a +time Captain-General and Master of Naples, when it was, according to +law, a Spanish dependency governed by a viceroy. Salvator was in the +Compagnia della Morte commanded by Falcone, a battle painter, during the +troubles, a wild enough post to please the wild painter, even had he not +been in addition a personal adherent of the ruling spirit Masaniello, +whom Salvator Rosa painted more than once. After so eventful a life, +the painter died peaceably enough in his fifty-ninth year, of dropsy, at +Rome, and left a considerable fortune to his only son.</p> + +<p>Salvator Rosa was the incarnation of the arrogant, fickle, fierce +Neapolitan spirit, and he carried it out sufficiently in an +undisciplined, stormy life, without the addition of the popular legend +that he had at one time joined a troop of banditti, and indulged in +their excesses. The legend seems to have arisen from Salvator Rosa's +familiarity with mountain passes, and his love of peopling them +appropriately with banditti in action. Salvator Rosa was a dashing +battle painter, a mediocre historical painter, and an excellent portrait +painter as well as landscape painter. But it is chiefly by the savage +grandeur of his mountain or forest landscapes, with their fitting +<i>dramatis personæ</i>, that he has won his renown. Mr Ruskin, while he +allows Salvator's gift of imagination, denounces him for the reckless +carelessness and untruthfulness to nature of his painting. Many of +Salvator Rosa's pictures are in the Pitti Palace in Florence, and many +are in England.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII.</h2> + +<p>RUBENS, 1577-1640—REMBRANDT, 1606 OR 1608-1669—TENIERS, FATHER AND +SON, 1582-1694—WOUVERMAN, 1620-1668—CUYP, 1605; STILL LIVING, +1638—PAUL POTTER, 1625-1654—CORNELIUS DE HEEM, 1630.</p> + + +<p>A long interval elapsed between the Van Eycks and Quintin Matsys, and +Rubens; but if Flemish art was slow of growth and was only developed +after long pauses, it made up for its slowness and delays by the burst +of triumph into which Flemish and Dutch art broke forth in Rubens and +his school, in Rembrandt and Cuyp and Ruysdael.</p> + +<p><b>Peter Paul Rubens</b><a name="Rubens" id="Rubens"></a> was born at Siegen in Westphalia, on the day of St +Peter and St Paul, 1577. But though Rubens was born out of Antwerp, he +was a citizen of Antwerp by descent as well as by so many later +associations. His father, John Rubens, a lawyer, an imprudent, +thriftless man in character and habits, had been compelled to leave +Antwerp in consequence of religious disturbances which broke out there +about the time that the northern provinces, more at one and more decided +in their union than the southern provinces, established their +independence. Rubens spent his early boyhood at Cologne, but on the +death of his father when he was ten years of age, his mother, a good and +'discreet' woman, to whom the painter owed much, and confessed his debt, +returned with her family to Antwerp. His mother had destined him for his +father's profession, but did not oppose her son's preference for art.</p> + +<p>After studying under two different artists, and becoming a master in the +guild of St Luke, Rubens went to Italy in 1600, when he was a young man +of three-and-twenty years of age. He was eight years absent, entering +the service of the ducal sovereign of Mantua, being sent by him on a +diplomatic mission to Madrid to Philip III, of Spain, visiting on his +own account Rome, where he found the Carracci and Guido<a id="footnotetag22" name="footnotetag22"></a> +<a href="#footnote22"><sup class="sml">22</sup></a> at the +height of their fame, Venice and Genoa, 'leaving portraits where he +went.'</p> + +<p>With Genoa, its architecture, and its situation, Rubens was specially +charmed, but he quitted it in haste, being summoned home to attend the +death-bed of his mother, from whom he had parted eight years before; and +arriving too late to see her in life. A man of strong feelings in sorrow +as in joy, he withdrew into retirement, and resided for his season of +mourning in a religious house.</p> + +<p>Loving Italy with a painter's enthusiasm, so that to the latest day of +his life he generally wrote in Italian, and loved to sign his name +'Pietro Paolo Rubens,' he had intended to return and settle in Mantua, +but having been named court painter to the Governess of the Netherlands, +Clara Eugenia, and her husband Albert, Rubens had sufficient patriotism +and sufficient worldly foresight to induce him to relinquish his idea, +and establish himself in his native Antwerp. He was already a man of +eminence in his profession, and a man of mark out of it. Go where he +would he made friends, and he so recommended himself to his royal +patrons by his natural suavity, tact, and sagacity, that he was not only +in the utmost favour with them as a right courtly painter, but was +employed by them, once and again, on delicate, difficult, private +embassies. But it was not only to his patrons that Rubens was endeared, +he was emphatically what men call 'a good fellow,' alike to superiors, +equals, and inferiors; a frank, honest, bountiful, and generous man. His +love of courts and their splendour was the chivalrous homage which a man +of his cast of mind paid to the dignity and picturesqueness of high +estate.</p> + +<p>He married a year after his mother's death, when he was in his +thirty-third year. His first wife, Isabella Brant, was a connection of +his own (and so was his second wife). He built and painted, in fresco, a +fine house in Antwerp, and laid out a pleasant garden, which contained a +rotunda, filled with his collection of pictures by the Italian masters, +antique gems, &c. &c., already gathered abroad. He set himself to keep +house in a liberal fashion, to dispense benefits, and to entertain +friends—above all, to paint with might and main in company with his +great school, the members of which, like those of Raphael's school where +Raphael was concerned, were, for the most part, Rubens' devoted +comrades. Counting his work not only as the great object, but the great +zest of his life, never did painter receive such sweeping and +accumulating commissions, and never, even by Tintoret, were commissions +executed with such undaunted, unhesitating expedition.</p> + +<p>Withal Rubens frequently left his studio and went abroad, either to act +as an unofficial ambassador, or to paint at the special request of some +foreign sovereign. Thus he was residing in Paris in 1620, planning for +Marie de Medici the series of remarkable pictures which commemorated her +marriage with Henry IV. (When I was a little girl, I went occasionally +to a country house, the show place of the neighbourhood, where there +were copies of this series of Rubens' pictures. I can remember yet +looking at them with utter bewilderment, caused by the dubious taste +that impelled Rubens to indulge in the oddest mixture of royal +personages, high church dignitaries, patron saints, and gods and +goddesses.) In 1628 Rubens was in Spain on a mission from his sovereign +to her kinsman, Philip IV.; in the following year he was in England, on +a service of a similar description to Charles I., from whom, even as +Rubens had already received it from King Philip, the painter had the +honour of knighthood.</p> + +<p>In the mean time Rubens' first wife died, after a union of seventeen +years, in 1626; and four years later, in 1630, the painter, when he was +a man of fifty years, re-married another connection of his own, Helena +Fourment, a girl only in her sixteenth year. Both of his wives were +handsome, fair, full-formed Flemish beauties. Elizabeth (in Spanish, +Isabella) Brant's beauty was of a finer order than that of her +successor, expressing larger capacity of affection and intellect. But on +Helena Fourment Rubens doted, while to both women he seems to have been +affectionately attached. He has painted them so often, that the face of +no painter's wife is so familiar to the art world, and even to the +greater world without, as are the faces of these two women, and above +all, that of Helena Fourment. He had seven children, who frequently +figure in their mothers' portraits. He has left notable portraits of his +two sons by his first wife, of his eldest daughter, Clara Eugenia, when +eight years of age, and of his daughter Elizabeth, a buxom baby, dressed +in velvet and point lace, playing with toys.</p> + +<p>After a life of unbroken success and the highest honours, the last +distinction conferred on Rubens was, that he was chosen to arrange the +gala, and to be the right-hand man who should conduct the Cardinal +Infant, the successor of Clara Eugenia, on his first entrance into +Antwerp. But the hand of premature disease and death, which not even he +could resist, was already on the great painter; his constitution had +been undermined by repeated attacks of gout, and he died at the age of +sixty years, in 1640. He was the possessor of great wealth at the time +of his death, and only a part of his collection, which was then sold, +brought so large a sum in those days, as twenty thousand pounds. Rubens' +second wife, Helena Fourment, to whom he had been married ten years, +survived him, a widow at twenty-six years of age, and married again.</p> + +<p>Rubens' portrait is even better known than those of his wives, for, as I +have said of Raphael in his popularity, Rubens in his life is the +beau-ideal of a painter to the many. The portrait is worthy of the man, +with something gallant in the manliness, and with thought tempering what +might have been too much of bravado and too much of débonnaireté in the +traits. His features are handsome in their Flemish fulness, and match +well with hazel eyes, chestnut hair, and a ruddy complexion; his long +moustache is turned up, and he wears the pointed beard which we see so +often in the portraits by Rubens' scholar, Van Dyck. The great flapping +hat, worn alike by men and women, slightly cocked to one side, is the +perfection of picturesque head gear. Equally picturesque, and not in +the slightest degree effeminate on a man like Rubens, is the falling +collar of pointed mechlin, just seen above the cloak draped in large +folds.</p> + +<p>In his own day Rubens was without a rival as a painter. In a much later +day Sir Joshua Reynolds pronounced Rubens 'perhaps the greatest master +in the mechanical part of the art, <i>the best workman with his tools</i> +that ever exercised a pencil.' His consummate excellence lay in his +execution and colouring. It is brought as a reproach against his +painting, that his noblest characters, even his sacred characters, were +but big, brawny, red and white Flemings. His imagination only reached a +certain height, and yet, if it were a very earthly Flemish imagination, +it could be grandly, as it was always vigorously, earthly and Flemish. +At the same time he could be deficient where proportion, and even where +all the laws of art, are concerned.</p> + +<p>It is right that I should, with regret and shame, say this of Rubens, +whose geniality bordered on joviality, and whose age was a grosser age +than our own, that he debased his genius by some foul and revolting +pictures.</p> + +<p>Of the general distinction between Rubens and some of his predecessors I +should like to quote Mr Ruskin's passage in his defence:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>'A man long trained to love the monk's vision of Fra Angelico, +turns in proud and ineffable disgust from the first work of +Rubens, which he encounters on his return across the Alps. But is +he right in his indignation? He has forgotten that, while +Angelico prayed and wept in his <i>olive shade</i>, there was +different work doing in the dank fields of Flanders:—wild seas +to be banked out; endless canals to be dug, and boundless marshes +to be drained; hard ploughing and harrowing of the frosty clay; +careful breeding of the stout horses and cattle; close setting of +brick-walls against cold winds and snow; much hardening of hands, +and gross stoutening of bodies in all this; gross jovialities of +harvest homes, and Christmas feasts, which were to be the reward +of it; rough affections, and sluggish</p></div> +<div class="blockquot"><p>imaginations; fleshy, substantial, iron-shod humanities, but +humanities still,—humanities which God had his eye upon, and +which won perhaps, here and there, as much favour in His sight as +the wasted aspects of the whispering monks of Florence (Heaven +forbid that it should not be so, since the most of us cannot be +monks, but must be ploughmen and reapers still). And are we to +suppose there is no nobility in Rubens' masculine and universal +sympathy with all this, and with his large human rendering of it, +gentleman though he was by birth, and feeling, and education, and +place, and, when he chose, lordly in conception also? He had his +faults—perhaps great and lamentable faults,—though more those +of his time and his country than his own; he has neither +cloister-breeding nor boudoir-breeding, and is very unfit to +paint either in missals or annuals; but he has an open sky and +wide-world breeding in him that we may not be offended with, fit +alike for king's court, knight's camp, or peasants cottage.'</p></div> + +<p>Rubens' works are very many, nearly four thousand pictures and sketches +being attributed to him and his scholars. Many are still at Antwerp, +many at Madrid, but most are at Munich, where, in one great saloon and +cabinet, there are ninety-five pictures by Rubens. In England, at +Blenheim, there are fifteen pictures by Rubens, as the great Duchess of +Marlborough would give any price for his works. I can only indicate a +very few examples in the different branches of art which he made his +own.</p> + +<p>First, of his 'Descent from the Cross:' it is a single large group, +distinguished by luminous colouring and correct drawing, and with regard +to which the mass of white sheet against which the body of Christ is in +relief in the picture, has been regarded as a bold artistic venture. An +enthusiastic admirer has called it 'a most wonderful monument of the +daring genius of the painter. The grandest picture in the world for +composition, drawing, and colouring.' Its defects are held to be 'the +bustle of the incidents and the dreadfully true delineation of merely +physical agony—too terrible, real, picturesque, but not sublime—- an +earthly tragedy, not a divine mystery.'</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'Remit the anguish of that lighted stare;<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Close those wan lips! let that thorn-wounded brow<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Stream not with blood.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>There is a tradition that an accident happened to the picture while +Rubens was painting it, and that Van Dyck remedied the accident by +re-painting the cheek and chin of the Virgin and the arm of the +Magdalene.</p> + +<p>With regard to another picture of Rubens at Antwerp, 'The Assumption of +the Virgin,' it is said that he painted it in sixteen days, for sixteen +hundred florins, his usual terms being a hundred florins a-day.</p> + +<p>'The Virgin and Serpent' (from the 12th chapter of Revelation) in the +Munich gallery is very splendid. The Virgin with the new-born Saviour in +her arms is mounting on the wings of an eagle, surrounded by a flood of +light. The serpent, encircling the moon on which she stands, is writhing +beneath her feet. God the Father is extending his protecting sceptre +over her from above. The archangel, clothed in armour, is in fearful +combat with the seven-headed dragon, which is endeavouring to devour the +child. Although struck by lightning, the dragon is striving to twist his +tail round the legs of the angel, and seizes the cloak of the Virgin +with one of his hands. Other infernal monsters are writhing with +impotent rage, and falling with the dragon into the abyss.'</p> + +<p>'Nothing was more characteristic of Rubens than his choice of subjects +from the mythology of the Greeks and the works of the ancient poets; and +in nothing did he display more freedom, originality, and poetry.' Among +his most famous mythological pictures is the 'Battle of the Amazons,' +now at Munich. 'The women are driven back by the Greeks over the river +Thermodon; two horses are in savage combat on the bridge; one Amazon is +torn from her horse; a second is dragged along by a sable steed, and +falling headlong into the river, where others are swimming and +struggling. No other battle-piece, save that of the Amazons, can compare +with Raphael's "Battle of Constantine."'</p> + +<p>Another great picture is The 'Carrying off of Proserpine.' 'Pluto in his +car is driven by fiery brown steeds, and is bearing away the goddess, +resisting and struggling. The picture absolutely glows with genial fire. +The forms in it are more slender than is general with Rubens. Among the +companions of Proserpine the figure of Diana is conspicuous for grace +and beauty. The victorious god of love hovers before the chariot, and +the blue ocean, warmly tinted with the sunbeams, forms a splendid +back-ground.'<a id="footnotetag23" name="footnotetag23"></a> +<a href="#footnote23"><sup class="sml">23</sup></a></p> + +<p>Rubens was famous for the loveliness and grace of his paintings of +children. Perhaps the most beautiful is that of 'The Infant Jesus and +John playing with a Lamb.'</p> + +<p>Rubens was a great animal painter. One of his celebrated animal pictures +is 'Daniel in the Lions' Den,' now at Hamilton Palace, in which each +lion is a king of beasts checked in his fiercest wrath. It is said to +have been painted by Rubens in a fit of pique at a false report which +had been circulated that he could not paint animals, and that those in +his pictures were supplied by the animal-painter, his friend and +scholar, Schneyders.</p> + +<p>Rubens' landscapes are not the least renowned of his pictures. He gave +to his own rich but prosaic Flanders, all the breadth and breeziness and +matchless aërial effects of a master of painting, and a true lover of +nature under every aspect, who can indeed distinguish, under the most +ordinary aspect, those hidden treasures which all but a lover and a man +of genius would pass by. His 'Prairie of Laacken,' 'with the sun of +Flanders piercing the dense yellow clouds with the force of fire,' is of +great repute.</p> + +<p>Among his famous portraits I shall mention that called 'The Four +Philosophers' (Justus Lepsius, Hugo Grotius, Rubens, and his brother), +with peaked beards and moustaches, in turned-over collars, ruffs and +fur-trimmed robes, having books and pens, a dog, and a classic bust as +accessories. The open pillared door is wreathed with a spray from +without, and there is a landscape in the background. This portrait is +full of power, freedom, and splendid painting.</p> + +<p>Another portrait contains that sweetest of Rubens' not often sweet +faces, called 'the Lady in the Straw Hat.' Rubens himself did not name +the picture otherwise in his catalogue. Tradition says the original was +Mdlle Lundens, the beauty of the seventeen provinces, and that she died +young and unmarried. Connoisseurs value the picture because of the +triumph of skill by which Rubens has painted brilliantly a face so much +in the shade; to those who are not connoisseurs I imagine the picture +must speak for itself, in its graceful, tender beauty. Forming part of +the collection of the late Sir Robert Peel (I think he gave three +thousand pounds for 'the Lady in the Straw Hat'), which has been bought +for the country, this beautiful portrait is now in the National Gallery.</p> + +<p>And now I must speak of the picture of the Arundel Family. But first, a +word about Thomas, Earl of Arundel. It is impossible to write an English +work on art and omit a brief account of one of England's greatest art +benefactors. Thomas, Earl of Arundel, representing in his day the great +house of Howard, had a love of art which approached to a mania; and +without being so outrageously vain as Sir Kenelm Digby, there is no +doubt that the Earl counted on his art collection as a source of +personal distinction. James I., himself an art collector, so far +humoured the Earl in his taste as to present him with Lord Somerset's +forfeited collection, valued at a thousand pounds. But Charles I, and +the Earl became rival collectors, and little love was lost between them. +The Earl of Arundel impairing even his great revenues in the pursuit, +employed agents and ambassadors—notably Petty and Evelyn—all over +Europe, to obtain for him drawings, pictures, ancient marbles, gems, &c. +&c. When the civil wars broke out, Lord Arundel conveyed his priceless +collection for safety to Antwerp and Padua. Eventually it was divided +among his sons and scattered far and wide. The only portion of it which +fell to the nation, in the course of another generation, was the Greek +Marbles, known as the Arundel Marbles, which were finally presented to +the University of Oxford. But in Rubens' day all this grand collection +was intact, and displayed in galleries at Arundel House, which the mob +thought fit to nickname 'Tart Hall;' and through these galleries Rubens +was conducted by the Earl.</p> + +<p>Lord Arundel desired to have an Arundel family portrait painted for him +by Rubens. The Earl was rather given to having Arundel family portraits, +for there are no less than three in which he figures. One by Van Somer, +in which the hero is pointing somewhat comically with his truncheon to +the statues of his collection in the background, and the last one +projected by Van Dyck, but executed by an inferior artist, in which +various family pieces of armour, swords, and shields, worn at Flodden, +or belonging to the poet Earl of Surrey, are introduced in the hands of +the sons of the family.</p> + +<p>But it is with Rubens' 'Arundel Family,' which, we must remember, ranks +second in English family pictures, that we have to do. Thomas, Earl of +Arundel, and the Lady Alathea,<a id="footnotetag24" name="footnotetag24"></a> +<a href="#footnote24"><sup class="sml">24</sup></a> are under a portico with twisted +columns, like those in Raphael's cartoons; a rich curtain, and a +landscape with a large mansion are seen beyond. The Countess is seated +in a chair of state, with one hand on the head of a white greyhound; she +wears a black satin gown, laced ruff, gold bracelets, and pearl +necklace. Her hair is light, and decked with pearls and plumes. The Earl +stands behind with a hand on her chair. His head is uncovered, the short +hair inclining to grey; the whiskers and beard pointed. His vest is +olive-coloured, and he has a brown mantle lined with crimson over the +shoulders beneath his ruff. There is a little boy—Earl Thomas's +grandson, Philip Howard, afterwards Cardinal Howard, in crimson velvet, +trimmed with gold lace, and a dwarf on the other side of the dog, with +one hand on its back.</p> + +<p>Among other master-pieces of Rubens, including the 'Straw Hat,' which +are in the National Gallery, there are the 'Rape of the Sabines,' and +the landscape 'Autumn,' which has a view of his country château, de +Stein, near Mechlin. In Dulwich Gallery there is an interesting portrait +by Rubens of an elderly lady in a great Spanish ruff, which is believed +to be the portrait of his mother.</p> + +<p><a name="Rem" id="Rem"></a><b>Rembrandt Van Rhyn</b> is said to have been born near Leyden about 1606 or +1608, for there is a doubt as to the exact date. His father was a miller +or maltster, and there is a theory that Rembrandt acquired some of his +effects of light and shade from the impressions made upon him during his +life in the mill. He was a pupil at the Latin school of Leyden, and a +scholar in studios both at Leyden and Amsterdam.</p> + +<p>In 1630, when Rembrandt was a mere lad, he seems to have settled in +Amsterdam, and married there in 1634, when he was six or eight and +twenty years of age, a young Dutchwoman possessed of a considerable +fortune, which, in case of her death and of Rembrandt's re-marriage, was +to pass to her children, a provision that in the end wrought Rembrandt's +ruin. The troubles of his country in the painter's time rendered his +prices comparatively small and precarious, and Rembrandt, like Rubens, +without Rubens' wealth, was eager in making an art collection and +surrounding himself with those very forms of beauty in the great Italian +masters' works, in the appreciation of which the Dutch master—judged by +his own works—might have been reckoned deficient.</p> + +<p>Rembrandt's wife died after eight years of marriage, and left him with +one surviving son, Titus, and Rembrandt, having re-married, was called +upon to give up the lad's inheritance. This call, together with the +expenditure of the sums which Rembrandt had lavished on his collection, +was too heavy upon funds never very ample, and the painter, after +struggling with his difficulties, became a bankrupt in 1656. His son +took possession of Rembrandt's house, and from the sale of the +painter's art collection and other resources eventually recovered his +mother's fortune, but Rembrandt himself never rose above the misery, +degradation, and poverty of this period. He lived thirteen years longer, +but it was in obscurity—out of which the only records which reach us, +are stories of miserly habits acquired too late to serve their purpose, +a desperate resort to low company dating from his first wife's death, +and his gradual downfall.</p> + +<p>Rubens and Rembrandt have been sometimes contrasted as the painters of +light and of darkness; the contrast extended to their lives.</p> + +<p>It will read like a humorous anti-climax after so sad a history, when I +add that no other painter painted his own likeness so often as Rembrandt +painted his. In the engraving before me the face is heavy and +stolid-seeming enough to be that of a typical Dutchman. The eye-brows +are slightly knit over the broad nose; the full lips are scantily shaded +by a moustache; there is no hair on the well-fleshed cheeks and double +chin. Rembrandt wears a flat cap and ear-rings. He has two rows of a +chain across his doublet, and one hand thrust beneath the cloak hanging +across his breast.</p> + +<p>Rembrandt's great merits were his strong truthfulness, and his almost +equally powerful sense of a peculiar kind of picturesqueness. It seems +as if the German weirdness perceptible in Albrecht Dürer had in +Rembrandt taken a homelier, but a more comprehensible and effective +Dutch form. Kugler argues, that the long winter, with its short dark +days, of Northern Europe produces in its inhabitants instinctive delight +in hearth-warmth and light, and that the pleasure in looking at +Rembrandt's pictures is traceable to this influence. It is in scenes by +fire-light, camp-light, torch-light, that he triumphs, and his somewhat +grim but very real romance owes its origin to the endless suggestions of +the deep black shadows which belong to these artificial lights. There is +this objection to be urged to the theory, that Rembrandt was also a good +painter of his own flat Dutch landscape, painting it, however, rather +under the sombre dimness of clouds and tempests than in the brightness +of sunshine. But whatever its source, there is a charm so widely felt in +that wonderfully perfect surrounding of uncertainty, suspicion, and +alarm, with which Rembrandt has encompassed so many of his otherwise +prosaic, coarse, and sometimes vulgar Dutch men and women, that we have +coined a new word to express the charm, and speak of groups and +incidents being <i>Rembrandtesque</i>, as we speak of their being +picturesque.</p> + +<p>Rembrandt did not always leave the vague thrill of doubt, terror, or +even horror, which he sought to produce, to imagination working in the +mysterious depths of his shadows. A very famous picture of his is 'Dr +Deeman (an anatomist) demonstrating from a dead subject.' In another +picture a man stealing from the gloom is in the act of stabbing in the +back the unconscious man in the foreground.<a id="footnotetag25" name="footnotetag25"></a> +<a href="#footnote25"><sup class="sml">25</sup></a> Rembrandt's originality +is as undoubted as his ability, and he was as great in etching as in +painting. His defect as a painter was the frequent absence of any +evidence in his work of a sense of refinement, grace, or even beauty; +this can be said of him who spent means not his own on gathering +together images of beauty and grace produced by the pencils and brushes +of others. Many of Rembrandt's pictures are in the galleries of +Amsterdam and the Hague, and we have many in London. The National +Gallery has several examples, including two of Rembrandt's portraits.</p> + +<p>Passing over Van Dyck, whom I reserve, as I have reserved Holbein, to +class among the foreign painters resident in or closely connected with +England, I come to the <a name="Ten" id="Ten"></a><b>Teniers</b>—father and son. David the elder was born +at Antwerp in 1582, and David the younger also at Antwerp, in 1610. +David the younger is decidedly the more eminent painter, though the +works of the father are often mistaken for those of the son. The two +Teniers' class of subjects was the same, being ordinarily 'fairs, +markets, peasants' merry-makings, beer-houses, guard rooms.'</p> + +<p>David the younger had great popularity, was court painter to the +Archduke of Austria, and earned such an independence, that he bought for +himself a château at the village of Perck, not very far from the Château +de Stein of Rubens, with whom David Teniers was on terms of friendly +intimacy. There Teniers, like his great associate, lived in the utmost +state and bounty, entertaining the noblest of the land. David Teniers +married twice, his first wife being the daughter of one of a family of +Flemish painters, who were known, according to their respective +proclivities in art, by the names of Peasant Breughel, Velvet Breughel, +and Hell Breughel. Teniers had many children.</p> + +<p>The elder Teniers died at Antwerp in 1649; the younger died at Brussels, +and was buried at Perck, in 1694.</p> + +<p>The distinction of the Teniers was the extreme fidelity and cleverness +with which they copied (but did not explain) the life they knew—the +homeliest, humblest aspect of life. They brought out with marvellous +accuracy all its traits, except, indeed, the underlying strain of +poetry, which, while it redeems plainness, sordidness, and even +coarseness, is as true to life as is its veriest prose. With those who +ask a literal copy of life, whether high or low, and ask no more, the +Teniers and their school must always be in the highest favour; and to +those who are wearied and sceptical of blunders and failures in seeking +that underlying strain of life, the mere rugged genuineness of the +Teniers' work recommends itself, and is not without its own pathos; +while to very many superficial observers the simple homeliness of the +life which the Teniers chose to represent, prevents the observers from +missing what should be present in every life. Men and women are only +conscious of the defect when the painters wander, now and then, into +higher spheres and into sacred subjects, and there is the unavoidable +recoil from gross blindness. I have taken the Teniers as the +representatives of a numerous school of Flemish and Dutch artists, whose +works abound in this country. David Teniers the younger appears at his +best, several times, in Dulwich Gallery and the National Gallery.</p> + +<p><b>Philip Wouverman</b><a name="Wouver" id="Wouver"></a> was born at Haarlem in 1620. He was the son of a +painter, able, but unrecognized in his own day. Philip Wouverman found +few patrons, disposed of his pictures by hard bargains to dealers, was +tempted by his want of success to abjure his art, and even went so far, +according to tradition, as to burn his studies and sketches, in order to +prevent his son pursuing the career which had been to him a career of +bitter disappointment. He died at Haarlem, 1668, when he was no more +than forty-eight years of age. Yet some nine hundred paintings bear +(many of them falsely) Wouverman's name.</p> + +<p>With all the truth and excellent execution of his contemporaries and +countrymen', Philip Wouverman, who had, as he thought, missed his mark, +had something which those successful men lacked—he had not only a +feeling for grace, but a touch of sentiment. His scenes are commonly +'road-side inns, hunts, fights;' but along with an inclination to adopt +a higher class of actors—knights and ladies, instead of peasants—there +is a more refined treatment and a dash of tenderness and melancholy—the +last possibly born of his own disastrous fortunes. In his love of horses +and dogs, as adjuncts to his groups, he had as great a fondness for a +special white horse, as Paul Potter had for black and white cattle.</p> + +<p><a name="Cuyp" id="Cuyp"></a><b>Albert Cuyp</b> was born at Dort in 1605. He was a brewer by trade, and only +painted as an amateur. In spite of this, he was a great landscape +painter, and has given delight to thousands by his power of expressing +his own love of nature. Little is known of Cuyp's life, and the date of +his death is uncertain, farther than it was later than 1638.</p> + +<p>In affected enthusiasm, Cuyp has been called the Dutch Claude, but in +reality, Cuyp surpassed, Claude in some respects. The distinction, which +Mr Ruskin draws between them, is that, while Claude, in the sense of +beauty, is the superior to Cuyp, in the sense of truth Claude is the +inferior. Besides Cuyp's landscapes, he painted portraits, and what is +called 'still life' (dead game, fruit or flower pieces, &c.), but Cuyp's +triumph was found in his skies, with their 'clearness and coolness,' and +in 'expressions of yellow sunlight.' Mr Ruskin admits, while he is +proceeding to censure Cuyp, parts might be chosen out of the good +pictures of Cuyp which have never been equalled in art.' On another +occasion, Mr Ruskin has this passage full of dry humour in reference to +Cuyp:</p> + +<p>'Again, look at the large Cuyp in Dulwich Gallery, which Mr Hazlitt +considers "finest in the world," and of which he very complimentarily +says, "the tender green of the valleys, the gleaming lake, the purple +light of the hills" have an effect like <i>down</i> on an unripe nectarine!" +I ought to have apologized before now for not having studied +sufficiently in Covent Garden to be provided with terms of correct and +classical criticism. One of my friends begged me to observe, the other +day, that Claude was "pulpy;" another added the yet more gratifying +information that he was "juicy;" and it is now happily discovered that +Cuyp is "downy." Now I dare say that the sky of this first-rate Cuyp is +very like an unripe nectarine: all that I have to say about it is, that +it is exceedingly unlike a sky. We may see for ourselves Cuyp's lovely +landscapes both in the National Gallery and at Dulwich.</p> + +<p><b>Paul Potter</b><a name="Pot" id="Pot"></a> was born at Enkhuysen, in North Holland, in 1625, and was +the son of a painter. Paul Potter settled, while still very young, at +the Hague as an animal painter, and died in his thirtieth year, in 1654. +His career, which was thus brief, had promised to be very successful, +and he had established his fame, while no more than twenty-two years of +age, by painting for Prince Maurice of Nassau that which continues his +most renowned, though probably not his best picture, his 'Young Bull,' +for some time in the Louvre, now restored to the painter's native +country, and placed in the Museum at the Hague. This picture is +considered nearly faultless as a vigorous, if somewhat coarse, +representation of animal life in the main figure; but Paul Potter's +later pictures, especially his smaller pictures of pastures with cattle +feeding, having fine colouring and fine treatment of light, are now +regarded as equally good in their essential excellences, and of wider +scope. Paul Potter etched as well as painted. There is no example of +Paul Potter in the National Gallery.</p> + +<p><a name="Heem" id="Heem"></a><b>Jan David de Heem</b><a id="footnotetag26" name="footnotetag26"></a> +<a href="#footnote26"><sup class="sml">26</sup></a> and his son Cornelius, the father born in 1603, +the son in 1630, and Maria Von Oesterwyck, the elder man's pupil, were +eminent Flemish and Dutch flower and fruit painters. The gorgeous bloom +and mellow ripeness in some of the flower and fruit pieces of Flemish +and Dutch painters, like those I have mentioned, are beyond description. +I would have you look at them for yourselves, where they are well +represented, in the Dulwich Gallery; I would have you notice also how, +as travellers declare of the splendour of tropical flowers, that they +are deficient in the tender sweetness and grace of our more sober-tinted +and less lavishly-blossoming English flowers; so these Flemish and Dutch +full blown flower pieces have not a trace of the sentiment which modern +flower painters cannot help seeking, with good result or bad result, to +introduce into every tuft of primroses or of violets, if not into every +cluster of grapes and bunch of cherries.</p> + +<p>From a fact which I have already mentioned, that so many Flemish and +Dutch pictures, which we may often come across, are in England, I am +sorry that my space will not suffer me to give a few special words to +other famous painters of these schools or school, for they merge into +one, to Snyders, Jan Steen, Gerard Dow, Ruysdael, Hobbema, Van de Velde, +&c., &c.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX.</h2> + +<p>SPANISH ART—VELASQUEZ, 1599-1660—MURILLO, 1618-1682.</p> + + +<p>Spanish art, from its dawn to the time of Velasquez, had been of a +'severely devotional character,' austere and formal; and although one +man did not work a revolution by his independent example, he did +something to humanize and widen art. In the rich city of Seville in +1599, <a name="Vela" id="Vela"></a><b>Diego Rodriguez, de Silva y Velasquez,</b>—and not, as he is +incorrectly called, <b>Diego Velasquez de Silva</b>, was born, and, according +to an Andalusian fashion, took his mother's name of Velasquez, while his +father was of the Portuguese house de Silva. Velasquez was gently born, +though his father was in no higher position than that of a lawyer in +Seville.</p> + +<p>The painter was well educated, though, according to his English +biographer (Sir W. Stirling Maxwell), 'he was still more diligent in +drawing on his grammars and copybooks than in turning them to their +legitimate use.' The lad's evident bent induced his father to make him a +painter. He studied in two different Spanish studios, and married the +daughter of his second master, whom the talents, assiduity, and good +qualities of Velasquez had already strongly attached to the young +painter.</p> + +<p>From the first, Velasquez struck out what was then a new line in Spanish +art. He gave himself up to the materialistic studies, to which the +Flemish and Dutch painters were prone, painting diligently 'still life' +in every form, taking his living subjects from the streets and +way-sides, and keeping a peasant lad as an apprentice, 'who served him +for a study in different actions and postures (sometimes crying, +sometimes laughing), till Velasquez had grappled with every variety of +expression.' The result of those studies was Velasquez's famous picture +of the 'Aguador,' or water-carrier of Seville, which was carried off by +Joseph Buonaparte in his flight from Spain, taken in his carriage at +Vittoria, and finally presented by Ferdinand VII, of Spain, as a +grateful offering to the Duke of Wellington, in whose gallery at Apsley +House the picture remains. 'It is a composition of three figures,' Sir +W. Stirling Maxwell writes; 'a sunburnt way-worn seller of water, +dressed in a tattered brown jerkin, with his huge earthen jars, and two +lads, one of whom receives a sparkling glass of the pure element, whilst +his companion quenches his thirst from a pipkin. The execution of the +heads and all the details is perfect; and the ragged trader dispensing a +few maravidi's worth of his simple stock, maintains, during the +transaction, a grave dignity of deportment, highly Spanish and +characteristic, and worthy of an emperor pledging a great vassal in +Tokay.'</p> + +<p>Just such a group may still be seen, or was to be seen till very lately, +in the quaint streets of Seville. I have read an anecdote of Velasquez +and this picture, which is quite probable, though I cannot vouch for +its accuracy. It is said that, while painting the water-carrier day +after day, when he had been engaged with his work for several hours, +Velasquez found himself vexed by perceiving, as it were, the effect of a +shadow cast by some of the drapery. Small flaw as it might have been, it +appeared to him to interfere with and spoil the picture. Again and +again, in endeavouring to do away with this 'shadow,' Velasquez undid +portions of his work, and had to repeat them next day, but always, +towards the end of his task, the invidious shadow stole upon his vision. +At last a friend, who was present and full of admiration for the +picture, heard Velasquez exclaim, 'That shadow again!' and saw him seize +a brush and prepare to dash it across the canvas. The friend +remonstrated, besought, and by main force held back the painter, and at +last induced him to leave the picture untouched till next day, when +Velasquez discovered, to his great relief, that the shadow had been in +his own wearied young eyes, and not in his admirable representation of +the 'Water-carrier.'</p> + +<p>Velasquez was in Madrid in 1623, when he was in his twenty-fifth year, +and having been introduced by the Prime Minister, Olivares, to the King +of Spain, Philip IV., a king who was only known to smile once or twice +in his life-time, whose government was careless and blundering, but who +had the reputation of being a man of some intelligence and very +considerable taste,—Velasquez was received into the king's service with +a monthly salary of twenty ducats, and employed to paint the royal +portrait.</p> + +<p>From the time that he became court painter, Velasquez was largely +occupied in painting portraits of members of the royal family, with +special repetitions of the likeness of his most Catholic Majesty. With +Velasquez's first portrait of Philip in armour, mounted on an Andalusian +charger, the king was so pleased, that he permitted the picture to be +publicly exhibited, amidst the plaudits of the spectators, in front of +the church of San Felipe el Real in Madrid. Nor was the exhibition a +barren honour to the painter, for the king not only 'talked of +collecting and cancelling his existing portraits,' and 'resolved that +in future Velasquez should have the monopoly of the royal countenance,' +he paid three hundred ducats for the picture.</p> + +<p>About this time our own Charles I., then Prince of Wales, went in his +incognito of Charles Smith to Madrid on his romantic adventure of +seeking to woo and win, personally, the Infanta of Spain, and Velasquez +is said to have gained Charles's notice, and to have at least begun a +portrait of him. If it were ever completed it has been lost, a +misfortune which has caused spurious pictures, purporting to be the real +work, to be offered to the public. Sir W. Stirling Maxwell holds, with +great show of truth, that this visit of Charles to Madrid, when its +altars were 'glowing' with the pictures of Titian, confirmed the unhappy +king's taste for art.</p> + +<p>In 1628 Rubens came to Madrid as an envoy from the governess of the +Netherlands, and the two painters, who had many points in common, and +who had already corresponded, became fast friends. By the advice of +Rubens, Velasquez was induced to put into execution his cherished +desire of visiting Italy, the king granting his favourite painter leave +of absence, the continuance of his salary, and a special sum for his +expenses.</p> + +<p>Velasquez went to Venice first, and afterwards to Rome, where he was +offered, and declined, a suite of apartments in the Vatican, asking only +free access to the papal galleries. There he copied many portions of +Michael Angelo's 'Last Judgment'—not a hundred years old, and 'yet +undimmed by the morning and evening incense of centuries,' and portions +of the frescoes of Raphael. At Rome Velasquez found there before him, +Domenichino, Guido Reni, alternating 'between the excitements of the +gaming table and the sweet creations of his smooth flowing pencil;' +'Nicolas Poussin, an adventurer fresh from his Norman village; and +Claude Gelée, a pastry-cook's runaway apprentice from Lorraine.'<a id="footnotetag27" name="footnotetag27"></a> +<a href="#footnote27"><sup class="sml">27</sup></a> +Velasquez remained a year in Rome. Besides his studies he painted three +original pictures, one of them, 'Joseph's Coat,' well known among the +painter's comparatively rare religious works, and now in the Escurial. +In this picture his biographer acknowledges, that 'choosing rather to +display his unrivalled skill in delineating vulgar forms than to risk +his reputation in the pursuit of a more refined and idealized style,' +Velasquez's 'Hebrew patriarchs are swineherds of Estramadura or +shepherds of the Sierra Morena.'</p> + +<p>From Rome Velasquez proceeded to Naples, where he was enabled by his +prudence and forbearance to face without injury the disgraceful 'reign +of terror' which the Neapolitan artists had established in the south of +Italy. The Neapolitan artists more than any other Italian artists are +believed to have influenced Velasquez's style.</p> + +<p>In 1639 Velasquez painted his principal religious work, 'The +Crucifixion,' for the nunnery of San Placido in Madrid, a painting in +which his power has triumphed successfully over his halting imagination.</p> + +<p>With regard to the many court groups which Velasquez was constantly +taking, I may quote Sir W. Stirling Maxwell's amusing paragraph about a +curious variety of human beings in the Court Gallery. 'The Alcazar of +Madrid abounded with dwarfs in the days of Philip IV., who was very fond +of having them about him, and collected curious specimens of the race, +like other rarities. The Queen of Spain's gallery is, in consequence, +rich in portraits of these little monsters, executed by Velasquez. They +are, for the most part, very ugly, displaying, sometimes in an extreme +degree, the deformities peculiar to their stunted growth. Maria Barbola, +immortalized by a place in one of Velasquez's most celebrated pictures, +was a little dame about three feet and a half in height, with the head +and shoulders of a large woman, and a countenance much underjawed, and +almost ferocious in expression. Her companion, Nicolasito Pertusano, +although better proportioned than the lady, and of a more amicable +aspect, was very inferior in elegance as a royal plaything to his +contemporary, the valiant Sir Geoffrey Hudson; or his successor in the +next reign, the pretty Luisillo of Queen Louisa of Orleans. Velasquez +painted many portraits of these little creatures, generally seated on +the ground; and there is a large picture in the Louvre representing two +of them leading by a cord a great spotted hound, to which they bear the +same proportion that men of the usual size bear to a horse.'</p> + +<p>In 1648 Velasquez again visited Italy, sent by the king this time to +collect works of art for the royal galleries and the academy about to be +founded. Velasquez went by Genoa, Milan, Venice (buying there chiefly +the works of Tintoret), and Parma, to Rome and Naples, returning to +Rome. At Rome Velasquez painted his splendidly characteristic portrait +of the Pope Innocent X., 'a man of coarse features and surly expression, +and perhaps the ugliest of all the successors of St Peter.'</p> + +<p>Back at Madrid, Philip continued to load Velasquez and his family with +favours, appointing the painter Quarter-Master-General of the king's +household with a salary of three thousand ducats a year, and the right +of carrying at his girdle a key which opened every lock in the palace.</p> + +<p>Philip is said to have raised Velasquez to knighthood in a manner as +gracious as the manner of Charles V, when he lifted up Titian's pencil. +In painting one of his most renowned pictures, to which I shall refer +again, 'The Maids of Honour,' Velasquez included himself at work on a +large picture of the royal family. The painter represented himself with +the key of his office at his girdle, and on his breast the red cross of +the Order of Santiago. Philip, who came every day to see the progress of +this picture, remarked in reference to the figure of the artist, that +'one thing was yet wanting, and taking up the brush painted the knightly +insignia with his own royal fingers, thus conferring the accolade with a +weapon not recognized in chivalry.'</p> + +<p>As it is believed, Velasquez's court office, with all its prestige and +influence, helped in causing his death. King Philip went in June, 1660, +to the Isle of Pheasants in the river Bidassa, where, on ground which +was neither Spanish nor French, the Spanish and French courts were to +meet and celebrate with the greatest magnificence the marriage of the +Grand Monarque and the Infanta Maria Teresa. One of Velasquez's +official duties was to prepare lodgings for the king on his journeys, +and in this instance the lodging included not only the decoration of the +castle of Fuenterrabia, but the erection of a sumptuous pavilion in +which the interviews of the assembled kings and queens and their +revelries were to be held. Velasquez did his part of the preparations, +and doubtless shared in the royal festivities, but returned to Madrid so +worn out by his undertaking, and by constant attendance on his master, +that he was seized with tertian fever, of which he died a few days +later, while but in his sixty-first year, to the great grief of his +countrymen, and above all of his king. Velasquez's wife, Doña Juana, +died eight days after her husband, and was buried in his grave. The +couple left one surviving child, a daughter, married to a painter.</p> + +<p>In one picture, now at Vienna, Velasquez gives a glimpse of his family +life at a time when it would seem that he had four sons and two +daughters, so that the fortunate painter's home had not been free from +one shadow—that of death, which must have robbed him of five of his +children. In this pleasant picture, 'his wife dressed in a brown tunic +over a red petticoat, sits in the foreground of a large room, with a +pretty little girl leaning on her knees, and the rest of her children +grouped around her; behind are the men in deep shadow, one of them, +perhaps, being Mazo, the lover or the husband of the eldest daughter, +and a nurse with a child; and in an alcove Velasquez himself appears, +standing before his easel, at work on a portrait of Philip IV. This is +one of the most important works of the master out of the Peninsula; the +faces of the family sparkle on the sober background like gems. As a +piece of easy actual life, the composition has never been surpassed, and +perhaps it excels even "The Meninas," inasmuch as the hoops and dwarfs +of the palace have not intruded upon the domestic privacy of the +painter's home, in the northern gallery.'<a id="footnotetag28" name="footnotetag28"></a> +<a href="#footnote28"><sup class="sml">28</sup></a></p> + +<p>Velasquez seems to have been a man of honour and amiability. He filled +a difficult office at the most jealous court in Europe with credit. He +was true to his friends, and helpful to his brother artists. His +biographer writes of Velasquez as handsome in person, and describes his +costume when he appeared for the last time with his king in the galas at +Pheasants' Isle:—'over a dress richly laced with silver he wore the +usual Castilian ruff, and a short cloak embroidered with the red cross +of Santiago; the badge of the order, sparkling with brilliants, was +suspended from his neck by a gold chain; and the scabbard and hilt of +his sword were of silver, exquisitely chased, and of Italian +workmanship.' In the likeness of Velasquez, which is the frontispiece of +Sir W. Stirling Maxwell's 'Life,' the painter appears as a man of +swarthy complexion, with a long compressed upper lip, unconcealed by his +long, elaborately trimmed moustache; his hair, or wig, is arranged in +two large frizzed bunches on each side of a face which is inclined to be +lantern-jawed. He wears a dark doublet with a 'standing white collar.'</p> + +<p>Velasquez's excellence as a painter was to be found, like that of +Rembrandt, in his truth to nature; but the field of truth presented to +the stately Spaniard, while it had its own ample share of humour, was a +widely different field from that which offered itself to the Dutch +burgher. Together with absolute truth, Velasquez had the ease and +facility in expressing truth which are only acquired by a great master. +Like Rubens, Velasquez made essays in many branches of painting. In +sacred art, if we except his 'Crucifixion,' he did not attain a high +place. With regard to his landscapes, Sir David Wilkie bore +witness:—'Titian seems his model, but he has also the breadth and +picturesque effect for which Claude and Salvator Rosa are remarkable;' +and Sir David added of those landscapes, 'they have the very same sun we +see, and the air we breathe, the very soul and spirit of nature.'</p> + +<p>Velasquez's <i>genre</i> pictures, to which I shall refer by and by, are +excellent, but the fate was kind which confined him largely to portrait +painting. It was brought as a reproach against Velasquez in his +lifetime, that he could paint a head and nothing else, to which he +replied with mingled spirit, sense, and good nature, that his detractors +flattered him, 'for he knew nobody of whom it could be said that he +painted a head thoroughly well.'</p> + +<p>Sir W. Stirling Maxwell asserts of Velasquez's portrait painting, that +no artist 'ever followed nature with more catholic fidelity; his +cavaliers are as natural as his boors; he neither refined the vulgar, +nor vulgarized the refined,' and goes on to quote this among other +criticism:—'his portraits baffle description and praise; he drew the +minds of men; they live, breathe, and are ready to walk out of the +frames.' Sir William winds up with the enthusiastic declaration, 'Such +pictures as these are real history; we know the persons of Philip IV, +and Olivares, as familiarly as if we had paced the avenues of the Pardo +with Digby and Howell, and perhaps we think more favourably of their +characters.'</p> + +<p>I shall borrow still further from Sir W. Stirling Maxwell's graphic and +entertaining book, descriptions of two of Velasquez's <i>genre</i> pictures, +'The Maids of Honour,' and the more celebrated 'Spinners,' both at +Madrid. 'The scene (of the first) is a long room in a quarter of the old +palace which was called the prince's quarter, and the subject, Velasquez +at work on a large picture of the royal family. To the extreme right of +the composition is seen the back of the easel and the canvas on which he +is engaged; and beyond it stands the painter, with his pencils and +palette, pausing to converse, and to observe the effect of his +performance. In the centre stands the little Infanta Maria Margarita, +taking a cup of water from a salver which Doña Maria Augustina +Sarmiento, maid of honour to the queen, presents kneeling. To the left, +Doña Isabel de Velasco, another meniña, seems to be dropping a courtesy; +and the dwarfs, Maria Barbolo and Nicolas Pertusano, stand in the +foreground, the little man putting his foot on the quarters of a great +tawny hound, which despises the aggression, and continues in a state of +solemn repose. Some paces behind these figures, Doña Marcela de Ulloa, a +lady of honour in nun-like weeds, and a <i>guardadimas,</i> are seen in +conversation; at the far end of the room an open door gives a view of a +staircase, up which Don Josef Nieto, queen's apasentador, is retiring; +and near this door there hangs on the wall a mirror, which, reflecting +the countenance of the king and queen, shows that they form part of the +principal group, although placed beyond the bounds of the picture. The +room is hung with paintings which Palomino assures us are works of +Rubens; and it is lighted by three windows in the left wall, and by the +open door at the end, an arrangement of which an artist will at once +comprehend the difficulties. The perfection of art which conceals art, +was never better attained than in this picture. Velasquez seems to have +anticipated the discovery of Daguerre, and taking a real room, and real +chance grouped people, to have fixed them, as it were by magic, for all +time on his canvas. The little fair-haired Infanta is a pleasing study +of childhood; with the hanging-lip and full cheek of the Austrian +family, she has a fresh complexion and lovely blue eyes, and gives a +promise of beauty which as empress she never fulfilled. Her young +attendants, girls of thirteen or fourteen, contrast agreeably with the +ill-favoured dwarf beside them; they are very pretty, especially Doña +Isabel de Velasco, who died a reigning beauty, and their hands are +painted with peculiar delicacy. Their dresses are highly absurd, their +figures being concealed by long stiff corsets and prodigious hoops; for +these were the days when the mode was—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Supporters, pooters, fardingales, above the loynes to weare;"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>and the <i>guardainfante</i>, the oval hoop peculiar to Spain, was in full +blow; and the robes of a dowager might have curtained the tun of +Heidelberg, and the powers of Velasquez were baffled by the perverse +fancy of "Fribble, the woman's tailor." The gentle and majestic hound, +stretching himself and winking drowsily, is admirably painted, and seems +a descendant of the royal breed immortalized by Titian in portraits of +the Emperor Charles and his son.'</p> + +<p>'The Spinners:' 'The scene is a large weaving-room, in which an old +woman and young one sit, the first at her spinning-wheel, and the +second winding yarn, with three girls beside them, one of whom plays +with a cat. In the background, standing within an alcove filled with the +light from an unseen window, are two other women displaying a large +piece of tapestry to a lady customer, whose graceful figure recalls that +which has given its name to Terburg's picture of "The Satin Gown." Of +the composition, the painter Mengs observed, "it seemed as if the hand +had no part in it, and it had been the work of pure thought."' +Velasquez, who must have seen many a bull fight, has left the world a +fine example of field sports in 'The Boar Hunt,' in our National +Gallery, a picture which was bought for two thousand two hundred pounds +from Lord Cowley. When ambassador at the Court of Spain, it was given to +him by Ferdinand VII. In a circular pen in the Pardo, 'Philip IV. and a +party of cavaliers display their skill in slaying boars, to a few +ladies, who sit secure in heavy old-fashioned blue coaches,' while +motley groups of courtiers and peasants, huntsmen and hounds, postilions +and their mules fill the foreground. Sir Edwin Landseer remarked of +this picture that he had never before seen 'so much large art on so +small a scale.'</p> +<p><a name="Murillo" id="Murillo"></a> +<b>Bartolomé Estévan Murillo</b> was born at Seville in 1618, and was therefore +nearly twenty years younger than his great countryman Velasquez. Murillo +seems to have been of obscure origin, and to have begun his life in +humble circumstances. There are traditions of his being self-taught, of +his studying ragged boys, himself little more than a boy, in the gypsy +quarter of Triana in Seville; of his painting in the marketplace, where +he probably found the originals of the heads of saints and Madonnas (by +which he made a little money in selling them for South America) in the +peasants who came to Seville with their fruit and vegetables. In 1642, +Murillo, then twenty-four years of age, visited Madrid, and was kindly +received, and aided in his art by his senior and fellow artist, the +court painter, Velasquez. It had been Murillo's intention to proceed to +England to study under Van Dyck, but the death of the latter put a stop +to the project. Murillo was prevented from making the painter's +pilgrimage to Italy by want of means, but the loss of culture was so far +supplied by the instructions given to him by Velasquez.</p> + +<p>In 1645, when Murillo was twenty-seven years of age, he returned to +Seville, and settled there, becoming as successful as he deserved; and +being acknowledged as the head of the school of Seville, where he +established the Academy of Art, and was its first president. Murillo +married, in 1648, a lady of some fortune, and was accustomed to +entertain at his house the most exclusive society of Seville.</p> + +<p>In 1682, Murillo was at Cadiz painting a picture of the marriage of St +Catherine in the church of the Capuchins there, when, in consequence of +the accidental fall of the scaffolding, he received so severe an injury, +that he was forced to leave his work incomplete, and to return to +Seville, where he died within a few weeks, aged sixty-four years. He had +two sons, and an only daughter, who was a nun, having taken the veil +eight years before her father's death.</p> + +<p>Murillo appears to have been in character a gentle, enthusiastic man, +not without a touch of fun and frolic. He would remain for hours in the +sacristy of the cathedral of Seville before 'the solemn awful picture of +the 'Deposition from the Cross,' by Pedro de Campana. When Murillo was +asked by the sacristan why he stood thus gazing there, the painter +answered, 'I am waiting till these holy men have finished their work.' +By his own desire, Murillo was buried before this picture. Before +another 'too truthful picture of Las dos Cadaveres' in the small church +of the hospital of the Caridad, Murillo used to hold his nose. One of +Murillo's pictures has the odd name of 'La Virgen Sarvilleta,' or the +Virgin of the Napkin. Murillo was working at the Convento de la Merced, +which is almost filled with his works, when the cook of the convent +begged a memorial of him, offering as the canvas a napkin, on which +Murillo at once painted a 'brilliant glowing Madonna,' with a child, +'which seems quite to bound forward out of the picture.'<a id="footnotetag29" name="footnotetag29"></a> +<a href="#footnote29"><sup class="sml">29</sup></a></p> + +<p>Murillo's portrait by himself represents him in a dark doublet having +wide sleeves and a square collar closed in front. His thumb is in his +pallet, and the other hand, with fingers taper and delicate as those of +a hand by Van Dyck, holds one of his brushes. The smooth face, with +regular features, is pale and thoughtful, and with the womanliness of +the aspect increased from the dark hair, which is divided slightly to +one side, being allowed to fall down in long wavy curls on the +shoulders.</p> + +<p>In spite of the naturalistic studies of his early youth, and even of the +naturalistic treatment which he gave to his first religious work, +Murillo was possessed of greater and higher imagination than Velasquez +could claim, and the longer Murillo lived and worked the more refined +and exalted his ideas became. Unlike Velasquez, Murillo was a great +religious painter, and during the last years of his life he painted +sacred subjects almost exclusively. But, like Velasquez, Murillo was +eminently a Spanish painter—his virgins are dark-eyed, +olive-complexioned maidens, and even his Holy Child is a Spanish babe.</p> + +<p>Without the elevation and the training of the best Italian painters, +Murillo has left abundant proofs of great original genius. The painter's +works are widely circulated, but the chief are still in Seville. Six are +in the church of the Caridad, and these six include his famous 'Moses +striking the Rock,' and his 'Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes;' seven +'Murillos' are in the Convento de la Merced, among them Murillo's own +favourite picture, which he called 'Mi Cicadro' of 'St Thomas of +Villaneuva.' 'St Thomas was the favourite preacher of Charles V., and +was created Archbishop of Valencia, where he seemed to spend the whole +of his revenues in charity, yet never contracted any debt, so that his +people used to believe that angels must minister to his temporal wants. +He is represented at his cathedral door, distributing alms, robed in +black, with a white mitre. A poor cripple kneels at his feet, and other +mendicants are grouped around.'</p> + +<p>In the cathedral, Seville, is Murillo's 'Angel de la Guarda,' 'in which +a glorious seraph, with spreading wings, leads a little trustful child +by the hand, and directs him to look beyond earth into the heavenly +light;' and his 'St Antonio.' 'The saint is represented kneeling in a +cell, of which all the poor details are faithfully given, while the long +arcade of the cloister can be seen through the half-open door. Above, in +a transparent light, which grows from himself, the Child Jesus appears, +and descends, floating through wreaths of angels, drawn down by the +power of prayer.'<a id="footnotetag30" name="footnotetag30"></a> +<a href="#footnote30"><sup class="sml">30</sup></a></p> + +<p>Another of Murillo's renowned pictures is that of the patron saints of +Seville, 'Santa Rufina and Santa Justina,' who were stoned to death for +refusing to bow down to the image of Venus.</p> + +<p>With regard to Murillo's pictures of flower-girls and beggar-boys, I +think my readers are sure to have seen an engraving of one of the +former, '<i>The</i> flower-Girl,' as it is called, with a face as fresh and +radiant as her flowers. In the National Gallery there is a large Holy +Family of Murillo's, and in Dulwich Gallery there is a laughing boy, an +irresistible specimen of brown-cheeked, white-teethed drollery.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X.</h2> + +<p>ART—NICOLAS POUSSIN, 1594-1665—CLAUDE<a id="footnotetag31" name="footnotetag31"></a> +<a href="#footnote31"><sup class="sml">31</sup></a> LORRAINE, 1600-1682—CHARLES +LE BRUN, 1619-1690—WATTEAU, 1684-1721—GREUZE, 1726-1805.</p> + + +<p><a name="Pous" id="Pous"></a><b>Nicolas Poussin</b> was born at Andely in Normandy in 1594. Of his parentage +little seems to have been ascertained, but it is believed that he was +well educated, and his classical learning in after life was reckoned +great. He was regularly trained to be a painter under a master in his +native town, and afterwards in Paris.</p> + +<p>Dissatisfied with the patronage which he received in Paris, Poussin went +to Rome when he was about thirty years of age. In Rome he is said to +have lived on familiar terms with a sculptor whose devotion to antique +art influenced his taste, and lent it the strong classical bent which it +retained. Poussin studied regularly in the school of Domenichino. After +some delay in attracting public notice, 'The Death of Germanicus,' and +'The Capture of Jerusalem,' which Poussin painted for Cardinal +Barberini, won general approval. In 1629, when Nicolas Poussin was in +his thirty-fifth year, he married the sister of his pupil, Gaspar +Dughet, who took Poussin's name, and is known as a painter, inferior to +his master, by the name of Gaspar Poussin.</p> + +<p>Nicolas Poussin returned to Paris when he was a middle-aged man, was +presented to the king, Louis XIII., by Cardinal Richelieu, and offered +apartments in the Tuileries, with the title of painter in ordinary, and +a salary of a hundred and twenty pounds a year. Poussin agreed to settle +in Paris, but on his going back to Rome to fetch his wife, and on the +King of France's dying, the attractions of the Eternal City proved too +great for the painter, and in place of removing his household and studio +to his native country, he lived for the rest of his years in Rome, and +died there in 1665, when he was seventy-one years of age. Except what +can be judged of him from his work, I do not know that much has been +gathered of the private character and life of Nicolas Poussin, +notwithstanding that there was a biography written of him fifty years +ago by Lady Calcott, and that his letters have been published in Paris. +In the absence of conclusive testimony one may conclude with some +probability that he was 'quiet,' like his best paintings; a man who +minded his own business, and did not trouble the world by astonishing +actions, good or bad.<a id="footnotetag32" name="footnotetag32"></a> +<a href="#footnote32"><sup class="sml">32</sup></a></p> + +<p>In painting his own picture, from which an engraving has been taken, +Poussin's classical preferences seem to have passed into the likeness, +for in the dress of the seventeenth century, the cloak (not unlike a +toga), the massive hand with the heavy signet-ring resting on what looks +like a closed portfolio, the painter has something of the severe air and +haughty expression of an old Roman; still more, perhaps, of the +French-Romans, if I may call them so, of whom revolutionary times +nearly two centuries later, afforded so many examples. This is a +handsome, dignified face, with austerity in its pride. The slightly +curled hair is thrown back with a certain consciousness from the knit +brow, and from the shoulders. There is only the faintest shadow of a +moustache over the cleanly cut, firmly closed mouth.</p> + +<p>Poussin painted largely, and his pictures have been often engraved. With +harmonious composition, good drawing and colouring, his pictures alike +profited and suffered from the classical atmosphere in which they had +their being. They gained in that correctness which in its highest form +becomes noble truthfulness, but they lost in freedom. The figures in the +pictures had frequently the statuesqueness which in sculpture suits the +material, but in painting is stiffness.</p> + +<p>Nicolas Poussin had an exceptional reputation for a historical painter +in his day. As a landscape painter, Mr Ruskin, while waging war with +Nicolas Poussin's brother-in-law and assumed namesake, Gaspar, notably +excepts Nicolas from his severest strictures, and treats his efforts in +landscape painting with marked respect. At the same time, however, the +critic censures the painter for a want of thorough acquaintance with +nature, and the laws of nature, ignorance not uncommon in any day, and +nearly universal in Nicolas Poussin's day. 'The great master of elevated +ideal landscape,' Mr Ruskin calls Nicolas Poussin, and illustrates his +excellence in one respect, after contrasting it with the slovenliness of +Sir Joshua Reynolds, by describing the vine in Poussin's 'Nursing of +Jupiter,' in the Dulwich Gallery, thus:—</p> + +<p>'Every vine-leaf, drawn with consummate skill and untiring diligence, +produces not only a true group of the most perfect grace and beauty, but +one which in its pure and simple truth belongs to every age of nature, +and adapts itself to the history of all time.' 'One of the finest +landscapes that ancient art has produced, the work of a really great +mind,' Mr Ruskin distinguishes the 'Phocian' of Nicolas Poussin in the +National Gallery, before proceeding to point out its faults.</p> + +<p>Again, Mr Ruskin, writing of the street in the centre of another +landscape by Nicolas Poussin, indicates it with emphasis:—'the street +in the centre of the really great landscape of Poussin (great in +feeling, at least) marked 260 in the Dulwich Gallery,' The criticism +with which Mr Ruskin follows up this praise is so perfect a bit of +word-painting, that I cannot refrain from writing it down here. 'The +houses are dead square masses, with a light side and a dark side, and +black touches for windows. There is no suggestion of anything in any of +the spaces, the light wall is dead grey, the dark wall dead grey, and +the windows dead black. How differently would nature have treated us. +She would have let us see the Indian corn hanging on the walls, and the +image of the Virgin at the angles; and the sharp, broken, broad shadows +of the tiled eaves, and the deep ribbed tiles with the doves upon them, +and the carved Roman capital built into the wall, and the white and blue +stripes of the mattresses stuffed out of the windows, and the flapping +corners of the neat blinds. All would have been there; not as such, not +like the corn, nor blinds, n or tiles, not to be comprehended nor +understood, but a confusion of yellow and black spots and strokes, +carried far too fine for the eye to follow; microscopic in its +minuteness, and filling every atom and space with mystery, out of which +would have arranged itself the general impression of truth and life.' +Once more, Mr Ruskin freely admits that 'all the landscape of Nicolas +Poussin is imagination.'</p> + +<p>Mr Ruskin's first definition of ideal landscape is in this manner. Every +different tree and leaf, every bud, has a perfect form, which, were it +not for disease or accident, it would have attained; just as every +individual human face has an ideal form, which but for sin and suffering +it would present: and the ideal landscape-painter has realized the +perfect form, and offers it to the world, and that in a sense quite +distinct from the fallacy of improving nature.</p> + +<p>But I wish to take my readers further into imaginative landscape, and to +show it to them, if possible, under additional lights. I despair of +succeeding if I cannot do it by one or two simple examples. In passing +through a gallery we may stop before a picture to be struck, almost +startled, by the exact copy which it presents of some scene in nature; +how like the clouds in the sky, the leaves on the trees, the very +plumage of the birds! But pass on to another picture which may or may +not have the same exact likeness, and we are possessed with quite +another feeling; instead of being merely surprised by the cleverness of +the imitation, we feel a thrill of delight at a reproduction of nature. +In this picture there are not only the clouds we remember, but we can +almost feel the shadows which they cast, and the air which stirs them. +These tree-leaves are not only green, or yellow, or russet, they are +tender, or crisp living leaves. One half expects to see the birds' +throats swell, and hear the sweetness or the shrillness of their songs.</p> + +<p>The first picture, with all its correctness, brightness, richness, or +delicacy it may be, remains bare, hard, and barren, compared to the +second. I cannot explain to my readers the cause of the difference, I +can Only show it to them as they may see it for themselves, and say +that I suppose it proceeds from this—that the second painter has seen +farther into the heart of nature than the first, and has been able by +subtler touches to make us see with his eyes.</p> + +<p>But imaginative landscape is much more than this vivid feeling and +expression of nature; there is not a cloud, or leaf, or bird too many or +out of keeping with the place and the hour. The clouds are the very +clouds of sunset, or sunrise, or high noon—clouds differing widely from +each other, as you have no doubt observed. The trees are the beeches, or +chestnuts, or pines, which would grow on the conformation of rocks, in +the sheltered nook, or on the breezy upland; the birds are the linnets +or the larks, the thrushes or the lapwings, which frequent these special +trees, and may be seen and heard at this particular hour.</p> + +<p>Again, landscape often tells a story, and tells it inimitably. My +readers have heard of the ballad of the 'Twa Corbies,' which the writer +of the ballad has made to meet and tell gruesomely where and on what +carrion their feast has been. Suppose the writer of the ballad had been +a painter, he might have painted the story as intelligibly by the lone +hill-side, the bleaching bones of the faithful hound and gallant grey, +the two loathly blue-black birds satiated with their prey. There is a +significant old Scotch song with a ballad ring, by Lady Nairne, two +verses of which form each a complete picture not only of different +seasons, but of different phases of feeling—happiness and misery.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'Bonnie ran the burnie down,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Wandering and winding;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sweetly sang the birds aboon,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Care never minding.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'But now the burn comes down apace,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Roaring and reaming,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And for the wee birdies' sang<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Wild howlets screaming.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Imagine these two verses painted, and the painter, from a lack of +comprehension, introducing the 'wild howlets screaming' beside the +burnie, 'wandering and winding,' and the 'wee birdies' foolishly and +inconsequently singing with their feeble song drowned in the rush of the +burn (no longer a burnie), 'roaring and reaming,' when the 'spate' is +spreading desolation on every side. Don't you see how the picture would +be spoilt, and the story of complete contrast left untold? I have taken +advisedly an extreme and, therefore an unlikely case of halting +imagination. But in imaginative landscape every 'white flower with its +purple stain,' every crushed butterfly, is made to play its part in the +whole, and at the same time due proportion is never lost sight of, and +the less is always kept subordinate to the greater.</p> + +<p>I have already had occasion to mention examples of Nicolas Poussin in +the National Gallery and in Dulwich Gallery.</p> +<p><a name="Claude" id="Claude"></a> +<b>Claude Gelée,</b> better known as <b>Claude Lorraine,</b> was a native of Lorraine, +and was born at Chateau de Chamagne in the Vosges, in 1600. His parents +were in humble life, and apprenticed Claude to a baker and pastry-cook. +According to some biographers the cooks of Lorraine were in such request +that they occasionally repaired to Rome with their apprentices in their +train to serve the successor of St Peter, and Claude was thus carried, +in the way of trade, to the city which might well have been the goal of +his ambition. According to other writers of art histories, Claude +abandoned the kneading-trough and the oven; and it was as a runaway +apprentice that by some occult means he reached Rome. And when he had +arrived he entered into the service of a landscape painter of good +repute, to whom he was colour-boy as well as cook. The last is the +account, so far, which Claude gave of himself to a friend, and it is +hardly likely either that he misrepresented his history, or that his +friend invented such details, though lately French authorities have +questioned the authenticity of the narrative. Claude remained for nearly +the entire remainder of a long life in Rome. He only once re-visited +France, while he was yet a young man, under thirty years of age, in 1625 +or 1627. He is supposed to have painted his earliest pictures and +executed his etchings about this time, 1630 and to have painted his best +pictures fifteen years later, when he was in the maturity of his life +and powers. He was counted successful during his life time, as a +landscape painter, but did not amass a larger fortune than about two +thousand pounds.<a id="footnotetag33" name="footnotetag33"></a> +<a href="#footnote33"><sup class="sml">33</sup></a> He was a slow and careful painter (working a +fortnight at a picture with little apparent progress); his painstaking +work, and his custom of keeping a book, in which he verified his +pictures, are about the most that I can tell you of the habits of one of +the foreign painters, who has been most fully represented in England, +and was long in the highest favour with English lovers of art. Claude +Lorraine died at Rome in the eighty-third year of his age, in 1682.</p> + +<p>Claude Lorraine's name has become a very vexed name with art critics. +There was a time when he had an unsurpassed reputation as a landscape +painter. The possession of a Claude was enough to confer art glory on a +country-house, and possibly for this reason England, in public and +private collections, has more 'Claudes' than are held by any other +country. But Claude's admirers, among whom Sir George Beaumont, the +great art critic of his generation, took the lead, have had their day, +and, if they have not by any means passed away, are on the wane.</p> + +<p>The wrathful indignation of the English landscape painter, Turner, at +the praise which was so glibly lavished on Claude—an indignation that +caused Turner to bequeath two of his own landscape paintings to the +trustees of the National Gallery, on the caustic condition that they +should always be placed between the two celebrated 'Claudes,' known as +'The Marriage of Isaac and Rebecca' and 'The Embarkation of the Queen of +Sheba'—helped to shake the English art world's faith in its former +idol. Mr Ruskin's adoption and proclamation of Turner's opinion shook +the old faith still further. This reversal of a verdict with regard to +Claude is peculiar; it is by no means uncommon for the decision of +contemporaries to be set aside, and we shall hear of an instance +presently, in the case of the painter Le Brun. In fact, it is often +ominous with regard to a man's future fame, when he is 'cried up to the +skies' in his own day. The probability may be that his easy success has +been won by something superficial and fleeting. But Claude's great +popularity has been in another generation, and with another nation. +English taste may have been in fault; or another explanation seems +preferable—that Claude's sense of beauty was great, with all its faults +of expression, and he gave such glimpses of a beautiful world as the +gazers on his pictures were capable of receiving, which to them proved +irresistible.</p> + +<p>While Claude adopted an original style as a landscape painter, so far as +his contemporaries were concerned, he was to such a degree self taught, +and only partially taught, that it is said he never learnt to paint +figures—those in his pictures were painted by other painters, and that +Claude even painted animals badly.</p> + +<p>Mr Ruskin has been hard on Claude, whether justly or unjustly, I cannot +pretend to say.</p> + +<p>The critic denies the painter not only a sense of truth in art, but all +imagination as a landscape painter 'Of men of name,' Mr Ruskin writes, +'Perhaps Claude is the best instance of a want of imagination, nearly +total, borne out by painful but untaught study of nature, and much +feeling for abstract beauty of form, with none whatever for harmony of +expression.' Mr Ruskin condemns in the strongest terms 'the mourning and +murky olive browns and verdigris greens, in which Claude, with the +industry and intelligence of a Sevres china painter, drags the laborious +bramble leaves over his childish foreground.' But Mr Ruskin himself +acknowledges, with a reservation, Claude's charm in foliage, and +pronounces more conditionally his power, when it was at its best, in +skies—a region in which the greater, as well as the less, Poussin was +declared to fail signally; 'a perfectly genuine and untouched sky of +Claude,' Mr Ruskin writes, 'is indeed most perfect, and beyond praise, +in all qualities of air; though even with him I often feel rather that +there is a great deal of pleasant air between me and the firmament, than +that the firmament itself is only air.'</p> + +<p>When all has been said that can be said, let us look at a mellow or a +sunny Claude on any wall where it may hang, and judge for ourselves of +the satisfaction it is calculated to give.</p> + +<p>Claude was fond of painting scenes on the Tiber and in the Roman +Campagna, but while he tried to reproduce the hills and woodlands of +Italy, he did not seek to paint the mountain landscapes of the +Apennines.</p> + +<p>Besides Claude's numerous works in England and scattered through other +countries, some of his finest paintings are in the Doria and Sciarra +palaces in Rome. He rarely put his name to his works; when he did so he +signed it frequently 'Claudio,' sometimes 'Claudius.' I have spoken of +his book of sketches, in which he had been wont to note on the back of +the sketch the date of the completed picture, and to whom sold. This +book he called the 'Libro di Verita,' or, Book of Truth, and its +apparent use was to check the sale of spurious paintings in Claude's +name, even during his lifetime. The ' Book of Truth' is in possession of +the Duke of Devonshire, and has been employed in recent years with +reference to the end for which it seemed designed, so woe to that +country-house which has long prided itself on possessing a 'Claude,' if +that 'Claude' does not happen to have a place in the 'Book of Truth,' +though I do not know that it is at all certain that Claude took the +precaution of inscribing <i>every</i> painting which he painted after a +certain date in the 'Book of Truth.'</p> + +<p>Claude Lorraine is well represented in the National Gallery. Engravings +of his pictures are common.</p> + +<p><a name="Brun" id="Brun"></a><b>Charles le Brun</b> was born in Paris, in 1619. He was trained to be a +painter, and went young to Rome, studying there for six years under the +guidance of Nicolas Poussin. Le Brun returned to Paris, and, through the +patronage of the Chancellor Segnier, was introduced to the court, and +got the most favourable opportunities of practising his profession with +worldly success. He speedily acquired a great name, and was appointed +painter to the King, Louis XIV. Le Brun had enough influence with his +royal master, and with the great minister Colbert, to succeed in +establishing, while the painter was yet a young man, the Royal Academy +of Art, of which he was the first member, and virtually the head, +holding, in his own person, the directorship of the Gobelin tapestry +works, which was to be the privilege of a member of the Academy. Le Brun +continued in the utmost favour with the King, who, not content with +employing the painter largely at Fontainebleau and in Versailles, +invested him with the order of St Michael, bestowed on him letters of +nobility, and visited him frequently at his work, occasions when there +were not wanting adroit courtiers to liken the Grand Monarque to the +Emperor Charles V., and Le Brun to Titian.</p> + +<p>Le Brun seems to have been a man of energy, confidence, and industry, +neither mentally before nor after his time, and by no means too +retiring, meditative, or original, to fail to profit by his outward good +fortune. He wrote, as well as painted, artistic treatises, which were +received as oracular utterances, and entirely deferred to in the schools +of his day. He died at Paris in 1690, when he was in his seventieth +year.</p> + +<p>Le Brun's real merits as a painter were limited to respectable abilities +and acquirements, together with florid quickness and ease, and such an +eye to what was splendid and scenic as suited admirably a decorator of +palaces in an age which prized sumptuousness, and an exaggeration of +dramatic effect, over every other quality. Nicolas Poussin's quiet +refinement of style became in Le Brun what is called academic +(conventionally learned), pompous, and grandiose, and men decidedly +preferred the degeneration. But later critics, who have not the natural +partiality of the French to the old master, return to their first loves, +and condemn Le Brun's swelling violence, both in the tints and poses of +his figures. Among his most famous works, which have been magnificently +engraved, are his 'Battles of Alexander.'</p> + +<p><a name="Wat" id="Wat"></a><b>Antoine Watteau</b> was born at Valenciennes in 1684. A very different +painter from Le Brun, he was yet as characteristic of French art in the +reign of Louis XIV. I think my readers must be familiar with his name, +and I dare say they associate it, as I do, not only with the fans which +were painted largely after his designs, but with mock pastorals and +Sèvres china. I don't know if his birth-place at Valenciennes, with its +chief product of dainty lace, had anything to do with it, but the other +items of poor Watteau's history are considerably removed from the very +artificial grace which one connects with his name. He was the son of a +carpenter, and struggled up, by the hard instrumentality of third-rate +masters and of picture-dealers, to the rank which he attained among +artists, taking his stand from the first, however, as the painter of +well-bred, well-apparelled people—the frequenters of <i>bals masqués,</i> +and <i>fêtes champêtres,</i> who were only playing at shepherds and +shepherdesses.</p> + +<p>Watteau was elected an Academician in 1717, when he was thirty-three +years of age, and he afterwards came to England, but did not remain +there. He died of consumption at Nogent-sur-Marne in 1721, when he was +thirty-six years of age.<a id="footnotetag34" name="footnotetag34"></a> +<a href="#footnote34"><sup class="sml">34</sup></a> Watteau's gifts were his grace and +brilliance on a small scale. He did not draw well; as to design, his +composition may be said to be suited to such a work as the collection of +'fashionable figures,' which he engraved and left behind him. Yet, if we +were to see at this moment some of his exquisite groups of ladies in +sacques and Watteau hats, and cavaliers in flowing wigs and lace, +cravats, I have no doubt that the most of us would admire them much, for +they are exceedingly pretty, and exceeding prettiness is attractive, +particularly to women. But I would have my readers to remember that this +art is a finical and soulless art, after all. I would fain have them +take this as their maxim, 'That the art is greatest which conveys to the +mind of the spectator, by any means whatsoever, the greatest number of +the greatest ideas.'</p> + +<p><b>Jean Baptiste Greuze</b> <a name="Greuze" id="Greuze"></a>was born at Tournus in Burgundy in 1726. He studied +painting from his youth in the studios of artists at Lyons, Paris, and +Rome, and his studies resulted in his being a celebrated genre painter. +He only painted one historical picture, but, with the touchy vanity +which seemed natural to the man, he ranked his genre pictures as high +art; and when he was placed in the ordinary list of genre painters on +his election as a member of the French Academy of Painting, Greuze +resented the imputation, and withdrew from the Academy. He died in 1805, +aged seventy-nine years. Greuze was a showy, clever, but neither earnest +nor truthful painter of domestic subjects and family pictures. His +pictures of women and heads of girls, the expression in some of which +has been severely condemned, are among his best known works, and by +these he is represented in the National Gallery.<a id="footnotetag35" name="footnotetag35"></a> +<a href="#footnote35"><sup class="sml">35</sup></a></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI.</h2> + +<p>HOLBEIN, 1494-1543—VAN DYCK, 1599-1641—LELY, 1618-1680—CANALETTO, +1697-1768—KNELLER, 1646-1723.</p> + + +<p><b>Hans Holbein,</b><a name="Hol" id="Hol"></a> sometimes entitled Hans the Younger, was born at Augsburg +about 1494 or 1495. He was the son of a painter, and belonged to a +family of painters, one or more of whom had preceded Hans Holbein in +leaving Augsburg, and taking up his residence at Basle. There Holbein +was under the patronage of, and on terms of friendly intercourse with, +the great scholar Erasmus. One bad result proceeded from this friendly +familiarity, that of establishing or originating the charge that +Holbein, as a young man, at least, was coarse and dissipated in his +habits. The evidence is sufficiently curious. There is still in +existence the copy of a Latin book, called the 'Praise of Folly,' +written by Erasmus, which Holbein, not being a scholar, could not have +read for himself, but which, according to tradition, Erasmus himself, +or some other friend, read to him, while Holbein was so delighted with +the satire that he covered the margin of the book with illustrative +sketches. (The sketches remain, and are unmistakably Holbein's.) +Opposite a passage, recording the want of common sense and energy in +many learned men, Holbein had drawn the figure of a student, and written +below, '<i>Erasmus</i>.' The book coming again into the hands of Erasmus, he +was offended with the liberty taken by the painter., and sought to +retaliate in kind by writing below the sketch of a rude boor drinking, +'<i>Holbein</i>.' In spite of the rough jesting, the friendship between +scholar and painter was not interrupted.</p> + +<p>In these early days Holbein sometimes practised painting on glass, after +the example of some of his kinsmen. At Basle, Holbein painted what is +considered his finest work, the 'Meier Madonna,' now at Darmstadt, with +a copy in the Dresden Gallery, and there he executed the designs for his +series of woodcuts of the 'Dance of Death.'</p> + +<p>At Basle Holbein married, while still a young man. The presumption that +the painter's marriage, like that of his countryman, Albert Dürer, was +unhappy, has rested on the foundation that he left his wife and her +children behind when he repaired to England, and that although he +re-visited Basle, and saw his wife and family, they did not return with +him to England. A fancied confirmation to the unhappiness of the +marriage is found in the expression of the wife in a portrait which +Holbein painted of her and his children when he was at Basle. +'Cross-looking and red-eyed,' one critic calls the unlucky woman; +another describes her as 'a plain, coarse-looking, middle-aged woman,' +with an expression 'certainly mysterious and unpleasant.' Holbein's +latest biographer<a id="footnotetag36" name="footnotetag36"></a> +<a href="#footnote36"><sup class="sml">36</sup></a> has proved that the forsaken wife, Elssbeth +Schmid, was a widow with one son when Holbein married her, and has +conjectured that she was probably not only older than Holbein, but in +circumstances which rendered her independent of her husband. So far the +critic has done something to clear Hans Holbein from the miserable +accusation often brought against him, that he abandoned his wife and +children to starve at Basle, while he sunned himself in such court +favour as could be found in England. But, indeed, while Hans Holbein may +have been honest and humane enough to have been above such base +suspicions, there is no trace of him which survives that goes to +disprove the probability that he was a self-willed, not over-scrupulous +man, if he was also a vigorous and thorough worker.</p> + +<p>Holbein came to England about 1526 or 1527, when he must have been +thirty-one or thirty-two years of age, and repaired to Chelsea to the +house of Sir Thomas More, to whom the painter brought a letter of +introduction, and still better credentials in the present, from Erasmus +to More, of the portrait of Erasmus, painted by Hans Holbein. There are +so many portraits and copies of portraits of Erasmus, not only by +Holbein, but by other painters—for Erasmus was painted by Albert Dürer +and Quintin Matsys,—that this special portrait, like the true Holbein +family portrait of the More family, remains very much a subject of +speculation. Most of us must be well acquainted with the delightful +account which Erasmus gave of Sir Thomas More's country-house at +Chelsea, and the life of its occupants. It has been cited hundreds of +times as an example of what an English family has been, and what it may +be in dutiful discipline, simple industry, and high cultivation, when +Sir Thomas's young daughters repeated psalms in Latin to beguile the +time in the drudging process of churning the butter. During Holbein's +residence in or visits to the Mores' house at Chelsea, he sketched or +painted the original of the More family picture.</p> + +<p>Holbein was introduced to Henry VIII, by Sir Thomas More, and was +immediately taken into favour by the king, and received into his +service, with a lodging in the palace, a general salary of thirty pounds +a year, and separate payment for his paintings. According to Horace +Walpole, Holbein's palace lodging was probably 'the little study called +the new library' of square glazed bricks of different colours, designed +by the painter at Whitehall. (This gateway, with the porch at Wilton, +were the painter's chief architectural achievements.) By another +statement, Holbein's house was on London Bridge, where it was destroyed +in the great fire.</p> + +<p>I have already alluded to the anecdote of the value which Henry VIII, +put on Holbein. It was to this effect: that when an aggrieved courtier +complained to the king that the painter had taken precedence of him—a +nobleman, the king replied, 'I have many noblemen, but I have only one +Hans Holbein.' In fact, Holbein received nothing save kindness from +Henry VIII.; and for that matter, there seemed to be something in common +between bluff King Hal and the equally bluff German Hans. But on one +occasion Hans Holbein was said to have run the risk of forfeiting his +imperious master's favour by the too favourable miniature which the +painter was accused of painting of Anne of Cleves.</p> + +<p>At Henry's court Holbein painted many a member of the royal family, +noble and knight, and English gentleman and lady. His fortune had made +him a portrait painter, but he was fully equal to other branches of art, +as shown by his 'Meier Madonna,' and still more by the designs which +have been preserved of his famous allegory of 'the Triumphs of Riches +and Poverty,' painted for the hall of the Easterling Steelyard, the +quarters of the merchants of Allemagne, then traders in London. In +addition to painting portraits Holbein designed dagger hilts, clasps, +cups, as some say after a study of the goldsmith's work of Cellini.</p> + +<p>For a long time it was believed that Hans Holbein died after Mary Tudor +succeeded to the English throne; indeed, some said that his death had +been occasioned or hastened by that change in the affairs of men, which +compelled him to quit his lodgings in the palace to make room for 'the +new painter,' Sir Antony More, who came in the suite of Mary's +well-beloved husband, Philip of Spain. There was even a theory, +creditable to Hans Holbein, drawn from this conclusion, that he might +have adopted the Protestant views of his late gracious master, and have +stood by them stoutly, and so far forfeited all recognition from the +bitter Catholic Mary. But, unfortunately for the tradition and theory, +and for the later pictures attributed to Hans Holbein, his will has been +discovered, and that quite recently, proving, from the date of its +administration, his death of the plague (so far only the tradition had +been right), when yet only in his forty-eighth year, as early as 1543, +four years before the death of Henry VIII. In spite of court patronage +Holbein did not die a rich man, and there is an impression that he was +recklessly improvident in his habits.</p> + +<p>Holbein had revisited Basle several times, and the council had settled +on him a pension of fifty florins a year, provided he would return and +reside in Basle within two years, while his wife was to receive a +pension of forty florins a year during Holbein's two years' absence. +Holbein did not comply with the terms of the settlement. About the time +of his death his son Philip, then a lad of eighteen, was a goldsmith in +Paris. Of Hans Holbein's portraits I have two to draw from; one, +painted in his youth at Basle, shows the painter in an open doublet, and +curious stomacher-like shirt, and having on his head a great flapping +hat. His face is broad and smooth-skinned, with little hair seen, and +the features, the eyes especially, rather small for such an expanse of +cheek and chin. The other picture of Holbein to which I have referred +belongs certainly to a considerably later period of his life, and +represents him with short but bushy hair, and short bushy beard and +moustache, a man having a broad stout person with a mixture of +dauntlessness and <i>bonhommie</i> in his massive face.</p> + +<p>Mr Ruskin says of Holbein, as a painter, that he was complete in +intellect; what he saw he saw with his whole soul, and what he painted +he painted with his whole might.</p> + +<p>In deep and reverential feeling Holbein was far behind his countryman +Albert Dürer, but Holbein was far more fully furnished than Dürer +(unless indeed as Albrecht Dürer showed himself in that last picture of +'the Apostles') in the means of his art; he was a better draughtsman in +the maturity of his powers, and a far better colourist. For Hans Holbein +was not more famous for the living truthfulness of his likenesses ('a +man very excellent in making physiognomies'), than for the 'inimitable +bloom' that he imparted to his pictures, which 'he touched, till not a +touch became discernible.' Yet beneath this bloom, along with his +truthfulness, there was a dryness and hardness in Holbein's treatment of +his subjects, and he is far below Titian, Rubens, and even Rembrandt as +a portrait painter.</p> + +<p>Holbein was in the habit of painting his larger portraits on a peculiar +green, and his miniatures on a blue background. He drew his portrait +sketches with black and red chalk on a paper tinted flesh-colour. It is +said, that with the exception, of Philip Wouwermann, no painter has been +so unfortunate in having the works of other painters attributed to him +as Hans Holbein has been, and 'that three out of every four pictures +ascribed to him are misnamed.'<a id="footnotetag37" name="footnotetag37"></a> +<a href="#footnote37"><sup class="sml">37</sup></a></p> + +<p>The 'Meier, or Meyer Madonna,' is otherwise called 'the Meier Family +adoring the infant Christ in the arms of the Virgin.' The subject is +understood to prove that it must have been painted in Holbein's youth, +before Protestantism was triumphant at Basle. The figures are the +Burgomaster Meier and his wife, whom Holbein painted twice; their son, +with a little boy <i>nude</i> beside him; another woman, elderly, conjectured +to be a grandmother of the family, and beside her the young daughter of +the house. In the centre on a turkey carpet stands the Madonna, holding +in her arms an infant stretching out its left hand to the group of +worshippers. In course of time, and in its transfer from hand to hand, a +doubt has arisen with regard to the subject of this picture. Some +critics have regarded it as a votive picture dedicated in a private +chapel to commemorate the recovery from sickness or the death of a +child. This conjecture seems to rest mainly on the fact, that the child +in the Dresden copy (it is said to be otherwise in the Darmstadt +picture) is of an aspect so sickly, as to have given rise to the +impression that it represented an ailing, or even a dead child, and no +glorious child Christ. Critics have gone still farther, and imagined +that the child is a figure of the soul of a dead child (souls were +sometimes painted by the old painters as new-born children), or of the +soul of the elder and somewhat muffled-up woman who might have been +recently dead. Mr Ruskin regards the picture as an offering for the +recovery of a sick child, and thus illustrates it:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>'The received tradition respecting the Holbein Madonna is +beautiful, and I believe the interpretation to be true. A father +and a mother have prayed to her for the life of their sick child. +She appears to them, her own child Christ in her arms; she puts +down her child beside them, takes their child into her arms +instead; it lies down upon her bosom, and stretches its hand to +its father and mother, saying farewell.'</p></div> + +<p>Yet another much more prosaic and less attractive interpretation of the +picture has been suggested by Holbein's biographer, that the two +children may represent the same child. The child standing by his brother +may be the boy restored to health, the feeble child in the arms of the +Virgin may indicate the same child in its sickness, while the extended +arm may point to the seat of the disease in an arm broken or injured. +After all, the child may simply be a child Christ, marred in execution. +I have given this dispute at length, because I think it is interesting, +and, so far as I know, unique in reference to such a picture. By an odd +enough mistake this very picture was once said to be the famous More +Family picture.</p> + +<p>The idea of the 'Dance of Death' did not originate with Holbein, neither +is he supposed to have done more than touch, if he did touch, the +paintings called the 'Dance of Death,' on the wall of the Dominican +burial-ground, Basle, painted long before Holbein's day, by the order of +the council after the plague visited Basle, and considered to have for +its meaning simply a warning of the universality of death. But Holbein +certainly availed himself of the older painting, to draw from it the +grim satire of his wood-cuts. Of these there are thirty-seven designs, +the first, 'The Creation;' the second, 'Adam and Eve in Paradise;' the +third, 'The Expulsion from Paradise;' the fourth, 'Adam Tilling the +Earth;' the fifth, 'The Bones of all People;' till the dance really +begins in the sixth. Death, a skeleton, as seen through the rest of the +designs, sometimes playing on a guitar or lute, sometimes carrying a +drum, bagpipes, a dulcimer, or a fiddle, now appearing with mitre on +head and crozier in hand to summon the Abbot; then marching before the +parson with bell, book, and candle; again crowned with ivy, when he +seizes the Duke, claims his partners, beginning with the Pope, going +down impartially through Emperor, King (the face is supposed to be that +of Francis I.), nobleman, advocate, physician, ploughman, countess, old +woman, little child, &c. &c., and leading each unwilling or willing +victim in turn to the terrible dance. One woman meets her doom by Death +in the character of a robber in a wood. Another, the Duchess, sits up +in bed fully dressed, roused from her sleep by two skeletons, one of +them playing a fiddle.</p> + +<p>Granting the grotesqueness, freedom, variety, and wonderful precision of +these woodcuts, I beg my readers to contrast their spirit with that of +Albrecht Dürer's 'The Knight, Death, and the Devil,' or Orcagna's +'Triumph of Death.' In Holbein's designs there is no noble consoling +faith; there is but a fierce defiance and wild mockery of inevitable +fate, such as goes beyond the levity with which the Venetians in the +time of the plague retired to their country-houses and danced, sung, and +told tales, till the pestilence was upon them. It has a closer +resemblance to the piteous madness with which the condemned prisoners +during the French Reign of Terror rehearsed the falling of the +guillotine, or the terrible pageant with which the same French, as +represented by their Parisian brethren, professed to hail the arrival of +the cholera.</p> + +<p>Of the 'More Family' there are so many duplicates or versions, that, as +in the case of Erasmus's picture, it is hard to say which is the +original picture, or whether Holbein did more than sketch the original, +or merely sketch the various heads to be afterwards put together by an +inferior artist. A singular distribution of the light in the best +authenticated picture has been supposed to favour this conjecture. But +under any supposition, this, the second of the three noted English +family pictures, is of the greatest interest. I shall record a minute +and curious description given of this 'More Family,' which is still in +the possession of a descendant of the Mores and Ropers.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>'The room which is here represented seemed to be a large +dining-room. At the upper end of it stands a chamber-organ on a +cupboard, with a curtain drawn before it. On each end of the +cupboard, which is covered with a carpet of tapestry, stands a +flower-pot of flowers, and on the cupboard are laid a lute, a +base-viol, a pint pot or ewer covered in part with a cloth folded +several times, and <i>Boetius de Consolatione Philosophiæ</i>, with +two other books upon it. By this</p></div> +<div class="blockquot"><p>cupboard stands a daughter of Sir Thomas More's, putting on her +right-hand glove, and having under her arm a book bound in red +Turkey leather and gilt, with this inscription round the outside +of the cover—<i>Epistolica Senecæ</i>. Over her head is written in +Latin, <i>Elizabeth Dancy</i>, daughter of Sir Thomas More, aged 21.</p> + +<p>'Behind her stands a woman holding a book open with both her hands, over +whose head is written <i>Spouse of John Clements</i>.<a id="footnotetag38" name="footnotetag38"></a> +<a href="#footnote38"><sup class="sml">38</sup></a></p> + +<p>'Next to Mrs Dancy is Sir John More in his robes as one of the justices +of the King's Bench, and by him Sir Thomas in his chancellor's robes +(?), and collar of SS, with a rose pendant before. They are both sitting +on a sort of tressel or armed bench, one of the arms and legs and one of +the tassels of the cushion appear on the left side of Sir Thomas. At the +feet of Sir John lies a cur-dog, and at Sir Thomas's a Bologna shock. +Over Sir John's head is written, <i>John More, father, aged</i> 76. Over Sir +Thomas's,</p></div> +<div class="blockquot"><p><i>Thomas More, aged</i> 50. Between them, behind, stands the wife of +John More, Sir Thomas's son, over whose head is written <i>Anne +Cresacre, wife of John More, aged</i> 15. Behind Sir Thomas, on his +left hand stands his only son, John More, pictured with a very +foolish aspect, and looking earnestly in a book which he holds open +with both his hands. Over his head is written, <i>John, son of Thomas +More, aged</i> 19.' (The only and witless son of the family, on whom +Sir Thomas made the comment to his wife:—'You long wished for a +boy, and you have got one—for all his life.')</p> + +<p>'A little to the left of Sir Thomas are sitting on low stools his two +daughters, Cecilia and Margaret. Next him is Cecilia, who has a boot in +her lap, clasped. By her side sits her sister Margaret, who has likewise +a book on her lap, but wide open, in which is written, <i>L. An. +Senecæ—Oedipus—Fata si liceat mihi fingere arbitrio meo, temperem +zephyro levi</i>. On Cecilia's petticoat is written, <i>Cecilia Heron, +Daughter of Thomas More, aged</i> 20, and on Margaret's, <i>Margaret Roper</i>,</p></div> +<div class="blockquot"><p><i>daughter of Thomas More, aged</i> 22.' (The best beloved, most +amiable, and most learned of Sir Thomas's daughters, who visited +him in the Tower and encouraged him to remain true to his +convictions, while her step-mother urged him to abjure his faith. +Margaret Roper intercepted her father on his return to the Tower +after his trial, and penetrating the circle of the Guards, hung on +his neck and bade him farewell. There is a tradition that she +caused her father's head to be stolen from the spike of the bridge +on which it was exposed, and, getting it preserved, kept it in a +casket. She and her husband, William Roper, wrote together the +biography of her father, Sir Thomas More.)</p> + +<p>'Just by Mrs Roper sits Sir Thomas's lady in an elbow-chair (?), holding +a book open in her hands. About her neck she has a gold chain, with a +cross hanging to it before. On her left hand is a monkey chained, and +holding part of it with one paw and part of it with the other. Over her +head is written '<i>spouse of Thomas More, aged</i> 57.'</p> + +<p>(Dame Alice More, the second wife of Sir Thomas More, a foolish and +mean-spirited woman.)</p> + +<p>'Behind her is a large arched window, in which is placed a flower-pot (a +vase) of flowers, and a couple of oranges. Behind the two ladies stands +Sir Thomas's fool, who, it seems, was bereft of his judgment by +distraction. He has his cap on, and in it are stuck a red and white +rose, and on the brim of it is a shield with a red cross on it, and a +sort of seal pendant. About his neck he wears a black string with a +cross hanging before him, and his left thumb is stuck in a broad +leathern girdle clasp'd about him. Over his head is written <i>Henry +Pattison, servant</i> of Thomas More. At the entrance of the room where Sir +Thomas and his family are, stands a man in the portal who has in his +left hand a roll of papers or parchments with two seals appendant, as if +he was some way belonging to Sir Thomas as Lord Chancellor. Over his +head is written <i>Joannes Heresius, Thomae Mori famulus</i>. In another room +at some distance is seen through the door-case a man standing at a large +bow-window, with short black hair, in an open</p></div> +<div class="blockquot"><p>sleeved gown of a sea-green colour, and under it a garment of a +blossom-colour, holding a book open in his hands written or printed +in the black letter, and reading very earnestly in it. About the +middle of the room, over against Sir Thomas, hangs a clock with +strings and leaden weights without any case.'<a id="footnotetag39" name="footnotetag39"></a> +<a href="#footnote39"><sup class="sml">39</sup></a></p></div> + +<p>It is notable that not one of Sir Thomas's sons-in-law is in this +picture, neither is there a grandchild, though one or more is known to +have been born at the date.</p> + +<p>The miniature of Anne of Cleves, if it ever existed, is lost; it is +probable that what was really referred to was the portrait of Anne by +Holbein in the Louvre, where she appears 'as a kindly and comely woman +in spite of her broad nose and swarthy complexion, but by no means such +a painted Venus as might have deceived King Hal.'<a id="footnotetag40" name="footnotetag40"></a> +<a href="#footnote40"><sup class="sml">40</sup></a></p> + +<p>A well-known portrait by Holbein is that of a 'Cornish Gentleman,' with +reddish hair and beard. I saw this portrait not long ago, as it was +exhibited among the works of the Old Masters, and so much did it look +as though the figure would step from the frame, that it was hard to +believe that more than three hundred years had passed since the original +walked the earth.<a id="footnotetag41" name="footnotetag41"></a> +<a href="#footnote41"><sup class="sml">41</sup></a></p> + +<p>Doubtless the last of Holbein's portrait pieces, which it is reported he +left uncompleted when he died, is that of the 'Barber Surgeons,' painted +on the occasion of the united company receiving their charter from the +king, and including the king's portrait. This picture still hangs in the +old company's hall.</p> + +<p>I have only to say a few more words of those sketches which survive the +destruction of the picture—Holbein's allegory of the 'Triumph of +Riches,' and the 'Triumph of Poverty,' and of his portrait sketches. In +the 'Triumph of Riches,' Plutus, an old man bent double, drives in a +car, drawn by four white horses; before him, Fortune, blind, scatters +money. The car is followed by Crœsus, Midas, and other noted misers and +spendthrifts—for Cleopatra, the only woman present, is included in the +group. In the 'Triumph of Poverty,' Poverty is an old woman in squalor +and rags, who is seated in a shattered vehicle, drawn by asses and oxen, +and guided by Hope and Diligence. The designs are large and bold. In the +first, a resemblance to Henry VIII, is found in Crœsus. If the +resemblance were intentional on Holbein's part, it showed the same want +of tact and feeling which the painter early betrayed in his caricature +of Erasmus.</p> + +<p>But the best of Holbein's drawings are his portrait sketches with +chalks, on flesh-tinted paper. These sketches have a history of their +own, subsequent to their execution by Holbein. After being in the +possession of the art-loving Earl of Arundel, and carried to France, +they were lost sight of altogether for the space of a century, until +they were discovered by Queen Caroline, wife of George II., in a bureau +at Kensington. You will hear a little later that the finest collection +of miniatures in England went through the same process of disappearance +and recovery.<a id="footnotetag42" name="footnotetag42"></a> +<a href="#footnote42"><sup class="sml">42</sup></a> These original sketches, in addition to their great +artistic merit, form a wonderful collection of speaking likenesses, +belonging to the court of Henry VIII.,—likenesses which had been +happily identified in time by Sir John Cheke (in the reign of +Elizabeth), since the names of the originals have been inscribed on the +back of each drawing, as it is believed, by Sir John Cheke's hand. The +collection is now in the Queen's library, Windsor, with photographs at +Kensington Museum. There are one or two of Holbein's reputed portraits +at Hampton Court.</p> + +<p>I must pass over some painters as not being sufficiently represented for +my purpose. Among these is Sir Antony More, Philip II, of Spain's +friend. It is recorded that Philip having rested his hand on the +shoulder of More while at work, the bold painter turned round, and +daubed the royal hand with vermilion. This gave rise to the +courtier-saying that Philip 'made slaves of his friends, and friends of +his painters.' Another is Zucchero, one of the painters who was +requested by Queen Elizabeth to paint her picture without shade, the +result being 'a woman with a Roman nose, a huge ruff and farthingale, +and a bushel of pearls.' There are also Van Somer,—Janssens, who +painted Lady Bowyer, named for her exquisite beauty, 'The star of the +East,' and Susanna Lister, the most beautiful woman at court, when +presented in marriage to Sir Geoffry Thornhurst by James I, in +person,<a id="footnotetag43" name="footnotetag43"></a> +<a href="#footnote43"><sup class="sml">43</sup></a>—and Daniel Myttens, all foreigners, Flemish or Dutch, whom +we must thus briefly dismiss. And now we come to Van Dyck.</p> + +<p><b>Antony Van Dyck</b><a name="Dyck" id="Dyck"></a> was born at Antwerp, in 1599. His father was a merchant; +his mother was famous for painting flowers in small, and for needlework +in silk. The fashion of painting 'in small' had prevailed for some time. +Horace Walpole mentions that the mother of Lucas de Heere, a Flemish +painter, born in 1534, could paint with such 'diminutive neatness' that +she had executed 'a landscape with a windmill, miller, a cart and horse, +and passengers,' which half a grain of corn could cover. At ten years of +age, Van Dyck began to study as a painter, and he soon became a pupil, +and afterwards a favourite pupil, of Rubens. In 1618, when Van Dyck was +but a lad of seventeen years, he was admitted as a master into the +painters' guild of St Luke. Two years later, he was still working with +Rubens, who, seeing his lameness of invention, counselled him to abide +by portrait painting, and to visit Italy. A year later, in 1621, when +Van Dyck was twenty years of age, he came to London, already becoming a +resort of Flemish painters, and lodging with a countryman of his own, +worked for a short time in the service of James I.</p> + +<p>On Van Dyck's return to Flanders, and on the death of his father, he was +able to take Rubens' advice, and in 1623, when Van Dyck was still only +twenty-two years of age, he set out for Venice, the Rome of the Flemish +painters. Before quitting Antwerp, Van Dyck, in proof of the friendship +which existed between the painters, presented Rubens with several of the +former's pictures, among them his famous portrait of 'Rubens' wife.' As +a pendant to this generosity, when Van Dyck came back to Antwerp, and +complained to Rubens that he—Van Dyck—could not live on the profits of +his painting, Rubens went next day and bought every picture of Van +Dyck's which was for sale.</p> + +<p>Van Dyck spent five years in Italy, visiting Venice, Florence, Rome, and +Palermo, but residing principally at Genoa. In Italy, he began to +indulge in his love of splendid extravagance, and in the fastidious +fickleness which belonged to the evil side of his character. At Rome he +was called 'the cavalier painter,' yet his first complaint on his return +to Antwerp was, that he could not live on the profits of his painting! +He avoided the society of his homelier countrymen.</p> + +<p>At Palermo, Van Dyck knew, and according to some accounts, painted the +portrait of Sophonisba Anguisciola, who claimed to be the most eminent +portrait painter among women. She was then about ninety years of age, +and blind, but she still delighted in having in her house a kind of +academy of painting, to which all the painters visiting Palermo +resorted. Van Dyck asserted that he owed more to her conversation than +to the teaching of all the schools. A book of his sketches, which was +recovered, showed many drawings 'after Sophonisba Anguisciola.' She is +said to have been born at Cremona, was invited at the age of twenty-six +by Philip II, to Spain, and was presented by him with a Spanish don for +a husband, and a pension of a thousand crowns a-year from the customs of +Palermo.</p> + +<p>The plague drove Van Dyck from Italy back to Flanders, where he painted +for a time, and presented his picture of the 'Crucifixion' to the +Dominicans as a memorial gift in honour of his father, but in Flanders +Rubens' fame overshadowed that of every other painter, and Van Dyck, +recalling an invitation which he had received from the Countess of +Arundel while still in Italy, came a second time to England, in 1630, +when he was about thirty years of age, and lodged again with a +fellow-countryman and painter named Gildorp. But his sensitive vanity +was wounded by his not at once receiving an introduction to the king, or +the countenance which the painter considered his due, and the +restlessness, which was a prominent feature in his character, being +re-awakened, he withdrew once more from England, and returned to the Low +Countries in 1631. At last, a year later, in 1632, Van Dyck's pride was +propitiated by receiving a formal invitation from Charles I., through +Sir Kenelm Digby, to visit England, and this time the painter had no +cause to complain of an unworthy reception. He was lodged by the king +among his artists at Blackfriars, having no intercourse with the city, +save by water. He had the king, with his wife and children, to sit to +him, and was granted a pension of two hundred a-year, with the +distinction of being named painter to his Majesty.</p> + +<p>A year later Van Dyck was knighted. Royal and noble commissions flowed +upon him, and the king, who had a hereditary love of art, visited the +painter continually, and spent some of the happiest and most innocent +hours of his brief and clouded life in Van Dyck's company. Thus began +Van Dyck's success in England, and it rested with himself whether that +success was to be real or only apparent, enduring or temporary.</p> + +<p>To give you an example of how often, and in how many different manners, +Van Dyck painted the king and royal family, I shall quote from a list of +his pictures—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">'King Charles in coronation robes.'</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">'King Charles in armour' (twice).</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">'King Charles in white satin, with his hat on, just</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">descended from his horse; in the distance, view of the</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Isle of Wight.'</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">'King Charles in armour, on a white horse; Monsieur</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">de St Antoine, his equerry, holding the king's</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">helmet.'</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">'The King and Queen sitting; Prince Charles,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">very young, standing at the King's side; the Duke of</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">York, an infant, on the Queen's knee.'</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">'The King and Queen holding a crown of laurel</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">between them.'</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">'The Queen in white.'</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">'Prince Charles in armour' (two or three times).</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">'King, Queen, Prince Charles, and Princess Mary.'</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">'Queen with her five children.'</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">'Queen with dwarfs,<a id="footnotetag44" name="footnotetag44"></a> +<a href="#footnote44"><sup class="sml">44</sup></a> Sir Geoffrey Hudson having</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">a monkey on his shoulder.'</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Van Dyck had several great patrons, after the king. For the Earl of +Arundel, in addition to portraits of the Earl and Countess, the painter +designed a second Arundel family picture, which was painted by +Fruitiers. For George, Duke of Buckingham, Van Dyck painted one of his +finest double portraits of the Duke's two sons, when children. For the +Northumberland family Van Dyck painted, besides portraits of Henry and +Algernon, Earls of Northumberland, another famous picture, that of the +two beautiful sisters, Lady Dorothy Percy, afterwards Countess of +Leicester, and her sister, Lady Lucy Percy, afterwards Countess of +Carlisle, whose charms figure frequently in the memoirs of her time. +William and Philip, Earls of Pembroke, were also among his patrons, and +for the second he painted his great family picture, 'The Wilton +Family.' Sir Kenelm Digby, too, whose wife Venitia was more frequently +painted than any woman of her day, and was not more distinguished for +her beauty than for her lack of nobler qualities. Van Dyck alone painted +her several times, the last after her sudden death, for her vain and +eccentric, if gallant, husband, who in the end was no friend to Van +Dyck.</p> + +<p>But these high names by no means exhaust the list of patrons of a +painter who, among various contradictory qualities, was indefatigably +industrious. His work is widely distributed among the Scotch as well as +the English descendants of the nobility whom he painted, so that the +possession of at least one ancestral 'Van Dyck' accompanies very many +patents of nobility, and is equivalent to a warrant of gentle birth.</p> + +<p>The Earl of Clarendon, in the next reign, had a great partiality for Van +Dyck's pictures, and was said to be courted by gifts of them until his +apartments at Cornbury were furnished with full-length 'Van Dycks.' A +third of his collection went to Kitty Hyde, Duchess of Queensberry, one +of the Earl's three co-heiresses. Through the Rich family many of these +'Van Dycks' passed to Taymouth Castle, where by a coincidence they were +lodged in the company of numerous works of George Jamieson of Aberdeen, +who is said to have been for a short time a fellow-pupil of Van Dyck's +under Rubens, who has been called 'the Scotch Van Dyck,' and who is +certainly the first native painter who deserves honourable mention. +Since the death of the last Marquis of Breadalbane these travelled 'Van +Dycks' have gone back to the English representative of the Rich family.</p> + +<p>Van Dyck had forty pounds for a half, and sixty pounds for a +whole-length picture;—for a large piece of the King, Queen, and their +children, he had a hundred pounds. For the Wilton family picture he had +five hundred and twenty-five pounds. But Van Dyck soon impaired his +fortune. He was not content with having a country-house at Eltham in +Kent, where he spent a portion of each summer; he would emulate in his +expenditure the most spendthrift noble of that reign. 'He always went +magnificently dressed, and had a numerous and gallant equipage, and kept +so good a table in his apartment that few princes were more visited and +better served.' His marriage was not calculated to teach him moderation. +In his thirty-ninth year the King gave him the hand of Marie Ruthven, +who was nearly related to the unhappy Earl of Gowrie. She was his niece, +her father having been the scarcely less unhappy younger brother +Patrick, a physician, who, apprehended when a young man on the charge of +being concerned in the treason of his elder brothers, spent his manhood +in the Tower. He was kept a prisoner there from 1584 to 1619, nearly +forty years, and was only released in his age and infirmity when his +mind was giving way. Patrick Ruthven's infant daughter had been adopted, +either through charity or perversity, by Anne of Denmark, and brought up +first at the court of Anne, and afterwards at that of Henrietta Maria. +The assertion that Marie Ruthven was a very beautiful woman has been +contradicted. It was said that 'she was bestowed in marriage on Sir +Antony Van Dyck as much to humble further the already humbled and still +detested family of Ruthven, as to honour the painter; but this does not +seem consistent with King Charles's known favour for Van Dyck. Yet such +a view might have been entertained by Marie Ruthven herself, who, +according to tradition, held herself degraded by the marriage, and never +forgave the degradation. She was not a loving wife to a man who could +hardly have been a very loving or loyal husband. And certainly the +marriage did not unite the painter closer to the king.</p> + +<p>With his professional industry, Van Dyck combined an equally +unquenchable love of pleasure, which, with his luxurious and sedentary +habits, induced paroxysms of gout, from which Rubens also suffered +severely. This must have ultimately disqualified him for good work, and +when his debts accumulated in greater proportion even than his receipts, +in place of having recourse, like Rubens, to his painting-room, Van Dyck +tried a shorter road to get rich, by following the idle example of Sir +Kenelm Digby in his pursuit of alchemy and the philosopher's stone.</p> + +<p>In the year of his marriage, Van Dyck re-visited Flanders, in company +with his wife, and then repaired to France, it is understood with the +intention of settling there. He was instigated to the step by his wife, +and his own ambition of rivalling Rubens' triumphs at the Luxembourg; +but the preference which the French gave to the works of their +countryman, Nicolas Poussin, roused his latent jealousy, and so +mortified him as to induce him to renounce his intention. He determined +to return to England, and was, to his credit, confirmed in his +resolution by the threatening civil war which was to shake his royal +master's throne to the foundation, rather than deterred from it.</p> + +<p>Again in England, Van Dyck employed Sir Kenelm Digby to make an offer on +the painter's part that for eight hundred pounds he would paint the +history, and a procession of the Knights of the Garter on the walls of +the Knights' banqueting-room at Whitehall—that palace which was to +have surpassed the Louvre, the Tuileries, and the Escurial, and from one +of the windows of which Charles stepped out on his scaffold. But the +proposal was rejected, and immediately afterwards the civil war broke +out, and was speedily followed by the death of Van Dyck, about a year +after his marriage, when he was a little over forty years old, at +Blackfriars, in 1641. He was buried in old St Paul's, near the tomb of +John of Gaunt. His daughter, Justiniana, was born a short time—some say +only eight days—before her father died, and was baptized on the day of +his death. Van Dyck left effects and sums due to him to the amount of +twenty thousand pounds; but the greater part of the debts were found +beyond recovery at the close of the civil war. His daughter grew up, and +married a Mr Stepney, 'who rode in King Charles's life guards.' His +widow re-married; her second husband was a Welsh knight.</p> + +<p>Van Dyck's character was one of those that are made of very +contradictory elements. He was actuated by opposite motives which are +hard to analyze, and which in their instability have within themselves, +whatever their outward advantages, the doom of failure in the highest +excellence. He was a proud man, dissatisfied both with himself and his +calling, resenting, with less reason than Hans Holbein showed, that he +should be condemned to portrait painting, yet by no means undervaluing +or slurring over his work. He 'would detain the persons who sat to him +to dinner for an opportunity of studying their countenances and +re-touching their pictures,' 'would have a sitter, sitting to him seven +entire days, mornings and evenings, and would not once let the man see +the picture till it pleased the painter.' Van Dyck appears to have been +a man with the possibilities in him of greater things than he attained, +possibilities which were baffled by his weakness and self-indulgence, +leaving him with such a sense of this as spoiled his greatest successes.</p> + +<p>I have the varying indications of two pictures of Van Dyck from which to +get an impression of his personal appearance. The first picture is that +of a youthful face, soft, smiling, with dark eyes, finely-formed nose, +a slightly open mouth, having a full-cleft under lip, the hair profuse +and slightly curled, but short, and no beard or moustache. The dress is +an open doublet, without a collar, a lace cravat, and one arm half bare. +The second is the picture of Van Dyck in the Louvre, which is judged the +best likeness of the painter. In this his person is slender, his +complexion fair, his eyes grey, his hair chestnut brown, his beard and +whiskers red. He wears a vest of green velvet, with a plain collar.</p> + +<p>In his art, Van Dyck, with something of the glow of Rubens, and with a +delicacy peculiarly his own, was decidedly inferior to his great master, +both in power and in fertility of genius. In the superficial refinement +which was so essential a part of Van Dyck, he had the capacity of +conferring on his sitters a reflection of his own outward stateliness +and grace. When he painted at his best his portraits were solid, true, +and masterly, but he has been reproached with sacrificing truth to the +refining process which he practised. Even in the case of Charles I., +whose portraits are our most familiar examples of Van Dyck, and who thus +lives in the imagination of most people as the very personification of a +noble and handsome cavalier, there have not been wanting critics who +have maintained that Charles,—the son of a plain uncouth father, and of +a mother rather floridly buxom than delicately handsome, and who was in +his childhood a sickly rickety child,—was by no means so well endowed +in the matter of manly beauty as we have supposed. These students of old +gossip and close investigation, have alleged that Charles was long and +lanky, after he had ceased to be Baby Charles; that his nose was too +large, and, alas! apt to redden; that his eyes were vacillating; and his +mouth, the loosely hung mouth of a man who begins by being irresolute, +and ends by being obstinate.<a id="footnotetag45" name="footnotetag45"></a> +<a href="#footnote45"><sup class="sml">45</sup></a> Again, in the hands of a sitter, which +Van Dyck was supposed to paint with special care and elegance, it has +been argued that he copied always the same hand, probably his own, in +ignorance, or in defiance of the fact that hands have nearly as much and +as varying character as a painter can discover in faces. Though Van Dyck +painted many beautiful women, he did not excel in rendering them +beautiful on canvas, so that succeeding generations, in gazing on Van +Dyck's versions of Venitia, Lady Digby, and Dorothy Sydney—Waller's +Sacharissa,—have wondered how Sir Kenelm, Waller, and their +contemporaries, could find these ladies so beautiful.</p> + +<p>Van Dyck certainly owed something of the charm of his pictures to the +dress of the period, with regard to which he received this credit that +'Van Dyck was the first painter who e'er put ladies' dress into a +careless romance.' But in reality never was costume better suited for a +painter like Van Dyck. The hair in the men was allowed to flow to the +shoulders or gathered in a love knot, while the whiskers and beard +formed a point. In the women the hair was crisped in curls round the +face. The ruff in men and women had yielded to the broad, rich, falling +collar, with deep scallops of point lace. Vest and cloak were of the +richest velvet or satin, or else, on the breaking out of the civil war, +men appeared in armour. The man's hat was broad and flapping, usually +turned up at one side, and having an ostrich feather in the band; his +long wide boots were of Spanish leather, and he wore gauntlet gloves, +and rich ruffles at his wrists. The women wore hoods and mantles, short +bodices, ample trains, and wide sleeves terminating in loose ruffles at +the elbow, which left half of the arm bare. Pearl necklaces and +bracelets, round feather fans, and 'knots of flowers,' were the almost +universal ornaments of women. Another ornament of both men and women, +which belonged to the day, and was very common in the quarters I have +been referring to, was a miniature enclosed in a small case of ivory or +ebony, carved like a rose, and worn on the left side in token of +betrothal.<a id="footnotetag46" name="footnotetag46"></a> +<a href="#footnote46"><sup class="sml">46</sup></a> Van Dyck, along with the appreciation of black draperies +which he held in common with Rubens, was specially fond of painting +white or blue satin. He is said to have used a brown preparation of +pounded peach-stones for glazing the hair in his pictures.</p> + +<p>In the end, with all the aids that critics may have given him, and all +the faults they may find in him, Van Dyck was a great, and in the main +an earnest portrait painter. Perhaps 'Charles in white satin, just +descended from his horse,' is the best of the single portraits which +were held to be Van Dyck's forte.</p> + +<p>I must try to give my readers some idea of Van Dyck's 'Wilton Family.' +It has been so praised, that some have said 'it might have been covered +with gold as a price to obtain it;' on the other hand, it has not +escaped censure. One critic asserts that there is no common action +uniting the figures, and that the faces are so different in +complexion—one yellow-faced boy appearing either jaundiced or burnt by +a tropical sun, that the family might have lived in different climates.</p> + +<p>This is the story of the picture. 'Earl Philip of Pembroke having +caused his family to meet, informs them with great emotion of the +necessity of his eldest son Charles, Lord Herbert, going into the army +of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, there to acquire military honour and +experience, notwithstanding his having just married Mary, daughter of +George, Duke of Buckingham. Lord Herbert is receiving the news with +ardour, the young bride is turning aside her fair face to hide her +tears. (Charles Lord Herbert was married Christmas, 1634, went to +Florence, and died there of small pox, January, 1636.)</p> + +<p>'In the Pembroke picture (or "Wilton Family") there are ten figures. The +Earl and Countess are seated on a dais, under a coat of arms. He wears a +great lace collar, an order on his breast, a key at his girdle, and has +great shoes with roses. She has flowing curls, hanging sleeves, arms +crossed, necklace on the bare neck. (The Countess of Pembroke was the +Earl's second wife, Anne Clifford, daughter of George, Earl of +Cumberland, the brave lady who defied Cromwell, and was fond of signing +her name with the long string of titles derived from her two husbands, +"Anne Dorset, Pembroke, Montgomery.") Robert Dormer, Earl of Carnarvon, +is introduced with his wife, Lady Anne Sophia Herbert, daughter of Earl +Philip; they are on the Countess's left hand. The daughter-in-law, about +to be parted from her husband, stands on the lowest step of the dais; +she is elegantly dressed, with hanging sleeves knotted with bows from +shoulder to elbow. Two young men, the bridegroom and his brother, are at +their father's right hand; they wear great falling collars and cloaks. +There are three half-grown boys in tunics without collars, and great +roses in their shoes, with a dog. The three little angels in the clouds +are three daughters of the family who died in infancy.'</p> + +<p>Van Dyck's finest sacred pictures were his early 'Crucifixion,' and a +Pieta, at Antwerp. In these he gave a promise of nobler and deeper +pathos than he afterwards fulfilled. His pictures are to be found +freely, as I have written, in old English mansions, such as Arundel and +Alnwick Castles, Knowsley, Knole, Petworth, &c. A head said to be by +Van Dyck is in the National Gallery.</p> + +<p>Van Dyck had few pupils: one, an Englishman named Dobson, earned an +honourable reputation as a painter.</p> + +<p>From Sir Antony More's time down to that of Leíly and Kneller, the rage +for portraits was continually increasing, and took largely the form of +miniatures, which were painted chiefly by foreigners; notably by +Hilliard and two Olivers or Oliviers, a father and son of French +extraction, and by a Swiss named Petitot. A collection of miniatures by +the Oliviers, including no less than six of Venitia, Lady Digby, had a +similar fate to that of Holbein's drawings. The miniatures had been +packed in a wainscot box and conveyed to the country-house in Wales of +Mr Watkin Williams, who was a descendant of the Digby family. In course +of time the box with its contents, doubtless forgotten, had been +transferred to a garret, where it had lain undiscovered for, it has been +supposed, fully a hundred years. It was two hundred years after the +date of the painting of the miniatures, that on some turning over of the +lumber in the garret, the exquisite miniatures, fresh as on the day when +they were painted, were accidentally brought to light.<a id="footnotetag47" name="footnotetag47"></a> +<a href="#footnote47"><sup class="sml">47</sup></a></p> + +<p><b>Sir Peter Lely</b><a name="Lely" id="Lely"></a> was born in Westphalia in 1618. His real name was Vander +Facs, and his father was a 'Captain of Foot,' who, having chanced to be +born in rooms over a perfumer's shop which bore the sign of a lily, took +fantastically enough the name of Du Lys, or Lely, which he transmitted +to his son. Sir Peter Lely, after studying in a studio at Haarlem, came +to England when he was twenty-three years of age, in 1641, and set +himself to copy the pictures of Van Dyck, who died in the year of Lely's +arrival in England, and whom he succeeded as court painter. Lely was +knighted by Charles II., married an English woman, and had a son and a +daughter, who died young. He made a large fortune, dying at last of +apoplexy, with which he was seized as he was painting the Duchess of +Somerset, when he was sixty-two years of age, in 1680.</p> + +<p>With regard to Lely's character, we may safely judge from his works that +he was such a man as Samuel Pepys, 'of easy virtue,' a man holding a low +enough standard by which to measure himself and others. Mr Palgrave +quotes from Mr Leslie the following characteristic anecdote of Lely, +which seems to prove that he was aware of, and coolly accepted, the +decline of art in his generation and person. A nobleman said to Lely, +'How is it that you have so great a reputation, when you know, as well +as I do, that you are no painter?' 'True, but I am the best you have,' +was the answer. Lely's punishment followed him into his art, for +beginning by copying Van Dyck, it is said of Lely that he degenerated in +his work till it bore the very 'stamp of the depravity of the age.'</p> + +<p>Lely's sitters were mostly women. Among them was one who deserved a +fitter painter, Mistress Anne Killigrew, Dryden's—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'Youngest virgin daughter of the skies.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>In Lely's portrait of her, she is a neat, slightly prim, delicate +beauty, with very fine features, and such sleepy eyes, as were probably +the gift of Lely, since he has bestowed them generally on the women whom +he painted. Mistress Anne Killigrew's hair is in curls, piled up in +front, but hanging down loosely behind. Her bodice is gathered together +by a brooch, and she has another brooch on one shoulder. She wears a +light pearl necklace, and 'drops' shaped like shamrocks in her ears.</p> + +<p>Lely painted both Charles I, and Cromwell, who desired his painters to +omit 'no pimple or wart,' but to paint his face as they saw it.</p> + +<p>Among less notable personages Lely painted Monk, Duke of Albemarle, and +his rough Duchess, once a camp follower, according to popular rumour, +and named familiarly by the contemptuous wits of the day 'Nan Clarges.' +It is with not more honourable originals than poor 'Nan Clarges' that +Lely's name as a painter is chiefly associated. We know what an evil +time the years after the Restoration proved in England, and it was to +immortalize, as far as he could, the vain, light women of the +generation that Lely lent what skill he possessed. There their pictures +hang in what has been called 'the Beauty Room' at Hampton Court, and no +good man or woman can look at them without holding such beauty +detestable.</p> + +<p>At Hampton Court also there are several of the eleven portraits of +Admirals whom Lely painted for James II, when Duke of York.</p> + +<p><a name="Canal" id="Canal"></a><b>Antonio Canal,</b> called <b>Canaletto,</b> incorrectly Canaletti, was born at +Venice in 1697. He was the son of a scene painter at the theatre. In his +youth he worked under his father; a little later he went to Rome, and +studied for some time there. Then he came to England, where he remained +only for two years. I have hesitated about placing his name among those +of the foreign painters resident in England, but so many of his works +are in this country that he seems to belong to it in an additional +sense. He is said to have 'made many pictures and much money.' He died +at Venice when he was seventy years of age, in 1768. As a painter he +was famous for his correctness of perspective and precision of outline +(in which it is alleged he aided himself by the use of the camera), +qualities specially valuable in the architectural subjects of which he +was fond, drawing them principally from his native Venice. But his very +excellence was mechanical, and he showed so little originality or, for +that matter, fidelity of genius, that he painted his landscapes in +invariable sunshine.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>The great wood-carver <b>Grinling Gibbons</b> <a name="Gibb" id="Gibb"></a>deserves mention among the +artists of this date. He was a native of Rotterdam, where he was born in +1648. He came to London with other carvers the year after the great fire +of London, and was introduced by Evelyn to Charles II., who took him +into his employment. 'Gibbons was appointed master carver in wood to +George I., with a salary of eighteen-pence a day.' He died at his house +in Bow Street in the sixty-third year of his age, in 1721. It is said +that no man before Gibbons 'gave to wood the lightness of flowers.' For +the great houses of Burghley, Petworth, and Chatsworth, Gibbons carved +exquisite work, in festoons for screens, and chimney-pieces, and panels +for pictures, of fruit, flowers, shells, and birds.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><b>Sir Godfrey Kneller</b><a name="god" id="god"></a> was born at Lübeck in 1646, and was the son of an +architect. He is said to have studied under Rembrandt; but if this be +true, it must have been in Kneller's early youth. It is more certain +that he travelled in Italy and returned to settle in Hamburg, but +changing his plans, he came to England, when he was about thirty years +of age, in 1675. London became his home. There he painted portraits with +great success; his prices being fifteen guineas for a head, twenty if +with one hand, thirty for a half, and sixty for a whole-length portrait. +Charles II, sat at the same time to Kneller and to Lely. Not Titian +himself painted more crowned heads than it fell to the lot of Kneller to +paint—not less than six reigning kings and queens of England, and, in +addition, Louis XIV. of France, Charles VI, of Spain, and the Czar Peter +of Russia.</p> + +<p>William III, created Kneller a knight, and George I, raised the +painter's rank to that of a baronet. Sir Godfrey was notorious for his +conceit, irritability, and eccentricity, and for the wit which sparkled +more in his conversation than in any originality of observation +displayed in his painting. Walpole attributes to Kneller the opposite +qualities of great negligence and great love of money. The negligence or +slovenliness, whether in the man or the artist, did not interfere with +an immense capacity for work, such as it was, but if Horace Walpole be +right, that Kneller employed many Flemish painters under him to +undertake the wigs, draperies, &c. &c., the amount of work in portrait +painting which Sir Godfrey Kneller accomplished is so far explained. He +attained the end of being a very rich man, and married an English woman, +but left no family to succeed to his wealth and his country-seat of +Whitton, when he died at his house in London in his seventy-eighth year, +in 1723.</p> + +<p>As a painter Sir Godfrey Kneller showed considerable talent in drawing, +and a certain cumbrous dignity of design, but he had much more industry +of a certain kind than artistic feeling or taste. When he and Lely +painted Charles II, together, Kneller's application and rapidity of +execution were so far before those of Lely, who was technically the +better painter of the two, that Kneller's picture was finished when +Lely's was dead-coloured only. Kneller was highly praised by Dryden, +Addison, Prior, and Steele. Apropos of these writers, among the most +famous works of Kneller are the forty-three portraits, painted +originally for Tonson, the bookseller, of the members of the Kit Cat +club, the social and literary club of the day, which got its name from +the chance of its holding its meetings in a house the owner of which +bore the unique name of Christopher Cat. Another series of portraits by +Kneller are what ought to be, in their designation, the Hampton Court +Beauties. These are still, like the other 'Beauties,' at Hampton. The +second series was proposed by William's Queen Mary, and included +herself, Sarah Jennings, Duchess of Marlborough, and Mary Bentinck. To +Sarah Jennings men did award the palm of beauty, but poor Queen Mary, +who had a modest, simple, comely, English face as a princess, had lost +her fresh youthful charm by the time she became Queen of England, and +was still further disfigured by the swelling of the face to which she +was liable. Her proposal to substitute the worthier women of her court +for the unworthy beauties of her uncle King Charles' court was not +relished, and helped to render Mary unpopular—among the women, at +least, of her nobility. Neither was Sir Godfrey Kneller qualified to +enhance the attractions of Mary's maids of honour and ladies in waiting, +who, to complete their disadvantages, lived at a period when it had +become the fashion for women to crown their persons by an erection on +their natural heads of artificial 'edifices of three heads.'</p> + +<p>To Kneller, as I have already written, we owe the preservation of +Raphael's cartoons.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII48" id="CHAPTER_XII48"></a>CHAPTER XII.<a id="footnotetag48" name="footnotetag48"></a> +<a href="#footnote48"><sup class="sml">48</sup></a></h2> + +<p>ITALIAN MASTERS FROM THE FOURTEENTH TO THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES—TADDEO +GADDI, 1300, SUPPOSED TO HAVE DIED 1366—FRA FILIPPO, 1412-1469—BENOZZO +GOZZOLI, 1424-1496—LUCA SIGNORELLI, 1441, SUPPOSED TO HAVE DIED ABOUT +1524—BOTTICELLI, 1447-1515—PERUGINO, 1446-1522—CARPACCIO, DATE AND +PLACE OF BIRTH AND DEATH UNKNOWN—CRIVELLI—FILIPPINO LIPI, EARLIER THAN +1460—ANTONELLA DA MESSINA, BELIEVED TO HAVE DIED AT VENICE, +1496—GAROFALO, 1481-1559—LUINI, DATE OF BIRTH UNKNOWN, SUPPOSED TO +HAVE DIED ABOUT 1530—PALMA, ABOUT 1480-1528—PARDENONE, 1483-1538—LO +SPAGNA, DATE OF BIRTH UNKNOWN, 1533—GIULIO ROMANO, 1492-1546—PARIS +BORDONE, 1500-1570—IL PARMIGIANINO, 1503-1540—BAROCCIO, +1528-1612—CARAVAGGIO, 1569-1609—LO SPAGNOLETTO, 1593-1656—GUERCINO, +1592-1666—ALBANO, 1578-1660—SASSOFERRATO, 1605-1685—VASARI, +1513-1574—SOFONISBA ANGUISCIOLA, 1535, ABOUT 1620—LAVINIA FONTANA, +1552-1614.</p> + + +<p><b>Taddeo Gaddi,</b> <a name="Gad" id="Gad"></a>the most important of Giotto's scholars, was born in 1300, +and was held at the baptismal font by Giotto himself. Gaddi rather went +back on earlier traditions and faults. His excellence lay in his purity +and simplicity of feeling. His finest pictures are from the life of the +Virgin, in S. Croce, Florence. He was, like his master, a great +architect as well as painter. He furnished the plans for the Ponte +Vecchio and the Ponte della Trinità, and conducted the works of the +campanile, Florence, after Giotto's death. He was possessed of great +activity and industry. He is supposed to have died in 1366, and rests in +the scene of his labours, since he was buried in the cloisters of S. +Croce.</p> + +<p><b>Fra Filippo,</b> 1412-1469, a Carmelite friar. The romantic, scandalous +<a name="Filippo" id="Filippo"></a>life, including his slavery in Barbary, attributed to him by Vasari, the +great biographer of the early Italian painters, has received no +corroboration from modern researches. It is rather refuted. He always +signed his pictures 'Frater Filippus,' and his death is entered in the +register of the Carmine convent as that of 'Frater Filippus.' In all +probability he was from first to last a monk, and not a disreputable +one. He describes himself as the poorest friar in Florence, with six +marriageable nieces dependent on him, and he is said to have been +involved in debt.</p> + +<p>His colouring was 'golden and broad,' in anticipation of that of Titian; +his draperies were fine. He was wanting in the ideal, but full of human +feeling, which was apt to get rude and boisterous; his angels were 'like +great high-spirited boys.' Withal, his style of composition was stately. +Among the best examples of his work are scenes from the life of St John +the Baptist in frescoes in the choir of the Duomo at Prato. His panel +pictures are rather numerous. There are two lunette<a id="footnotetag49" name="footnotetag49"></a> +<a href="#footnote49"><sup class="sml">49</sup></a> pictures by Fra +Filippo in the National Gallery.</p> + +<p><b>Benozzo Gozzoli,</b> <a name="Gozz" id="Gozz"></a>1424—1496, a scholar of Fra Angelico, but resembling +him only in light and cheerful colouring. He is said to have been the +first Italian painter smitten with the beauty of the natural world. He +was the first to create rich landscape backgrounds, and he enlivened +his landscapes with animals. He displayed a fine fancy for architectural +effects, introducing into his pictures open porticoes, arcades, +balconies, and galleries. He liked to have subsidiary groups and circles +of spectators about his principal figures. In these groups he introduced +portraits of his contemporaries, true to nature and full of expression +and delicate feeling. His best work is in the Campo Santo, Pisa, scenes +from the history of the Old Testament, ranging from Noah to the Queen of +Sheba. The Pisans were so pleased with his work as to present him, in +1478, with a sarcophagus intended to contain his remains when they +should be deposited in the Campo Santo. He survived the gift eighteen +years, dying in 1496. His easel pictures are rare, and do not offer good +representations of the master. There is one in the National Gallery—a +Virgin and Child, with saints and angels.</p> + +<p><a name="Sig" id="Sig"></a><b>Luca d'Egidio di Ventura,</b> called also <b>Luca 'da Cortona,'</b> from his +birthplace, and <b>Luca Signorelli,</b> 1441, supposed to have died about 1524. +His is a great name in the Tuscan School. He played an important part +in the painting of the Sistine Chapel, though he is only represented by +one wall picture, the History of Moses. At his best he anticipated +Michael Angelo in power and grandeur, but he was given to exaggeration. +His fame rests principally on his frescoes at Orvieto, where, by a +strange chance, he was appointed, after an interval of time, to continue +and complete the work begun by Fra Angelico, the master most opposed to +Signorelli in style. Luca added the great dramatic scenes which include +the history of Antichrist, executed with a grandeur which 'only Lionardo +among the painters sharing a realistic tendency could have surpassed.' +These scenes, which contain The Resurrection, Hell, and Paradise, bear a +strong resemblance to the work of Michael Angelo. In his fine drawing of +the human figure Signorelli may be known by 'the squareness of his forms +in joints and extremities.' A conspicuous detail in his pictures is +frequently a bright-coloured Roman scarf. His work is rarely seen north +of the Alps.</p> + +<p><a name="Botticelli" id="Botticelli"></a><b>Sandro Filipepi,</b> called <b>Botticelli,</b> 1447—1515. He was an apprentice to +a goldsmith, and then became a scholar of Filippo Lipi's. Botticelli was +vehement and impetuous, full of passion and poetry, seeking to express +movement. He was the most dramatic painter of his school. Occasionally +he rises to a grandeur that allies him to Signorelli and Michael Angelo. +His circular pictures of the Madonna and Child, with angels, are +numerous. Like Fra Filippo, Botticelli's angels are noble youths, some +of them belonging to the great families of the time. They are prone to +be ecstatic with joy or frantic with grief. There is a grand Coronation +of the Virgin, by Botticelli at Hamilton Palace, and a beautiful +Nativity by the old master belongs to Mr Fuller Maitland. His Madonna +and Child are grand and tragic figures always. Botticelli's noble +frescoes in the Sistine Chapel are apt to be overlooked because of +Michael Angelo's 'sublime work' on the ceiling. There has been a revival +of Botticelli's renown within late years, partly due to the new +interest in the earlier Italian painters which Mr Browning has done +something to stimulate.</p> + +<p>I quote some thoughtful remarks on Botticelli by W.C. Lefroy in +<i>Macmillan's Magazine</i>: 'Mr Ruskin, we know, divides Italian art into +the art of faith, beginning with Giotto, and lasting rather more than +200 years, and the art of unbelief, or at least of cold and inoperative +faith, beginning in the middle of Raphael's life. But whatever division +we adopt, we must remember that the revival of Paganism, as a matter of +fact, affected men in different ways. Right across the schools this new +spirit draws its line, but the line is not a hard and sharp one. Some +men lie wholly on one side of it, with Giotto, Angelico, and Orcagna; +some wholly upon the other, with Titian and Correggio, but there are +some on whom it seems to fall as a rainbow falls upon a hill-side. Such, +for instance, is Botticelli. Now he tries to paint as men painted in the +old days of unpolluted faith, and then again he breaks away and paints +like a very heathen.</p> + +<p>'The interest which this artist has excited in the present generation +has been exaggerated into something like a fashion, and recent criticism +has delighted to find or imagine in him the idiosyncrasies of recent +thought. To us it may be he does in truth say more than he or his +contemporaries dreamed of, but while true criticism will sternly refuse +to help us to see in his pictures that which is purely subjective, it +will, I think, recognise the fact that a day like ours is capable of +reading in the subtle suggestions of ancient art thoughts which have +only now come to be frankly defined or exquisitely analysed. To us, +moreover, Botticelli presents not only the poem of the apparition of the +young and beautiful manhood of humanism before the brooding and +entranced, yet half expectant, maidenhood of mediævalism, but also the +poem of the painter's own peculiar relation to that crisis. For us there +is the poetry of the thing itself, and also the poetry of Botticelli's +attempt to express it. The work of Botticelli does not supply a +universal utterance for mankind like Shakespeare's plays, but when we +stand before the screen on which his "Nativity" is hung, or contemplate +in the adjoining room his two perplexed conceptions of "Aphrodite," we +are face to face with a genuine outcome of that memorable meeting, +mediævalism, humanism, and Savonarola, which no generation can afford to +ignore, and our own especially delights to contemplate. There has been +much dispute about the date of Botticelli's "Nativity," and some +defenders of Savonarola have hoped to read 1511 in the strange character +of its inscription, so that this beautiful picture, standing forth as +the work of one for many years under the influence of "the Frate," may +refute the common calumny that that influence was unfriendly to art. Our +catalogue, indeed, unhesitatingly asserts of Botticelli, that "he became +a follower of Savonarola and no doubt suffered from it;" but though +there seems to be really little doubt that the "Nativity" was painted in +1500, the inscription, with its mystic allusion to the Apocalypse, and +the whole character of the picture, afford unmistakable evidence of the +influence of Savonarola.'</p> + +<p><b>Pietro Perugino,</b><a name="Per" id="Per"></a> 1446, died of the plague at Frontignano in 1522. +Perugino is another painter who has been indebted to the last +Renaissance. His fame, in this country rested chiefly on the +circumstance that he was Raphael's master, whom the generous prince of +painters delighted to honour, till the tide of fashion in art rose +suddenly and floated old Pietro once more to the front. At his best he +had luminous colour, grace, softness, and enthusiastic earnestness, +especially in his young heads. His defects were monotony, and formality, +together with comparative ignorance of the principles of his art. His +conception of his calling in its true dignity was not high. His attempts +at expressing ardour degenerated into mannerism, and he acquired habits +and tricks of arrangement and style, among which figured his favourite +upturned heads, that in the end were ill drawn, and, like every other +affectation, became wearisome. In the process of falling off as an +artist, when mere manual dexterity took the place of earnest devotion +and honest pains, Perugino had a large studio where many pupils executed +his commissions, and where, working for gain instead of excellence in +art, he had the satisfaction, doubtless, of amassing a large fortune. +Among his finest works is the picture of an enthroned Madonna and Child +in the gallery of the Uffizi. Another fine Madonna with Saints is at +Cremona. His frescoes in the Sala del Campio at Perugia are among his +best works. The subjects of these frescoes are partly scriptural; partly +mythological. In the execution there is excellence alike in drawing, +colouring, and the disposal of drapery. A <i>chef d'œuvre</i> by the master +is the Madonna of the Certosa at Pavia, now in, the National Gallery. +Yet it is said to have been painted at the very period when Michael +Angelo ridiculed Perugino's work as 'absurd and antiquated.' <b>Vittore +Carpaccio,</b><a name="Carp" id="Carp"></a> date and place of birth unknown, though he is said to have +been a native of Istria. He was a historical painter of the early +Venetian School and a follower of the Bellini. His romantic <i>genre</i> +pictures show the daily life of the Venice of his time, and are +furnished with landscape and architectural backgrounds. His masterly and +rich work is mostly in Venice. He introduces animals freely and well in +his designs.</p> + +<p><a name="Crivelli" id="Crivelli"></a><b>Carlo Crivelli</b> was another master of the fifteenth century who deserves +notice. He had strong individuality, yet was influenced by the Paduan +and Venetian Schools. He displayed an old-fashioned preference for +painting in tempera. Sometimes his drawing approaches that of Mantegna, +while he has a gorgeousness of colouring all his own. His pictures +occasionally show dignity of composition in combination with grace and +daintiness; but he could be guilty of exaggerated vehemence of +expression. He frequently introduced fruit, flowers, and birds in his +work. He is fully represented in the National Gallery, his works there +ranging from 'small tender pictures of the dead Christ with angels, to a +sumptuous altar-piece in numerous compartments.'</p> + +<p><b>Filippino Lipi</b><a name="Lipi" id="Lipi"></a> was an adopted son and probably a relation of Fra +Filippo's, though a scholar's use of his master's name was not uncommon. +The date of his birth is earlier than 1460. Filippino was also a pupil +of Botticelli's, while there was a higher sense of beauty and grace in +the pupil than in the teacher. Among his last works is the Vision of St +Bernard, an easel picture in the Badia at Florence. The apparition of +the Madonna in this picture is said to be 'full of charm.' In his larger +works he is one of the greatest historical painters of his country. +Roman antiquities had the same keen interest for him which they held for +the greatest of his contemporaries, and he made free use of them in the +architecture of his pictures. He has fine work in the Carmelite Church, +Florence, and in S. Maria Sopra Minerva, Rome. Much of some of his +pictures is painted over. The National Gallery has a picture of +Filippino's 'of grand execution,' though almost colourless—the Madonna +and Child, with St Jerome and St Francis.</p> + +<p><b>Antonella da Messina</b><a name="Mess" id="Mess"></a> was the Neapolitan painter who brought the practice +of painting in oils from the Netherlands into Italy, though it is now +believed, from stubborn discrepancies in dates, that the story of his +great friendship with Jan Van Eyck, as given by Vasari, is apochryphal. +Very likely Hans Memling, called also 'John of Bruges,' was the real +friend and leader of Antonella. His best work consisted of portraits. He +is believed to have died at Venice in 1496.</p> + +<p><b>Benvenuto Tisio,</b> surnamed from the place of his birth <b>Garofalo,</b> <a name="Garo" id="Garo"></a>was born +in 1481, and died in 1559. He passed from the early school of Ferrara to +that of Raphael. His conception was apt to be fantastic, while his +colouring was vivid to abruptness, and he was deficient in charm of +expression. He fell into the fault of monotonous ideality. At the same +time his heads are beautiful, and his drapery is classic. His finest +work is an 'Entombment' in the Borghese Palace, Rome. There is an +altar-piece by Garofalo, a Madonna and Child with angels, in the +National Gallery.</p> + +<p><b>Bernardo Luini,</b><a name="Luin" id="Luin"></a> who stands foremost among the scholars of Lionardo da +Vinci, was born by the Lago Maggiore, the date unknown, came to Milan in +1500, was elderly in 1525, and is supposed to have died not long after +1530. His work is chiefly found in Milan. His great merit has been only +lately acknowledged. He is not 'very powerful or original,' but for +'purity, grace, and spiritual expression,' he ranks very high. He unites +the earnestness of the older masters with the prevailing feeling for +beauty of the great masters of Italian Art. His pictures were long +mistaken for those of his master, Lionardo, though it is said that when +the difference between them is once pointed out, it is easily +recognised; indeed, the resemblance is confined to a smiling beatific +expression in the countenances, which abounds more in Luini's pictures. +His heads of women, children, and angels present every degree of +serenity, sweet cheerfulness and happiness, up to ecstatic rapture. +'Christ Disputing with the Doctors,' in the National Gallery, formerly +called a Lionardo, is now known to be a Luini. He painted much, whether +in tempera, fresco, or oil. His favourite subjects in oil were the +Madonna and Child, with St John and the Lamb, and the Marriage of St +Catherine. Probable he appears to greatest advantage in frescoes. He is +said to have reached his highest perfection in the figure of St John in +a Crucifixion in the Monasterio Maggiore, Milan.</p> + +<p><b>Jacopo Palma,</b> called <b>Il Palma Vecchio,</b><a name="Palma" id="Palma"></a> was born about 1480 near Bergamo, +and died in 1528. He is believed to have studied under Giovanni Bellini, +while he is also the chief follower of Giorgione. His characteristics +are ample forms and gorgeous breadth of drapery. His female saints, with +their large rounded figures, have a soft yet commanding expression. He +had an enchanting feeling for landscape, which seems to have been the +birthright of the Venetian painters. To Palma is owing what are called +'Santa Conversazione,' where there are numerous groups round the Virgin +and Child, as if they are holding a court in a retired and beautiful +country nook. Palma rivalled Giorgione and Titian as a painter of +women's portraits. Among these is that of his daughter Violante, +believed to have been loved by Titian. 'Palma's three Daughters,' in the +Dresden Gallery, is a masterpiece of 'fair, full-blown beauty.' The hair +of the women is of the curiously bleached yellow tint affected then by +the Venetian ladies. Palma painted many pictures, leaving at his death +forty-our unfinished.</p> + +<p><b>Giovanni Antonio da Pardenone,</b><a name="Pard" id="Pard"></a> born 1483, died 1538. He had many names, +'Pardenone' from his birthplace, 'Corticellis' from that of his father, +and he is believed to have assumed the name 'Regillo' after he received +knighthood from the King of Hungary. He was Venetian in his artistic +qualities. Many of his works are in his native Pardenone and in obscure +towns near. All have suffered and some are now hidden by whitewash. His +chief strength lay in fresco. His scenes from the Passion in the +cathedral, Cremona, are greatly damaged and wretchedly restored, but +they still reveal the painter as a great master. They have 'fine +drawing, action, excellent colouring, grand management of light and +shade, with freedom of hand and dignity of conception.' In the prophets +and sybils around the cupola of the Madonna di Campagna, Piacenza, +Pardenone's power is fully proven. His immense works in fresco account +for the rarity of his oil pictures and their comparative inferiority. +There is only one picture, and that a portrait, indisputably assigned to +Pardenone in England, in the Baring Collection.</p> + +<p><b>Giovanni di Pietro,<a name="Spagna" id="Spagna"></a></b> known as <b>Lo Spagna (the Spaniard),</b> was a +contemporary of Raphael's, a fellow-pupil of his under Perugino. There +is no record of the time and place of Lo Spagna's birth. He died in +1533. He was a careful, conscientious follower of Perugino and Raphael, +doing finished and delicate work; an 'Assumption' in a church at Trevi +is a fine example of his qualities. His best picture was painted in +1516, and is at Assisi. It represents the Madonna enthroned with three +saints on each side. In his later works he betrayed feebleness. Pictures +by Lo Spagna are often attributed to Raphael.</p> + +<p><b>Giulio Pippi,</b> surnamed <b>Romano,</b><a name="Romano" id="Romano"></a> born in 1492, died in 1546, was a very +different painter, while he was the most celebrated of Raphael's +scholars. He had a vigorous, daring spirit, with a free hand and a bold +fancy. So long as he painted under Raphael, Giulio followed his master +closely, especially in his study of the antique, but he lacked the +purity and grace of his teacher, on whose death, the pupil leaving Rome, +pursued his own coarser, more vehement impulses. The frescoes in the +Villa Modama, Rome, are good examples of his style, so is the +altar-piece of the Martyrdom of St Stephen in S. Stefano, Genoa. Giulio +Romano was the architect who designed the rebuilding of half Mantua. +His best easel picture in England is the 'Education of Jupiter by Nymphs +and Corybantes,' in the National Gallery. In Raphael's lifetime his +principal scholar was accustomed to work on the master's pictures, and +on his death Giulio, together with another pupil, Gianfrancesco Penni, +were left executors of Raphael's will and heirs of his designs.</p> + +<p><a name="Bordone" id="Bordone"></a><b>Paris Bordone</b> was born at Treviso in 1500 and died in 1570. He was +educated in the Venetian School, and remained remarkable for delicate +rosy colour in his flesh tints and for purple, crimson, and shot hues in +his draperies, which were usually small and in crumpled folds. His <i>chef +d'œuvre</i> is in the Venetian Academy. It is a fisherman presenting a ring +to the Doge, and is a large and fine picture with many figures. He dealt +frequently in mythological or poetic subjects. There is an example of +the first in the National Gallery. He was great in single female +subjects and women's portraits. There is a portrait by Bordone of a +lovely woman of nineteen belonging to the Brignole family, in the +National Gallery. He had often fine landscape and grand architecture in +his pictures.</p> + +<p><b>Il Parmigianino,</b><a name="Parm" id="Parm"></a> born 1503, died 1540, was a follower of Correggio's. In +Parmigianino's case the danger of the master's peculiarities became +apparent by the lapse into affectation and frivolity. 'His Madonnas are +empty and condescending, his female saints like ladies in waiting.' +Still there were certain indestructible beauties of the master which yet +clung to the scholar. He had clear warm colouring, decision, and good +conception of human life. He was highly successful in portraits. There +is a splendid portrait by Parmigianino, said to be Columbus, in Naples. +Among his celebrated pictures is 'The Madonna with the Long Neck,' in +the Pitti Palace. An altar-piece in the National Gallery, which +represents a Madonna in the clouds with St John the Baptist appearing +to St Jerome, is a good example of Parmigianino. It is said that he was +engrossed with this picture during the siege of Rome in 1527. The +soldiers entered the studio intent on pillage, but surprising the +master at his work, respected his enthusiasm and protected him.</p> + +<p><a name="Bar" id="Bar"></a> +<b>Federigo Baroccio,</b> of Urbino, born in 1528, died in 1612, was also a +follower of Correggio's, and made a stand against the decline of art in +his day. He was tender and idyllic, though apt in his turn to be +affected and sentimental. When painting in the Vatican, Rome, his rivals +sought to take his life by poison. The attempt caused Baroccio to return +to Urbino, where he established himself and executed his commissions.</p> + +<p><a name="Cara" id="Cara"></a><b>Amirighi da Caravaggio</b> was born at Caravaggio in 1569, and died at Porto +Ercole in 1609. He was chief of the naturalistic school, the members of +which painted common nature and violent passions in bitter opposition to +the eclectics, especially the Caracci. The feud was sometimes carried on +appositely enough on the side of the naturalistic painters by poison and +dagger. Caravaggio was distinguished by his wild temper and stormy life, +in keeping with his pictures. He resided principally in Rome, but dwelt +also in Naples. He is vulgar but striking, even pathetic in some of his +pictures. The 'Beheading of John the Baptist,' in the Cathedral, Malta, +is one of his masterpieces. His Holy Families now and then resemble +gipsy <i>ménages</i>.</p> + +<p><b>Guiseppe Ribiera,</b> a Spaniard, and so called <b>Lo Spagnoletto,</b><a name="LoSpag" id="LoSpag"></a> was born +1593 and died 1656. He followed Caravaggio, while he retained +reminiscences of the Spanish School and of the Venetian masters. Some of +his best pictures, such as 'the Pieta with the Marys and the Disciples,' +and his 'Last Supper,' are in Naples. He had a wild fancy with a +preference for horrible subjects—executions, tortures—in this respect +resembling Domenichino. Lo Spagnoletto is said to be particularly +unpleasant in his mythological scenes. Many of his pictures have +blackened with time. His 'Mary of Egypt standing by her open Grave' is a +remarkable picture in the Dresden Gallery.</p> + +<p>Giovanni Francesco Barbiera, surnamed<a name="Guer" id="Guer"></a> Guercino da Cinto, approached the +school of the Caracci. In his art he resembled Guido Reni, with the same +sweetness, greater liveliness, and fine chiaroscuro. 'Dido's Last +Moments' and 'St Peter raising Tabitha' in Rome and in the Pitti Palace +are fine examples of Guercino's work. His later pictures, like Guido's, +are fascinating in softness, delicate colouring and tender sentiment, +degenerating, however, into mannerism and insipidity, while his +colouring becomes at last pale and washy.</p> + +<p><b>Albano,</b><a name="Alb" id="Alb"></a> born 1578, died 1660. He had elegance and cheerfulness which +hardly rose to grace. He painted mostly scenes from ancient mythology, +such as 'Venus and her Companions.' Religious subjects were +comparatively rare with him; one, however, often repeated was the +'Infant Christ sleeping on the Cross.'</p> + +<p><b>Giovanni Battista Salvi,</b> surnamed from his birthplace <b>Sassoferrato,</b><a name="Sasso" id="Sasso"></a> was +born in 1605 and died in 1685. He followed the scholars of the Caracci, +but with some independence, returning to older and greater masters. His +art was distinguished by a peculiar but slightly affected gentleness of +conception, pleasing and sweet—with the sweetness verging on weakness. +He finished with minute care. He gave constant representations of the +Madonna and Child and Holy Families in a domestic character. In one of +his pictures in Naples the Madonna is engaged in sewing. His most +celebrated, 'Madonna del Rosario,' is in S. Sabina, Rome. The Madonna +bending in ecstatic worship over an infant Christ lying on a cushion is +in the Dresden Gallery.</p> + +<p><b>Giorgio Vasari</b><a name="Vasa" id="Vasa"></a> was born at Arezzo in 1512 and died at Florence in 1574. +He was an architect, or jeweller, and a historical painter of heavy +crowded pictures. His lives of the early Italian painters and sculptors +up to his own time, the sixteenth century, though full of traditional +gossip, are invaluable as graphic chronicles of much interesting +information which would otherwise have been lost.</p> + +<p><a name="Anguisciola" id="Anguisciola"></a><b>Sofonisba Anguisciola,</b> born 1535, died about 1620, was a pupil of +Bernardino Campi about the close of the sixteenth century at Cremona. +She is justly praised by Vasari. Though her works are rare there are a +few in England and Scotland. Three of her pictures which are mentioned +with high commendation by Dr. Waagen are, 'a nun in the white robes of +her order, nobly conceived and delicately coloured,' in Lord +Yarborough's collection; in Mr Harcourt's collection, 'her own +portrait, still very youthful, delicate, charming, and clear;' and in +the collection of the late Sir W. Stirling Maxwell, 'another portrait of +herself at an easel painting the Virgin and Child on wood, delicately +conceived, clear in colour, and very careful.'</p> + +<p><b>Lavinia Fontana,</b> born in 1552, died 1614, was a daughter of Prospero +<a name="Fon" id="Fon"></a>Fontana, who belonged to the fast degenerating Bolognese artists at the +close of the sixteenth and beginning of the seventeenth century. She was +a better artist than her fellow painters, worked cleverly and boldly, +and showed truth to nature. She has left excellent portraits. In the +late Sir W. Stirling Maxwell's collection there is a picture by her, +'Two girls in a boat with a youth rowing,' on wood, 'of very graceful +motive and careful treatment,'</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII50" id="CHAPTER_XIII50"></a>CHAPTER XIII.<a id="footnotetag50" name="footnotetag50"></a> +<a href="#footnote50"><sup class="sml">50</sup></a></h2> + +<p>GERMAN, FLEMISH, AND DUTCH ARTISTS FROM THE FIFTEENTH TO THE EIGHTEENTH +CENTURY—VAN DER WEYDEN, A CONTEMPORARY OF THE VAN EYCKS, 1366-1442—VAN +LEYDEN, 1494-1533—VAN SOMER, 1570-1624—SNYDERS, 1579-1657—G. +HONTHORST, 1592-1662—JAN STEEN, 1626-1679—GERARD DOW, 1613-1680—DE +HOOCH, DATES OF BIRTH AND DEATH UNKNOWN—VAN OSTADE, 1610-1685—MAAS, +1632-1693—METZU, 1615, STILL ALIVE IN 1667—TERBURG, +1608-1681—NETCHER, 1639-1684—BOL, 1611-1680—VAN DER HELST, +1613-1670—RUYSDAEL, 1625 (?)-1682—HOBBEMA, 1638-1709—BERCHEM, +1620-1683—BOTH, 1610 (?)-1650 (?)—DU JARDIN, 1625-1678—ADRIAN VAN DE +VELDE, 1639-1672—VAN DER HEYDEN, 1637-1712—DE WITTE, 1607-1692—VAN +DER NEER, 1619(?)-1683—WILLIAM VAN DE VELDE THE YOUNGER, +1633-1707—BACKHUYSEN, 1631-1708—VAN DE CAPELLA, ABOUT +1653—HONDECOETER, 1636-1695—JAN WEENIX, 1644-1719—PATER SEGERS, +1590-1661—VAN HUYSUM, 1682-1749—VAN DER WERFF, 1659-1722—MENGS, +1728-1774.</p> + + +<p><b>Roger van der Weyden</b> was a contemporary of the Van Eycks, born at +Tournai. His early pictures in Brussels are lost. He visited Italy in +1439, and was treated with distinction at Ferrara. His Flemish realistic +cast of mind and artistic power remained utterly unaffected by the grand +Italian pictures with which he came in contact; so did his profound +earnestness, which must have been great indeed, since its effects are +felt through all impediments down to the present day. His expressive +realism chose subjects in which the sentiments of grief and pity could +be most fitly shown. He sternly rejected any suggestion to idealise the +human form, and paint heads, hands, or feet different from those in +ordinary life. 'It is the simplicity with which he gives expression by +large and melancholy eyes, thought by projections of the forehead, grief +by contracted muscles, and suffering by attenuation of the flesh which +touches us.' The deadly earnestness of the man impresses the spectator +at this distant date. 'There is no smile in any of his faces, but there +is many a face wrung with agony, and there is many a tear.' He objected +to shadow in every form, and filled his pictures with an invariable +atmosphere and light—those which belong to dawn before sunrise. Among +his finer works are a triptych<a id="footnotetag51" name="footnotetag51"></a> +<a href="#footnote51"><sup class="sml">51</sup></a> belonging to the Duke of Westminster, +a 'Last Judgment' in the Hospital at Bearne, and a large 'Descent from +the Cross' in Madrid. In the triptych in the centre is Christ with black +hair, which is unusual, in his left hand the globe. On his right is the +Virgin Mary, on his left St John the Evangelist; on the right wing is +St John the Baptist, on his left the Magdalene.</p> + +<p><b>Lucas Van Leyden</b><a name="Ley" id="Ley"></a> was born in 1494 and died in 1533. He painted both +scriptural subjects and everyday scenes, being a man of varied powers. +He worked admirably for his time, and added to his art that of an +engraver. He followed the Van Eycks, but lowered their treatment of +sacred subjects. In incidents taken from common life he showed himself +full of observation, and possessed of some humour. His pictures are +rare. A 'Last Judgment,' in the Town House, Leyden, is a striking but +unpleasant example of Lucas Van Leyden's work.</p> + +<p><b>Paul Van Somer</b><a name="Somer" id="Somer"></a> was born at Antwerp in 1570, and died in 1624. He worked +for many years in England, where his best works—portraits—remain. He +was truthful, a good colourist, and finished carefully. His portraits of +Lord Bacon at Panshanger and of the Earl and Countess of Arundel at +Arundel Castle are well known.</p> + +<p><b>Frans Snyders</b><a name="Snyders" id="Snyders"></a> was born in 1579, and died, at Antwerp in 1657. After +Rubens, Snyders was the greatest Flemish animal painter. He painted +along with Rubens often, Snyders supplying the animals and Rubens the +figures. Frans Snyders paid a visit to Italy and Rome, from which he +seems to have profited, judging by his skill in arrangement. This skill +he displayed also in his kitchen-pieces (magnificent shows of fruit, +vegetables, game, fish, &c.), which, like his animal pictures, are +numerous. In one of these kitchen-pieces in the Dresden Gallery, Rubens +and his second wife are said to figure as the cooks. Princes and nobles +bade for Snyders' pictures. There is a famous 'Boar Hunt' in the Louvre, +in Munich 'Lionesses Pursuing a Roebuck,' in Vienna 'Boar attacked by +Nine Dogs.' Snyders' animal pictures are full of energetic action and +fierce passion. To these qualities is frequently added hideous realism +in detail. There are many Snyders in English galleries.</p> + +<p><b>Gerard Honthorst</b><a name="Hont" id="Hont"></a> was born at Utrecht in 1592, and died in 1662. He was a +follower of Caravaggio. He visited Italy and found favour in Rome, where +he got from his night-pieces Correggio's name, 'Della Notte.' Honthorst +was summoned to England by Charles I., for whom he painted several +pictures. He entered the service of Prince Frederick Henry of Orange, +and painted also for the King of Denmark. He left an extraordinary +number of works, sacred, mythological, historical, and latterly many +portraits. He drew well and painted powerfully, but was coarsely +realistic in his treatment. At Hampton Court there are two of his best +portraits, those of the unfortunate Queen of Bohemia and the Duke of +Buckingham and his family. Gerard Honthorst's younger brother, William, +was a portrait painter not unlike the elder brother in style.</p> + +<p><b>Jan Steen</b><a name="Steen" id="Steen"></a> was born at Leyden in 1626, and died in 1679. He was great as +a <i>genre</i> painter. He is said to have been, after Rembrandt, the most +humorous of Dutch painters, full of animal spirits and fun. At his best, +composition, colouring, and execution were all in excellent keeping. At +his worst, he was vulgar and repulsive in his heads, and careless and +faulty in his work. He was very rarely either kindly or reverent in his +subjects, though, in spite of what is known to have been his riotous +life, he is comparatively free from the grossness which is often the +shame of Flemish and Dutch art. Jan Steen succeeded his father as a +brewer and tavern-keeper at Delft. He renounced the brewery, in which he +did not succeed, and joined the Painters' Guild, Haarlem; but his +position as a tavern-keeper is reflected in his pictures, of which +eating and drinking, card-playing, &c., are frequently the <i>motifs</i>. +His family relations were not conducive to higher principles and tastes. +He is said to have been so lost to common feeling as to have painted his +first wife when she was in a state of intoxication.<a id="footnotetag52" name="footnotetag52"></a> +<a href="#footnote52"><sup class="sml">52</sup></a> His second wife +may have been a worthier woman, but she was drawn from the lowest class, +and had been accustomed to sell sheeps' heads and trotters in the +butchers' market. Without doubt Jan Steen had extraordinary genius +coexisting with his coarse, careless nature and jovial habits, and he +must have worked with great facility, since, in spite of his idleness +and comparatively early death, he left as many as two hundred pictures, +of which two-thirds are in this country, where his broad humour has +rendered him extremely popular. Besides his favourite subjects, such as +'The Family Jollification,' 'The Feast of the Bean King,' 'Game of +Skittles,' he has pictures in a slightly higher atmosphere, such as 'A +Pastor Visiting a Young Girl,' 'The Parrot,' 'Schoolmaster with +Unmanageable Boys,' 'The Pursuit of Alchemy.' Among the latter a good +example is 'The Music Master' in the National Gallery.</p> + +<p><a name="Dow" id="Dow"></a><b>Gerard Dow</b> was born in 1613 and died in 1680. He was a <i>genre</i> painter +of great merit. He belonged to Leyden, and was a pupil of Rembrandt. He +began with portraiture, often painting his own face, and went on to +scenes from low and middle-class life, but rarely attempted to represent +high society. Compared to Jan Steen, however, he is refined. He had a +curious fondness for painting hermits. The lighting of his pictures is +frequently by lantern or candle. They are mostly small, and without +animated action, but are full of picturesqueness. He was a good +colourist, 'with a rare truth to nature and a marvellous distinctness of +eye and precision of hand.' Minute as his execution was, his touch was +'free and soft.' His best pictures are 'like nature's self seen through +the camera obscura.' An instance often given of his exquisite finish is +that of a broom in the corner of one of his pictures. Some contemporary +had remarked how careful and elaborate was the labour bestowed on it, +when the painter answered that he was still to give it several hours' +work. He must have been exceedingly industrious as well as painstaking, +since he left two hundred pictures as his contribution to Dutch art. +Among his finer pictures are 'An Old Woman reading the Bible to her +Husband,' in the Louvre; 'The Poulterer's Shop,' in the National +Gallery. His <i>chef d'œuvre</i>, 'The Woman Sick of the Dropsy,' is in the +Louvre. His candlelight is the finest rendered by any master. There is a +good example of it in 'The Evening School,' in the Amsterdam Gallery.</p> + +<p><b>Peter de Hooch</b>—spelt often, <b>De Hooge</b><a name="Hooch" id="Hooch"></a>—was the <i>genre</i> painter of full, +clear sunlight. The dates of his birth and death can only be guessed by +those of his pictures, which extend from 1656 to 1670. His groups are +generally playing cards, smoking, drinking, or engaged in domestic +occupations—almost always in the open air. No other <i>genre</i> painter can +compare with him in reproducing the effects of sunlight. His prevailing +colour is red, varied and repeated with great delicacy. English lovers +of art brought De Hooch into favour, and many of his pictures are in +England. There are fine examples—'The Court of a Dutch House' and 'A +Courtyard'—in the National Gallery.</p> + +<p><b>Adrian van Ostade</b><a name="Ost" id="Ost"></a> was born at Haarlem in 1610 and died in his native +town in 1685. He has been called 'the Rembrandt of <i>genre</i> painters,' +and, like Rembrandt, he was without the sense of human beauty and grace, +for even his children are ugly; yet it is the purer, happier side of +national life which he constantly represents, and he had great feeling +for nature, with picturesqueness and harmony of design and colouring, as +well as mastery of the technique of his art. He suffered many hardships +in his youth, and grew up a quiet, industrious, family man. He left a +very large number of pictures, nearly four hundred, many of them good, +and not a few in England. 'The Alchemist'<a id="footnotetag53" name="footnotetag53"></a> +<a href="#footnote53"><sup class="sml">53</sup></a> is in the National +Gallery.</p> + +<p><b>Maas,</b> <a name="Maas" id="Maas"></a>born in 1632, died in 1693, is a much-prized <i>genre</i> painter, +whose pictures are rare. He was a pupil of Rembrandt. He is said to have +treated 'very simple subjects with naïve homeliness and kindly humour.' +His pictures are 'well lit, with deep warm harmony, and a vigorous +touch.' 'The Idle Servant-maid,' in the National Gallery, is a +masterpiece.</p> + +<p><b>Metzu,</b><a name="Met" id="Met"></a> like Terburg, is <i>par excellence</i> one of the two painters of +Dutch high life. Metzu was born in 1615, and is known to have been alive +in 1667. He painted both on a large and a small scale, and occasionally +departed from his peculiar province to represent market-scenes, &c. He +is the most refined and picturesque of <i>genre</i> painters on a small +scale. Among his <i>chefs d'œuvre</i> are a 'Lady holding a Glass of Wine and +receiving an Officer,' in the Louvre; and a 'Girl writing, a Gentleman +leaning on her chair and another girl opposite playing the Lute,' in the +Hague Gallery. The fine 'Duet,' and the 'Music Lesson' are both in the +National Gallery.</p> + +<p><b>Gerard Terburg</b> <a name="Ter" id="Ter"></a>was born at Zwol, in 1608, and died in 1681. He visited +Germany and Italy in his youth. His small groups and single figures, +taken from the wealthier classes, with their luxurious surroundings, are +'given with exquisite delicacy and refinement.' Included in his +masterpieces are a 'Girl in white satin (a texture which he rendered +marvellously) washing her hands in a basin held before her by a +maid-servant,' in the Dresden Gallery; an 'Officer in confidential talk +with a Young Girl, and a Trumpeter who has brought him a Letter,' in the +Hague Gallery; a 'Young Lady in white satin sitting playing the Lute,' +in the Chateau of Wilhelmshöe, at Cassell. There are twenty-three +Terburgs in England and Scotland.</p> + +<p><b>Caspar Netcher,</b><a name="Net" id="Net"></a> born in 1639, died in 1684. He formed himself upon Metzu +and Terburg. He is the great Dutch painter of childhood. His finest +works are in the Dresden Gallery. In the National Gallery is his +'Children blowing Bubbles.'</p> + +<p><a name="Bol" id="Bol"></a> +<b>Ferdinand Bol</b> was born at Dordrecht in 1611, and died at Amsterdam in +1680. He was a student of Rembrandt's, and distinguished himself in +sacred and historical pictures, and especially in portraits. He followed +his master in his youth, fell off in his art in middle life, but became +again excellent in his later years. Among his fine pictures are 'David's +Charge to Solomon,' in the Dublin National Gallery; and 'Joseph +presenting his father Jacob to Pharaoh,' in the Dresden Gallery. His +last portraits are considered very fine. They are taken in the fullest +light, and have a surprising amount of animation. Such a portrait, +called 'The Astronomer,' is in the National Gallery.<a id="footnotetag54" name="footnotetag54"></a> +<a href="#footnote54"><sup class="sml">54</sup></a></p> + +<p><b>Jacob Ruysdael</b><a name="Ruys" id="Ruys"></a> was born in 1625(?) at Haarlem. In 1668 he was in +Amsterdam, and acted as witness to the marriage of Hobbema, whose lack +of worldly prosperity Ruysdael shared. He himself was unmarried, and +maintained his father in his old age. In the prime of life Jacob +Ruysdael in turn fell into extreme poverty, and died an inmate of the +Haarlem Almshouse in 1682—a sad record of Holland's greatest landscape +painter, for 'beyond dispute' Ruysdael is the first of the famous Dutch +landscape painters.</p> + +<p>'In no other is there the feeling for the poetry of Northern nature +united with perfect execution, admirable drawing, great knowledge of +chiaroscuro, powerful colouring, and a mastery of the brush which ranged +from the minutest touch to broad, free execution.' His prevailing tone +of colour is a full, decided green, though age has given many of his +pictures a brown tone. A considerable number of his pictures are in a +greyish, clear, cool tone (good examples of the last are to be seen in +the Dresden Gallery). He generally painted the flat Dutch country in +tranquil repose. He dealt usually in heavy clouded skies which told of +showers past and coming, and dark sheets of water overshadowed by +trees, lending a melancholy sentiment to the picture. He was fond of +wide expanses of land and water, fond also of introducing the spires of +his native Haarlem, touching the horizon line. He has left a few +sea-pieces, always with cloudy heavens and heaving or raging seas;<a id="footnotetag55" name="footnotetag55"></a> +<a href="#footnote55"><sup class="sml">55</sup></a> +where he has given sketches of sea, and shore, the ærial perspective is +rendered in tender gradations 'full of pathos.' He has other pictures +representing hilly, even mountainous, landscapes. In these foaming +waterfalls form a prominent feature. Ruysdael was weak in his drawing of +men and animals, in which he was occasionally assisted by +fellow-artists, such as Berchem and Van de Velde. Among his finest +pictures are 'A View of the Country round Haarlem,' in the Museum of the +Hague; 'A flat country, with a road leading to a village and fields with +wheat sheaves,' in the Dresden Gallery; 'A hilly bare country through +which a river runs; the horseman and beggar on a bridge, by +Wouvermans,' in the Louvre. His most remarkable waterfall is in the +Hague Museum. In the Dresden Gallery there is 'A Jewish Cemetery,' 'full +of melancholy.' Three of Ruysdael's fine waterfalls are in the National +Gallery. Of two very grand storms which he painted one is in the Louvre, +the other in the collection of the Marquis of Lansdowne at Bowood. There +are many of Ruysdael's pictures in England. In the great landscape +painter, as in the other renowned Dutch artists of the seventeenth +century, the influence of Rembrandt is marked.</p> + +<p><b>Meindert Hobbema</b><a name="Hobbe" id="Hobbe"></a> + was born in 1638, married in 1638, and died in poverty +at Amsterdam in 1709. His works, which were neglected in his lifetime, +now fetch much more than their weight in gold. Sums as large as four +thousand pounds have been paid more than once for a Hobbema, yet his +name was not found in any dictionary of art or artists for more than a +century after his death. The English were the first to acknowledge +Hobbema's merit, and nine-tenths of his works are in England, where he +is the most popular Dutch landscape painter. But he is said by judges to +have less invention and less poetic sensibility than his contemporary +and friend Ruysdael. Hobbema's subjects are usually villages surrounded +by trees like those in Guelderland, water-mills, a slightly broken +country, with groups of trees, wheatfields, meadows, and small pools, +more rarely portions of towns, and still more seldom old castles and +stately mansions.<a id="footnotetag56" name="footnotetag56"></a> +<a href="#footnote56"><sup class="sml">56</sup></a> He has all the lifelike truthfulness of the Dutch +artists. In tone he is as warm and golden as Ruysdael is cool in his +greens. In the National Gallery there are excellent specimens of +Hobbema, such as 'The Avenue Middelharnis' and 'A Landscape in Showery +Weather.'</p> + +<p><a name="Berchem" id="Berchem"></a><b>Nicolas Berchem,</b> often spelt <b>Berghem,</b> was born at Haarlem in 1620, and +died at Amsterdam in 1683. He was an excellent Dutch landscape painter. +He had evidently visited Italy, and displayed great fondness for +Italian subjects. His pictures show 'varied composition, good drawing, +fine ærial effects, freedom, playfulness, and spirit.' As a colourist he +was unequal, being often warm and harmonious, but at other times heavy +and cold. It is clear that he was no student of life, from the monotony +of his shepherds and shepherdesses and the sameness of his animals. He +was naturally industrious, and was spurred on, as a still greater artist +is said to have been, by the greed of his wife. He painted upwards of +four hundred pictures, besides doing figures and animals for other +painters. The great northern European galleries are rich in his works. +One of his best pictures, 'A Shepherdess driving her cattle through a +ford in a rocky landscape,' where the cool tone of the landscape is +contrasted with the golden tone of the cattle, is in the Louvre. Another +fine picture, 'Crossing the Ford,' is in the National Gallery.</p> + +<p><a name="Both" id="Both"></a><b>Jan Both,</b> born in 1610 (?), died in 1650 (?), was another Dutch +landscape painter still more spellbound by Italy,<a id="footnotetag57" name="footnotetag57"></a> +<a href="#footnote57"><sup class="sml">57</sup></a> which he visited, +and where he fell under the influence of Claude Lorraine. Both devoted +himself thenceforth to Italian landscape to a greater degree than was +practised by any other Dutch painter. He was excellent in drawing and +skilful in rendering the golden glories of Italian sunsets. He painted +freely and with solidity. The figures of men and animals in his pictures +were often introduced by his brother Andreas. Jan Both excelled both in +large and small pictures, but he was most uninterestingly uniform in +design. He had generally a foreground of lofty trees, and for a +background a range of mountains rising step by step, with a wide plain +at their feet. Sometimes he introduced a waterfall or a lake. He rarely +painted particular points in a landscape. His life was not a long one, +so that his pictures do not number more than a hundred and fifty. +Occasionally his warm tone of colouring degenerates to a foxy red. One +of Both's best pictures—a landscape in which the fresh light of +morning is apparent—is in the National Gallery.</p> + +<p><b>Karil du Jardin,</b> <a name="Du" id="Du"></a>born in 1625, died in 1678, is a third great Dutch +landscape painter, whose fancy Italy laid hold of, so that he settled in +the country, dying at Venice. He was, it is said, a pupil of Berchem's, +from whom he may have first drawn his Italian proclivities. He has more +truth and feeling for animated nature than Berchem. Indeed, in this +respect Du Jardin followed Paul Potter. According to contemporary +accounts, Du Jardin, who had his share of the national humour, wasted +his time in the pursuit of pleasure, and did not leave more pictures +behind him than Both left. Du Jardin's best works are in the Louvre, but +there are also many of his pictures in England. Among his masterpieces, +'Cattle of all kinds in a meadow surrounded by rocks, and watered by a +cascade; a horseman giving alms to a peasant boy;' and his celebrated +'Charlatan,' full of observation and humour, are in the Louvre. A fine +picture, 'Figures of Animals under the shade of a Tree,' is in the +National Gallery.</p> + +<p><b>Adrian Van de Velde,</b><a name="Velde" id="Velde"></a> born in 1639, died in 1672, the younger brother of +a great marine painter, ranks almost as high as Paul Potter in cattle +painting. If 'inferior in modelling and solidity' to his rival, Adrian +Van de Velde is superior in variety, taste, and feeling. Like the great +English animal painter, Landseer, Van de Velde was a distinguished +artist when a mere boy of fourteen. Like his compatriot, Paul Potter, +Van de Velde died young, at the age of thirty-two. He generally disposed +of his cattle among broken ground with trees and pools of water. +Sometimes he has a herdsman or a shepherdess, sometimes there is a +hunting party passing. His scenery is reckoned masterly. It is mostly +taken from the coast of Scheveningen. He often painted in men, horses, +and dogs for other painters. He must have been very industrious, with +great facility in his work, since, in spite of his premature death, he +had painted nearly two hundred pictures. 'A brown cow grazing and a +grey cow resting,' which is in the Berlin Museum, was done at the age of +sixteen, yet it is full of observation, delicacy, and execution. 'Cattle +grazing before a peasant's cottage,' which is in the Dresden Gallery, is +considered very fine. A fine 'Winter Landscape,' and a 'Farm Cottage,' +are in the National Gallery. Some of Adrian Van de Velde's best work, as +well as his brother's, is in England.</p> + +<p><b>Jan Van der Heyden,</b><a name="Heyden" id="Heyden"></a> 'the Gerard Dow of architectural painters,' was born +in 1637 and died in 1712. He combined an unspeakable minuteness of +detail with the closest observation of nature. His subjects, which he +selected with great taste, were chiefly well-known buildings, palaces, +churches, and canal banks in Holland and Belgium. He painted in a warm +transparent tone, with close application of the laws of perspective. The +figures in his pictures, in excellent keeping, were often introduced by +Adrian Van de Velde. Van der Heyden's productiveness as a painter was +lessened by the circumstance that his mechanical talent led him to make +an invention by which the construction of the fire-engines of his day +was greatly improved. In consequence he was placed by the magistrates of +Amsterdam at the head of their fire-engine establishment, which had thus +many claims on his time. A beautiful 'Street in Cologne' is in the +National Gallery.</p> + +<p><b>Emanuel De Witte,</b><a name="Wit" id="Wit"></a> born in 1607, died in 1692, was great in architectural +interiors, especially in churches of Italian architecture. He stood to +this branch of Dutch art in the same relation that Ruysdael did to +landscape and William Van de Velde to seascape.</p> + +<p><b>Aart Van der Neer</b><a name="Neer" id="Neer"></a> was born in 1619(?), died in 1683. He is famous for +his canal banks by moonlight, and fine disposal of broad masses of +shadow. After his moonlights come his sunsets, conflagrations, and +winter scenes. He rarely painted full daylight. He sometimes painted on +the same canvas with Cuyp. There is a fine small moonlight picture by +Van der Neer in the National Gallery. Many of his works are in England.</p> + +<p><b>William Van de Velde the younger,</b><a name="younger" id="younger"></a> the elder brother of Adrian Van de +Velde, the cattle painter, was born at Amsterdam in 1633, and died at +Greenwich in 1707. His early life was spent in Holland. He followed his +father, William Van de Velde, a painter also, to England, where, under +the patronage of Charles II, and James II., William the younger painted +the naval victories of the English over the Dutch, just as in Holland he +had already painted the naval victories of the Dutch over the English. +He was a greater and more consistent artist than he was a patriot. +Without question he is the first marine painter of the Dutch School. He +was untiring in his study of nature, so that his perfect knowledge of +perspective and the incomparable mastery of technical qualities which he +inherited from his school, enabled him to render sea and sky under every +aspect. His vessels 'were drawn with a knowledge which extended to every +rope.' He has been an exceedingly popular painter both with the Dutch +and the English. Of upwards of three hundred pictures left by him many +are in Holland and still more in England, where in his lifetime he was +largely employed by the English nobility and gentry. William Van de +Velde has a great picture in the Amsterdam Museum, where the English +flag-ship, the <i>Princess Royal</i>, is represented as striking her colours +to the Dutch fleet in 1666. In the companion picture, also by Van de +Velde, 'Four English men-of-war brought in as prizes,' the painter +introduces himself in the small boat from which he witnessed the fight. +William Van de Velde's triumphs in calm seas are seen especially in his +pictures at the Hague and in Munich. Some of Van de Velde's best works +are in the National Gallery.</p> + +<p><b>Backhuysen</b><a name="Back" id="Back"></a> born in 1631, died at Amsterdam in 1708, was another +admirable marine painter. He did not study painting till he had followed +a trade up to the age of eighteen years; he then gave himself with +ardour to art, making many studies of skies, coasts, and vessels. He was +inferior to William Van de Velde in his colouring, which was heavy, with +a cold effect. But he had in full a Dutch painter's truthfulness, while +his 'stormy waves and rent clouds' are given with poetic feeling. He was +an industrious and successful man, painting nearly two hundred pictures, +and receiving many commissions from the King of Prussia, Grand Duke of +Tuscany, &c. One of his finest works, 'A View of the River from the +Landing-place called the Mosselsteiger,' is in Amsterdam Museum. In the +Louvre is 'A view of the Mouth of the Texel, with ten Men-of-war Sailing +before a Fresh Wind.' 'Dutch Shipping' is in the National Gallery.</p> + +<p><b>Van de Capella</b> <a name="Capella" id="Capella"></a>is another capital marine painter, though little is known +of him. He was a native of Amsterdam about 1653. His favourite subject +is a quiet sea in sunny weather. His work bears some resemblance to that +of Cuyp. His best pictures are in England. 'A Calm at Low Water' is in +the National Gallery.</p> + +<p><a name="Mel" id="Mel"></a><b>Melchior de Hondecoeter,</b> born in 1636, died in 1695, chose the feathered +tribe for his subjects. He has been called 'the Raphael of bird +painters.' He painted especially poultry, peacocks, turkeys, and +pigeons, which he usually represented alive, and treated with great +truthfulness and picturesque feeling. Among his best pictures are 'The +Floating Feather,' a feather given with singular lightness drifting in a +pool, with different birds on the water and the shore—a pelican +prominent—in Amsterdam Museum, and 'A Hen defending her Chickens +against the attacks of a Pea-hen, with a Peacock, a Pigeon, a Cassowary, +and a Crane,' also in Amsterdam.</p> + +<p><b>Jan Weenix,</b><a name="Ween" id="Ween"></a> born in 1644, died in 1719. He was a painter of 'still +life,' and was especially famous for his dead hares, 'which in form and +colour, down to the rendering of every hair, are marvels of execution.' +He painted sometimes, though rarely, a living dog in his pieces. A fine +example of his work, 'Dead Game with a Dog,' is in the National Gallery. +Weenix sometimes painted flower pieces.<a id="footnotetag58" name="footnotetag58"></a> +<a href="#footnote58"><sup class="sml">58</sup></a></p> + +<p><a name="Seg" id="Seg"></a> +<b>Pater Segers,</b> so called because he was a Father in a Jesuit convent, +which he entered at twenty-four years of age. He was born in 1590, and +died in the Jesuit convent, Antwerp, 1661. He was a famous flower +painter, but did not paint flowers by themselves; he painted them in +conjunction with the historical and sacred subjects of other painters. +He added many a wreath to the Virgin and Child. He worked in this +fashion with Rubens, but painted more frequently along with painters of +a lower rank in art. Pater Segers' flowers are finely drawn and +tastefully arranged. The red of his roses has remained unchanged by +years, while the roses of other painters have become violet or faded +altogether. He had endless royal commissions. There are six of his +pictures of much merit in the Dresden Gallery.</p> + +<p>Besides the elder and younger De Heem and Maria Von Oesterwyck mentioned +at page 258, <b>Jan Van Huysum,</b><a name="Huysum" id="Huysum"></a> 1682—1749, was great in flower painting, +choosing flowers rather than fruit for his brush. If De Heem has been +called the Titian, Van Huysum has been defined as the Correggio, of +flowers and fruit. He reversed the ordinary course of artists by +beginning in a broad style, and progressing into an execution of the +finest details. In masterly drawing and truthfulness he was not inferior +to De Heem, though hardly reckoned his equal in other respects. Even in +Van Huysum's lifetime there was an eager demand for his pictures, of +which he left more than a hundred. There is an excellent fruit and +flower piece by him in Dulwich Gallery, and a masterpiece, 'A Vase with +Flowers,' is in the National Gallery.</p> + +<p><a name="Werff" id="Werff"></a><b>Andrian Van der Werff</b> was born in 1659, and died in 1722. He is +honourably distinguished for his pursuit of the ideal, in which he stood +alone among the Dutch artists of his day. He showed much sense of beauty +and elegance of form with great finish, but he had more than +counterbalancing faults. His grouping was artificial, his heads +monotonous, his colouring 'cold and heavy,' with 'a frosty feeling' in +his pictures. His flesh tints resembled ivory, yet his elegance was so +highly prized that he had many royal and noble patrons, for whom he +executed sculptural and mythological pieces. Many of his pictures are in +the Munich Gallery.</p> + +<p><a name="Mengs" id="Mengs"></a><b>Anton Raphael Mengs</b> was born in Bohemia 1728, and died in Rome 1774. His +father was a distinguished miniature painter, and gave his son a careful +education, training him to copy the masterpieces of Michael Angelo and +Raphael from his twelfth year. Unfortunately he remained a copyist and +an eclectic. He drew well, learnt chiaroscuro from studying Correggio, +and colouring from analysing Titian. He was acquainted with the best +technical processes in oil and fresco. All that teaching could do for a +man was done, and to a great extent in vain. For though he worked with +great conscientiousness, fancy and feeling were either originally +lacking, or they were overlaid and stifled by his excess of culture and +severe education. The most successful of his works are portraits, in +which masterly treatment makes up to some extent for the absence of +originality and subtle sympathy. But in his day, and with some reason, +Raphael Mengs was greatly prized, since he figured among a host of +ignorant, careless, and conceited painters. At the age of seventeen he +was appointed court painter to King Augustus of Saxony. He was summoned +to Spain by Charles III., who gave him a high salary. Among his good +works is an 'Assumption' on the high altar of the Catholic Church, +Dresden. An allegorical subject in fresco on the ceiling of the Camera +de Papini in the Vatican has 'beauty of form, delicate observation, and +masterly modelling.' Mengs wrote well on art, though in his writing also +his eclecticism comes out.</p> + +<p>NOTE TO PAGE 96.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>'I have been told that I have not done justice to Lionardo in +this short sketch. I give in an abridged form the accurate and +appreciative analysis of the man and his work in Sir C, and Lady +Eastlake.'—<span class="smcap">Kugler</span>. It is stated that the versatility of +Lionardo was against him. He attempted too much for one man and +one life. An additional impediment was produced by his +temperament, 'dreamy, perfidious, procrastinating,' withal +desirous of shining in society. His ideal of the Lord's head is +the highest that art has realised. The apostles' heads are among +the truest and noblest. The countenances of his Madonnas are full +of ineffable sweetness and pathos. 'At the same time he analysed +the monstrous and misshapen, and has left us caricatures in which +he seems to have gloated over hideousness half human, half +brute. He altered and retouched without ceasing, always deferring +the conclusion of the task which he executed with untiring labour +and ceaseless dissatisfaction.' The wonder is not that he should +have left so little, but that he left enough to prove the +transcendent nature of his art. 'There is nothing stranger in +history than the fact that his great fame rests on one single +picture—long reduced to a shadow—on half-a-dozen pictures for +which his hand is alternately claimed and denied, and on +unfinished fragments which he himself condemned.' Lionardo was +too universal to be of any school.</p></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="INDEX" id="INDEX"></a>INDEX.</h2> + + + + + +<div class='center'> +<br /> +<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary=""> + +<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Alb">Albano</a></span></td> +<td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Angelico">Angelico, Fra</a></span></td> +<td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Anguisciola">Anguisciola</a></span></td> +<td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Back">Buckhuysen</a></span></td></tr> + +<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Bar">Baroccio</a></span></td> +<td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Bartolommeo">Bartolommeo, Fra</a></span></td> +<td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Bellini">Bellini, The</a></span></td> +<td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Berchem">Berchem</a></span></td></tr> + +<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Bol">Bol</a></span></td> +<td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Bordone">Bordone</a></span></td> +<td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Both">Both</a></span></td> +<td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Botticelli">Botticelli</a></span></td></tr> + + +<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Canal">Canaletto</a></span></td> +<td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Capella">Capella, Van de</a></span></td> +<td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Cara">Caravaggio</a></span></td> +<td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Carp">Carpaccio</a></span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Carr">Carracci, The</a></span></td> +<td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Cell">Cellini</a></span></td> +<td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Claude">Claude Loraine</a></span></td> +<td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Corr">Correggio</a></span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Crivelli">Crivelli</a></span></td> +<td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Cuyp">Cuyp</a></span></td> +<td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Dom">Domenichino</a></span></td> +<td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Dow">Dow</a></span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Du">Du Jardin</a></span></td> +<td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Durer">Dürer</a></span></td> +<td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Eycks">Eycks, The Van</a></span></td> +<td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Filippo">Filippo, Fra</a></span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Fon">Fontana</a></span></td> +<td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Fran">Francia, Il</a></span></td> +<td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Gad">Gaddi</a></span></td> +<td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Garo">Garofalo</a></span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Ghib">Ghiberti</a></span></td> +<td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#dajo">Ghirlandajo</a></span></td> +<td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Gibb">Gibbons, Grinling</a></span></td> +<td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Gior">Giorgione</a></span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Giot">Giotto</a></span></td> +<td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Gozz">Gozzoli</a></span></td> +<td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Greuze">Greuze</a></span></td> +<td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Guer">Guercino</a></span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Guido">Guido</a></span></td> +<td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Heem">Heem, De</a></span></td> +<td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Helst">Helst, Van der</a></span></td> +<td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Heyden">Heyden, Van der</a></span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Hobbe">Hobbema</a></span></td> +<td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Hol">Holbein</a></span></td> +<td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Mel">Hondecoeter</a></span></td> +<td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Hont">Honthorst</a></span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Hooch">Hooch</a></span></td> +<td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Huysum">Huysum, Van</a></span></td> +<td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#god">Kneller</a></span></td> +<td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Brun">Le Brun</a></span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Lely">Lely</a></span></td> +<td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Ley">Leyden, Van</a></span></td> +<td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Lion">Lionardo da Vinci</a></span></td> +<td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Lipi">Lipi</a></span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Luin">Luini</a></span></td> +<td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Maas">Maas</a></span></td> +<td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Mab">Mabuse</a></span></td> +<td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Mantegna">Mantegna</a></span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Mas">Masaccio</a></span></td> +<td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Matsys">Matsys</a></span></td> +<td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Mem">Memling</a></span></td> +<td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Mengs">Mengs</a></span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Mess">Messina, Da</a></span></td> +<td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Met">Metzu</a></span></td> +<td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Michel">Michael Angelo</a></span></td> +<td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Murillo">Murillo</a></span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Neer">Neer</a></span></td> +<td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Net">Netcher</a></span></td> +<td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Orc">Orcagna</a></span></td> +<td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Ost">Ostade, Van</a></span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Palma">Palma</a></span></td> +<td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Pard">Pardenone</a></span></td> +<td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Parm">Parmigianino</a></span></td> +<td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Per">Perugino</a></span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Pis">Pisano</a></span></td> +<td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Pot">Potter</a></span></td> +<td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Pous">Poussin</a></span></td> +<td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Raph">Raphael</a></span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Rem">Rembrandt</a></span></td> +<td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Romano">Romano</a></span></td> +<td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Rubens">Rubens</a></span></td> +<td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Ruys">Ruysdael</a></span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Rosa">Salvator Rosa</a></span></td> +<td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Sarto">Sarto, Del</a></span></td> +<td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Sasso">Sassoferrato</a></span></td> +<td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Seg">Segers</a></span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Sig">Signorelli</a></span></td> +<td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Snyders">Snyders</a></span></td> +<td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Somer">Somer, Van</a></span></td> +<td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Spagna">Spagna</a></span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#LoSpag">Spagnoletto</a></span></td> +<td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Steen">Steen</a></span></td> +<td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Ten">Teniers, Father and Son</a></span></td> +<td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Ter">Terburg</a></span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Tint">Tintoretto</a></span></td> +<td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Tit">Titian</a></span></td> +<td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Dyck">Van Dyck</a></span></td> +<td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Vasa">Vasari</a></span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Vela">Velasquez</a></span></td> +<td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Velde">Velde, Van de</a></span></td> +<td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#younger">Velde, Van de, The Younger</a></span></td> +<td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Ver">Veronese</a></span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Wat">Watteau</a></span></td> +<td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Ween">Weenix</a></span></td> +<td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Werff">Werff</a></span></td> +<td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Wit">Witte</a></span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Wouver">Wouvermans</a></span></td></tr> +</table></div> + +<hr /> +<h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + + +<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote1" +name="footnote1"></a><b>Note 1:</b><a href="#footnotetag1"> +(return) </a> +It is in their unconsciousness and earnestness that a parallel is +drawn between the first Italian painters and the Elizabethean poets. In +other respects the comparison may be reversed, for the early Italian +painters, from their restriction to religious painting, with even that +treated according to tradition, were as destitute of the breadth of +scope and fancy attained by their successors, as the Elizabethean poets +were distinguished by the exuberant freedom which failed in the more +formal scholars of Anne's reign.</blockquote> + +<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote2" +name="footnote2"></a><b>Note 2:</b><a href="#footnotetag2"> +(return) </a> Kugler's Handbook of Art.</blockquote> + + +<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote3" +name="footnote3"></a><b>Note 3:</b><a href="#footnotetag3"> +(return) </a> While writing of goldsmiths that became painters, I may say a word +of a goldsmith who, without quitting his trade, was an unrivalled artist +in his line. I mean Benvenuto Cellini, 1500—1571,<a name="Cell" id="Cell"></a> a man of violent +passions and little principle, who led a wild troubled life, of which he +has left an account as shameless as his character, in an autobiography. +Cellini was the most distinguished worker in gold and silver of his day, +and his richly chased dishes, goblets, and salt cellars, are still in +great repute.</blockquote> + + +<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote4" +name="footnote4"></a><b>Note 4:</b><a href="#footnotetag4"> +(return) </a> Kugler's <i>Hand-book of Painting</i>.</blockquote> + +<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote5" +name="footnote5"></a><b>Note 5:</b><a href="#footnotetag5"> +(return) </a> Kugler's <i>Hand-book of Painting</i>.</blockquote> + +<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote6" +name="footnote6"></a><b>Note 6:</b><a href="#footnotetag6"> +(return) </a> See note, page 422.</blockquote> + +<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote7" +name="footnote7"></a><b>Note 7:</b><a href="#footnotetag7"> +(return) </a> Mrs Roscoe's <i>Life of Vittoria Colonna</i></blockquote> + +<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote8" +name="footnote8"></a><b>Note 8:</b><a href="#footnotetag8"> +(return) </a> Michael Angelo's will was very simple. 'I bequeath my soul to God, +my body to the earth, and my possessions to my nearest relations.'</blockquote> + +<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote9" +name="footnote9"></a><b>Note 9:</b><a href="#footnotetag9"> +(return) </a> Lady Eastlake, <i>History of Our Lord</i>.</blockquote> + +<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote10" +name="footnote10"></a><b>Note 10:</b><a href="#footnotetag10"> +(return) </a> Hare, <i>Walks in Rome</i>.</blockquote> + +<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote11" +name="footnote11"></a><b>Note 11:</b><a href="#footnotetag11"> +(return) </a> Lanzi, in Hare's <i>Walks in Rome</i>.</blockquote> + +<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote12" +name="footnote12"></a><b>Note 12:</b><a href="#footnotetag12"> +(return) </a> Rio. <i>Poetry of Christian Art</i>, in Hare's <i>Walks in Rome.</i></blockquote> + +<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote13" +name="footnote13"></a><b>Note 13:</b><a href="#footnotetag13"> +(return) </a> Mrs Jameson.</blockquote> + +<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote14" +name="footnote14"></a><b>Note 14:</b><a href="#footnotetag14"> +(return) </a> Dean Alford.</blockquote> + +<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote15" +name="footnote15"></a><b>Note 15:</b><a href="#footnotetag15"> +(return) </a> <i>Imperial Biographical Dictionary</i>.</blockquote> + +<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote16" +name="footnote16"></a><b>Note 16:</b><a href="#footnotetag16"> +(return) </a> Titian's age is variously given; some authorities make it +ninety-nine years, placing the date of his death in 1570 or 7.</blockquote> + +<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote17" +name="footnote17"></a><b>Note 17:</b><a href="#footnotetag17"> +(return) </a> Kugler.</blockquote> + +<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote18" +name="footnote18"></a><b>Note 18:</b><a href="#footnotetag18"> +(return) </a> The term originated in the French expression, '<i>du genre bas</i>.'</blockquote> + +<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote19" +name="footnote19"></a><b>Note 19:</b><a href="#footnotetag19"> +(return) </a> He had a peculiar fondness for blue and bronze hues.</blockquote> + +<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote20" +name="footnote20"></a><b>Note 20:</b><a href="#footnotetag20"> +(return) </a> It is due to Tintoret to say, that there are modern critics, who +look below the surface, and are at this date deeply enamoured of his +pictures. Tintoret's name now stands very high in art.</blockquote> + +<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote21" +name="footnote21"></a><b>Note 21:</b><a href="#footnotetag21"> +(return) </a> Mrs Jameson.</blockquote> + +<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote22" +name="footnote22"></a><b>Note 22:</b><a href="#footnotetag22"> +(return) </a> Guido said of Rubens: 'Does this painter mix blood with his +colours?'</blockquote> + +<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote23" +name="footnote23"></a><b>Note 23:</b><a href="#footnotetag23"> +(return) </a> <i>Life of Rubens</i>.</blockquote> + +<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote24" +name="footnote24"></a><b>Note 24:</b><a href="#footnotetag24"> +(return) </a> If I mistake not, this is the same Countess of Arundel who, in her +widowhood, resided in Italy in order to be near her young sons then at +Padua. Having provoked the suspicion of the Doge and Council of Venice, +she was arrested by them on a charge of treason, and brought before the +tribunal, where she successfully pled her own cause, and obtained her +release, the only woman who ever braved triumphantly the terrible 'ten.'</blockquote> + +<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote25" +name="footnote25"></a><b>Note 25:</b><a href="#footnotetag25"> +(return) </a> Here is the description of a very different Rembrandt which appears +in this year's Exhibition of the Works by Old Masters: 'There is no +portrait here which equals Rembrandt's picture, from Windsor, "A Lady +Opening a Casement;" a not particularly appropriate name, because the +picture represents no such action. The lady is simply looking from an +open window, her left hand raised and resting at the side of the +opening. We believe there is nothing left to tell who this lady was, +with the grave, sad eyes, and lips that seem to quiver with a trouble +hardly yet assuaged by time. She wears a lace coif, and broad rich lace +collar, almost a tippet, for it falls below her shoulders, together with +lace cuffs. A triple band of large pearls goes about her neck, and she +has similar ornaments round each wrist. She wears a mourning robe and +black jewellery.... This picture, which resembles in most of its +qualities a pair, of somewhat larger size, which were here last year, +and also came from the Royal collection, is signed and dated "Rembrandt, +F. 1671." It is, therefore, a late work of his. What wonderful harmony +is here, of light, of colour, of tone. How nearly perfect is the keeping +of the whole picture; as a whole, and also in respect of part to part. +Could anything be truer than the breadth of the chiaroscuro? Notice how +beautifully, and with what subtle gradations, the light reflected from +her white collar strikes on her slightly faded cheek; how tenderly it +seems to play among the soft tangles of the hair that time has +thinned.'—<i>Athenæum</i>.</blockquote> + +<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote26" +name="footnote26"></a><b>Note 26:</b><a href="#footnotetag26"> +(return) </a> He had been called the Titian of flower and fruit painters. He +preferred fruit for his subject. His works are not common in England. +His masterpiece, 'The Chalice of the Sacrament,' crowned with a stately +wreath, and sheaves of corn and bunches of grapes among the flowers, is +at Vienna.</blockquote> + +<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote27" +name="footnote27"></a><b>Note 27:</b><a href="#footnotetag27"> +(return) </a> Sir W. Stirling Maxwell.</blockquote> + +<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote28" +name="footnote28"></a><b>Note 28:</b><a href="#footnotetag28"> +(return) </a> Sir W. Stirling Maxwell.</blockquote> + +<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote29" +name="footnote29"></a><b>Note 29:</b><a href="#footnotetag29"> +(return) </a> Hare, <i>Wanderings in Spain</i>.</blockquote> + +<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote30" +name="footnote30"></a><b>Note 30:</b><a href="#footnotetag30"> +(return) </a> Hare's <i>Wanderings in Spain</i>.</blockquote> + +<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote31" +name="footnote31"></a><b>Note 31:</b><a href="#footnotetag31"> +(return) </a> The spelling is an English corruption of the French Claud.</blockquote> + +<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote32" +name="footnote32"></a><b>Note 32:</b><a href="#footnotetag32"> +(return) </a> Poussin had a villa near Ponte Molle, and the road by which he used +to go to it is still called in Rome 'Poussin's walk.'</blockquote> + +<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote33" +name="footnote33"></a><b>Note 33:</b><a href="#footnotetag33"> +(return) </a> Claude's summer villa is still pointed out near Rome.</blockquote> + +<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote34" +name="footnote34"></a><b>Note 34:</b><a href="#footnotetag34"> +(return) </a> <i>Imperial Biographical Dictionary</i>.</blockquote> + +<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote35" +name="footnote35"></a><b>Note 35:</b><a href="#footnotetag35"> +(return) </a> Madame Le Brun, whose maiden name was Vigée, born 1755, died 1842, +was an excellent portrait painter.</blockquote> + +<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote36" +name="footnote36"></a><b>Note 36:</b><a href="#footnotetag36"> +(return) </a> Wornum.</blockquote> + +<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote37" +name="footnote37"></a><b>Note 37:</b><a href="#footnotetag37"> +(return) </a> Wornum.</blockquote> + +<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote38" +name="footnote38"></a><b>Note 38:</b><a href="#footnotetag38"> +(return) </a> Supposed to be a niece of Sir Thomas More's.</blockquote> + +<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote39" +name="footnote39"></a><b>Note 39:</b><a href="#footnotetag39"> +(return) </a> Rev. J. Lewis, 1731.</blockquote> + +<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote40" +name="footnote40"></a><b>Note 40:</b><a href="#footnotetag40"> +(return) </a> Wornum.</blockquote> + +<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote41" +name="footnote41"></a><b>Note 41:</b><a href="#footnotetag41"> +(return) </a> A still more famous picture by Holbein is that called 'The Two +Ambassadors,' and believed to represent Sir Thomas Wyatt and his +secretary.</blockquote> + +<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote42" +name="footnote42"></a><b>Note 42:</b><a href="#footnotetag42"> +(return) </a> Walpole.</blockquote> + +<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote43" +name="footnote43"></a><b>Note 43:</b><a href="#footnotetag43"> +(return) </a> Walpole.</blockquote> + +<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote44" +name="footnote44"></a><b>Note 44:</b><a href="#footnotetag44"> +(return) </a> Dwarfs figured at Charles's court, as at the court of Philip IV. of +Spain.</blockquote> + +<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote45" +name="footnote45"></a><b>Note 45:</b><a href="#footnotetag45"> +(return) </a> The notion that Van Dyck sacrificed truth to grace is absolutely +contradicted by certain critics, who bring forward as a proof of their +contradiction what they consider the 'over-true' picture of the Queen +Henrietta Maria, shown at the last exhibition of the works of Old +Masters. The picture seems hardly to warrant the strong opinion of the +critics.</blockquote> + +<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote46" +name="footnote46"></a><b>Note 46:</b><a href="#footnotetag46"> +(return) </a> Walpole.</blockquote> + +<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote47" +name="footnote47"></a><b>Note 47:</b><a href="#footnotetag47"> +(return) </a> Walpole.</blockquote> + +<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote48" +name="footnote48"></a><b>Note 48:</b><a href="#footnotetag48"> +(return) </a> Lady Eastlake and Dr. Waagen's works on Italian, Flemish, and Dutch +Art, modelled on Kugler.</blockquote> + +<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote49" +name="footnote49"></a><b>Note 49:</b><a href="#footnotetag49"> +(return) </a> A lunette is a small picture, generally semicircular, surmounting +the main picture in an altar-piece.</blockquote> + +<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote50" +name="footnote50"></a><b>Note 50:</b><a href="#footnotetag50"> +(return) </a> The Dutch still more than the Italian artists belonged largely to +families of artists bearing the same surnames.</blockquote> + +<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote51" +name="footnote51"></a><b>Note 51:</b><a href="#footnotetag51"> +(return) </a> A picture with one door of two panels is called a diptych, with two +doors of three panels a triptych, with many doors and panels a +polyptych.</blockquote> + +<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote52" +name="footnote52"></a><b>Note 52:</b><a href="#footnotetag52"> +(return) </a> Fairholt's 'Homes and Haunts of Foreign Artists.'</blockquote> + +<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote53" +name="footnote53"></a><b>Note 53:</b><a href="#footnotetag53"> +(return) </a> Alchemists, like hermits, still existed in the seventeenth century.</blockquote> + +<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote54" +name="footnote54"></a><b>Note 54:</b><a href="#footnotetag54"> +(return) </a> <b>Bartholomew Van der Helst,</b><a name="Helst" id="Helst"></a> 1613-1670, was another great Dutch +portrait painter. His portrait pieces with many figures are famous. An +'Archery Festival,' commemorating the Peace of Westphalia, includes +twenty-four figures full of individuality and finely drawn and coloured. +One of his best works is 'In the Workhouse,' at Amsterdam. Two women and +two men are conversing together in the foreground. There is a man with a +book, and a preacher delivering a sermon in the background.</blockquote> + +<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote55" +name="footnote55"></a><b>Note 55:</b><a href="#footnotetag55"> +(return) </a> It may be that Ruysdael's straggling life was reflected in his +lowering skies and stormy seas.</blockquote> + +<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote56" +name="footnote56"></a><b>Note 56:</b><a href="#footnotetag56"> +(return) </a> Other eminent painters, such as Van de Velde, Wouvermans, and +Berchem often supplied cattle and figures to Hobbema's landscapes.</blockquote> + +<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote57" +name="footnote57"></a><b>Note 57:</b><a href="#footnotetag57"> +(return) </a> Was the apparently greater success of these partly denaturalised +Dutch landscape painters, as contrasted with the adversity of Ruysdael +and Ttobbema, due to the classic mania?</blockquote> + +<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote58" +name="footnote58"></a><b>Note 58:</b><a href="#footnotetag58"> +(return) </a> Peter Gysels was another painter of 'still life.' His butterflies +are said to have been rendered with 'exquisite finish.'</blockquote> + + + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>ISBISTERS' PRIZE AND GIFT BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>"<i>Charming prize books. If anything can make the children of the present +day take kindly to useful information, it will be such books as these, +full of excellent illustrations, and in easy as well as interesting +language."</i>—<span class="smcap">Guardian</span>.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><i>ONE SHILLING VOLUMES.</i></p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><b>ANIMAL STORIES FOR THE YOUNG.</b></p> + +<p>In Three handsome little Volumes full of Illustrations.'</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">1. HEADS WITHOUT HANDS;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 5.5em;">Or, Stories of Animal Wisdom.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">2. HEARTS WITHOUT HANDS;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 5.5em;">Or, Fine Feeling among Brutes,</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">3. SENSE WITHOUT SPEECH;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 5.5em;">Or, Animal Notions of Right and Wrong.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p><b>MOU-SETSÉ.</b></p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">A Negro Hero. By L.T. MEADE</span>.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 6em;">With Illustrations. Small 8vo.</span><br /> +</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><i>HALF-CROWN VOLUMES.</i></p> + +<p>Profusely Illustrated. Crown 8vo, cloth extra.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><b>AMONG THE BUTTERFLIES.</b></p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 4.5em;">A Book for Young Collectors.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 5.5em;">By B.G. JOHNS, M.A.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 6.5em;">With Twelve Full-page Plates, &c. Crown 8vo.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">"This is such a book as should be abundantly given as a prize in schools."</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 23em;"><i>Glasgow Herald.</i></span><br /> +</p> + +<p><b>MOTHER HERRING'S CHICKEN.</b></p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 4.5em;">An East-end Story. By L.T. MEADE.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 6em;">Illustrated by BARNES. Crown 8vo.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">"One of the most pleasing little tales which was ever written for young people; ay,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">and even for old people."—<i>Newcastle Chronicle.</i></span><br /> +</p> + +<p><b>A DWELLER IN TENTS.</b></p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">By L.T. MEADE. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">"It surprises us with a study of human character of no ordinary merit and intensity."</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 18.5em;"><i>Pall Mall Gazette.</i></span><br /> +</p> + +<p><b>ANDREW HARVEY'S WIFE.</b></p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 5em;">By L.T. MEADE. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">"The characters are well drawn, and the story well developed."—<i>Literary World.</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">"Decidedly strong and well wrought out."—<i>Scotsman</i>.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p><b>IN PRISON AND OUT.</b></p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">By HESBA STRETTON.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4.5em;">10th Thousand. Illustrated by R. BARNES. Crown 8vo.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">"Told with all the pathos and captivating interest of the authoress of 'Jessica's</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">First Prayer.'"—<i>Guardian</i>.</span><br /> +</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><i>COMPLETE CATALOGUE FREE BY POST.</i></p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><i>TWO SHILLING VOLUMES.</i></p> + +<p>Profusely Illustrated. Crown 8vo, cloth extra, gilt edges.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><b>THREE LITTLE HEROES.</b></p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">WILLIE HARDY.—LITTLE RAINBOW.—JEAN BAPTISTE.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 5em;">By Mrs. CHARLES GARNETT. With Thirty Illustrations.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">"Touching and graceful sketches."—<i>Literary World</i>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">"Drawn from life we should say.... So vivid and natural in colouring."</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 27.5em;"><i>Church Bells</i>.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p><b>NOBODY'S NEIGHBOURS.</b></p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 4.5em;">A Story of Golden Lane. By L.T. MEADE.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 6.5em;">With Thirty Illustrations.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">"In every respect entitled to a place among the best reward books of the season."—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 24em;"><i>Schoolmaster</i>.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p><b>KING FROST.</b></p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 4.5em;">The Wonders of Snow and Ice. By Mrs. THORPE.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 6.5em;">With Seventy Illustrations.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">"Exceedingly able, and without an unattractive page."—<i>School Board Chronicle</i>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">"Full of charming little pictures and instructive descriptions of the phenomena</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">which attend the presence of the Ice King."—<i>Christian World</i>.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p><b>UP THE NILE.</b></p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">A Boy's Voyage to Khartoum. By H. MAJOR, B. Sc.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 6em;">With Forty Illustrations.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">"Must be placed amongst the best of the books for boys and girls which have been</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">issued this season. A very excellent book."—<i>Nottingham Guardian.</i></span><br /> +</p> + +<p><b>THE STRENGTH OF HER YOUTH.</b></p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 4.5em;">A Story for Girls. By S. DOUDNEY. With Twenty Illustrations.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">"The story is simple enough, but Miss Doudney handles it well."—<i>Spectator</i>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">"Sound and healthy in tone, yet not without movement and variety. Carefully</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">illustrated and tastefully bound."—<i>Daily News</i>.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p><b>WE THREE;</b></p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">A Bit of Our Lives.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">By the Author of "Worth a Threepenny Bit," &c.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 5.5em;">With Thirty Illustrations.</span><br /> +</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><a name="TWO_SHILLING_VOLUMES" id="TWO_SHILLING_VOLUMES"></a><i>TWO SHILLING VOLUMES.</i></p> + +<p>Profusely Illustrated. Crown 8vo, cloth extra, gilt edges.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><b>A BAND OF THREE.</b></p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">By L.T. MEADE, Author of "Scamp and I," &c.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 5.5em;">Illustrated by Barnes.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">"An exquisite little tale. Since the days of 'Little Meg's Children' there has been</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">no sketch approaching the pathos of child-life in 'A Band of Three.'"</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 23em;"><i>Christian Leader</i>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">"Full of pathos and interest."—<i>Guardian</i>.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p><b>MY BACK-YARD ZOO.</b></p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">A Course of Natural History. By Rev. J.G. WOOD, M.A., Author</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 5.5em;">of "Homes without Hands," &c.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 7em;">With Seventy Illustrations.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">"A book that will delight young people. It is well illustrated and thoroughly</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">reliable."—<i>Morning Post</i>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">"Really a complete course of natural history."—<i>Times</i>.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p><b>FROM THE EQUATOR TO THE POLE.</b></p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">IN THE HEART OF AFRICA. By JOSEPH THOMSON.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">CLIMBING THE HIMALAYAS. By W.W. GRAHAM.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">ON THE ROAD TO THE POLE. By Captain A.H. MARKHAM.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4.5em;">With Forty-five Illustrations.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">"A more delightful prize or present for boys than this it would be hard to find."</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 27.5em;"><i>Record</i>.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p><b>FAITHFUL FRIENDS.</b></p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 4.5em;">Stories of Struggle and Victory.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 5.5em;">By L.T. MEADE and others.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 6.5em;">With Twenty Illustrations by French, Barnes, &c.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">"A carefully illustrated little book.... With truth and pathos."—<i>Daily News</i>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">"Capital reading for young folks.... All brisk and wholesome."—<i>Scotsman</i>.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p><b>HEROES AND MARTYRS OF SCIENCE.</b></p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 4.5em;">By HENRY C. EWART. With Thirty Illustrations.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">"It is an admirable book of its order, full of the inspiration of great lives."</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 16em;"><i>School Board Chronicle</i>.</span><br /> +</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>15 & 16, TAVISTOCK STREET, COVENT GARDEN, W.C.</p> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Old Masters and Their Pictures, by Sarah Tytler + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE OLD MASTERS AND THEIR PICTURES *** + +***** This file should be named 19863-h.htm or 19863-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/9/8/6/19863/ + +Produced by Peter Yearsley, Ted Garvin and the Online +Distributed Proofreaders Europe at http://dp.rastko.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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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 + + +Title: The Old Masters and Their Pictures + For the Use of Schools and Learners in Art + +Author: Sarah Tytler + +Release Date: November 19, 2006 [EBook #19863] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE OLD MASTERS AND THEIR PICTURES *** + + + + +Produced by Peter Yearsley, Ted Garvin and the Online +Distributed Proofreaders Europe at http://dp.rastko.net + + + + + +THE OLD MASTERS AND THEIR PICTURES + +_For the Use of Schools and Learners in Art_ + + +BY SARAH TYTLER + +AUTHOR OF "PAPERS FOR THOUGHTFUL GIRLS" ETC. + + +_NEW AND ENLARGED EDITION_ + + * * * * * + +LONDON +ISBISTER AND COMPANY LIMITED +15 & 16 TAVISTOCK STREET COVENT GARDEN +1893 + +[_The Right of Translation is Reserved_] + +LONDON: + +PRINTED BY J.S. VIRTUE AND CO., LIMITED, +CITY ROAD. + + + + +PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION. + + +I wish to say, in a very few words, that this book is intended to be a +simple account of the great Old Masters in painting of every age and +country, with descriptions of their most famous works, for the use of +learners and outsiders in art. The book is not, and could not well be, +exhaustive in its nature. I have avoided definitions of schools, +considering that these should form a later and more elaborate portion of +art education, and preferring to group my 'painters' according to what I +hold to be the primitive arrangements of time, country, and rank in +art. + + + + +PREFACE TO NEW EDITION. + + +The restrictions with regard to space under which the little volume +called "The Old Masters" was originally written, caused me to omit, to +my regret, many names great, though not first, in art. The circulation +which the book has attained induces me to do what I can to remedy the +defect, and render the volume more useful by adding two chapters--the +one on Italian and the other on German, Dutch, and Flemish masters. +These chapters consist almost entirely of condensed notes taken from two +trustworthy sources, to which I have been already much indebted--Sir C, +and Lady Eastlake's version of Kugler's "Handbook of Italian Art," and +Dr. Waagen's "Handbook,"--remodelled from Kugler--of German, Dutch, and +Flemish art, revised by J.A. Crowe. I have purposely given numerous +records of those Dutch painters whose art has been specially popular in +England and who are in some cases better represented in our country than +in their own. + + + + +CONTENTS. + + +CHAP. PAGE I. EARLY ITALIAN ART--GIOTTO, 1276-1337--ANDREA PISANO, +1280-1345--ORCAGNA, 1315-1376--GHIBERTI, 1381-1455--MASACCIO, 1402-1428 +_OR_ 1429--FRA ANGELICO, 1387-1455 1 + +II. EARLY FLEMISH ART--THE VAN EYCKS, 1366-1442--MABUSE, _ABOUT_ +1470-1532--MEMLING, _ABOUT_ 1478-1499--QUINTIN MATSYS, 1460-1530 OR 31 +41 + +III. IN EARLY SCHOOLS OF ITALIAN ART--THE BELLINI, 1422-1512--MANTEGNA, +1431-1506--GHIRLANDAJO, 1449-1498--- IL FRANCIA, 1450-1518--FRA +BARTOLOMMEO, 1469-1517--ANDREA DEL SARTO, 1488-1530 53 + +IV. LIONARDO DA VINCI. 1452-1519--MICHAEL ANGELO, 1475-1564--RAPHAEL, +1483-1520--TITIAN, 1477-1566 83 + +V. GERMAN ART--ALBRECHT DUeRER, 1471-1528 169 + +VI. LATER ITALIAN ART--GIORGIONE, 1477-1511--CORREGGIO, _ABOUT_ +1493-1534--TINTORETTO, 1512-1594--VERONESE, 1530-1588 181 + +VII. CARRACCI, 1555-1609--GUIDO RENI, 1575-1642--DOMENICHINO, +1581-1641--SALVATOR ROSA, 1615-1673 212 + +VIII. LATER FLEMISH ART--RUBENS, 1577-1640--REMBRANDT, 1606 _OR_ +1608-1669--TENIERS, FATHER AND SON, 1582-1694--WOUVVERMAN, +1620-1668--CUYP, 1605; _STILL LIVING_, 1638--PAUL POTTER, +1625-1654--CORNELIUS DE HEEM, 1630 225 + +IX. SPANISH ART--VELASQUEZ, 1599-1660--MURILLO, 1618-1682 260 + +X. FRENCH ART--NICOLAS POUSSIN, 1594-1665--CLAUDE LORRAINE, +1600-1682--CHARLES LE BRUN, 1619-1690--WATTEAU, 1684-1721--GREUZE, +1726-1805 286 + +XI. FOREIGN ARTISTS IN ENGLAND--HOLBEIN, 1494-1543--VAN DYCK, +1599-1641--LELY, 1618-1680--CANALETTO, 1697-1768--KNELLER, 1646-1723 309 + +XII. ITALIAN MASTERS FROM THE FOURTEENTH TO THE SEVENTEENTH +CENTURIES--TADDEO GADDI, 1300, SUPPOSED TO HAVE DIED 1366--FRA FILIPPO, +1412-1469--BENOZZO GOZZOLI, 1424-1496--LUCA SIGNORELLI, 1441, SUPPOSED +TO HAVE DIED ABOUT 1524--BOTTICELLI, 1447-1515--PERUGINO, +1446-1522--CARPACCIO, DATE AND PLACE OF BIRTH AND DEATH +UNKNOWN--CRIVELLI, FILIPPINO LIPI, EARLIER THAN 1460--ANTONELLA DA +MESSINA, BELIEVED TO HAVE DIED AT VENICE, 1416--GAROPALO, +1481-1559--LUINI, DATE OF BIRTH UNKNOWN, SUPPOSED TO HAVE DIED ABOUT +1530--PALMA, ABOUT 1480-1528--PARDENONE, 1483-1538--LO SPAGNA, DATE OF +BIRTH UNKNOWN, 1533--GIULIO ROMANO, 1492-1546--PARIS BORDONE, +1500-1570--IL PARMIGIANINO, 1503-1540--BAROCCIO, 1528-1612--CARAVAGGIO, +1569-1609--LO SPAGNOLETTO, 1593-1656--GUERCINO, 1592-1666--ALBANO, +1578-1660--SASSOFERRATO, 1605-1615--VASARI, 1512-1574--SOFONISBA +ANGUISCIOLA, 1535, ABOUT 1626--LAVINIA FONTANA, 1552-1614 364 + +XIII. GERMAN, FLEMISH, AND DUTCH ARTISTS FROM THE FIFTEENTH TO THE +EIGHTEENTH CENTURY--VAN DER WEYDEN, A CONTEMPORARY OF THE VAN EYCKS, +1366-1442--VAN LEYDEN, 1494-1533--VAN SOMER, 1570-1624--SNYDERS, +1579-1657--G. HONTHORST, 1592-1662--JAN STEEN, 1626-1679--GERARD DOW, +1613-1680--DE HOOCH, DATES OF BIRTH AND DEATH UNKNOWN--VAN OSTADE, +1610-1685--MAAS, 1632-1693--METZU, 1615. STILL ALIVE IN 1667--TERBURG, +1608-1681--NETCHER, 1639-1684--BOL, 1611-1680--VAN DER HELST, +1613-1670--RUYSDAEL, 1625 (?)-1682--HOBBEMA, 1638-1709--BERCHEM, +1620-1683--BOTH 1600 (?)-1650(?) DU JARDIN, 1625-1678--ADRIAN VAN DE +VELDE, 1639-1672--VAN DER HEYDEN, 1637-1712--DE WITTE, 1607-1692--VAN +DER NEER, 1619 (?)-1683--WILLIAM VAN DE VELDE, THE YOUNGER, +1633-1707--BACKHUYSEN, 1631-1708--VAN DE CAPELLA, ABOUT +1653--HONDECOETER, 1636-1695--JAN WEENIX, 1644-1719--PATER SEGERS, +1590-1661--VAN HUYSUM, 1682-1749--VAN DER WERFF, 1659-1722--MENGS, +1728-1774 391 + + * * * * * + + +THE OLD MASTERS AND THEIR PICTURES. + + * * * * * + + +CHAPTER I. + +EARLY ITALIAN ART--GIOTTO, 1276-1337--ANDREA PISANO. 1280-1345--ORCAGNA, +1315-1376 GHIBERTI, 1381-1455--MASACCIO, 1402-1428 OR 1429--FRA +ANGELICO, 1387-1455. + + +A pencil and paper, a box of colours, and a scrap-book, form so often a +child's favourite toys that one might expect that a very large portion +of men and women would prove painters. But, as we grow in years and +knowledge, the discrepancy between nature and our attempts to copy +nature, strike us more and more, until we turn in dissatisfaction and +disgust from the vain effort. + +There was only one old woman in an Esquimaux tribe who could be called +forward to draw with a stick on the sand a sufficiently graphic likeness +of the Erebus and the Terror. It is only a few groups of men belonging +to different countries, throughout the centuries, who have been able to +give us paintings to which we turn in wonder and admiration, and say +that these are in their degree fair exponents of nature. The old +painter's half-haughty, half-humble protest was true--it is 'God +Almighty,' who in raising here and there men above their fellows, 'makes +painters.' + +But let us be thankful that the old propensity to delight in a +facsimile, or in an idealized version of nature, survives in the very +common satisfaction and joy--whether cultivated or uncultivated--- +derived from looking at pictures, thinking over their details, striving +to understand the meaning of the painters, and proceeding farther to +consider the lives and times which throw light on works of genius. Music +itself is not more universally and gladly listened and responded to, +than pictures are looked at and remembered. + +Thus I have no fear of failing to interest you, my readers, in my +subject if I can only treat it sympathetically,--enter at a humble +distance into the spirit of the painters and of their paintings, and +place before you some of the paintings by reverent and loving +word-painting such as others have achieved, and such as I may strive to +attain to, that you may be in a sort early familiar with these +paintings, before you see them in engravings and photographs, and on +canvas and in fresco, as I trust you may be privileged to see many of +them, when you may hail them not only for what they are, the glories of +art, but for what they have been to you in thoughts of beauty and high +desires. + +Of the old Greek paintings, of which there are left isolated specimens +dug up in Herculaneum and Pompeii, I cannot afford to say anything, and +of the more modern Greek art which was spread over Europe after the fall +of Constantinople I need on Europe the birth-place of painting as of +other arts, that Greek painting which illustrated early Christianity, +was painting in its decline and decay, borrowing not only superstitious +conventionalities, but barbaric attributes of gilding and blazoning to +hide its infirmity and poverty. Virgins of the same weak and meaningless +type, between attenuated saints or angels, and doll-like child-Christs +in the one invariable attitude holding up two fingers of a baby hand to +bless the spectator and worshippers, were for ever repeated. In a +similar manner the instances of rude or meagre contemporary paintings +with which the early Christians adorned their places of worship and the +sepulchres of their dead in the basilicas and catacombs of Rome, are +very curious and interesting for their antiquity and their associations, +and as illustrations of faith; but they present no intrinsic beauty or +worth. They are not only clumsy and childish designs ill executed, but +they are rendered unintelligible to all save the initiated in such +hieroglyphics, by offering an elaborate ground-work of type, antitype, +and symbol, on which the artist probably spent a large part of his +strength. Lambs and lilies, serpents, vines, fishes, dolphins, +phoenixes, cocks, anchors, and javelins played nearly as conspicuous a +part in this art as did the dead believer, or his or her patron saint, +who might have been supposed to form the principal figure in the +picture. + +Italian art existed in these small beginnings, in the gorgeous but +quaintly formal or fantastic devices of illuminated missals, and in the +stiff spasmodic efforts of here and there an artist spirit such as the +old Florentine Cimabue's, when a great man heralded a great epoch. But +first I should like to mention the means by which art then worked. +Painting on board and on plastered walls, the second styled painting in +fresco, preceded painting on canvas. Colours were mixed with water or +with size, egg, or fig-juice--the latter practices termed _tempera_ (in +English in distemper) before oil was used to mix colours. But painters +did not confine themselves then to painting with pencil or brush, else +they might have attained technical excellence sooner. It has been well +said that the poems of the middle ages were written in stone; so the +earlier painters painted in stone, in that mosaic work which one of them +called--referring to its durability--'painting for eternity;' and in +metals. Many of them were the sons of jewellers or jewellers themselves; +they worked in iron as well as in gold and silver, and they were +sculptors and architects as well as painters; engineers also, so far as +engineering in the construction of roads, bridges, and canals, was known +in those days. The Greek knowledge of anatomy was well-nigh lost, so +that drawing was incorrect and form bad. The idea of showing degrees of +distance, and the management of light and shade, were feebly developed. +Even the fore-shortening of figures was so difficult to the old Italian +painters that they could not carry it into the extremities, and men and +women seem as though standing on the points of their toes. +Landscape-painting did not exist farther than that a rock or a bush, or +a few blue lines, with fishes out of proportion prominently interposed, +indicated, as on the old stage, that a desert, a forest, or a sea, was +to play its part in the story of the picture. So also portrait-painting +was not thought of, unless it occurred in the likeness of a great man +belonging to the time and place of the painter, who was the donor of +some picture to chapel or monastery, or of the painter himself, alike +introduced into sacred groups and scenes; for pictures were uniformly of +a religious character, until a little later, when they merged into +allegorical representations, just as one remembers that miracle plays +passed into moral plays before ordinary human life was reproduced. Until +this period, what we call dramatic expression in making a striking +situation, or even in bringing the look of joy or sorrow, pleasure or +pain, into a face, had hardly been attained. + +Perhaps you will ask, what merit had the old paintings of the middle +ages to compensate for so many great disadvantages and incongruities? +Certainly before the time I have reached, they have, with rare +exceptions, little merit, save that fascination of pathos, half-comic, +half-tragic, which belongs to the struggling dawn of all great +endeavours, and especially of all endeavours in art. But just at this +epoch, art, in one man, took a great stride, began, as I shall try to +show, to exert an influence so true, deep, and high that it extends, in +the noblest forms, to the present day, and much more than compensates to +the thoughtful and poetic for a protracted train of technical blunders +and deficiencies. + +Giotto, known also as Magister Joctus, was born in 1276 near Florence. I +dare say many have heard one legend of him, and I mean to tell the +legends of the painters, because even when they are most doubtful they +give the most striking indications of the times and the light in which +painters and their paintings were regarded by the world of artists, and +by the world at large; but so far as I have heard this legend of Giotto +has not been disproven. The only objection which can be urged against +it, is that it is found preserved in various countries, of very +different individuals--a crowning objection also to the legend of +William Tell. Giotto was a shepherd boy keeping his father's sheep and +amusing himself by drawing with chalk on a stone the favourites of the +flock, when his drawings attracted the attention of a traveller passing +from the heights into the valley. This traveller was the well-born and +highly-esteemed painter Cimabue, who was so delighted with the little +lad's rough outlines, that getting the consent of Giotto's father, +Cimabue adopted the boy, carried him off to the city of Florence, +introduced him to his studio, and so far as man could supplement the +work of God, made a painter of the youthful genius. I may add here a +later legend of Giotto. Pope Boniface VIII, requested specimens of skill +from various artists with the view to the appointment of a painter to +decorate St Peter's. Giotto, either in impatient disdain, or to show a +careless triumph of skill, with one flourish of his hand, without the +aid of compass, executed a perfect circle in red chalk, and sent the +circle as his contribution to the specimens required by the Pope. The +audacious specimen was accepted as the most conclusive, Giotto was +chosen as the Pope's painter for the occasion, and from the incident +arose the Italian proverb 'round as the o of Giotto.' Giotto was the +friend of Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio, especially of Dante, to whom +the grandeur of some of the painter's designs has been vaguely enough +attributed. The poet of the 'Inferno' wrote of his friend: + + '......... Cimabue thought + To lord it over painting's field; and now + The cry is Giotto's, and his name eclipsed.' + +Petrarch bequeathed in his will a Madonna by Giotto and mentioned it as +a rare treasure of art. Boccaccio wrote a merry anecdote of his comrade +the painter's wit, in the course of which he referred with notable +plain-speaking to Giotto's 'flat currish' plainness of face. + +The impression handed down of Giotto's character is that of an +independent, high-spirited man, full of invention, full of imagination, +and also, by a precious combination, full of shrewdness and common +sense; a man genial, given to repartee, and at the same time not +deficient in the tact which deprives repartee of its sting. While he was +working to King Robert of Naples, the king, who was watching the painter +on a very hot day, said, with a shrug, 'If I were you, Giotto, I would +leave off work and rest myself this fine day, 'And so would I, sire, if +I were _you_,' replied the wag. + +I need scarcely add that Giotto was a man highly esteemed and very +prosperous in his day; one account reports him as the head and the +father of four sons and four daughters. I have purposely written first +of the fame, the reputed character, and the circumstances of Giotto +before I proceed to his work. This great work was, in brief, to breathe +into painting the living soul which had till then--in mediaeval +times--been largely absent. Giotto went to Nature for his inspiration, +and not content with the immense innovation of superseding by the actual +representation of men and women in outline, tint, and attitude, the +rigid traditions of his predecessors, he put men's passions in their +faces--the melancholy looked sad, the gay glad. This result, to us so +simple, filled Giotto's lively countrymen, who had seldom seen it, with +astonishment and delight. They cried out as at a marvel when he made the +commonest deed even coarsely lifelike, as in the case of a sailor in a +boat, who turned round with his hand before his face and spat into the +sea; and when he illustrated the deed with the corresponding expression, +as in the thrill of eagerness that perceptibly pervaded the whole figure +of a thirsty man who stooped down to drink. But Giotto was no mere +realist though he was a great realist; he was also in the highest light +an idealist. His sense of harmony and beauty was true and noble; he rose +above the real into 'the things unseen and eternal,' of which the real +is but a rough manifestation. He was the first to paint a crucifixion +robbed of the horrible triumph of physical power, and of the agony which +is at its bidding, and invested with the divinity of awe and love. + +Giotto's work did not end with himself; he was the founder of the +earliest worthy school of Italian art, so worthy in this very glorious +idealism, that, as I have already said, the men whose praise is most to +be coveted, have learned to turn back to Giotto and his immediate +successors, and, forgetting and forgiving all their ignorance, +crudeness, quaintness, to dwell never wearied, and extol without measure +these oldest masters' dignity of spirit, the earnestness of their +originality, the solemnity and heedfulness of their labour. It would +seem as if skill and polish, with the amount of attention which they +appropriate, with their elevation of manner over matter, and thence +their lowered standard, are apt to rob from or blur in men these highest +qualifications of genius, for it is true that judges miss even in the +Lionardo, Michael Angelo, and Raphael of a later and much more +accomplished generation, and, to a far greater extent, in the Rubens of +another and still later day, the perfect simplicity, the unalloyed +fervour, the purity of tenderness in Giotto, Orcagna, Fra Angelico, and +in their Flemish brethren, the Van Eycks and Mabuse. + +The difference between the two classes of painters in not so wide as +that between the smooth and brilliant epigrammatic poets of Anne's and +the ruggedly rich dramatists of Elizabeth's reign, neither was there the +unmistakable preponderance of such a mighty genius as that of +Shakespeare granted to the first decade, still the distinction was the +same in kind.[1] + +I wish you, my readers, to note it in the very commencement, and to +learn, like the thoughtful students of painting, to put aside any +half-childish over-estimate of the absurdity of a blue stroke +transfixing a huge flounder-like fish as a likeness of a sea, (which you +have been accustomed to see translucid, in breakers and foam, in modern +marine pictures,) or your quick sense of the ugliness of straight +figures with long hands, wooden feet, and clinging draperies, while your +eyes have been familiar with well-modelled frames and limbs and flowing +lines. But we must look deeper if we would not be slaves to superficial +prettiness, or even superficial correctness; we must try to go into the +spirit of a painting and value it more in proportion as it teaches art's +noblest lesson--the divinity of the divine, the serenity of utmost +strength, the single-heartedness of passion. + +I have only space to tell you of three or four of the famous works of +Giotto. First, his allegories in the great church, in honour of St +Francis, at Assisi, in relation to which, writing of its German +architect, an author says: 'He built boldly against the mountain, piling +one church upon another; the upper vast, lofty, and admitting through +its broad windows the bright rays of the sun: the lower as if in the +bowels of the earth--low, solemn, and almost shutting out the light of +day. Around the lofty edifice grew the convent, a vast building, resting +upon a long line of arches clinging to the hill-sides. As the evening +draws nigh, casting its deep shadows across the valley, the traveller +beneath gazes upwards with feelings of wonder and delight at this +graceful arcade supporting the massy convent; the ancient towers and +walls of the silent town gathering around, and the purple rocks rising +high above--all still glowing in the lingering sunbeams--a scene +scarcely to be surpassed in any clime for its sublime beauty.' The +upper church contains frescoes wonderfully fresh, by Cimabue, of +Scriptural subjects, and frescoes of scenes from the life vowed to +poverty of St Francis. In the lower church, over the tomb of St Francis, +are the four masterpieces with which we have to do. These are the three +vows of the order figuratively represented. Mark the fitness and +grandeur of two of the figures, the suggestion of which has been +attributed to Dante, the woman Chastity seated beyond assault in her +rocky fortress, and Obedience bowing the neck to curb and yoke. The +fourth fresco pictures the saint who died, 'covered by another's cloak +cast over his wasted body eaten with sores,' enthroned and glorified +amidst the host of Heaven. + +I have chosen the second example of the art of Giotto because you may +with comparative ease see it for yourselves. It is in the National +Gallery, London, having belonged to the collection of the late Samuel +Rogers. It is a fragment of an old fresco which had been part of a +series illustrating the life of John the Baptist in the church of the +Carmine, Florence, a church which was destroyed by fire in 1771. The +fragment in the National Gallery has two fine heads of apostles bending +sorrowfully over the body of St John. Though it is not necessary to do +it, in strict justice, because good work rises superior to all accidents +of comparison as well as accidents of circumstance, one must remember in +regarding this, the stilted and frozen figures and faces, which, before +Giotto broke their bonds and inspired them, had professed to tell the +Bible's stories. + +The third instance I have chosen to quote is Giotto's portrait of Dante +which was so strangely lost for many years. The portrait occurs in a +painting, the first recorded performance of Giotto's, in which he was +said to have introduced the likeness of many of his contemporaries, on +the wall of the Palazzo dell' Podesta or Council Chamber of Florence. +During the banishment of Dante the wall was plastered or white-washed +over, through the influence of his enemies, and though believed to +exist, the picture was hidden down to 1840, when, after various futile +efforts to recover it, the figures were again brought to light. + +This portrait of Dante is altogether removed from the later portraits of +the indignant and weary man, of whom the Italian market-women said that +he had been in Hell as well as in exile. Giotto's Dante on the walls of +the Council Chamber is a noble young man of thirty, full of ambitious +hope and early distinction. The face is slightly pointed, with broad +forehead, hazel eyes, straight brows and nose, mouth and chin a little +projecting. The close cloak or vest with sleeves, and cap in folds +hanging down on the shoulder, the hand holding the triple fruit, in +prognostication of the harvest of virtue and renown which was to be so +bitter as well as so glorious, are all in keeping and have a majesty of +their own. The picture is probably known by engravings to many of my +readers. + +The last example of Giotto's, is the one which of all his works is most +potent and patent in its beauty, and has struck, and, in so far as we +can tell, will for ages strike, with its greatness multitudes of widely +different degrees of cultivation whose intellectual capacity is as far +apart as their critical faculty. I mean the matchless Campanile or +bell-tower 'towering over the Dome of Brunelleschi' at Florence, formed +of coloured marbles--for which Giotto framed the designs, and even +executed with his own hands the models for the sculpture. With this +lovely sight Dean Alford's description is more in keeping than the +prosaic saying of Charles V., that 'the Campanile ought to be kept under +glass.' Dean Alford's enthusiasm thus expresses itself: + + 'A mass of varied light written on the cloudless sky of + unfathomed blue; varied but blended, as never in any other + building that we had seen; the warm yellow of the lighter marbles + separated but not disunited by the ever-recurring bands of dark; + or glowing into red where the kisses of the sun had been hottest; + or fading again into white where the shadows mostly haunted, or + where the renovating hand had been waging conflict with decay.' + +It is known that Giotto, together with his friend Dante, died before +this--Giotto's last great work--was finally constructed by Giotto's +pupil, Taddeo Gaddi, and that therefore neither of the friends could +have really looked on 'Giotto's Tower,' though Italian Ciceroni point +out, and strangers love to contemplate, the very stone on which 'Grim +Dante' sat and gazed with admiration in the calm light of evening on the +enduring memorial of the painter. + +Giotto died in the year 1336 or 1337, his biographer adds, 'no less a +good Christian than an excellent painter,' and in token of his faith he +painted one crucifixion in which he introduced his own figure 'kneeling +in an attitude of deep devotion and contrition at the foot of the +Cross.' The good taste of such an act has been questioned, so has been +the practice which painted the Virgin Mother now as a brown Italian, now +as a red and white Fleming, and again as a flaxen-haired German or as a +swarthy Spaniard, and draped her and all the minor figures in the +grandest drama the world ever saw--as well as the characters in older +Scripture histories, in the Florentine, Venetian, and Antwerp fashions +of the day. The defence of the practice is, that the Bible is for +universal time, that its Virgin Mother, its apostles and saints, were +types of other mothers and of other heroes running down the stream of +history; that even the one central and holy figure, if He may be +represented at all, as the Divine brother of all humanity, may be clad +not inaptly in the garments of all. It appears to me that there is +reason in this answer, and that viewed in its light the criticism which +constantly demands historic fidelity is both carping and narrow. I do +not mean, however, to underrate historic accuracy in itself, or to +depreciate that longing for completeness in every particular, which +drives our modern painters to the East to study patiently for months the +aspects of nature under its Oriental climate, with its peculiar people +and animals, its ancient costumes and architecture. + +Giotto was buried with suitable honours by a city which, like the rest +of the nation, has magnified its painters amongst its great men, in the +church of Santa Maria del Fiore, where his master Cimabue had been +buried. Lorenzo de' Medici afterwards placed over Giotto's tomb his +effigy in marble. + +In chronicling ancient art I must here diverge a little. I have already +mentioned how closely painting was in the beginning allied with working +in metals as well as with sculpture and architecture. It is thus +necessary to write of a magnificent work in metal, the study and +admiration of generations of painters, begun in the life of Giotto, and +completed in two divisions, extending over a period of nearly a hundred +years. We shall proceed to deal with the first division, and recur to +the second a little later. + +The old Italian cities. They were then the great merchant cities of the +world, more or less republican in their constitution. They stood to the +citizens, who rarely left their walls, at once as peculiar possessions +and as native countries rather than as cities alone, while they excited +all the patriotism, pride, and love that were elsewhere expended on a +whole country--which after all was held as belonging largely to its king +and nobles. The old Italian merchant guilds, and wealthy merchants as +individuals, vied with each other in signalizing their good citizenship +by presenting--as gifts identified with their names--to their cities, +those palace buildings, chapels, paintings, gates, which are the delight +of the world to this day. It was a merchant guild which thought happily +of giving to Florence the bronze gates to the baptistery of San Giovanni +or St John the Baptist, attached to the Cathedral. After some +competition the gates were intrusted to Andrea Pisano, one of a great +group of painters, sculptors, and architects linked together and named, +as so often happened in Italy, for their place of birth, Pisa. Andrea +executed a series of beautiful reliefs from the life of John the +Baptist, which were cast in 1330, gilt, and placed in the centre +door-way. I shall leave the rest of the gates, still more exquisitely +wrought, till their proper time, only observing that the Pisani group of +carvers and founders are supposed to have attained their extraordinary +superiority in skill and grace, even over such a painter as Giotto, in +consequence of one of them, Nicola Pisano, having given his attention to +the study of some ancient Greek sarcophagi preserved at Pisa. + +Passing for a while from the gates of St John of Florence, we come back +to painting and a painter, and with them to another monument--in itself +very noble and curious in its mouldering age, of the old Italians' love +to their cities. Andrea Orcagna, otherwise known as Andrea di Cione, one +of a brotherhood of painters, was born in Florence about 1315. His +greatest works are in the Campo Santa of Pisa. + +This wonderful 'holy field' is a grand legacy, so far as dilapidation, +alas, will let it be, of the old painters. Originally a place of burial, +though no longer used as such, it is enclosed by high walls and an +arcade, something like the cloisters of a cathedral or college running +round, and having on the north and east sides chapels where masses for +the dead were celebrated. The space in the centre was filled with earth +brought from the Holy Land by the merchant ships of Pisa. It is covered +with turf, having tall cypress-trees at the corners, and a little cross +in the centre. The arcade is pierced with sixty-two windows, and +contains on its marble pavement hundreds of monuments--among them the +Greek sarcophagi studied by Nicola Pisano. But the great distinction of +the Campo Santa (of which there are many photographs) are the walls +opposite the windows of the arcade painted with Scriptural subjects by +artists of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, for the decoration of +the walls was continued at intervals, during two hundred years. The +havoc wrought by time and damp has been terrible; not only are the +pictures faded and discoloured, but of the earliest only mutilated +fragments, 'here an arm and there a head,' remain. Giotto's +illustrations of the book of Job have thus perished. Still Orcagna's +work has partially escaped, and left us indications of what it was in +his and its youth, when Michael Angelo and Raphael did not disdain to +borrow from it in design and arrangement. Dean Alford has thus described +Orcagna's mournful, thoughtful 'Triumph of Death:' + +'The picture is one of crowded action, and contains very many +personages. The action may be supposed to begin in the lower corner on +the right hand. There we see what appears to be a wedding-party seated +in festivity under a grove of orange-trees laden with fruit. Over two of +them a pair entertaining them with merry strains. But close to them on +the left comes swooping down on bats' wings, and armed with the +inevitable scythe, the genius of Death. Her wild hair streams in the +wind, her bosom is invulnerable, being closed in a trellised armour of +steel. Beneath her, on the ground, are a heap of corpses, shown by their +attire to be the great and wealthy of the world. Three winged figures, +two fiends and one angel, are drawing souls, in the form of children, +out of the mouths of three of these corpses. Above, the air is full of +flying spirits, angels and demons: the former beautiful and saintly, the +latter hideous and bestial. Some are dragging, or bearing upwards, human +souls: others are on their way to fetch them from the heaps of dead: +others, again, are flying about apparently without aim. Further yet to +the left, a company of wretched ones, lame and in rags, are invoking +Death with outstretched arms to come to their relief; but she sweeps by +and heeds them not. + +'Dividing one half of the picture from the other, is a high range of +rocks, terminating in a fiery mountain, into which the demons are +casting the unhappy souls which they have carried off. Beyond that seems +to be a repetition of the same lesson respecting Death in another form. +A party of knights and dames are issuing on horseback from a mountain +pass. In the left hand of the picture there lie in their path three +corpses in coffins, with coronets on their heads. One is newly dead; on +the second, decay has begun its work; the third is reduced to a +grinning skeleton. The impression produced on the gay party by the sight +is very various. Some look on carelessly; one holds his nose in disgust; +one, a lady jewelled and crowned, leans her head on her hand in solemn +thought. Above, on a rising ground, an aged monk (it is said, Saint +Macarius) is holding a scroll, and pointing out to passengers the moral +of the sight which meets them. The path winds up a hill crowned with a +church, and by its side at various points are hermits sitting in calm +security, or following peaceful occupations. One of them is milking a +doe; another is reading; a third is calmly contemplating from a distance +the valley of Death. About them are various animals and birds. The idea +evidently intended to be conveyed is that deliverance from the fear of +death is to be found not in gaiety and dissipation, but in contemplation +and communion with God. + +'Such is the wonderful fresco, and the execution is as wonderful as the +conception. Belonging as the painter did to a rude and early period of +art, he yet had the power of endowing his figures with both majesty and +tenderness of expression.' + +The Last Judgment is no less solemn and sad, with hope tempering its +sadness. Mrs Jameson's note of it is: 'Above, in the centre, Christ and +the Virgin are throned in separate glories. He turns to the left, +towards the condemned, while he uncovers the wound in his side, and +raises his right arm with a menacing gesture, his countenance full of +majestic wrath. The Virgin, on the right of her Son, is the picture of +heavenly mercy, and, as if terrified at the words of eternal +condemnation, she turns away. On either side are ranged the Prophets of +the Old Testament, the Apostles and other saints, severe, solemn, +dignified figures. Angels, holding the instruments of the Passion, hover +over Christ and the Virgin; under them is a group of archangels. The +archangel Michael stands in the midst holding a scroll in each hand; +immediately before him another archangel, supposed to represent Raphael, +the guardian angel of humanity, cowers down, shuddering, while two +others sound the awful trumpets of doom. Lower down is the earth where +men are seen rising from their graves; armed angels direct them to the +right and left. Here is seen King Solomon, who, whilst he rises, seems +doubtful to which side he should turn; here a hypocritical monk, whom an +angel draws back by the hair from the host of the youth in a gay and +rich costume, whom another angel leads away to Paradise. There is +wonderful and even terrible power of expression in some of the heads; +and it is said that among them are many portraits of contemporaries, but +unfortunately no circumstantial traditions as to particular figures have +reached us.' + +One of Orcagna's altar-pieces, that of 'the coronation of the Virgin,' +containing upwards of a hundred figures, and with the colouring still +rich, is in our National Gallery. As an architect, Orcagna designed the +famous Loggia de' Lanzi of the grand ducal palace at Florence. + +Now I must take you back to the bronze gates of the Baptistery in their +triumphant completion nearly a hundred years after the first gate was +executed by Andrea Pisano. I should have liked, but for our limits, to +tell in full the legend of the election of Lorenzo Ghiberti, the +step-son of a goldsmith, and skilled in chasing and enamelling, to +design the second gate; when yet a lad of twenty-three, how he and two +other young men, one of them still younger than Ghiberti, were declared +the most promising competitors in the trial for the work; how the last +two voluntarily withdrew from the contest, magnanimously proclaiming +Lorenzo Ghiberti their superior; how all the three lived to be famous, +the one as a founder in metal, the others as an architect and a +sculptor, and remained sworn brothers in art till death. + +Lorenzo Ghiberti has left us an expression of the feeling with which he +set about his task, an expression so suggestive that, even had we no +other indication, it is enough to stamp the true and tender nature of +the man. He prepared for his achievement 'with infinite diligence and +love'--the words deserve to be pondered over. He took at least +twenty-two years to his work, receiving for it eleven hundred florins. +He chose his subjects from the life and death of the Lord, working them +out in twenty panels, ten on each side of the folding doors, and below +these were eight panels containing full-length figures of the four +evangelists and four doctors of the Latin Church, with a complete border +of fruit and foliage, having heads of prophets and sibyls interspersed. +So entire was the satisfaction the superb gate gave, that Lorenzo was +not merely loaded with praise, he received a commission to design and +cast a third and central gate which should surpass the others, that were +thenceforth to be the side entrances. + +For his second gate Lorenzo Ghiberti repaired to the Old Testament for +subjects, beginning with the creation and ending with the meeting of +Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, and represented them in ten compartments +enclosed in a rich border of fruit and foliage, with twenty-four +full-length figures of the Hebrew heroes and prophets, clearly and +delicately designed and finished, occupying corresponding niches. This +crowning gate engaged the founder upwards of eighteen years--forty-nine +years are given as the term of the work of both the gates. + +The single defect which is found in those marvellous gates--left to us +as a testimony of what the life-long devotion of genius could +produce--is that they abound floridly both in ornament and action, in +place of being severely simple and restrained according to the classical +standard. + +Michael Angelo called these gates 'worthy to be the gates of Paradise,' +and they are still one of the glories of Florence. Casts of the gates +are to be found in the School for Art at Kensington, and at the Crystal +Palace. + +A young village boy learned to draw and model from Ghiberti's gates. He +in his turn was to create in the Brancacci Chapel of the Church of the +Carmine at Florence a school of painters scarcely less renowned and +powerful in its effects than that produced by the works in the Campo +Santa. You will find the Italian painters not unfrequently known by +nicknames, quite as often by their father's trades as by their father's +surnames, and still oftener by the town which was their place of birth +or nurture. This Tom village birth-place, was commonly called Masaccio, +short for Tomasaccio, 'hulking Tom,' as I have heard it translated, on +account of his indifferent, slovenly habits. I think there is a +tradition that he entered a studio in Florence as a colour boy, and +electrified the painter and his scholars, by _brownie_ like freaks of +painting at their unfinished work, in their absence, better than any of +his masters, and by the dexterity with which he perpetrated the frolic +of putting the facsimile of a fly on one of the faces on the easels. His +end was a tragic conclusion to such light comedy. At the age of +twenty-six, he quitted Florence for Rome so suddenly that he left his +finest frescoes unfinished. It was said that he was summoned thither by +the Pope. At Rome, where little or nothing of Masaccio's life is known, +he died shortly afterwards, not without a suspicion of his having been +poisoned. + +A curious anecdote exists of the identification of the time when he +forsook Florence to meet his death in Rome. Just as we have read, that +the period of the death of Massinger the dramatist has been settled by +an entry in an old parish register, 'died, Philip Massinger a stranger,' +so there has been found some quaint equivalent to a modern tax-paper +which had been delivered at the dwelling of Masaccio when the word +'gone' was written down. + +There is a further tradition--not very probable under the +circumstances--that Masaccio is buried, without name or stone, under the +Brancacci Chapel. Be that as it may, he very early rose to eminence, +surpassing all his predecessors in drawing and colouring, and he +combined with those acquirements such animation and variety of +expression in his characters, that it was said of him 'he painted souls +as well as bodies,' while his invention was not less bold and fresh. + +It is difficult to indicate Masaccio's pictures because some of them +have been repainted and destroyed. As to those in the Brancacci Chapel +from the life of St Peter, (with the exception of two,) considerable +confusion has arisen as to which are Masaccio's, and which belong to +his scholar Filippino Lippi. The fresco which Masaccio left unfinished, +that of the Apostles Peter and Paul raising a dead youth (from +traditional history), was finished by Lippi. In the fresco of Peter +baptizing the converts, generally attributed to Masaccio, there is a lad +who has thrown off his garments, and stands shivering with cold, whose +figure, according to authority, formed an epoch in art. Lionardo da +Vinci, Michael Angelo, Andrea del Sarto, Fra Bartolommeo, all studied +their art in this chapel. Raphael borrowed the grand figure of St Paul +preaching at Athens in one of the cartoons, from one of Masaccio's or +Filippo Lippi's frescoes. Masaccio's excellence as an artist, reached at +an immature age, is very remarkable. + +I have come to the last and probably the best appreciated among modems +of the early Italian painters. Fra Angelico da Fiesole, the gentle +devout monk whom Italians called '_Il Beato_,' the Blessed, and who +probably did receive the distinction of beatification, a distinction +only second in the Roman Catholic Church to that of canonization. He was +born at the lovely little mountain-town of Fiesole near Florence, 1387, +and his worldly name, which he bore only till his twenty-first year, was +Guido Petri de Mugello. In his youth, with his gift already recognized, +so that he might well have won ease and honour in the world, he entered +the Dominican Convent of St Mark, Florence, for what he deemed the good +and peace of his soul. He seldom afterwards left it, and that only as +directed by his convent superior, or summoned by the Pope. He was a man +devoid of personal ambition, pure, humble, and meek. When offered the +Archbishopric of Florence as a tribute to his sanctity, he declined it +on account of his unworthiness for the office. He would not work for +money, and only painted at the command of his prior. He began his +painting with fasting and work, he steadfastly refused to make any +alteration in the originals. It is said that he was found dead at his +easel with a completed picture before him. It is not wonderful, that +from such a man should come one side of the perfection of that idealism +which Giotto had begun. Fra Angelico's angels, saints, Saviour, and +Virgin are more divinely calm, pure, sweet, endowed with a more exulting +saintliness, a more immortal youth and joy, and a more utter +self-abnegation and sympathetic tenderness than are to be found in the +saints and the angels, the Saviour and the Virgin of other painters. +Neither is it surprising that Fra Angelico's defects, besides that of +the bad drawing which shows more in his large than in his small +pictures, are those of a want of human knowledge, power, and freedom. +His wicked--even his more earthly-souled characters, are weak and faulty +in action. What should the reverent and guileless dreamer know, unless +indeed by inspiration of the rude conflicts, the fire and fury of human +passions intensified in the malice and anguish of devils? But Fra +Angelico's singular successes far transcend his failures. In addition to +the sublime serenity and positive radiance of expression which he could +impart to his heads, his notions of grouping and draping were full of +grace, sometimes of splendour and magnificence. In harmony with his +happy temperament and fortunes, he was fond of gay yet delicate colours +'like spring flowers,' and used a profusion of gold ornaments which do +not seem out of keeping in his pictures. The most of Fra Angelico's +pictures are in Florence--the best in his own old convent of St Mark, +where he lovingly adorned not only chapter-hall and court, but the cells +of his brother friars. A crucifix with adoring saints worshipping their +crucified Saviour is regarded as his masterpiece in St Mark's. A famous +coronation of the Virgin, which Fra Angelico painted for a church in his +native town, and which is now in the Louvre, Paris, is thus described by +Mrs Jameson: 'It represents a throne under a rich Gothic canopy, to +which there is an ascent of nine steps; on the highest kneels the +Virgin, veiled, her hands crossed on her bosom. She is clothed in a red +tunic, a blue robe over it, and a royal mantle with a rich border +flowing down behind. The features are most delicately lovely, and the +expression of the face full of humility and adoration. Christ, seated on +the throne, bends forward, and is in the act of placing the crown on her +head; on each side are twelve angels, who are playing a heavenly concert +with guitars, tambourines, trumpets, viols, and other musical +instruments; lower than these, on each side, are forty holy personages +of the Old and New Testament; and at the foot of the throne kneel +several saints, male and female, among them St Catherine with her wheel, +St Agnes with her lamb, and St Cecilia crowned with flowers. Beneath the +principal picture there is a row of seven small ones, forming a border, +and representing various incidents in the life of St Dominic.' + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +EARLY FLEMISH ART--THE VAN EYCKS, 1366-1442--MABUSE, MATSYS, 1460-1530 +OR 31. + + +In the Low Countries painting had very much the same history that it had +in Italy, but the dates are later, and there may be a longer interval +given to each stage of development. Religious painting, profuse in +symbolism, with masses of details elaborately worked in, meets us in the +first place. This style of painting reached its culmination, in which it +included (as it did not include in its representation in the Italian +pictures) many and varied excellencies, among them the establishment of +painting in oil in the pictures of the Flemish family of painters--the +Van Eycks. + +Before going into the little that is known of the family history of the +Van Eycks, I should like to call attention to the numerous painter +families in the middle ages. What a union, and repose, and happy +sympathy of art-life it indicates, which we appear to restlessness and +separate interests of modern life. The Van Eycks consisted of no less +than four members of a family, three brothers, Hubert, John, and +Lambert, and one sister, Margaret, devoted, like her brothers, to her +art. There is a suggestion that they belonged to a small village of +Limburg called Eyck, and repaired to Bruges in order to pursue their +art. Hubert was thirty years older than John, and it is said that he was +a serious-minded man as well as an ardent painter, and belonged to the +religious fraternity of our Lady of Ghent. He died in 1426. John, though +of so much consideration in his profession as to be believed to be 'the +Flemish Painter' sent by Duke Philip the Good of Flanders and Burgundy +with a mission to Portugal to solicit the hand of a princess in +marriage, is reported to have died very poor in 1449, and has the +suspicion attached to him of having been a lover of pleasure and a +spendthrift. Of Lambert, the third brother, almost nothing is known; +indeed, the fact of his existence has only lately come to light. +Margaret lived and died unmarried, and belonged, like her brother +Hubert, to the religious society of our Lady of Ghent. She died about +1432. + +The invention of painting in oil, for which the Van Eycks are commonly +known, was not literally that of mixing colours with oil, which was +occasionally done before their day. It was the combining oil with resin, +so as to produce at once a good varnish, and avoid the necessity of +drying pictures in the sun, a bright thought, which may stand in the +same rank with the construction, by James Watt, of that valve which +rendered practicable the application of steam to machinery. The thought, +occasioned by the cracking of a picture in tempera exposed to the sun, +is due to Hubert Van Eyck. + +The great picture of the Van Eycks, which was worked at for a number of +years by both Hubert and John, and, as some reckon, touched by the whole +family, is the 'Adoration of the Lamb,' at St Bavon's, Ghent. I should +like to give a faint idea of this extraordinary picture, which was +painted for a burgomaster of Ghent and his wife in order to adorn their +mortuary chapel in the cathedral. It was an altar piece on separate +panels, now broken up and dispersed, only a portion of it being retained +in Ghent. + +It may strike some as strange that a picture should be on panels, but +those of the old pictures which were not on plastered walls were +commonly on panels, many of them on the lids and sides of chests and +presses which were used to hold sacred vessels and priestly raiment. + +When the wings of the Van Eycks' altar-piece of the 'Adoration of the +Lamb' were opened on festivals, the subjects of the upper central +picture were seen, consisting of the Triune God, a majestic figure, and +at his side in stately calm the Virgin and the Baptist. On the inside of +the wings were angels, at the two extremities Adam and Eve. The lower +central picture shows the Lamb of the Revelation, whose blood flows into +a cup; over it is the dove of the Holy Spirit. Angels, who hold the +instruments of the Passion, worship the Lamb. Four groups of many +persons advance from the sides, these are the holy martyrs, men and +women, priests and laymen. In the foreground is the fountain of life; in +the distance are the towers of the heavenly Jerusalem. On the wings +other groups are coming up to adore the Lamb; on the left those who have +laboured for the Kingdom of the Lord by worldly deeds--the soldiers of +Christ led by St George, St Sebastian, and St Michael, the patron saints +of the old Flemish guilds, followed by emperors and kings--a goodly +company. Beyond the soldiers and princes, on the left, are the righteous +judges, also on horseback. In front of them, on a splendidly caparisoned +gray, rides a mild, benevolent old man in blue velvet trimmed with fur. +This is the likeness of Hubert Van Eyck, painted after his death by his +brother John, and John himself is in the group, clothed in black, with a +shrewd, sharp countenance. On the self-renunciation have served the Lamb +in the spirit, hermits and pilgrims, among them St Christopher, St +Anthony, St Paul the hermit, Mary Magdalene, and St Mary of Egypt. A +compartment underneath, which represented hell, finished the whole--yet +only the whole on one side, for the wings when closed presented another +series of finely thought-out and finished pictures--the Annunciation; +figures of Micah and Zechariah; statues of the two St Johns, with the +likenesses of the donors who gave to the world so great a work of art, +kneeling humbly side by side, the burgomaster somewhat mean-looking in +such company in spite of the proof of his liberality, but his wife noble +enough in feature and expression to have been the originator of this +glory of early Flemish painting. The upper part of the picture is +painted on a gold ground, round the central figure of the Lamb is vivid +green grass with masses of trees and flowers--indeed there is much +lovely landscape no longer indicated by a rock or a bush, but betokening +close observation of nature, whether in a fruitful valley, or a rocky +defile, or mountain ridges with fleecy clouds overhead. The expression +of the immense number of figures is as varied and characteristic as +their grouping.[2] + +Hubert Van Eyck died while this work was in progress, and it was +finished by his brother John six years after Hubert's death. When one +thinks of the intense application and devotion which such a work costs, +and recalls the bronze gates of St John that occupied Lorenzo Ghiberti +49 years, and when we read, as we shall read a few chapters farther on, +of large paintings which were begun and ended in so many days--even so +many hours, one can better understand what is the essential difference +between the works of the early and the later painters, a difference +which no skill, no power even can bridge over. John Van Eyck, who had +lived late enough to have departed from the painting of sacred pictures +alone, so that he left portraits and an otter hunt among his works, is +three times represented in our National Gallery, in three greatly +esteemed portraits, one a double portrait, believed to be the likenesses +of the painter and his wife, standing hand in hand with a terrier dog +at their feet. + +Gossaert, called de Mabuse from his native town of Mabeuze, sometimes +signing his name Joannes Malbodius, followed in the steps of the Van +Eycks, particularly in his great picture of the 'Adoration of the +Kings,' which is at Castle Howard, the seat of the Earl of Carlisle. +Mabuse was in England and painted the children of Henry VII, in a +picture, which is at Hampton Court. There is a picture in the palace of +Holyrood, Edinburgh, which has been attributed to Mabuse. It represents +on the sides of a triptych or diptych (somewhat like a folding screen) +James III. and his queen with attendants. The fur on the queen's dress +displays already that marvellous technical skill for which Flemish +painting is so celebrated. + +Hans Memling belonged to Bruges. There is a tradition of him, which is +to a certain extent disproven, that he was a poor soldier relieved by +the hospital of St John, Bruges, and that in gratitude he executed for +the hospital the well-known reliquary of St Ursula. However it might +have originated, this is the most noted work of a painter, who was +distinguished frequently by his minute missal-like painting (he was also +an illuminator of missals), in which he would introduce fifteen hundred +small figures in a picture two feet eight inches, by six feet five +inches in size, and work out every detail with the utmost niceness and +care. The reliquary, or 'chasse,' is a wooden coffer or shrine about +four feet in length, its style and form those of a rich Gothic church, +its purpose to hold an arm of the saint. The whole exterior is covered +with miniatures by Memling, nearly the whole of them giving incidents in +the legendary history of St Ursula, a 'virgin princess of Brittany,' or +of England, who, setting out with eleven thousand companions, her lover, +and an escort of knights on a pilgrimage to Rome, was, with her whole +company, met and murdered, by a horde of heathen Huns, when they had +reached Cologne, on their return. My readers may be aware that the +supposed bones of the virgins and St Ursula form the ghastly adornment +of the church founded in her honour at Cologne. It is absolutely filled +with bones, built into the walls, stowed under the pavement, ranged in +glass cases about the choir. Hans Memling's is a pleasanter +commemoration of St Ursula. + +Quintin Matsys, the blacksmith of Antwerp, was born at Louvain about +1460. Though he worked first as a smith he is said by Kugler to have +belonged to a family of painters, which somewhat takes from the romance, +though it adds to the probability of his story. Another painter in +Antwerp having offered the hand and dowry of his daughter--beloved by +Quintin Matsys--as a prize to the painter who should paint the best +picture in a competition for her hand, the doughty smith took up the +art, entered the lists, and carried off the maiden and her portion from +all his more experienced rivals. The vitality of the legend is indicated +by the inscription on a tablet to the memory of Quintin Matsys in the +Cathedral, Antwerp. The Latin inscription reads thus in English: + + 'Twas love connubial taught the smith to paint,' + +Quintin Matsys lived and died a respected burgher of Antwerp, a member +of the great Antwerp painters' guild of St Luke. He was twice married, +and had thirteen children. + +Whatever might have been his source of inspiration, Quintin Matsys was +an apt scholar. His 'Descent from the Cross,' now in the Museum, +Antwerp, was _the_ 'Descent from the Cross,' and _the_ picture in the +Cathedral, until superseded by Rubens' masterpiece on the same subject. +Still Quintin Matsys version remains, and is in some respects an +unsurpassed picture. There is a traditional grouping of this Divine +tragedy, and Quintin Matsys has followed the tradition. The body of the +Lord is supported by two venerable old men--Joseph of Arimathea and +Nicodemus--while the holy women anoint the wounds of the Saviour; the +Virgin swooning with grief is supported by St John. The figures are full +of individuality, and their action is instinct with pathos. For this +picture Quintin Matsys--popular painter as he was--got only three +hundred florins, equivalent to twenty-five pounds (although, of course, +the value of money was much greater in those days). The Joiners' +Company, for whom he painted the 'Descent from the Cross,' sold the +picture to the City of Antwerp for five times the original amount, and +it is said Queen Elizabeth offered the City nearly twenty times the +first sum for it, in vain. + +Quintin Matsys painted frequently half-length figures of the Virgin and +Child, an example of which is in the National Gallery. He excelled in +the 'figure painting' of familiar subjects, then just beginning to be +established, affording a token of the direction which the future +eminence of the Flemish painters would take. One of his famous pictures +of this kind is 'The Misers,' in the Queen's collection at Windsor. Two +figures in the Flemish costume of the time, are seated at a table; +before them are a heap of money and a book, in which one is writing with +his right hand, while he tells down the money with his left. The faces +express craft and cupidity. The details of the ink-horn on the table, +and the bird on its perch behind, have the Flemish graphic exactness. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +IN EARLY SCHOOLS OF ITALIAN ART--THE BELLINI, 1422-1512--MANTEGNA, +1431-1506--GHIRLANDAJO, 1449-1498--IL FRANCIA, 1450-1518--FRA +BARTOLOMMEO, 1469-1517--ANDREA DEL SARTO, 1488-1530. + + +I have come to the period when Italian art is divided into many +schools--Paduan, Venetian, Umbrian, Florentine, Roman, Bolognese, etc., +etc. With the schools and their definitions I do not mean to meddle, +except it may be to mention to which school a great painter belonged. +Another difficulty meets me here. I have been trying so far as I could +to give the representative painters in the order of time. I can no +longer follow this rule strictly, and the grouping of this chapter is +made on the principle of leading my readers up by some of the +predecessors who linked the older to the later Italian painters, and by +some of the contemporaries of these later painters, to that central +four, Lionardo da Vinci, Michael Angelo, Raphael, and Titian, who +occupy so great a place in the history of art. + +In the brothers Bellini and their native Venice, we must first deal with +that excellence of colouring for which the Venetian painters were +signally noted, while they comparatively neglected and underrated +drawing. A somewhat fanciful theory has been started, that as Venice, +Holland, and England have been distinguished for colour in art, and as +all those States are by the sea, so a sea atmosphere has something to do +with a passion for colour. Within more reasonable bounds, in reference +to the Venetians, is the consideration that no colouring is richer, +mellower, more exquisitely tinted than that which belongs to the blue +Italian sky over the blue Adriatic, with those merged shades of violet, +green, and amber, and that magical soft haze which has to do with a +moist climate. + +The two brothers Gentile and Gian or John Bellini, the latter the more +famous of the two, were the sons of an old Venetian painter, with regard +to whom the worthy speech is preserved, that he said it was like the +Tuscans for son to beat father, and he hoped, in God's name, that +Giovanni or Gian would outstrip him, and Gentile, the elder, outstrip +both. The brothers worked together and were true and affectionate +brothers, encouraging and appreciating each other. + +Gentile was sent by the Doge at the request of the Sultan--either +Mahommed II, or Bajazet II., to Constantinople, where Gentile Bellini +painted the portrait of the Sultan and the Sultana his mother, now in +the British Museum. The painter also painted the head of John the +Baptist in a charger as an offering--only too suitable--from him to the +Grand Turk. The legend goes on to tell that in the course of the +presentation of the gift, an incident occurred which induced Gentile +Bellini to quit the Ottoman Court with all haste. The Sultan had +criticized the appearance of the neck in John the Baptist's severed +head, and when Gentile ventured to defend his work, the Sultan proceeded +to prove the correctness of his criticism, by drawing his scimitar and +cutting off at a stroke the head of a kneeling slave, and pointing to +the spouting blood and the shrinking muscle, gave the horrified painter +a lesson in practical anatomy. On Gentile's return from the East, he was +pensioned by his State, and lived on painting, till he was eighty years +of age, dying in 1501. + +Gian Bellini is said to have obtained by a piece of deceit, which is not +in keeping with his manly and honourable character, the secret, +naturally coveted by a Venetian, of mixing colours with resin and oil. A +Venetian painter had brought the secret from Flanders, and communicated +it to a friend, who, in turn, communicated it to a third painter, and +was murdered by that third painter for his pains, so greedy and criminal +was the craving, not only to possess, but to be as far as possible the +sole possessor of, the grand discovery. Gian Bellini was much less +guilty, if he were really guilty. Disguised as a Venetian nobleman, he +proposed to sit for his portrait to that Antonella who first brought the +secret from Flanders, and while Antonella worked with unsuspicious +openness, Gian Bellini watched the process and stole the secret. + +Gian Bellini lived to the age of ninety, and had among his admirers the +poet Ariosto and Albrecht Duerer. The latter saw Gian Bellini in his age, +and said of him, when foolish mockers had risen up to scout at the old +man, and his art now become classic, 'He is very old, but he is still +the best of our painters.' Gian Bellini had illustrious pupils, +including in their number Titian and Giorgione. + +The portraits of Gentile and Gian, which are preserved in a painting by +Gian, show Gentile fair-complexioned and red-haired, and Gian with dark +hair. + +Gian Bellini is considered to have been less gifted with imagination +than some of his great brother artists; but he has proved himself a man +of high moral sense, and while he stopped short at the boundary between +the seen and the unseen, it is certain he must still have painted with +much of 'the divine patience' and devout consecration of all his powers, +and of every part of his work, which are the attributes of the earliest +Italian painters. When he and his brother began to paint, Venetian art +had already taken its distinctive character for open-air effects, rich +scenic details in architecture, furniture and dress (said to be +conspicuous in commercial communities), and a growing tendency to +portraiture. Gian went with the tide, but he guided it to noble results. +His simplicity and good sense, with his purity and dignity of mind, were +always present. He introduced into his pictures 'singing boys, dancing +cherubs, glittering thrones, and dewy flowers,' pressing the outer world +into his service and that of religious art. It is said also that his +Madonnas seem 'amiable beings imbued with a lofty grace;' while his +saints are 'powerful and noble forms.' But he never descended to the +paltry or the vulgar. He knew from the depths of his own soul how to +invest a face with moral grandeur. Especially in his representations of +our Saviour Gian Bellini 'displays a perception of moral power and +grandeur seldom equalled in the history of art.' The example given is +that of the single figure of the Lord in the Dresden Gallery, where the +Son of God, without nimbus, or glory, stands forth as the 'ideal of +elevated humanity.' + +The greater portion of Gian Bellini's pictures remain in the churches +and galleries of Venice. But the first great work at which the two +brothers in their youth worked in company--the painting of the Hall of +Council in the palace of the Doge, with a series of historical and +legendary pictures of the Venetian wars with the Emperor Frederick +Barbarossa (1177), including the Doge Ziani's receiving from the Pope +the gold ring with which the Doge espoused the Adriatic, in token of +perpetual dominion over the sea--was unfortunately destroyed by fire in +1577. Giovanni Bellini's greatest work, now at St Salvatore, is Christ +at Emmaus, with Venetian senators and a Turkish dragoman introduced as +spectators of the risen Lord. + +Of another great work at Vicenza, painted in Gian Bellini's old age, +when neither his skill nor his strength was abated, 'The Baptism of +Christ,' Dean Alford writes thus: + + 'Let us remain long and look earnestly, for there is indeed much + to be seen. That central figure, standing with hands folded on + His bosom, so gentle, so majestic, so perfect in blameless + humanity, oh what labour of reverent thought; what toil of + ceaseless meditation; what changes of fair purpose, oscillating + into clearest vision of ideal truth, must it have cost the great + painter, before he put forth that which we see now! It is as + impossible to find aught but love and majesty in the Divine + countenance, as it is to discover a blemish on the complexion of + that body, which seems to give forth light from itself, as He + stands in obedience, fulfilling all righteousness. + + 'And even on the accessories to this figure, we see the same + loving and reverent toil bestowed. The cincture, where alone the + body is hidden from view, is no web of man's weaving; or, if it + were, it is of hers whose heart was full of divine thoughts as + she wove: so bright and clear is the tint, so exquisitely + careful and delicate every fold where light may play or colour + vary. And look under the sacred feet, on the ground blessed by + their pressure; no dash of hurrying brush has been there: less + than a long day's light, eve, did not suffice to give in + individual shape and shade every minutest pebble and mote of + that shore of Jordan. Every one of them was worth painting, for + we are viewing them as in the light of His presence who made + them all and knew them all. + + 'And now let us pass to the other figures: to that living and + glowing angelic group in the left hand of the picture. Three of + the heavenly host are present, variously affected by that which + they behold. The first, next the spectator, in the corner of the + picture, is standing in silent adoration, tender and gentle in + expression, the hands together, but only the points of the + fingers touching, his very reverence being chastened by angelic + modesty; the second turns on that which he sees a look of + earnest inquiry, but kneels as he looks; and indeed that which + he sees is one of the things which angels desire to look into. + The third, a majestic herald-like figure, stands, as one + speaking, looking to the spectator, with his right hand on his + garment, and his left out as in demonstration, unmistakeably + saying to us who look on, "Behold what love is here!" Then, + hardly noticing what might well be much noticed, the grand dark + figure of the Baptist on the right, let us observe how + beautifully and accurately all the features of the landscape are + given.' + +Of the same work another critic records: 'The attendant angels in this +work (signed by the artist) are of special interest, instinct with an +indefinable purity and depth of reverential tenderness elsewhere hardly +rivalled. But the picture, like that in S. Giovanni Crisostomo, with +which it is nearly contemporary, is almost more interesting from the +astonishing truth and beauty of its landscape portions. _These_ form +here a feature more important, perhaps, than in any work of that period; +the stratification and form of the rocks in the foreground, the palms +and other trees relieved against the lucid distance, and the +mountain-ranges of tender blue beyond, are as much beyond praise for +their beauty and their truth, as they have been beyond imitation from +the solidity and transparent strength of their execution! The minute +finish is Nature's, and the colouring more gem-like than gems.' + +No praise can exceed that bestowed on Gian Bellini's colouring for its +intensity and transparency. 'Many of his draperies are like crystal of +the clearest and deepest colour,' declares an authority; and another +states' his best works have a clear jewel brightness, an internal +gem-like fire such as warms a summer twilight. The shadows are intense +and yet transparent, like the Adriatic waves when they lie out of the +sun under the palace bridges.' + +Portrait-painting, just beginning, was established in Venice, its later +stronghold, by Gian Bellini. His truthful portrait of the Doge Loredano, +one of the earliest of that series of Doges' portraits which once hung +in state in the ducal palace, is now in our National Gallery. + +Of Gentile Bellini, whose work was softer, but less vigorous than his +brother's, the best painting extant is that at Milan of St Mark +preaching at Alexandria, in which the painter showed how he had profited +by his residence at Constantinople in the introduction of much rich +Turkish costume, and of an animal unknown to Europe at the time--a +camelopard. + +Andrea Mantegna was born near Padua. He was the son of a farmer. His +early history, according to tradition, is very similar to that of +Giotto. Just as Cimabue adopted Giotto, Squarcione, a painter who had +travelled in Italy and Greece, and made a great collection of antiques, +from which he taught in a famous school of painters, adopted Andrea +Mantegna at the early age of ten years. It was long believed that +Mantegna, in the end, forfeited the favour of his master by marrying +Nicolosa Bellini, the sister of Gentile and Gian Bellini, whose father +was the great rival of Squarcione; and farther, that Mantegna's style of +painting had been considered Bellini. Modern researches, which have +substituted another surname for that of Bellini as the surname of Andrea +Mantegna's wife, contradict this story. + +Andrea Mantegna, a man of much energy and fancy, entered young into the +service of the Gonzaga lords of Mantua, receiving from them a salary of +thirty pounds a year and a piece of land, on which the painter built a +house, and painted it within and without--the latter one of the first +examples of artistic waste, followed later by Tintoret and Veronese, +regardless of the fact that painting could not survive in the open air +of Northern Italy. + +Andrea Mantegna had his home at Mantua, except when he was called to +Rome to paint for the Pope, Innocent VIII. An anecdote is told by Mrs +Jameson of this commission. It seems the Pope's payments were irregular; +and one day when he visited his painter at work, and his Holiness asked +the meaning of a certain allegorical female figure in the design, Andrea +answered, with somewhat audacious point, that he was trying to +represent _Patience_. The Pope, understanding the allusion, paid the +painter in his own coin, by remarking in reply, 'If you would place +Patience in fitting company, you would paint Discretion at her side.' +Andrea took the hint, said no more, and when his work was finished not +only received his money, but was munificently rewarded. + +Andrea Mantegna had two sons and a daughter. One of his sons painted +with his father, and, after Andrea Mantegna's death, completed some of +his pictures. + +Andrea Mantegna's early study of antique sculpture moulded his whole +life's work. He took great delight in modelling, in perspective, of +which he made himself a master, and in chiaroscuro, or light and shade. +Had his powers of invention and grace not kept pace with his skill, he +would have been a stiff and formal worker; as it was, he carried the +austerity of sculpture into painting, and his greatest work, the +'Triumph of Julius Caesar,' would have been better suited for the +chiselled frieze of a temple than it is for the painted frieze of the +hall of a palace. Yet he was a great leader and teacher in art, and the +true proportions of his drawing are grand, if his colouring is harsh. I +am happy to say that Mantegna's 'Triumph of Julius Caesar' is in England +at Hampton Court, having been bought from the Duke of Mantua by Charles +I. These cartoons, nine in number, are sketches in water-colour or +distemper on paper fixed on cloth. They are faded and dilapidated, as +they well may be, considering the slightness of the materials and their +age, about four hundred years. At the same time, they are, after the +cartoons of Raphael (which formed part of the same art collection of +Charles I.), perhaps the most valuable and interesting relic of art in +England. + +The series of the 'Triumph' contain the different parts, originally +separated by pillars, of a long and splendid procession. There are +trumpeters and standard bearers, the statues of the gods borne aloft, +battering-rams and heaps of glittering armour, trophies of conquest in +huge vases filled with coin, garlanded oxen, and elephants. The second +last of the series, presents the ranks of captives forming part of the +show, rebellious men, submissive women, and unconscious children--a +moving picture. In the last of the series comes the great conqueror in +his chariot, a youth in the crowd following him, carrying his banner, on +which is inscribed Caesar's notable despatch, 'Veni, vidi, vici;' 'I +came, I saw, I conquered.' + +Another of Mantegna's best pictures is in distemper--in which, and on +fresco, Mantegna chiefly painted,--and is in the Louvre, Paris. It is +the Madonna of Victory, so called from its being painted to commemorate +the deliverance of Italy from the French army under Charles VIII., a +name which has acquired a sardonic meaning from the ultimate destination +of the picture. This picture--which represents the Virgin and Child on a +throne, in an arbour of fruit and flowers, between the archangels, +Michael and St Maurice, in complete armour, with the patron saints of +Mantua and the infant St John in the front, and the Marquis Ludovico of +Mantua and his wife, Isabella D'Este, kneeling to return thanks--was +painted by Mantegna at the age of seventy years; and, as if the art of +the man had mellowed with time, it is the softest and tenderest of his +pictures in execution. A beautiful Madonna of Mantegna's, still later in +time, is in the National Gallery. + +When Mantegna was sixty years old he took up the art of engraving, and +prosecuted it with zeal and success, being one of the earliest painters +who engraved his own pictures, and this accomplishment spread them +abroad a hundredfold. + +Domenico Ghirlandajo was properly Domenico Bicordi, but inherited from +his father, a goldsmith in Florence,[3] the by-name of Ghirlandajo or +Garland-maker--a distinctive appellation said to have been acquired by +the elder man from his skill in making silver garlands for the heads of +Florentine women and children. Domenico Ghirlandajo worked at his +father's craft till he was twenty-four years of age, when, having in the +mean time evinced great cleverness in taking the likenesses of the +frequenters of Ghirlandajo the elder's shop, the future painter +abandoned the goldsmith's trade for art pure and simple. He soon +vindicated the wisdom of the step which he had taken by giving proofs of +something of the strength of Masaccio, united with a reflection of the +feeling of Fra Angelico. + +Ghirlandajo was summoned soon to Rome to paint in the Sistine Chapel, +afterwards to be so glorious; but his greatest works were done in the +prime of his manhood, in his native city, Florence, where he was chosen +as the teacher of Michael Angelo, who was apprenticed to Ghirlandajo for +three years. + +While still in the flower of his age and crowned with golden opinions, +being, it is said with effusion, 'the delight of his city,' Ghirlandajo +died after a short illness, in Ghirlandajo's time Florence had reached +her meridian, and her citizens outvied each other in the magnificence of +their gifts to their fair mother city. Ghirlandajo was fitted to be +their painter; himself a generous-spirited artist, in the exuberance of +life and power, he wished that his fellow-citizens would give him all +the walls of the city to cover with frescoes. He was content with the +specified sum for his painting, desiring more the approbation of his +employers than additional crowns. His genius lying largely in the +direction of portrait painting, he introduced frequently the portraits +of contemporaries, causing them to figure as spectators of his sacred +scenes. One of these contemporaries thus presented, was Amerigo +Vespucci, who was to give his name to a continent. Another was a +Florentine beauty, a woman of rank, Ginevra de Benci. + +Ghirlandajo was lavish in his employment of rich Florentine costumes and +architecture. He even made the legends of the saints and the histories +of the Bible appear as if they had happened under the shadow of +Brunelleschi's duomo and Giotto's campanile, and within sound of the +flow of the Arno. In the peculiar colouring used in fresco painting +Ghirlandajo excelled. + +He painted a chapel for a Florentine citizen, Francesco Sasetti, in the +church of the Trinita, Florence, with scenes from the life of St +Francis. Of these, the death of St Francis, surrounded by the sorrowing +monks of his order, with the figures of Francesco Sasetti and his wife, +Madonna Nera, on one side of the picture, is considered the best. As a +curious illustration of the modernizing practice of Ghirlandajo, he has +painted an old priest at the foot of the bier, chanting the litanies for +the dying, with spectacles on his nose, the earliest known +representation of these useful instruments. + +Ghirlandajo painted during four years the choir of the church of Santa +Maria Novella, Florence, for one of the great Florentine benefactors, +Giovanni Tornabuone, and there are to be seen some of Ghirlandajo's +finest frescoes from the history of John the Baptist and the Virgin. + +A Madonna and Child with angels in the National Gallery is attributed to +Ghirlandajo. + +Francesco Francia, or Il Francia, was born at Bologna, and was the son +of a carpenter, whose surname was Raibaloni, but Francesco assumed the +name of his master, a goldsmith, and worked himself at a goldsmith's +trade till he was forty years of age. Indeed he may be said never to +have relinquished his connection with the trade, and certainly he was no +more ashamed of it than of his calling as a painter, for he signed +himself indiscriminately 'goldsmith' and 'painter,' and sometimes +whimsically put 'goldsmith' to his paintings and 'painter' to his +jewellery. He was a famous designer of dies for coins and medals, and it +is quite probable, as a countryman of his own has sought to prove, that +he was the celebrated type-cutter, known as 'Francesco da Bologna.' But +it is with Francesco '_pictor_' that we have to do. + +Though he only began to prosecute the painter's art in middle age, he +rose with remarkable rapidity to eminence, was the great painter of +Lombardy in his day, rivalling Squarcione, Mantegna's teacher in his +school, which numbered two hundred scholars, and becoming the founder of +the early Bolognese school of painters. + +Francia is said to have been very handsome in person, with a kindly +disposition and an agreeable manner. He was on terms of cordial +friendship with Raphael, then in his youth, and thirty years Il +Francia's junior. Il Francia addressed an enthusiastic sonnet to +Raphael, and there is extant a letter of Raphael's to Il Francia, +excusing himself for not sending his friend Raphael's portrait, and +making an exchange of sketches, that of his 'Nativity' for the drawing +of Il Francia's 'Judith;' while it was to Il Francia's care that Raphael +committed his picture of St Cecilia, when it was first sent to Bologna. +These relations between the men and their characters throw discredit on +the tradition that Il Francia died from jealous grief caused by the +sight of Raphael's 'St Cecilia.' As Il Francia was seventy years of age +at the time of his death, one may well attribute it to physical causes. +Il Francia had at least one son, and another kinsman, painters, whose +paintings were so good as to be occasionally confounded with those of Il +Francia. + +Il Francia is thought to have united, in his works, a certain calm +sedateness and frank sincerity to the dreamy imaginativeness of some of +his contemporaries. His finest works are considered to be the frescoes +from the life of St Cecilia in the church of St Cecilia at Bologna. + +Of a Madonna and Child, by Francia, at Bologna, I shall write down +another of Dean Alford's descriptions,--many of which I have given for +this, among other reasons, that these descriptions are not technical or +professional, but the expression of the ardent admiration and grateful +comprehension of a sympathetic spectator. 'He,' speaking of the Divine +Child, 'is lying in simple nakedness on a rich red carpet, and is +supported by a white pillar, over which the carpet passes. Of these +accessories every thread is most delicately and carefully painted; no +slovenly washes of meretricious colour where He is to be served, before +whom all things are open; no perfunctory sparing of toil in serving Him +who has given us all that is best. On his right hand kneels the Virgin +Mother in adoration, her very face a magnificat--praise, lowliness, +confidence; next to her, Joseph, telling by his looks the wonderful +story, deeply but simply. Two beautiful angels kneel, one on either +side--hereafter, perhaps, to kneel in like manner in the tomb. Their +faces seemed to me notable for that which I have no doubt the painter +intended to express,--the pure abstraction of reverent adoration, +unmingled with human sympathies. The face and figure of the Divine +Infant are full of majesty, as he holds his hands in blessing towards +the spectator, who symbolizes the world which He has come to save. Close +to him on the ground, on his right branch in trustful repose; on his +left springs a plant of the meadow-trefoil. Thus lightly and reverently +has the master touched the mystery of the Blessed Trinity: the goldfinch +symbolizing by its colours, the trefoil by the form of its leaf.' + +In our own National Gallery is a picture by Il Francia of the enthroned +Virgin and Child and her mother, St Anne, who is presenting a peach to +the infant Christ; at the foot of the throne is the little St John; to +the right and left are St Paul with the sword, St Sebastian bound to a +pillar and pierced with arrows, and St Lawrence with the emblematical +grid-iron, etc. etc. Opposite this picture hangs, what once formed part +of it, a solemn, sorrowful Pieta, as the Italians call a picture +representing the dead Redeemer mourned over by the Virgin and by the +other holy women. These pictures were bought by our Government from the +Duke of Lucca for three thousand five hundred pounds. + +Fra Bartolommeo. We come to a second gentle monk, not unlike Fra +Angelico in his nature, but far less happy than Fra Angelico, in having +been born in stormy times. Fra Bartolommeo, called also Baccio della +Porta, or Bartholomew of the gate, from the situation of his lodgings +when a young man, but scarcely known in Italy by any other name than +that of Il Frate, or the Friar, was born near Florence, and trained from +his boyhood to be a painter. In his youth, however, a terrible public +event convulsed Florence, and revolutionized Baccio della Porta's life. +He had been employed to paint in that notable Dominican convent of St +Mark, where Savonarola, its devoted friar, was denouncing the sins of +the times, including the profligate luxury of the nobles and the +degradation of the representatives of the Church. Carried away by the +fervour and sincerity of the speaker, Baccio joined the enthusiasts who +cast into a burning pile the instruments of pride, vanity, and godless +intellect denounced by the preacher. Baccio's sacrifice to the flaming +heap of splendid furniture and dress, and worldly books, was all his +designs from profane subjects and studies of the undraped figure. A +little later Savonarola was excommunicated by the Pope and perished as +a martyr; and Baccio, timid from his natural temper, distracted by +doubt, and altogether horror-stricken, took a monk's vows, and entered +the same convent of St Mark, where for four years he never touched a +pencil. + +At the request of his superior Fra Bartolommeo painted again, and when +Raphael visited Florence, and came with all his conquering sweetness and +graciousness to greet the monk in his cell, something of Il Frate's old +love for his art, and delight in its exercise, returned. He even visited +Rome, but there his health failed him, and the great works of Lionardo, +Michael Angelo, and Raphael, when he compared his own with theirs, +seemed to crush and overwhelm him. But he painted better for his visit +to Rome, even as he had painted better for his intimacy with Raphael. +Nay, it is said Raphael himself painted better on account of his +brotherly regard for, and confidence in, Fra Bartolommeo. + +Fra Bartolommeo died aged forty-eight years. Among his best pupils was a +nun of St Catherine's, known as Suor Plautilla. + +To Il Frate, as a painter, is attributed great softness and harmony, and +even majesty, though, like Fra Angelico, he was often deficient in +strength. He was great in the management of draperies, for the better +study of which he is said to have invented the lay figure. He indulged +in the introduction into his pictures of rich architecture. He was fond +of painting boy-angels--in which he excelled--playing frequently on +musical instruments, or holding a canopy over the Virgin. Very few of +his works are out of Italy; the most are in Florence, especially in the +Pitti Palace. His two greatest works are the Madonna della Misericordia, +or the Madonna of Mercy, at Lucca, where the Virgin stands with +outstretched arms pleading for the suppliants, whom she shelters under +the canopy, and who look to her as she looks to her Son,--and the grand +single figure of St Mark, with his Gospel in his hand, in the Pitti +Palace, Florence. Sir David Wilkie said of the Madonna of Mercy, 'that +it contained the merits of Raphael, of Titian, of Rembrandt, and of +Rubens.' + +Andrea Vanucchi, commonly called Andrea del Sarto, from the occupation +of his father, who was a tailor (in Italian, _sarto_), was born at +Florence in 1488. He was first a goldsmith, but soon turned painter, +winning early the commendatory title of 'Andrea senza errori,' or +'Andrea the Faultless.' His life is a miserable and tragic history. In +the early flush of his genius and industry, with its just crown of fame +and success, he conceived a passion for a beautiful but worthless woman, +whom, in spite of the opposition of his friends, he married. She +rendered his home degraded and wretched, and his friends and scholars +fell off from him. In disgust he quitted Florence, and entered the +service of Francis I, of France; but his wife, for whom his regard was a +desperate infatuation, imperiously summoned him back to Florence, to +which he returned, bringing with him a large sum of money, entrusted to +him by the king for the purchase of works of art. Instigated by his +wife, Andrea del Sarto used this money for his, or rather her, purposes, +and dared not return to France. Even in his native Florence he was +loaded with reproach and shame. He died of the plague at the age of +fifty-five years, according to tradition, plundered and abandoned in his +extremity by the base woman for whom he had sacrificed principle and +honour. We may read the grievous story of Andrea del Sarto, written by +one of the greatest of England's modern poets. + +As may be imagined, Andrea del Sarto's excellence lay in the charm of +his execution. His works were deficient in earnestness and high feeling, +and some will have it, that, evilly haunted as he was, he perpetually +painted in his Madonnas the beautiful but base-souled face of the woman +who ruined him. Andrea del Sarto's best works are in Florence, +particularly in the cloisters of the convent of the Annunziata. In the +court of the same convent is his famous Riposo (or rest of the Holy +Family on their way to Egypt), which is known as the 'Madonna of the +Sack,' from the circumstance of Joseph in the picture leaning against a +sack. This picture has held a high place in art for hundreds of years. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +LIONARDO DA VINCI, 1452-1519--MICHAEL ANGELO, 1475-1564--RAPHAEL, +1483-1520--TITIAN, 1477-1566. + + +We have arrived at the triumph of art, not, indeed, in unconsciousness +and devotion, but in fulness and completeness, as shown in the works of +four of the greatest painters and men whom the world ever saw. Of the +first, Lionardo da Vinci, born at Vinci in the neighbourhood of +Florence, 1452, it may be said that the many-sidedness which +characterized Italians--above all Italians of his day--reached its +height in him. Not only was he a painter, a sculptor, an architect, and +engineer, but also one of the boldest speculators of the generation +which gave birth to Columbus, and was not less original and ingenious +than he was universally accomplished--an Admirable Crichton among +painters. There is a theory that this many-sidedness is a proof of the +greatest men, indicating a man who might have been great in any way, +who, had his destiny not found and left him a painter, would have been +equally great as a philosopher, a man of science, a poet, or a +statesman. It may be so; but the life of Lionardo tends also to +illustrate the disadvantage of too wide a grasp and diffusion of genius. +Beginning much and finishing little, not because he was idle or fickle, +but because his schemes were so colossal and his aims so high, he spent +his time in preparation for the attainment of perfect excellence, which +eluded him. Lionardo was the pioneer, the teacher of others, rather than +the complete fulfiller of his own dreams; and the life of the proud, +passionate man was, to him self mortification. This result might, in a +sense, have been avoided; but Lionardo, great as he was, proved also one +of those unfortunate men whose noblest efforts are met and marred by +calamities which could have hardly been foreseen or prevented. + +Lionardo da Vinci was the son of a notary, and early showed a taste for +painting as well as for arithmetic and mathematics. He was apprenticed +to a painter, but he also sedulously studied physics. He is said, +indeed, to have made marvellous guesses at truth, in chemistry, botany, +astronomy, and particularly, as helping him in his art, anatomy. He was, +according to other accounts, a man of noble person, like Ghirlandajo. +And one can scarcely doubt this who looks at Lionardo's portrait painted +by himself, or at any engraving from it, and remarks the grand presence +of the man in his cap and furred cloak; his piercing wistful eyes; +stately outline of nose; and sensitive mouth, unshaded by his +magnificent flowing beard. + +He was endowed with surprising bodily strength, and was skilled in the +knightly exercises of riding, fencing, and dancing. He was a lover of +social pleasure, and inclined to indulge in expensive habits. While a +lad he amused himself by inventing machines for swimming, diving, and +flying, as well as a compass, a hygrometer, etc. etc. In a combination +from the attributes of the toads, lizards, bats, etc. etc., with which +his studies in natural history had made him familiar, he painted a +nondescript monster, which he showed suddenly to his father, whom it +filled with horror. But the horror did not prevent the old lawyer +selling the wild phantasmagoria for a large sum of money. As something +beyond amusement, Lionardo planned a canal to unite Florence with Pisa +(while he executed other canals in the course of his life), and +suggested the daring but not impossible idea of raising _en masse_, by +means of levers, the old church of San Giovanni, Florence, till it +should stand several feet above its original level, and so get rid of +the half-sunken appearance which destroyed the effect of the fine old +building. He visited the most frequented places, carrying always with +him his sketch-book, in which to note down his observations; he followed +criminals to execution in order to witness the pangs of despair; he +invited peasants to his house and told them laughable stories, that he +might pick up from their faces the essence of comic expression.[4] A +mania for truth--alike in great and little things--possessed him. + +Lionardo entered young into the service of the Gonzaga family of Milan, +being, according to one statement, chosen for the office which he was to +fill, as the first singer in _improvisatore_ of his time (among his +other inventions he devised a peculiar kind of lyre). He showed no want +of confidence in asserting his claims to be elected, for after declaring +the various works he would undertake, he added with regard to +painting--'I can do what can be done, as well as any man, be he who he +may.' He received from the Duke a salary of five hundred crowns a year. +He was fourteen years at the court of Milan, where, among other works, +he painted his 'Cenacolo,' or 'Last Supper,' one of the grandest +pictures ever produced. He painted it, contrary to the usual practice, +in oils upon the plastered walls of the refectory of the Dominican +convent, Milan. The situation was damp, and the material used proved so +unsuitable for work on plaster, that, even before it was exposed to the +reverses which in the course of a French occupation of Milan converted +the refectory into a stable, the colours had altogether faded, and the +very substance of the picture was crumbling into ruin. + +The equestrian statue of the old Duke of Milan by Lionardo excited so +much delight in its first freshness, that it was carried in triumph +through the city, and during the progress it was accidentally broken. +Lionardo began another, but funds failed for its completion, and +afterwards the French used the original clay model as a target for their +bowmen. + +Lionardo returned to Florence, and found his great rival, Michael +Angelo, already in the field. Both of the men, conscious of mighty +gifts, were intolerant of rivalry. To Lionardo especially, as being much +the elder man, the originator and promoter of many of the new views in +art which his opponent had adopted, the competition was very +distasteful, and to Michael Angelo he used the bitter sarcasm which has +been handed down to us, 'I was famous before you were born.' + +Nevertheless Lionardo consented to compete with Michael Angelo for the +painting in fresco of one side of the council-hall, by the order of the +gonfaloniere for the year. Lionardo chose for his subject a victory of +the Florentines over the Milanese, while Michael Angelo took a scene +from the Pisan campaigns. Not only was the work never done (some say +partly because Lionardo _would_ delay in order to make experiments in +oils) on account of political troubles, but the very cartoons of the two +masters, which all the artists of the day flocked to see, have been +broken up, dispersed, and lost; and of one only, that of Michael Angelo, +a small copy remains, while but a fragment from Lionardo's was preserved +in a copy made by Rubens. + +Lionardo went to Rome in the pontificate of Leo X., but there his +quarrel with Michael Angelo broke out more violently than ever. The Pope +too, who loved better a gentler, more accommodating spirit, seemed to +slight Lionardo, and the great painter not only quitted Rome in disgust, +but withdrew his services altogether from ungrateful Italy. + +At Pavia Lionardo was presented to Francis I, of France, who, zealous +in patronizing art, engaged the painter to follow Francis's fortunes at +a salary of seven hundred crowns a year. Lionardo spent the remainder of +his life in France. His health had long been declining before he died, +aged sixty-seven years, at Cloux, near Amboise. He had risen high in the +favour of Francis. From this circumstance, and the generous, chivalrous +nature of the king, there doubtless arose the tradition that Francis +visited Lionardo on his death-bed; and that, while in the act of gently +assisting him to raise himself, the painter died in the king's arms. +Court chronicles do their best to demolish this story, by proving +Francis to have been at St Germain on the day when Lionardo died at +Cloux. + +Lionardo was never married, and he left what worldly goods he possessed +to a favourite scholar. Besides his greater works, he filled many MS. +volumes, some with singularly accurate studies and sketches, maps, plans +for machines, scores for music (three volumes of these are in the Royal +Library at Windsor), and some with writing, which is written--probably +to serve as a sort of cipher--from right to left, instead of from left +to right. One of his writings is a valuable 'Treatise' on painting; +other writings are on scientific and philosophic subjects, and in these +Lionardo is believed to have anticipated some of the discoveries which +were reached by lines of close reasoning centuries later. + +Lionardo's genius as a painter was expressed by his uniting, in the very +highest degree, truth and imagination. He was the shrewdest observer of +ordinary life, and he could also realize the higher mysteries and +profounder feelings of human nature. He drew exceedingly well. Of +transparent lights and shadows, or chiaroscuro, he was the greatest +master; but he was not a good colourist. His works are very rare, and +many which are attributed to him are the pictures of his scholars, for +he founded one of the great schools of Milan or Lombardy. There is a +tradition that he was, as Holbein was once believed to be, ambidextrous, +or capable of using his left hand as well as his right, and that he +painted with two brushes--one in each hand. Thus more than fully armed, +Lionardo da Vinci looms out on us like a Titan through the mists of +centuries, and he preaches to us the simple homily, that not even a +Titan can command worldly success; that such men must look to ends as +the reward of their travail, and before undertaking it they must count +the cost, and be prepared to renounce the luxurious tastes which clung +to Lionardo, and which were not for him or for such men as he was. + +Lionardo's great painting was his 'Last Supper,' of which, happily, good +copies exist, as well as the wreck of the picture itself. The original +is now, after it is too late, carefully guarded and protected in its old +place in the Dominican convent of the Madonna della Grazia, Milan. The +assembled company sit at a long table, Christ being seated in the +middle, the disciples forming two separate groups on each side of the +Saviour. The gradations of age are preserved, from the tender youth of +John to the grey hairs of Simon; and all the varied emotions of mind, +from the deepest sorrow and anxiety to the eager desire of revenge, are +here portrayed. The well-known words of Christ, 'One of you shall betray +me,' have caused the liveliest emotion. The two groups to the left of +Christ are full of impassioned excitement, the figures in the first +turning to the Saviour, those in the second speaking to each +other,--horror, astonishment, suspicion, doubt, alternating in the +various expressions. On the other hand, stillness, low whispers, +indirect observations, are the prevailing expressions in the groups on +the right. In the middle of the first group sits the betrayer; a +cunning, sharp profile, he looks up hastily to Christ, as if speaking +the words, 'Master, is it I?' while, true to the Scriptural account, his +left hand and Christ's right hand approach, as if unconsciously, the +dish that stands before them.[5] + +A sketch of the head of Christ for the original picture, which has been +preserved on a torn and soiled piece of paper at Brera, expresses the +most elevated seriousness, together with Divine gentleness pain on +account of the faithless disciple, a full presentiment of his own death, +and resignation to the will of the Father. It gives a faint idea of what +the master may have accomplished in the finished picture. + +During his stay at Florence Lionardo painted a portrait of that Ginevra +Benci already mentioned as painted by Ghirlandajo; and a still more +famous portrait by Lionardo was that of Mona Lisa, the wife of his +friend Giocondo. This picture is also known as 'La Jaconde.' I wish to +call attention to it because it is the first of four surpassingly +beautiful portraits of women which four great painters gave in +succession to the world. The others, to be spoken of afterwards, are +Raphael's 'Fornarina,' Titian's 'Bella Donna,' and Rubens' 'Straw Hat.' +About the original of 'La Jaconde' there never has been a mystery such +as there has been about the others. At this portrait the unsatisfied +painter worked at intervals for four years, and when he left it he +pronounced it still unfinished. 'La Jaconde' is now in the Louvre in +nearly ruined condition, yet a judge says of it that even now 'there is +something in this wonderful head of the ripest southern beauty, with its +airy background of a rocky landscape, which exercises a peculiar +fascination over the mind.' + +There is a painting of the Madonna and Child Christ said to be by +Lionardo, and probably, at least, by one of his school, and which +belongs, I think, to the Duke of Buccleuch, and was exhibited lately +among the works of the old masters. The group has at once something +touching and exalted in its treatment. The Divine Child in the Mother's +arms is strangely attracted by the sight of a cross, and turns towards +it with ineffable longing, while the Virgin Mother, with a pang of +foreboding, clasping the child in her arms, seeks to draw him back. + +The fragment of the cartoon in which Lionardo competed with Michael +Angelo, may be held to survive in the fine painting by Rubens called +'the Battle of the Standard.' Of a famous Madonna and St Anne, by +Lionardo, the original cartoon in black chalk is preserved under glass +in our Royal Academy.[6] + +Michael Angelo Buonarroti, born at Castel Caprese near Tuscany, 1475, is +the next of these universal geniuses, a term which we are accustomed to +hold in contempt, because we have only seen it exemplified in parody. +After Lionardo, indeed, Michael Angelo, though he was also painter, +sculptor, architect, engineer, poet, musician, might almost be regarded +as restricted in his pursuits, yet still so manifold was he, that men +have loved to make a play upon his name and call him 'Michael the +angel,' and to speak of him as of a king among men. + +Michael Angelo was of noble descent, and though his ancient house had +fallen into comparative poverty, his father was mayor or podesta of +Chiusi, and governor of the castle of Chiusi and Caprese. Michael Angelo +was destined for the profession of the law, but so early vindicated his +taste for art, that at the age of thirteen years he was apprenticed to +Ghirlandajo. Lorenzo the Magnificent was then ruling Florence, and he +had made a collection of antique models in his palace and gardens, and +constituted it an academy for young artists. In this academy Michael +Angelo developed a strong bias for sculpture, and won the direct +patronage of the Medici. + +To this period of his life belong two characteristic anecdotes. In a +struggle with a fellow-student, Michael Angelo received a blow from a +mallet in his face, which, breaking bone and cartilage, lent to his nose +the rugged bend, + + 'The bar of Michael Angelo.' + +An ill-advised member of the Medician house, while entertaining a party +of guests during a snowstorm, sent out the indignant artist to make a +snow man within sight of the palace windows. These anecdotes bear +indirectly on the ruling qualities of Michael Angelo--qualities so +integral that they are wrought into his marble and painted on his +canvas--proud independence and energy. + +Before going farther I wish to guard against a common misapprehension of +Michael Angelo--that he was a haughty, arrogant man, absolutely narrow +in his half-idolatrous, half-human worship of art. Michael Angelo was +severe in place of being sweet; he was impatient of contradiction; he +was careless and scornful of ceremony; and in his very wrath at flattery +and hypocrisy, he was liable to sin against his own honesty and +sincerity. But he was a man with a lofty sense of duty and a profound +reverence for God. He was, unlike Lionardo, consistently simple, frugal, +and temperate, throughout his long life. If he held up a high standard +to others, and enforced it on them with hardness, he held up a higher +standard to himself, and enforced it on himself more hardly still. He +was a thoroughly unworldly man, and actions which had their root in +unworldliness have been ascribed unjustly to a kind of Lucifer pride. +Greed, and the meanness of greed, were unknown to him. He worked for the +last ten years of his life (under no less than five different Popes) at +his designs for St Peter's, steadfastly refusing pay for the work, +saying that he did it for the honour of God and his own honour. He made +many enemies and suffered from their enmity, but I cannot learn that, +except in one instance, he was guilty of dealing an unworthy blow at +his opponents. He was generous to his scholars, and without jealousy of +them, suffering them to use his designs for their own purposes. He said, +'I have no friends, I need none, I wish for none;' but that was in +feeling himself 'alone before Heaven;' and of the friends whom he did +possess, he loved them all the more devotedly and faithfully, because +they were few in number. + +One need only be told of his love for his old servant Urbino, whom he +presented with two thousand crowns to render him independent of service; +and when the servant was seized with his last illness Michael Angelo +nursed him tenderly, sleeping in his clothes on a couch that he might be +ready to attend his patient. When his cares were ended, Michael Angelo +wrote to a correspondent--'My Urbino is dead--to my infinite grief and +sorrow. Living, he served me truly; and in his death he taught me how to +die. Of Michael Angelo's more equal friendship with Vittoria Colonna I +hope my readers will read at leisure for themselves. No nobler, truer +friendship ever existed. It began when the high-born and beautiful, +gifted, and devout Marchesa de Pescara--most loyal of wives and widows, +was forty-eight, and Michael Angelo sixty-four years of age. After a few +years of privileged intercourse and correspondence, which were the +happiest years in Michael Angelo's life, it ended for this world when he +stood mourning by her lifeless clay. 'I was born a rough model, and it +was for thee to reform and re-make me,' the great painter had written +humbly of himself to his liege lady.[7] + +Italy, in Michael Angelo's time, as Germany in Albert Duerer's, was all +quickened and astir with the new wave of religious thought which brought +about the Reformation. Ochino and Peter Martyr, treading in the +footsteps of Savonarola, had preached to eager listeners, but 'in Italy +men did not adopt Lutheranism, though they approached it;' and in all +the crowd of great Italian artists of the day, Michael Angelo shows +deepest traces of the conflict--of its trouble, its seriousness, its +nobleness. He only, among his brethren, acted out his belief that the +things of the world sank into insignificance before those thoughts of +God and immortality which were alone fully worthy of the soul. And it +was, as to a religious work for which he was fitted, that he at last +gave himself up to the raising of St Peter's. We shall have next in +order the life of a man who had all the winning qualities which Michael +Angelo wanted, but we shall hardly, through the whole range of history, +find a nobler man than Michael Angelo. + +After his first visit to Rome, 1496, Michael Angelo executed his +colossal statue of David. In 1503 he entered into the competition with +Lionardo for the painting of one end of the Council-hall, in Florence, +which has been already mentioned. For this object he drew as his +cartoon, 'Pisan soldiers surprised while bathing by a sudden trumpet +call to arms.' The grand cartoon, of which only a small copy exists, was +said to have been torn to pieces as an act of revenge by a +fellow-sculptor, whom Michael Angelo had offended. + +Michael Angelo was invited to Rome by Julius II. in 1504 to aid in +erecting the unapproachable monument which the Pope projected raising +for himself. Then commenced a series of contentions and struggles +between the imperious and petulant Pope and the haughty, uncompromising +painter, in which the latter certainly had the best of it. At one time +in the course of the quarrel, Michael Angelo departed from Rome without +permission or apology, and stoutly refused to return, though followed +hotly by no less than five different couriers, armed with threats and +promises, and urged to make the reparation by his own gonfaloniere. At +last a meeting and a reconciliation between Michael Angelo and the Pope +were effected at Bologna. Michael Angelo designed for Pope Julius II, +not only the statue of Pope Julius at Bologna, which was finally +converted into a cannon, and turned against the very man whose effigy it +had originally presented, but also for that tomb which was never +completed, the famous figure of Moses seated, grasping his beard with +one hand. + +While employed at the tomb, Michael Angelo, then in his fortieth year, +was desired by the Pope to undertake the decoration of the ceiling of +the Sistine Chapel. Here, again, the hand of an enemy is said to have +been at work. Michael Angelo, with the first place as a sculptor, was +inexperienced in fresco painting; while Raphael, who was taking the +place of Lionardo as Michael Angelo's most formidable rival (yet whom it +is said Michael Angelo pointed out as the fittest painter of the +ceiling), and who was then engaged in painting the Vatican chambers, had +already achieved the utmost renown. It was anticipated by secret +hostility, so records tradition, that Michael Angelo would fail signally +in the unaccustomed work, and that his merit as an artist would pale +altogether before that of Raphael's. I need hardly write how entirely +malice was balked in the verdict to which posterity has set its seal. + +Michael Angelo brought artists from Florence to help him in his great +undertaking, for over the chapel, whose walls had already been painted +by older artists--among them Ghirlandajo, was an enormous vault of 150 +feet in length by 50 in breadth, which Michael Angelo was required to +cover with designs representing the Fall and Redemption of Man. But the +painter was unable to bear what seemed to him the bungling attempts of +his assistants; so dismissing them all and destroying their work, he +shut himself up, and working in solitude and secrecy, set himself to +evolve from his own inner consciousness the gigantic scenes of a +tremendous drama. In 22 months (or, as Kugler holds, in three years, +including the time spent on the designs) he finished gloriously the +work, the magnitude of which one must see to comprehend. On All Saints' +Day, 1512, the ceiling was uncovered, and Michael Angelo was hailed, +little though he cared for such clamorous hailing, as a painter indeed. +For this piece of work Michael Angelo received 3000 crowns. + +Pope Julius died, and was succeeded by Leo X. of the Medician house, +but, in spite of early associations as well as of mother country, +Michael Angelo was no more acceptable to the Pope--a brilliantly +polished, easy-tempered man of the world, who filled the chair of St +Peter's, than Lionardo had been. Leo X, greatly preferred Raphael, to +whom all manner of pleasantness as well as of courteous deference was +natural, to the two others. At the same time, Leo employed Michael +Angelo, though it was more as an architect than as a painter, and rather +at Florence than at Rome. At Florence Michael Angelo executed for Pope +Clement VII., another Medici, the mortuary chapel of San Lorenzo, with +its six great statues, those of the cousins Lorenzo de Medici and +Giuliano de Medici, the first called by the Florentines 'Il Pensiero,' +or 'Pensive Thought,' with the four colossal recumbent figures named +respectively the Night, the Morning, the Dawn, and the Twilight. + +In 1537 Michael Angelo was employed by his fellow citizens to fortify +his native city against the return of his old patrons the Medici, and +the city held out for nine months. + +Pope Paul III., an old man when elected to the popedom, but bent on +signalizing his pontificate with as splendid works of art as those +which had rendered the reigns of his predecessors illustrious, summoned +another man, grown elderly, Michael Angelo, upwards of sixty years, +reluctant to accept the commission, to finish the decoration of the +Sistine Chapel; and Michael Angelo painted on the wall, at the upper +end, his painting, 'The Last Judgment.' The picture is forty-seven feet +high by forty-three wide, and it occupied the painter eight years. It +was during its progress that Michael Angelo entered on his friendship +with Vittoria Colonna. + +For the chapel called the Paolina or Pauline Chapel Michael Angelo also +painted less-known frescoes, but from that time he devoted his life to +St Peter's. He had said that he would take the old Pantheon and 'suspend +it in air,' and he did what he said, though he did not live to see the +great cathedral completed. His sovereign, the Grand Duke of Florence, +endeavoured in vain with magnificent offers to lure the painter back to +his native city. Michael Angelo protested that to leave Rome then would +be 'a sin and a shame, and the ruin of the greatest religious monument +in Christian Europe.' Michael Angelo, like Lionardo, did not marry; he +died at Rome in 1563, in his eighty-ninth year. + +His nephew and principal heir,[8] by the orders of the Grand Duke of +Florence, and it is believed according to Michael Angelo's own wish, +removed the painter's body to Florence, where it was buried with all +honours in the church of Santa Croce there. + +The traits which recall Michael Angelo personally to us, are the +prominent arch of the nose, the shaggy brows, the tangled beard, the +gaunt grandeur of a figure like that of one of his prophets. + +While Michael Angelo lived, one Pope rose on his approach, and seated +the painter on his right hand, and another Pope declined to sit down in +his painter's presence; but the reason given for the last condescension, +is that the Pope feared that the painter would follow his example. And +if the Grand Duke Cosmo uncovered before Michael Angelo, and stood hat +in hand while speaking to him, we may have the explanation in another +assertion, that 'sovereigns asked Michael Angelo to put on his cap, +because the painter would do it unasked.' + +The solitary instance in which Michael Angelo is represented as taking +an unfair advantage of an antagonist, is in connection with the +painter's rivalry in his art with Raphael. Michael Angelo undervalued +the genius of Raphael, and was disgusted by what the older man +considered the immoderate admiration bestowed on the younger. A +favourite pupil of Michael Angelo's was Sebastian Del Piombo, who being +a Venetian by birth was an excellent colourist. For one of his +pictures--the very 'Raising of Lazarus' now in the National Gallery, +which the Pope had ordered at the same time that he had ordered +Raphael's 'Transfiguration'--it is rumoured that Michael Angelo gave the +designs and even drew the figures, leaving Sebastian the credit, and +trusting that without Michael Angelo's name appearing in the work, by +the help of his drawing in addition to Sebastian's superb colouring, +Raphael would be eclipsed, and that by a painter comparatively obscure. + +The unwarrantable inference that the whole work was that of one painter, +constituted a stratagem altogether unworthy of Michael Angelo, and if it +had any existence, its getting wind disappointed and foiled its authors. +When the story was repeated to Raphael, his sole protest is said to have +been to the effect that he was glad that Michael Angelo esteemed him so +highly as to enter the lists with him. + +We can judge of Michael Angelo's attainments as a poet, even without +having recourse to the original Italian, by Wordsworth's translations of +some of the Italian master's sonnets, and by Mr John Edward Taylor's +translations of selections from Michael Angelo's poems. + +Michael Angelo was greater as an architect and a sculptor than as a +painter, because his power and delight lay in the mastery of form, and +in the assertion, through that mastery, of the idealism of genius. It is +not necessary to speak here of the mighty harmonies and the ineffable +dignity of simplicity, somewhat marred by the departure from Michael +Angelo's designs, in St Peter's. It has been the fashion to praise them +to the skies, and it has been a later fashion to decry them, in awarding +a preference to the solemn shades and the dim rich dreaminess of Gothic +architecture. Both fashions come to this, after all, that beauty, like +these great men of genius of old, is many-sided. + +In Michael Angelo's works of sculpture a weird charm attaches to his +monuments in honour of the Medici in the chapel of San Lorenzo, +Florence. Perhaps something of this weirdness has to do with the tragic +history of the men, and with a certain mystery which has always shrouded +the sculptor's meaning in these monuments. + +Mrs Jameson quotes an account of Michael Angelo at work. An eye-witness +has left us a very graphic description of the energy with which, even in +old age, Michael Angelo handled his chisel:--"I can say that I have +seen Michael Angelo at the age of sixty, and, with a body announcing +weakness, make more chips of marble fly about in a quarter of an hour +than would three of the strongest young sculptors in an hour,--a thing +almost incredible to him who has not beheld it. He went to work with +such impetuosity and fury of manner, that I feared almost every moment +to see the block split into pieces. It would seem as if, inflamed by the +idea of greatness which inspired him, this great man attacked with a +Vigenere." + +In painting Michael Angelo regarded colouring as of secondary +importance. He is not known to have executed one painting in oil, and he +treated oil and easel-painting generally as work only fit for women or +idle men. While he approached the sublime in his painting, it was by no +means faultless. Even in form his efforts were apt to tend to heaviness +and exaggeration, and the fascination which robust muscular delineation +had for him, betrayed him into materialism. Fuseli's criticism of +Michael Angelo's work, that Michael Angelo's women were female men, and +his children diminutive giants, is judged correct. Incomparably the +greatest painting of Michael Angelo's is his ceiling of the Sistine +Chapel. It includes upwards of 200 figures, the greater part colossal, +as they were to be looked at, in the distance, from below. + + 'The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel contains the most perfect + works done by Michael Angelo in his long and active life. Here + his great spirit appears in noblest dignity, in its highest + purity; here the attention is not disturbed by that arbitrary + display to which his great power not unfrequently seduced him in + other works. The ceiling forms a flattened arch in its section; + the central portion, which is a plain surface, contains a series + of large and small pictures, representing the most important + events recorded in the book of Genesis--the Creation and Fall of + Man, with its immediate consequences. In the large triangular + compartments at the springing of the vault are sitting figures + of the Prophets and Sibyls, as the foretellers of the coming + Saviour. In the soffits of the recesses between these + compartments, and in the arches underneath, immediately above + the windows, are the ancestors of the Virgin, the series leading + the mind directly to the Saviour. The external of these numerous + representations is formed by an architectural frame-work of + peculiar composition, which encloses the single subjects, tends + to make the principal masses conspicuous, and gives to the whole + an appearance of that solidity and support so necessary, but so + seldom attended to in soffit decorations, which may be + considered as if suspended. A great number of figures are also + connected with the frame-work; those in unimportant situations + are executed in the colour of stone or bronze; in the more + important, in natural colours. These serve to support the + architectural forms, to fill up and to connect the whole. They + may be best described as the living and embodied _genii_ of + architecture. It required the unlimited power of an architect, + sculptor, and painter, to conceive a structural whole of so much + grandeur, to design the decorative figures with the significant + repose required by the sculpturesque character, and yet to + preserve their subordination to the principal subjects, and to + keep the latter in the proportions and relations best adapted to + the space to be filled.'--_Kugler_. + +The pictures from the Old Testament, beginning from the altar, are:-- + + 1. The Separation of Light and Darkness. + 2. The Creation of the Sun and Moon. + 3. The Creation of Trees and Plants. + 4. The Creation of Adam. + 5. The Creation of Eve. + 6. The Fall and the Expulsion from Paradise. + 7. The Sacrifice of Noah. + 8. The Deluge. + 9. The Intoxication of Noah. + + 'The scenes from Genesis are the most sublime representations of + these subjects;--the Creating Spirit is unveiled before us. The + peculiar type which the painter has here given of the form of the + Almighty + Father has been frequently imitated by his followers, and even by + Raphael, but has been surpassed by none. Michael Angelo has + represented him in majestic flight, sweeping through the air, + surrounded by _genii_, partly supporting, partly borne along with + him, covered by his floating drapery; they are the distinct + syllables, the separate virtues of his creating word. In the + first (large) compartment we see him with extended hands, + assigning to the sun and moon their respective paths. In the + second, he awakens the first man to life. Adam lies stretched on + the verge of the earth in the act of raising himself; the Creator + touches him with the point of his finger, and appears thus to + endow him with feeling and life. This picture displays a + wonderful depth of thought in the composition, and the utmost + elevation and majesty in the general treatment and execution. The + third subject is not less important, representing the Fall of + Man, and his Expulsion from Paradise. The tree of knowledge + stands in the midst; the serpent (the upper part of the body + being that of a woman) is twined around the + stem; she bends down towards the guilty pair, who are in the act + of plucking the forbidden fruit. The figures are nobly graceful, + particularly that of Eve. Close to the serpent hovers the angel + with the sword, ready to drive the fallen beings out of Paradise. + In this double action, this union of two separate moments, there + is something peculiarly poetic and significant: it is guilt and + punishment in one picture. The sudden and lightning-like + appearance of the avenging angel behind the demon of darkness has + a most impressive effect.'--_Kugler_. + + +The lower portion of the ceiling is divided into triangles, occupied by +the Prophets and Sibyls in solemn contemplation, accompanied by angels +and genii. Beginning from the left of the entrance their order is-- + + 1. Joel. + 2. Sibylla Erythraea. + 3. Ezekiel. + 4. Sibylla Persica. + 5. Jonah. + 6. Sibylla Libyca. + 7. Daniel. + 8. Sibylla Cumaea. + 9. Isaiah. + 10. Sibylla Delphica. + + 'The prophets and sibyls in the triangular compartments of the + curved portion of the ceiling are the largest figures in the + whole work; these, too, are among the most wonderful forms that + modern art has called into life. They are all represented + seated, employed with books or rolled manuscripts; genii stand + near or behind them. These mighty beings sit before us pensive, + meditative, inquiring, or looking upwards with inspired + countenances. Their forms and movements, indicated by the grand + lines and masses of the drapery, are majestic and dignified. We + see in them beings, who, while they feel and bear the sorrows of + a corrupt and sinful world, have power to look for consolation + into the secrets of the future. Yet the greatest variety + prevails in the attitudes and expression: each figure is full of + individuality. Zacharias is an aged man, busied in calm and + circumspect investigation; Jeremiah is bowed down, absorbed in + thought, the thought of deep and bitter grief; Ezekiel turns + with hasty movements to the genius next to him, who points + upwards with joyful expectation, etc. The sibyls are equally + characteristic: the Persian, a lofty, majestic woman, very aged; + the Erythraean, full of power, like the warrior goddess of + wisdom; the Delphic, like Cassandra, youthfully soft and + graceful, but with strength to bear the awful seriousness of + revelation.'--_Kugler_. + + 'The belief of the Roman Catholic Church in the testimony of the + sibyl is shown by the well-known hymn, said to have been composed + by Pope Innocent III, at the close of the thirteenth century, + beginning with the verse-- + + "Dies irae, dies illa, + Solvet saeclum in favilla + Teste David cum Sibylla." + + It may be inferred that this hymn, admitted into the liturgy of + the Roman Church, gave sanction to the adoption of the sibyls + into Christian art. They are seen from this time accompanying the + prophets and apostles, in the cyclical decorations of the + church.... But the highest honour that art has rendered to the + sibyls has been by the hand of Michael Angelo, + on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Here in the conception of a + mysterious order of women, placed above and without all + considerations of the graceful or the individual, the great + master was peculiarly in his element. They exactly fitted his + standard, of art, not always sympathetic, nor comprehensible to + the average human mind, of which the grand in form and the + abstract in expression were the first and last conditions. In + this respect, the sibyls on the Sistine Chapel ceiling are more + Michael Angelesque than their companions the prophets. For these, + while types of the highest monumental treatment, are yet men, + while the sibyls belong to a distinct class of beings, who convey + the impression of the very obscurity in which their history is + wrapt--creatures who have lived far from the abodes of men, who + are alike devoid of the expression of feminine sweetness, human + sympathy, or sacramental beauty; who are neither Christians nor + Jewesses, Witches nor Graces, yet living, grand, beautiful, and + true, according to laws revealed to the great Florentine genius + only. + + Thus their figures may be said to be unique, as the offspring of + a peculiar sympathy between the master's mind and his subject. To + this sympathy may be ascribed the prominence and size given them, + both prophets and sibyls, as compared to their usual relation to + the subjects they environ. They sit here on twelve throne-like + niches, more like presiding deities, each wrapt in + self-contemplation, than as tributary witnesses to the truth and + omnipotence of Him they are intended to announce. Thus they form + a gigantic frame-work round the subjects of the Creation, of + which the birth of Eve, as the type of the Nativity, is the + intentional centre. For some reason, the twelve figures are not + prophets and sibyls alternately--there being only five sibyls to + seven prophets,--so that the prophets come together at one angle. + Books and scrolls are given indiscriminately to them. + +'The Sibylla Persica, supposed to be the oldest of the sisterhood, holds +the book close to her eyes, as if from dimness of sight, which fact, +contradicted as it is by a frame of obviously Herculean strength, gives +a mysterious intentness to the action. + +'The Sibylla Libyca, of equally powerful proportions, but less closely +draped, is grandly wringing herself to lift a massive volume from a +height above her head on to her knees. + +'The Sibylla Cumana, also aged, and with her head covered, is reading +with her volume at a distance from her eyes. + +'The Sibylla Delphica, with waving hair escaping from her turban, is a +beautiful young being, the most human of all, gazing into vacancy or +futurity. She holds a scroll. + +'The Sibylla Erythraea, grand, bare-headed creature, sits reading +intently with crossed legs, about to turn over her book. + +'The prophets are equally grand in structure, and though, as we have +said, not more than men, yet they are the only men that could well bear +the juxtaposition with their stupendous female colleagues. Ezekiel, +between Erythraea and Persica, has a scroll in his hand that hangs by his +side, just cast down, as he turns eagerly to listen to some voice. + +'Jeremiah, a magnificent figure, with elbow on knee and head on hand, +wrapt in meditation appropriate to one called to utter lamentation and +woe. He has neither book nor scroll. + +'Jonah is also without either. His position is strained and ungraceful, +looking upwards, and apparently remonstrating with the Almighty upon the +destruction of the gourd, a few leaves of which are seen above him. His +hands are placed together with a strange and trivial action, supposed to +denote the counting on his fingers the number of days he was in the +fish's belly. A formless marine monster is seen at his side. + +'Daniel has a book on his lap, with one hand on it. He is young, and a +piece of lion's skin seems to allude to his history.'[9] + +In the recesses between the prophets and sibyls are a series of lovely +family groups, representing the genealogy of the Virgin, and expressive +of calm expectation of the future. The four corners of the ceiling +contain groups illustrative of the power of the Lord displayed in the +especial deliverances of his chosen people. Near the altar are: + +Right, The Deliverance of the Israelites by the Brazen Serpent. + +Left, The Execution of Haman. + +Near the entrance are: + +Right, Judith and Holofernes. + +Left, David and Goliath.[10] + +Michael Angelo was thirty-nine years of age when he painted the ceiling +of the Sistine. When he began to paint the 'Day of Judgment' he was +above sixty years of age, and his great rival, Raphael, had already been +dead thirteen years. + +The picture of the 'Day of Judgment,' with much that renders it +marvellous and awful, has a certain coarseness of conception and +execution. The moment chosen is that in which the Lord says, 'Depart +from me, ye cursed,' and the idea and even attributes of the principal +figure are taken from Orcagna's old painting in the Campo Santo. But +with all Michael Angelo's advantages, he has by no means improved on the +original idea. He has robbed the figure of the Lord of its transcendant +majesty; he has not been able to impart to the ranks of the blessed the +look of blessedness which 'Il Beato' himself might have conveyed. The +chief excellence of the picture is in the ranks of the condemned, who +writhe and rebel against their agonies. No wonder that the picture is +sombre and dreadful. + +Of the allegorical figures of 'Night' and 'Morning' in the chapel of San +Lorenzo, there are casts at the Crystal Palace. + +A comparison and a contrast have been instituted between Michael Angelo +and Milton, and Raphael and Shakespeare. There may be something in them, +but, as in the case of broken metaphors, they will not bear being pushed +to a logical conclusion or picked to pieces. The very transparent +comparison which matches Michael Angelo with his own countryman, Dante, +is after all more felicitous and truer. Michael Angelo with Lionardo are +the great chiefs of the Florentine School. + +Raphael Sanzio, or Santi of Urbino, the head of the Roman School, was +one of those very exceptional men who seem born to happiness, to inspire +love and only love, to pass through the world making friends and +disarming enemies, who are fully armed to confer pleasure while almost +incapable of either inflicting or receiving pain. To this day his +exceptional fortune stands Raphael's memory in good stead, since for one +man or woman who yearns after the austere righteousness and priceless +tenderness of Michael Angelo, there are ten who yield with all their +hearts to the gay, sweet gentleness and generosity of Raphael. No doubt +it was also in his favour as a painter, that though a man of highly +cultivated tastes, 'in close intimacy and correspondence with most of +the celebrated men of his time, and interested in all that was going +forward,' he did not, especially in his youth, spend his strength on a +variety of studies, but devoted himself to painting. While he thus +vindicated his share of the breadth of genius of his country and time, +by giving to the world the loveliest Madonnas and Child-Christs, the +most dramatic of battle-pieces, the finest of portraits, his noble and +graceful fertility of invention and matchless skill of execution were +confined to and concentrated on painting. He did not diverge long or far +into the sister arts of architecture and sculpture, though his classic +researches in the excavations of Rome were keen and zealous; a heap of +ruins having given to the world in 1504 the group of the +that a writer of his day could record that 'Raphael had sought and found +in Rome another Rome.' + +Raphael was born in the town of Urbino, and was the son of a painter of +the Umbrian School, who very early destined the boy to his future +career, and promoted his destination by all the efforts in Giovanni +Santi's power, including the intention of sending away and apprenticing +the little lad to the best master of his time, Perugino, so called from +the town where he resided, Perugia. Raphael's mother died when he was +only eight years of age, and his father died when he was no more than +eleven years, before the plans for his education were put into action. +But no stroke of outward calamity, or loss--however severe, could annul +Raphael's birthright of universal favour. His step-mother, the uncles +who were his guardians, his clever, perverse, unscrupulous master, all +joined in a common love of Raphael and determination to promote his +interests. + +Raphael at the age of twelve years went to Perugia to work under +Perugino, and remained with his master till he was nearly twenty years +of age. In that interval he painted industriously, making constant +progress, always in the somewhat hard, but finished, style of Perugino, +while already showing a predilection for what was to prove Raphael's +favourite subject, the Madonna and Child. At this period he painted his +famous _Lo Sposalizio_ or the 'Espousals,' the marriage of the Virgin +Mary with Joseph, now at Milan. In 1504 he visited Florence, remaining +only for a short time, but making the acquaintance of Fra Bartolommeo +and Ghirlandajo, seeing the cartoons of Lionardo and Michael Angelo, and +from that time displaying a marked improvement in drawing. Indeed +nothing is more conspicuous in Raphael's genius in contra-distinction to +Michael Angelo's, than the receptive character of Raphael's mind, his +power of catching up an impression from without, and the candour and +humility with which he availed himself unhesitatingly of the assistance +lent him by others. + +Returning soon to Florence, Raphael remained there till 1508, when he +was twenty-five years, drawing closer the valuable friendships he had +already formed, and advancing with rapid strides in his art, until his +renown was spread all over Italy, and with reason, since already, while +still young, he had painted his 'Madonna of the Goldfinch,' in the +Florentine Gallery, and his 'La Belle Jardiniere,' or Madonna in a +garden among flowers, now in the Louvre. + +In his twenty-fifth year Raphael was summoned to Rome to paint for Pope +Julius II. My readers will remember that Michael Angelo in the abrupt +severity of his prime of manhood, was soon to paint the ceiling of the +Sistine Chapel for the same despotic and art-loving Pope, who had +brought Raphael hardly more than a stripling to paint the '_Camere_' or +'_Stanze_' chambers of the Vatican. + +The first of the halls which Raphael painted (though not the first in +order) is called the Camera della Segnatura (in English, signature), and +represents Theology, Poetry, Philosophy, with the Sciences, Arts, and +Jurisprudence. The second is the 'Stanza d'Eliodoro,' or the room of +Heliodorus, and contains the grandest painting of all, in the expulsion +of Heliodorus from the Temple of Jerusalem (taken from Maccabees), the +Miracle of Bolsena, Attila, king of the Huns, terrified by the +apparition of St Peter and St Paul, and St Peter delivered from prison. +The third stanza painted by Raphael is the 'Stanza dell' Incendio' (the +conflagration), so called from the extinguishing of the fire in the +Borgo by a supposed miracle, being the most conspicuous scene in +representations of events taken from the lives of Popes Leo III, and +IV.; and the fourth chamber, which was left unfinished by Raphael, and +completed by his scholars, is the 'Sala di Constantino,' and contains +incidents from the life of the Emperor Constantine, including the +splendid battle-piece between Constantine and Maxentius. At these +chambers, or at the designs for them, during the popedoms of Julius II., +who died in the course of the painting of the Camere, and Leo X., for a +period of twelve years, till Raphael's death in 1520, after which the +'Sala di Constantino' was completed by his scholars. + +Raphael has also left in the Vatican a series of small pictures from the +Old Testament, known as Raphael's Bible. This series decorates the +thirteen cupolas of the 'Loggie,' or open galleries, running round three +sides of an open court. Another work undertaken by Raphael should have +still more interest for us. Leo X., resolving to substitute woven for +painted tapestry round the lower walls of the interior of the Sistine +Chapel, commanded Raphael to furnish drawings to the Flemish weavers, +and thence arose eleven cartoons, seven of which have been preserved, +have become the property of England, and are the glory of the Kensington +Museum. The subjects of the cartoons in the seven which have been saved, +are 'The Death of Ananias,' 'Elymas the Sorcerer struck with Blindness,' +'The Healing of the Lame Man at the Beautiful Gate of the Temple,' 'The +Miraculous Draught of Fishes,' 'Paul and Barnabas at Lystra,' 'St Paul +Preaching at Athens,' and 'The Charge to St Peter.' The four cartoons +which are lost, were 'The Stoning of St Stephen,' 'The Conversion of St +Paul,' 'Paul in Prison,' and 'The Coronation of the Virgin.' + +In those cartoons figures above life-size were drawn with chalk upon +strong paper, and coloured in distemper, and Raphael received for his +work four hundred and thirty gold ducats (about _L650_), while the +Flemish weavers received for their work in wools, silk, and gold, fifty +thousand gold ducats. The designs were cut up in strips for the +weavers' use, and while some strips were destroyed, the rest lay in a +warehouse at Arras, till Rubens became aware of their existence, and +advised Charles I, to buy the set, to be employed in the tapestry +manufactory established by James I. at Mortlake. Brought to this country +in the slips which the weavers had copied, the fate of the cartoons was +still precarious. Cromwell bought them in Charles I.'s art collection, +and Louis XIV, sought, but failed, to re-buy them. They fell into +farther neglect, and were well-nigh forgotten, when Sir Godfrey Kneller +recalled them to notice, and induced William III, to have the slips +pasted together, and stretched upon linen, and put in a room set apart +for them at Hampton Court, whence they were transferred, within the last +ten years, for the greater advantage of artists and the public, to +Kensington Museum. + +The woven tapestries for which the cartoons were designed had quite as +chequered a career. In the two sacks of Rome by French soldiers, the +tapestries were seized, carried off, and two of them burnt for the +bullion in the thread. At last they were restored to the Vatican, where +they hang in their faded magnificence, a monument of Leo X, and of +Raphael. An additional set of ten tapestry cartoons were supplied to the +Vatican by Raphael's scholars. + +Raphael painted for the Chigi family in their palace, which is now the +Villa Farnesina, scenes from the history of Cupid and Psyche, and the +Triumph of Galatea, subjects which show how the passion for classical +mythology that distinguishes the next generation, was beginning to work. +To these last years belong his 'Madonna di San Sisto,' so named from its +having been painted for the convent of St Sixtus at Piacenza, and his +last picture, the 'Transfiguration,' with which he was still engaged +when death met him unexpectedly. + +Raphael, as the Italians say, lived more like a '_principe_' (prince) +than a '_pittore_' (painter). He had a house in Rome, and a villa in the +neighbourhood, and on his death left a considerable fortune to his +heirs. There has not been wanting a rumour that his life of a principe +was a dissipated and prodigal life; but this ugly rumour, even if it had +more evidence to support it, is abundantly disproven by the nature of +Raphael's work, and by the enormous amount of that work, granting him +the utmost assistance from his crowd of scholars. He had innumerable +commissions, and retained an immense school from all parts of Italy, the +members of which adored their master. Raphael had the additional +advantage of having many of his pictures well engraved by a contemporary +engraver named Raimondi. + +Like Giotto, Raphael was the friend of the most distinguished Italians +of his day, including Count Castiglione, and the poet Ariosto. He was +notably the warm friend of his fellow-painters both at home and abroad, +with the exception of Michael Angelo. A drawing of his own, which +Raphael sent, in his kindly interchange of such sketches, to Albert +Duerer, is, I think, preserved at Nueremberg. The sovereign princes of +Italy, above all Leo X., were not contented with being munificent +patrons to Raphael, they treated him with the most marked consideration. +The Cardinal Bibbiena proposed the painter's marriage with his niece, +ensuring her a dowry of three thousand gold crowns, but Maria di +Bibbiena died young, ere the marriage could be accomplished; and +Raphael, who was said to be little disposed to the match, did not long +survive her. He caught cold, as some report, from his engrossing +personal superintendence of the Roman excavations; and, as others +declare, from his courtly assiduity in keeping an appointment with the +Pope, was attacked by fever, and died on his birth-day, April 6th, 1520, +having completed his thirty-seventh year. + +All Rome and Italy mourned for him. When his body lay in state, to be +looked at and wept over by multitudes, his great unfinished picture of +the 'Transfiguration' was hung above the bed. He was buried in a spot +chosen by himself in his lifetime, and, as it happened, not far from the +resting-place of his promised bride. Doubts having been raised as to +Raphael's grave, search was made, and his body was exhumed in 1833, and +re-buried with great pomp. Raphael's life and that of Rubens form the +ideal painter's life--bountiful, splendid, unclouded, and terminating +ere it sees eclipse or decay--to all in whom the artistic temperament is +united to a genial, sensuous, pleasure-loving nature. + +Raphael was not above the middle height, and slightly made. He was +sallow in colour, with brown eyes, and a full yet delicate mouth; but +his beautiful face, like that of our English Shakespeare, is familiar to +most of us. With regard to Raphael's face, the amount of womanliness in +it is a striking characteristic. One hears sometimes that no man's +character is complete without its share of womanliness: surely Raphael +had a double share, for womanliness is the most distinctive quality in +his face, along with that vague shade of pensiveness which we find not +infrequently, but strangely enough, in those faces which have been +associated with the happiest spirits and the brightest fortunes. + +Raphael and his scholars painted and drew about nine hundred pictures +and sketches, including a hundred and twenty Madonnas, eight of which +are in private collections in England. Of Raphael's greatness, Kugler +writes that 'it is not so much in kind as in degree. No master left +behind _so many_ really excellent works as he, whose days were so early +numbered; in none has there been observed so little that is unpleasant.' +All authorities agree in ascribing much of Raphael's power to his purely +unselfish nature and aim. His excellence seems to lie in the nearly +perfect expression of material beauty and harmony, together with +grandeur of design and noble working out of thought. We shall see that +this devotion to material beauty has been made something of a reproach +to Raphael, as it certainly degenerated into a snare in the hands of his +followers, while unquestionably the universal appreciation of Raphael's +work, distinguished from the partial appreciation bestowed on the great +works of others, proceeds from this evident material beauty which is +open to all. + +Then, again, Raphael, far more than Andrea del Sarto, deserved to be +called 'faultless;' and this general absence of defects and equality of +excellence is a great element of Raphael's wide popularity; for, as one +can observe for one's self, in regarding a work of art, there is always +a large proportion of the spectators who will seize on an error, dwell +on it, and be incapable of shaking off its influence, and rising into +the higher rank of critics, who discover and ponder over beauties. I +would have it considered also, that this equality of excellence does not +necessarily proceed always from a higher aim, but may arise rather from +an unconsciously lower aim. + +The single reproach brought against Raphael as a painter is +that--according to some witnesses only, for most deny the +implication--Raphael so delighted in material beauty that he became +enslaved by it, till it diminished his spiritual insight. It is an +incontestable truth that in Raphael, as in all the great Italian +painters of his century, there was a falling away from the simple +earnestness, the exceeding reverence, the endless patience, the +self-abstraction, and self-devotion of the earliest Italian and Flemish +painters. Therefore there has been within the last fifty or sixty years +that movement in modern art, which is called Pre-raphaelitism, and which +is, in fact, a revolt against subjection to Raphael, and his supposed +undue exaltation of material beauty, and subjection of truth to +beauty--so called. But we must not fall into the grave mistake of +imagining that there was any want of vigour and variety in Raphael's +grace and tenderness, or that he could not in his greatest works rise +into a grandeur in keeping with his subject. Tire as we may of hearing +Raphael called the king of painters, as the Greeks tired of hearing +Aristides called 'the just,' this fact remains: no painter has left +behind him such a mass of surpassingly good work; in no other work is +there the same charm of greatest beauty and harmony. + +It is hard for me to give you an idea in so short a space of Raphael's +work. I must content myself with quoting descriptions of two of his +Stanze, those of the Heliodorus and the Segnatura. 'Heliodorus driven +out of the Temple (2 Maccabees iii.). In the background Onias the +priest is represented praying for Divine interposition;--in the +foreground Heliodorus, pursued by two avenging angels, is endeavouring +to bear away the treasures of the temple. Amid the group on the left is +seen Julius II., in his chair of state, attended by his secretaries. One +of the bearers in front is Marc-Antonio Raimondi, the engraver of +Raphael's designs. The man with the inscription, "Jo Petro de Folicariis +Cremonen," was secretary of briefs to Pope Julius. Here you may fancy +you hear the thundering approach of the heavenly warrior, and the +neighing of his steed; while in the different groups who are plundering +the treasures of the temple, and in those who gaze intently on the +sudden consternation of Heliodorus, without being able to divine its +cause, we see the expression of terror, amazement, joy, humility, and +every passion to which human nature is exposed.'[11] + +'The Stanza della Segnatura is so called from a judicial assembly once +held here. The frescoes in this chamber are illustrative of the Virtues +of Theology, Philosophy, Poetry, and Jurisprudence, who are represented +on the ceiling by Raphael, in the midst of arabesques by _Sodoma_. The +square pictures by Raphael refer:--the Fall of Man to Theology; the +Study of the Globe to Philosophy; the Flaying of Marsyas to Poetry; and +the Judgment of Solomon to Jurisprudence. + +'_Entrance Wall_.--"The School of Athens." Raphael consulted Ariosto as +to the arrangement of its 52 figures. In the centre, on the steps of a +portico, are seen Plato and Aristotle, Plato pointing to heaven and +Aristotle to earth. On the left is Socrates conversing with his pupils, +amongst whom is a young warrior, probably Alcibiades. Lying upon the +steps in front is Diogenes. To his left, Pythagoras is writing on his +knee, and near him, with ink and pen, is Empedocles. The white mantle is +Francesco Maria della Rovere, nephew of Julius II. On the right is +Archimedes drawing a geometrical problem upon the floor. The young man +near him with uplifted hands is Federigo II., Duke of Mantua. Behind +these are Zoroaster, Ptolemy, one with a terrestrial, the other with a +celestial globe, addressing two figures, which represent Raphael and his +master Perugino. The drawing in brown upon the socle beneath this +fresco, is by _Pierino del Vaga_, and represents the death of +Archimedes. + +'_Right Wall_.--"Parnassus." Apollo surrounded by the Muses; on his +right, Homer, Virgil, and Dante. Below on the right, Sappho, supposed to +be addressing Corinna, Petrarch, Propertius, and Anacreon; on the left +Pindar and Horace, Sannazzaro, Boccaccio, and others. Beneath this, in +grisaille, are,--Alexander placing the poems of Homer in the tomb of +Achilles, and Augustus preventing the burning of Virgil's AEneid. + +'_Left Wall_.--Above the window are Prudence, Fortitude, and Temperance. +On the left, Justinian delivers the Pandects to Tribonian. On the right, +Gregory IX. (with the features of Julius II.) delivers the Decretals to +a jurist;--Cardinal de' Medici, afterwards Leo X., Cardinal Farnese, +afterwards Paul III., and Cardinal del Monte, are represented near the +Pope. In the socle beneath is Solon addressing the people of Athens. + +'_Wall of Egress_.--"The Disputa." So called from an impression that it +represents a Dispute upon the Sacrament. In the upper part of the +composition the heavenly host are present; Christ between the Virgin and +St John the Baptist; on the left, St Peter, Adam, St John, David, St +Stephen, and another; and on the right, St Paul, Abraham, St James, +Moses, St Lawrence, and St George. Below is an altar surrounded by the +Latin fathers, Gregory, Jerome, Ambrose, and Augustine. Near St +Augustine stand St Thomas Aquinas, St Anacletus, with the palm of a +martyr, and Cardinal Buenaventura reading. Those in front are Innocent +III., and in the background, Dante, near whom a monk in a black hood is +pointed out as Savonarola. The Dominican on the extreme left is supposed +to be Fra Angelico. The other figures are uncertain.' ... + +'Raphael commenced his work in the Vatican by painting the ceiling and +the four walls in the room called _della Segnatura_, on the surface of +which he had to represent four great compositions, which embraced the +principal divisions of the encyclopedia of that period; namely, +Theology, Philosophy, Poetry, and Jurisprudence. + +'It will be conceived, that to an artist imbued with the traditions of +the Umbrian School, the first of these subjects was an unparalleled +piece of good fortune: and Raphael, long familiar with the allegorical +treatment of religious compositions, turned it here to the most +admirable account; and, not content with the suggestions of his own +genius, he availed himself of all the instruction he could derive from +the intelligence of others. From these combined inspirations resulted, +to the eternal glory of the Catholic faith and of Christian art, a +composition without a rival in the history of painting, and, we may also +add, without a name; for to call it lyric or epic is not enough, unless, +indeed, we mean, by using these expressions, to compare it with the +allegorical epic of Dante, alone worthy to be ranked with this +marvellous production of the pencil of Raphael. + +'Let no one consider this praise as idle and groundless, for it is +Raphael himself who forces the comparison upon us, by placing the figure +of Dante among the favourite sons of the Muses; and, what is still more +striking, by draping the allegorical figure of Theology in the very +colours in which Dante has represented Beatrice; namely, the white veil, +the red tunic, and the green mantle, while on her head he has placed the +olive crown. + +'Of the four allegorical figures which occupy the compartments of the +ceiling, and which were all painted immediately after Raphael's arrival +in Rome, Theology and Poetry are incontestably the most remarkable. The +latter would be easily distinguished by the calm inspiration of her +glance, even were she without her wings, her starry crown, and her azure +robe, all having allusion to the elevated region towards which it is her +privilege to soar. The figure of Theology is quite as admirably suited +to the subject she personifies; she points to the upper part of the +grand composition, which takes its name from her, and in which the +artist has provided inexhaustible food for the sagacity and enthusiasm +of the spectator. + +'This work consists of two grand divisions,--Heaven and Earth--which are +united to one another by that mystical bond, the Sacrament of the +Eucharist. The personages whom the Church has most honoured for learning +and holiness, are ranged in picturesque and animated groups on either +side of the altar, on which the consecrated wafer is exposed. St +Augustine dictates his thoughts to one of his disciples; St Gregory, in +his pontifical robes, seems absorbed in contemplation of celestial +glory; St Ambrose, in a slightly different attitude, appears to be +chanting the Te Deum; while St Jerome, seated, rests his hands on a +large book, which he holds on his knees. Pietro Lombardo, Duns Scotus, +St Thomas Aquinas, Pope Anacletus, St Buenaventura, and Innocent III., +are no less happily characterized; while, behind all these illustrious +men, whom the Church and succeeding generations have agreed to honour, +Raphael has ventured to introduce Dante with his laurel crown, and, with +still greater boldness, the monk Savonarola, publicly burnt ten years +before as a heretic. + +'In the glory, which forms the upper part of the picture, the Three +Persons of the Trinity are represented, surrounded by patriarchs, +apostles, and saints: it may, in fact, be considered in some sort as a +_resume_ of all the favourite compositions produced during the last +hundred years by the Umbrian School. A great number of the types, and +particularly those of Christ and the Virgin, are to be found in the +earlier works of Raphael himself. The Umbrian artists, from having so +long exclusively employed themselves on mystical subjects, had certainly +attained to a marvellous perfection in the representation of celestial +beatitude, and of those ineffable things of which it has been said that +the heart of man cannot conceive them, far less, therefore, the pencil +of man portray; and Raphael, surpassing them in all, and even in this +instance, while surpassing himself, appears to have fixed the limits, +beyond which Christian art, properly so called, has never since been +able to advance.'[12] + +Of Raphael's Madonnas, I should like to speak of three. The Madonna di +San Sisto: 'It represents the Virgin standing in a majestic attitude; +the infant Saviour _enthroned_ in her arms; and around her head a glory +of innumerable cherubs melting into light. Kneeling before her we see on +one side St Sixtus, on the other St Barbara, and beneath her feet two +heavenly cherubs gaze up in adoration. In execution, as in design, this +is probably the most perfect picture in the world. It is painted +throughout by Raphael's own hand; and as no sketch or study of any part +of it was ever known to exist, and as the execution must have been, from +the thinness and delicacy of the colours, wonderfully rapid, it is +supposed that he painted it at once on the canvas--a _creation_ rather +than a picture. In the beginning of the last century the Elector of +Saxony, Augustus III., purchased this picture from the monks of the +convent for the sum of sixty thousand florins (about L6000), and it now +forms the chief boast and ornament of the Dresden Gallery'[13] + +The Madonna del Cardellino (our Lady of the Goldfinch): 'The Virgin is +sitting on a rock, in a flowery meadow. Behind are the usual light and +feathery trees, growing on the bank of a stream, which passes off to the +left in a rocky bend, and is crossed by a bridge of a single arch. To +the right, the opposite bank slopes upward in a gentle glade, across +which is a village, backed by two distant mountain-peaks. + +'In front of the sitting matronly figure of the Virgin are the holy +children, our Lord and the Baptist, one on either side of her right +knee. She has been reading, and the approach of St John has caused her +to look off her book (which is open in her left hand) at the new comer, +which she does with a look of holy love and gentleness, at the same +time caressingly drawing him to her with her right hand, which touches +his little body under the right arm. In both hands, which rest across +the Virgin's knee, he holds a captive goldfinch, which he has brought, +with childish glee, as an offering to the Holy Child. The infant Jesus, +standing between his mother's knees, with one foot placed on her foot, +and her hand, with the open book, close above his shoulder, regards the +Baptist with an upward look of gentle solemnity, at the same time that +he holds his bent hand over the head of the bird. + +'So much for mere description. The inner feeling of the picture, the +motive which has prompted it, has surely hardly ever been surpassed. The +Blessed Virgin, in casting her arm round the infant St John, looks down +on him with a holy complacency for the testimony which he is to bear to +her Son. Notice the human boyish glee with which the Baptist presents +the captured goldfinch, and, on the other hand, the divine look, even of +majesty and creative love, with which the infant Jesus, laying his hand +on the head of the bird, half reproves St John, as it were saying, "Love +them and hurt them not." Notice, too, the unfrightened calm of the bird +itself, passive under the hand of its loving Creator. All these are +features of the very highest power of human art. + +'Again, in accompaniments, all is as it should be. The Virgin, modestly +and beautifully draped; St John, girt about the loins, not only in +accord with his well-known prophetic costume, but also as partaking of +sinful humanity, and therefore needing such cincture: the Child +Redeemer, with a slight cincture, just to suggest motherly care, but not +over the part usually concealed, as indeed it never ought to be, seeing +that in Him was no sin, and that it is this spotless purity which is +ever the leading idea in representations of Him as an infant. Notice, +too, his foot, beautifully resting on that of his mother; the unity +between them being thus wonderfully though slightly kept up. Her eye has +just been dwelling on the book of the Prophecies open in her hand; and +thus the spectator's thought is ruled in accordance with the high +mission of the Holy One of God, and thrown forward into the grand and +blessed future. It is a holy and wonderful picture; I had not seen any +in Italy which had struck or refreshed me more.'[14] + +And allow me to write two or three words with regard to the 'Madonna +della Sedia,' or our Lady of the Chair, an engraving of which used to +charm me when a child. The Virgin, very young and simple-looking in her +loveliness, is seated on a low chair, clasping the Divine Child, who is +leaning in weariness on her breast. In the original picture, St John +with his cross is standing--a boy at the Virgin's knee, but he is absent +from the old engraving. The meek adoring tenderness in the face of the +mother, the holy ingenuousness in that of the child, are expressions to +be long studied. + +Of Raphael's cartoons, which, so many of us can see for ourselves, I +cannot trust myself to do more than to repeat what strikes me as a +singularly apt phrase of Hazlitt's, given by Mrs Jameson, that the +cartoons are instances in which 'the corruptible has put on +incorruption.' That from the very slightness of the materials employed, +and the very injuries which the cartoons have sustained, we have the +greatest triumph of art, where 'the sense of power supersedes the +appearance of effort,' and where the result is the more majestic for +being in ruins. 'All other pictures look like oil and varnish, we are +stopped and attracted by the colouring, the penciling, the finishing, +the instrumentality of art; but the on the canvas.... There is nothing +between us and the subject; we look through a frame and see Scripture +histories, and amidst the wreck of colour and the mouldering of material +beauty, nothing is left but a universe of thought, or the broad imminent +shadows of calm contemplation and majestic pains.' + +And that Raphael did not neglect the minutest details in these sketches, +will be seen by the accompanying note: 'The foreground of Raphael's two +cartoons, "The Miraculous Draught of Fishes," and "The Charge to +Peter," are covered with plants of the common sea cole-wort, of which +the sinuated leaves and clustered blossoms would have exhausted the +patience of any other artist; but have appeared worthy of prolonged and +thoughtful labour to the great mind of Raphael.'--_Ruskin_. + +Whole clusters of anecdotes gather round the cartoons, which, as they +have to do with the work and not the worker, I leave untouched, with +regret. But I must forewarn my readers by mentioning some of the refuted +criticisms which have been applied to the cartoons. Reading the +criticisms and their answers ought to render us modest and wary in +'picking holes' in great pictures, as forward and flippant critics, old +and young, are tempted to pick them. With regard to the 'Miraculous +Draught of Fishes,' a great outcry was once set up that Raphael had made +the boat too little to hold the figures he has placed in it. But Raphael +made the boat little advisedly; if he had not done so, the picture would +have been 'all boat,' a contingency scarcely to be desired; on the +other hand, if Raphael had diminished the figures to suit the size of +the boat, these figures would not have suited those of the other +cartoons, and the cartoon would have lost greatly in dignity and effect. + +In the cartoon of the 'Death of Ananias,' carping objectors were ready +to suggest that Raphael had committed an error in time by introducing +Sapphira in the background counting her ill-gotten gains, at the moment +when her no less guilty husband has fallen down in the agonies of death. +It was hours afterwards that Sapphira entered into the presence of the +apostles. But we must know that time and space do not exist for +painters, who have to tell their story at one stroke, as it were. + +In the treating of the 'Lame Man at the Beautiful Gate of the Temple,' +some authorities have found fault with Raphael for breaking the +composition into parts by the introduction of pillars, and, farther, +that the shafts are not straight. Yet by this treatment Raphael has +concentrated the principal action in a sort of frame, and thus has been +enabled to give more freedom of action to the remaining figures in the +other divisions of the picture. 'It is evident, moreover, that had the +shafts been perfectly straight, according to the severest law of good +taste in architecture, the effect would have been extremely disagreeable +to the eye; by their winding form they harmonize with the manifold forms +of the moving figures around, and they illustrate, by their elaborate +elegance, the Scripture phrase, "the gate which is called +Beautiful."'--_Mrs Jameson_. + +Of Raphael's portraits I must mention that wonderful portrait of Leo X., +often reckoned the best portrait in the world for truth of likeness and +excellence of painting, and those of the so-called 'Fornarina,' or +'baker'. Two Fornarinas are at Rome and one at Florence. There is a +story that the original of the first two pictures was a girl of the +people to whom Raphael was attached; and there is this to be said for +the tradition, that there is an acknowledged coarseness in the very +beauty of the half-draped Fornarina of the Barberini Palace. The +'Fornarina' of Florence is the portrait of a noble woman, holding the +fur-trimming of her mantle with her right hand, and it is said that the +picture can hardly represent the same individual as that twice +represented in Rome. According to one guess the last 'Fornarina' is +Vittoria Colonna, the Marchesa de Pescara, painted by Seba Piombo, +instead of by Raphael; and according to another, the Roman 'Fornarina' +is no Fornarina beloved by Raphael, but Beatrice Pio, a celebrated +improvisatrice of the time. + +An 'innovation of modern times is to spell Raphael's name in England as +the modern Italians spelt it, _Raffaelle_, a word of four syllables, and +yet to pronounce this Italian word as if it were English, as _Raphael_. +Vasari wrote Raffaello; he himself wrote Raphael on his pictures, and +has signed the only autograph letter we have of his, Raphaello.'[15] + +Titian, or Tiziano Vecelli, the greatest painter of the Venetian +School, reckoned worthy to be named with Lionardo, Michael Angelo and +Raphael, was born of good family at Capo del Cadore in the Venetian +State, in 1477. There is a tradition that while other painters made +their first essays in art with chalk or charcoal, the boy Titian, who +lived to be a glorious colourist, made his earliest trials in painting +with the juice of flowers. Titian studied in Venice under the Bellini, +and had Giorgione, who was born in the same year, for his +fellow-scholar, at first his friend, later his rival. When a young man +Titian spent some time in Ferrara; there he painted his 'Bacchus and +Ariadne,' and a portrait of Lucrezia Borgia. In 1512, when Titian was +thirty-five years of age, he was commissioned by the Venetians to +continue the works in the great council-hall, which the advanced age of +Gian Bellini kept him from finishing. Along with this commission Titian +was appointed in 1516 to the office of la Sanseria, which gave him the +duty and privilege of painting the portraits of the Doges as long as he +held the office; coupled with the office was a salary of one hundred +and twenty crowns a year. Titian lived to paint five Doges; two others, +his age, equal to that of Gian Bellini, prevented him from painting. + +In 1516, Titian painted his greatest sacred picture, the 'Assumption of +the Virgin.' In the same year he painted the poet Ariosto, who mentions +the painter with high honour in his verse. + +In 1530, Titian, a man of fifty-three years, was at Bologna, where there +was a meeting between Charles V, and Pope Clement VII., when he was +presented to both princes. + +Charles V, and Philip II, became afterwards great patrons and admirers +of Titian, and it is of Charles V. and Titian that a legend, to which I +have already referred, is told. The Emperor, visiting the painter while +he was at work, stooped down and picked up a pencil, which Titian had +let fall, to the confusion and distress of the painter, when Charles +paid the princely compliment, 'Titian is worthy of being served by +Caesar.' Titian painted many portraits of Charles V., and of the members +of his house. As Maximilian had created Albrecht Duerer a noble of the +Empire, Charles V, created Titian a Count Palatine, and a Knight of the +Order of St Iago, with a pension, which was continued by Philip II., of +four hundred crowns a year. It is doubtful whether Titian ever visited +the Spain of his patrons, but Madrid possesses forty-three of his +pictures, among them some of his finest works. + +Titian went to Rome in his later years, but declined to abandon for Rome +the painter's native Venice, which had lavished her favours on her son. +He lived in great splendour, paying annual summer visits to his +birth-place of Cadore, and occasionally dwelling again for a time at +Ferrara, Urbino, Bologna. In two instances he joined the Emperor at +Augsburgh. When Henry III, of France landed at Venice, he was +entertained _en grand seigneur_ by Titian, then a very old man; and when +the king asked the price of some pictures which pleased him, Titian at +once presented them as a gift to his royal guest. + +Titian married, as has been recently ascertained, and had three +children,--two sons, the elder a worthless and scandalous priest; the +second a good son and accomplished painter; and a daughter, the +beautiful Lavinia, so often painted by her father, and whose name will +live with his. Titian survived his wife thirty-six years; and his +daughter, who had married, and was the mother of several children, six +years. His second son and fellow-painter died of the same plague which +struck down Titian, in 1566, at the ripe age of eighty-nine years. + +Titian is said to have been a man of irritable and passionate temper. +The hatred between him and the painter, Pordenone, was so bitter, that +the latter thought his life in danger, and painted with his shield and +poniard lying ready to his hand. Titian grasped with imperious tenacity +his supremacy as a painter, sedulously kept the secrets of his skill, +and was most unmagnanimously jealous of the attainments of his scholars. +No defect of temper, however, kept Titian from having two inseparable +convivial companions--one of them the architect, Sansovino, and the +other the profligate wit, Aretino, who was pleased to style himself the +'friend of Titian and the scourge of princes.' Though Titian is said, in +the panic of the great plague, to have died not only neglected, but +plundered before his eyes, still Venice prized him so highly, that she +made in his favour the single exception of a public funeral, during the +appalling devastation wrought by the pestilence. + +From an engraving of a portrait of Titian by himself, which is before +me, I can give the best idea of his person. He looks like one of the +merchant princes, whom he painted so often and so well, in richly furred +gown, massive chain, and small cap, far off his broad forehead: a +stately figure, with a face--in its aquiline nose and keen eyes, full of +sagacity and fire, which no years could tame. + +Towards the close of Titian's life, there was none who even approached +the old Venetian painter in the art which he practised freely to the +last. Painting in Italy was everywhere losing its pre-eminence. It had +become, even when it was not so nominally, thoroughly secularized;--and +with reason, for the painters by their art-creed and by their lives were +fitter to represent gods and goddesses, in whom no man believed, than to +give earnest expression to a living faith. Even Titian, great as he was, +proved a better painter of heathen mythology than of sacred subjects. + +But within certain limits and in certain directions, Titian stands +unequalled. He has a high place for composition and for drawing, and his +colouring was, beyond comparison, grand and true. He was great as a +landscape painter, and he was the best portrait painter whom the world +ever saw. In his painting is seen, not, indeed, the life of the spirit, +but the life of the senses 'in its fullest power,' and in Titian there +was such large mastery of this life, that in his freedom there was no +violence, but the calmness of supreme strength, the serenity of perfect +satisfaction. His painting was a reflection of the old Greek idea of the +life of humanity as a joyous existence, so long as the sun of youth, +maturity, health, and good fortune shone, without even that strain of +foreboding pain, and desperate closing with fate, which troubled the +bliss of ancient poet or sculptor. A large proportion of Titian's +principal pictures are at Venice and Madrid. + +Among Titian's finest sacred pictures, are his 'Assumption of the +Virgin,' now in the Academy, Venice, where 'the Madonna, a powerful +figure, is borne rapidly upwards, as if divinely impelled; .., +fascinating groups of infant angels surround her, beneath stand the +apostles, looking up with solemn gestures;' and his 'Entombment of +Christ,' a picture which is also in Venice. Titian's Madonnas were not +so numerous as his Venuses, many of which are judged excellent examples +of the master. His 'Bacchus and Ariadne,' in the National Gallery, is +described by Mrs Jameson, 'as presenting, on a small scale, an epitome +of all the beauties which characterize Titian, in the rich, picturesque, +animated composition, in the ardour of Bacchus, who flings himself from +his car to pursue Ariadne; the dancing bacchanals, the frantic grace of +the bacchante, and the little joyous satyr in front, trailing the head of +the sacrifice.' + +Titian's landscapes are the noble backgrounds to many of his pictures. +These landscapes were not only free, but full. 'The great masters of +Italy, almost without exception, and Titian, perhaps, more than any +other (for he had the highest knowledge of landscape), are in the +constant habit of rendering every detail of their foregrounds with the +most laborious botanical fidelity; witness the Bacchus and Ariadne, in +which the foreground is occupied by the common blue iris, the aquilegia, +and the wild rose; _every stamen_ of which latter is given, while the +blossoms and leaves of the columbine (a difficult flower to draw) have +been studied with the most exquisite accuracy.'--_Ruskin_. + +In portraits, Titian conveyed to the sitters and transferred to his +canvas, not only a life-likeness, but a positively noble dignity in that +likeness. What in Van Dyck and Sir Joshua Reynolds was the bestowing of +high breeding and dainty refinement, became under Titian's brush +dignity, pure and simple, very quiet, and wonderfully real. There is +this peculiarity in connection with the number of portraits which Titian +executed, that many of them have descended to us without further titles +than those of 'A Venetian Senator,' 'A Lady,' etc., etc., yet of the +individual life of the originals no one can doubt. With regard to +Titian's portraits of women, I have already referred to those of his +beautiful daughter, Lavinia. In one portrait, in the Berlin Museum, she +is holding a plate of fruit; in another, in England, the plate of fruit +is changed into a casket of jewels; in a third, at Madrid, Lavinia is +Herodias, and bears a charger with the head of John the Baptist. A +'Violante'--as some say, the daughter of Titian's scholar, Palma, though +dates disprove this--sat frequently to Titian, and is said to have been +loved by him. + +I have written, in connection with Lionardo's 'Jaconde' and Raphael's +'Fornarina,' of Titian's 'Bella Donna.' He has various 'Bellas,' but, as +far as I know, this is _the_ 'Bella Donna,'--'a splendid, serious +beauty, in a red and blue silk dress,' in the Sciarra Gallery, Rome. + +I have read that critics were at one time puzzled by the singular +yellow, almost straw colour, appearing profusely in the hair of the +women of the Venetian painters of this time, and that it was only by +consulting contemporary records that it was learnt that the Venetian +women indulged in the weak and false vanity of dyeing their black hair a +pale yellow--a process, in the course of which the women drew the hair +through the crown of a broad-brimmed hat, and spreading it over the +brim, submitted patiently to bleaching the hair in a southern sun. + +Among Titian's portraits of men, those of the 'Emperor Charles V.' and +the 'Duke of Alva' are among the most famous. + +Titian painted, and painted wonderfully, to the very last. He was +eighty-one when he painted the 'Martyrdom of St Lawrence,' one of his +largest and grandest compositions, and in the last year of his life he +painted--leaving it not quite completed,--a 'Pieta;' showing that his +hand owned the weight of years,[16] but the conception of the subject is +still animated and striking, the colours still glowing; while, +Titian-like, the light still flows around the mighty group in every +gradation of tone. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +GERMAN ART--ALBRECHT DUeRER, 1471-1528. + + +Albrecht Duerer carries us to a different country and a different race. +And he who has been called the father of German painting is thoroughly +German, not only in his Saxon honesty, sedateness, and strength, but in +the curious mixture of simplicity, subtlety, homeliness, and +fantasticalness, which are still found side by side in German genius. + +Albrecht Duerer was born at that fittest birth-place for the great German +painter, quaint old Nuremberg, in 1471. He was the son of a goldsmith, +and one of a family of eighteen children; a home school in which he may +have learnt early the noble, manly lessons of self-denial and endurance, +which he practised long and well. He was trained to his father's trade +until the lad's bent became so unmistakable that he was wisely +transferred to the studio of a painter to serve his apprenticeship to +art. + +When the Nuremberg apprenticeship was completed, Albrecht followed the +German custom, very valuable to him, of serving another and a 'wandering +apprenticeship,' which carried him betimes through Germany, the +Netherlands, and Italy, painting and studying as he went. He painted his +own portrait about this time, showing himself a comely, pleasant, and +pleased young fellow, in a curious holiday suit of plaited low-bodied +shirt, jerkin, and mantle across the shoulder, with a profusion of long +fair curls, of which he was said to have been vain, arranged elaborately +on each side, the blue eyes looking with frank confidence out of the +blonde face. He painted himself a little later with the brave kindly +face grown mature, and the wisdom of the spirit shining in the eyes, and +weighing on the brows. + +On his return from his travels, Albrecht Duerer's father arranged his +son's marriage with the daughter of a musician in Nuremberg. The +inducement to the marriage seems to have been, on the father's part, the +dowry, and on the son's the beauty of the bride. How unhappy the union +proved, without any fault of Albrecht's, has been the theme of so many +stories, that I am half inclined to think that some of us must be more +familiar with Albrecht Duerer's wedded life than with any other part of +his history. It seems to me, that there is considerable exaggeration in +these stories, for granted that Agnes Duerer was a shrew and a miser, was +Albrecht Duerer the man to be entirely, or greatly, at such a woman's +mercy? Taking matters at their worst, dishonour and disgrace did not +come near the great painter. He was esteemed, as he deserved to be; he +had a true friend in his comrade Pirkheimer; he had his art; he had the +peace of a good conscience; he had the highest of all consolations in +his faith in Heaven. Certainly it is not from Albrecht himself that the +tale of his domestic wretchedness has come. He was as manfully patient +and silent as one might have expected in a man upright, firm, and +self-reliant as he was tender. I do not think it is good for men, and +especially for women, to indulge in egotistical sentimentality, and to +believe that such a woman as Agnes Duerer could utterly thwart and wreck +the life of a man like Albrecht. It is not true to life, in the first +place; and it is dishonouring to the man, in the second; for although, +doubtless, there are men who are driven to destruction or heart-broken +by even the follies of women, these men have not the stout hearts, the +loyal spirits, the manly mould of Albrecht Duerer. + +But making every allowance for the high colours with which a tale that +has grown stale is apt to be daubed, I am forced to admit the inference +that a mean, sordid, contentious woman probably did as much as was in +her power to harass and fret one of the best men in Germany, or in the +world. Luckily for himself, Albrecht was a severe student, had much +engrossing work which carried him abroad, and travelled once at least +far away from the harassing and galling home discipline. For anything +further, I believe that Albrecht loved his greedy, scolding wife, whose +fair face he painted frequently in his pictures, and whom he left at +last well and carefully provided for, as he bore with her to the end. + +In 1506 Albrecht Duerer re-visited Italy alone, making a stay of eight +months in Venice, where he formed his friendship with the old Gian +Bellini, and where Albrecht had the misfortune to show the proofs and +plans of his engravings to the Italian engraver, Raimondi, who engraved +Raphael's paintings, and who proved himself base enough to steal and +make use of Albrecht Duerer's designs to the German's serious loss and +inconvenience. + +A little later Albrecht Duerer, accompanied by his wife, visited the +Netherlands. The Emperor Maximilian treated the painter with great +favour, and a legend survives of their relations:--Duerer was painting so +large a subject that he required steps to reach it. The Emperor, who was +present, required a nobleman of his suite to steady the steps for the +painter, an employment which the nobleman declined as unworthy of his +rank, when the Emperor himself stepped forward and supplied the +necessary aid, remarking, 'Sir, understand that I can make Albrecht a +noble like and above you' (Maximilian had just raised Albrecht Duerer to +the rank of noble of the empire), 'but neither I nor any one else can +make an artist like him.' We may compare this story with a similar and +later story of Holbein and Henry VIII., and with another earlier story, +having a slight variation, of Titian and Charles V. The universality of +the story shakes one's belief in its individual application, but at +least the legend, with different names, remains as an indication of +popular homage to genius. + +While executing a large amount of work for the great towns and sovereign +princes of Germany, some of whom were said to consult the painter on +their military operations, relying on his knowledge of mathematics, and +his being able to apply it to military engineering and fortification, +Albrecht Duerer was constantly improving and advancing in his art, laying +down his prejudices, and acquiring fresh ideas, as well as fresh +information, according to the slow but sure process of the true German +mind, till his last work was incomparably his best. + +Germany was then in the terrible throes of the Reformation, and Albrecht +Duerer, who has left us the portraits of several of the great Reformers, +is believed to have been no uninterested spectator of the struggle, and +to have held, like his fellow-painter, Lucas Cranach--though in Albrecht +Duerer's case the change was never openly professed--the doctrines of the +Reformation. + +There is a portrait of Albrecht Duerer, painted by himself, in his later +years. (By the way, Albrecht was not averse to painting his own portrait +as well as that of his friend Pirkheimer, and of making the fullest +claim to his work by introducing into his religious and historical +pictures his own figure holding a flag or tablet, inscribed with his +name in the quiet self-assertion of a man who was neither ashamed of +himself, nor of anything he did.) In that last portrait, Albrecht is a +thoughtful, care-worn man, with his fair locks shorn. Some will +attribute the change to Agnes Duerer, but I imagine it proceeds simply +from the noble scars of work and time; and that when Albrecht Duerer died +in his fifty-seventh year, if it were in sourness and bitterness of +spirit, as some of his biographers have stated, that sourness and +bitterness were quite as much owing to the grievous troubles of his time +and country, which so large-minded a man was sure to lay to heart, as to +any domestic trouble. Albrecht Duerer was greatly beloved by his own city +of Nuremberg, where his memory continues to be cherished. His quaint +house still stands, and his tomb bears the motto 'Emigravit,' + + 'For the great painter never dies.' + +Albrecht Duerer's name ranks with the names of the first painters of any +time or country, though his work as a painter was, as in the case of +William Hogarth, subservient to his work as an engraver. With the +knowledge of a later generation to that of the earliest Italian and +Flemish painters, Albrecht Duerer had much of their singleness of +purpose, assiduity of application, and profound feeling. He had to +labour against a tendency to uncouthness in stiff lines and angular +figures; to petty elaboration of details; and to that grotesqueness +which, while it suited in some respects his allegorical engravings, +marred his historical paintings, so that he was known to regret the +wasted fantastic crowding and confusion of his earlier work. From the +Italians and Flemings he learnt simplicity, and a more correct sense of +material beauty. The purity, truth, and depth of the man's spirit, from +which ideal beauty proceeds, no man could add to. + +Among Albrecht Duerer's greatest paintings are his 'Adoration of the +Trinity' at Vienna, his 'Adam and Eve' at Florence, and that last +picture of 'The Apostles,' presented by Albrecht Duerer to his native +city, 'in remembrance of his career as an artist, and at the same time +as conveying to his fellow-citizens an earnest and lasting exhortation +suited to that stormy period.' The prominence given to the Bible in the +picture, points to it as the last appeal in the great spiritual +struggle. With regard to this noble masterly picture, Kugler has +written, 'Well might the artist now close his eyes. He had in this +picture attained the summit of art; here he stands side by side with the +greatest masters known in history.' + +But I prefer to say something of Albrecht Duerer's engravings, which are +more characteristic of him and far more widely known than his paintings; +and to speak first of those two wonderful and beautiful allegories, +'Knight, Death, and the Devil,' and 'Melancolia.' In the first, which is +an embodiment of weird German romance as well as of high Christian +faith, the solitary Knight, with his furrowed face and battered armour, +rides steadfastly on through the dark glen, unmoved by his grisly +companions, skeleton Death on the lame horse, and the foul Fiend in +person. Contrast this sketch and its thoughtful touching meaning with +the hollow ghastliness of Holbein's 'Dance of Death.' + +In 'Melancolia' a grand winged woman sits absorbed in sorrowful thought, +while surrounded by all the appliances of philosophy, science, art, +mechanics, all the discoveries made before and in Albrecht Duerer's day, +in the book, the chart, the lever, the crystal, the crucible, the plane, +the hammer. The intention of this picture has been disputed, but the +best explanation of it is that which regards the woman as pondering on +the humanly unsolved and insoluble mystery of the sin and sorrow of +life. + +In three large series of woodcuts, known as the Greater and the Lesser +Passion of the Lord, and the Life of the Virgin, and taken partly from +sacred history and partly from tradition, Albrecht Duerer exceeded +himself in true beauty, simple majesty, and pathos. Photographs have +spread widely these fine woodcuts, and there is, at least, one which I +think my readers may have seen, 'The Bearing of the Cross,' in which the +blessed Saviour sinks under his burden. In the series of the Life of the +Virgin there is a 'Repose in Egypt,' which has a naive homeliness in its +grace and serenity. The woodcut represents a courtyard with a dwelling +built in the ruins of an ancient palace. The Virgin sits spinning with +a distaff and spindle beside the Holy Child's cradle, by which beautiful +angels worship. Joseph is busy at his carpenter's work, and a number of +little angels, in merry sport, assist him with his labours.[17] + +I shall mention only one more work of Albrecht Duerer's, that which is +known as the Emperor Maximilian's Prayer Book. This is pen-and-ink +sketches for the borders of a book (as the old missals were +illuminated), which are now preserved in the Royal Library, Munich. In +these little drawings the fancy of the great artist held high revel, by +no means confining itself to serious subjects, such as apostles, monks, +or even men in armour, but indulging in the most whimsical vagaries, +with regard to little German old women, imps, piping squirrels, with +cocks and hens hurrying to listen to the melody. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +LATER ITALIAN ART--GIORGIONE, 1477-1511--CORREGGIO. ABOUT +1493-1534--TINTORETTO, 1512-1574--VERONESE, 1530-1588. + + +Giorgio Barbarelli, known as 'Giorgione,--in Italian, 'big,' or, as I +have heard it better translated, 'strapping George'--was born at +Castelfranco, in Treviso, about 1477, the same year in which Titian was +born. Nothing is known of his youth before he came to Venice and studied +in the school of Gian Bellini along with Titian. + +The two men were friends in those days, but soon quarrelled, and +Giorgione's early death completed their separation. Titian was impatient +and arrogant; Giorgione seems to have been one of those proud, shy, +sensitive men--possibly morbidly sensitive, with whom it is always +difficult to deal; but it is recorded of him, as it is not recorded of +his great compeer, that Giorgione was frank and friendly as an artist, +however moody and fitful he might be as a man. + +Giorgione soon became known. According to one account, he painted the +facade of the house which he dwelt in, for an advertisement of his +abilities as a painter, a device which was entirely successful in +procuring him commissions; but unfortunately for posterity, these were +frequently to paint other facades, sometimes in company with Titian; +grand work, which has inevitably perished, if not by fire, by time and +by the sea-damp of Venice, for to Venice Giorgione belonged, and there +is no sign that he ever left it. + +He had no school, and his love of music and society--the last taste +found not seldom, an apparent anomaly, in silent, brooding +natures--might tend to withdraw him from his art. He has left a trace of +his love for music in his pictures of 'Concerts' and of 'Pastorals,' in +which musical performances are made prominent. In Giorgione, with his +romantic, idealizing temperament, genre[18] pictures took this form, +while he is known to have painted from Ovid and from the Italian tales +of his time. He was employed frequently to paint scenes on panels, for +the richly ornamented Venetian furniture. Giorgione was not without a +bent to realism in his very idealism, and is said to have been the first +Italian painter who 'imitated the real texture of stuffs and painted +draperies from the actual material.' + +Giorgione died at the early age of thirty-three years, in 1511. One +account represents him as dying of the plague, others attribute his +death to a sadder cause. He is said to have had a friend and +fellow-painter who betrayed their friendship, and carried off the girl +whom Giorgione loved. Stung to the quick by the double falsehood, the +tradition goes on to state that Giorgione fell into despair with life +and all it held, and so died. + +A portrait of Giorgione is in the Munich Gallery; it is that of a very +handsome beardless lad, 'with a peculiar melancholy in the dark glowing +eyes.' + +Giorgione was, like Titian, grand and free in drawing and composition, +and superb in colour.[19] Mrs Jameson has drawn a nice distinction +between the two painters as colourists. That the colours of Giorgione +'appear as if lighted from within, and those of Titian from without;' +that 'the epithet glowing applies best to Giorgione, that of golden to +Titian.' + +Giorgione's historic pictures are rare, his sacred pictures rarer still; +among the last is a 'Finding of Moses,' now in Milan, thus described by +Mrs Jameson: 'In the centre sits the princess under a tree; she looks +with surprise and tenderness on the child, which is brought to her by +one of her attendants; the squire, or seneschal, of the princess, with +knights and ladies, stand around; on one side two lovers are seated on +the grass; on the other are musicians and singers, pages with dogs. All +the figures are in the Venetian costume; the colouring is splendid, and +the grace and harmony of the whole composition is even the more +enchanting from the naivete of the conception. This picture, like many +others of the same age and style, reminds us of those poems and tales +of the middle ages, in which David and Jonathan figure as _preux +chevaliers_, and Sir Alexander of Macedon and Sir Paris of Troy fight +tournaments in honour of ladies' eyes and the "blessed Virgin." They +must be tried by their own aim and standard, not by the severity of +antiquarian criticism.' + +In portraits Giorgione has only been exceeded by Titian. In the National +Gallery there is an unimportant 'St Peter the Martyr,' and a finer +'Maestro di Capella giving a music lesson,' which Kugler assigns to +Giorgione, though it has been given elsewhere to Titian. The 'refined +voluptuousness and impassioned sombreness' of Giorgione's painting have +instituted a comparison between him and Lord Byron as a poet. + +Correggio's real name was Antonio Allegri, and he has his popular name +from his birth-place of Correggio, now called Reggio; although at one +time there existed an impression that Correggio meant 'correct,' from +the painter's exceedingly clever feats of fore-shortening. + +His father is believed to have been a well-to-do tradesman, and the lad +is said to have had an uncle a painter, who probably influenced his +nephew. But Correggio had a greater master, though but for a very short +time, in Andrea Mantegna, who died when Correggio was still a young boy. +Mantegna's son kept on his father's school, and from him Correggio might +have received more regular instruction. He early attained excellence, +and in the teeth of the legends which lingered in Parma for a full +century, his genius received prompt notice and patronage. He married +young, and from records which have come to light, he received a +considerable portion with his wife. + +The year after his marriage, when he was no more than six-and-twenty, +Correggio was appointed to paint in fresco the cupola of the church of +San Giovanni at Parma, and chose for his subject the 'Ascension of +Christ;' for this work and that of the 'Coronation of the Virgin,' +painted over the high altar, Correggio got five hundred gold crowns, +equivalent to L1500. He was invited to Mantua, where he painted from the +mythology for the Duke of Mantua. Indeed, so far and wide had the +preference for mythological subjects penetrated, that one of Correggio's +earliest works was 'Diana returning from the Chase;' painted for the +decoration of the parlour of the Abbess of the convent of San Paulo, +Parma. + +Correggio was a second time called upon to paint a great religious work +in Parma--this time in the cathedral, for which he selected 'The +Assumption of the Virgin.' A few of the cartoons for these frescoes were +discovered thirty or forty years ago, rolled up and lying forgotten in a +garret in Parma; they, are now in the British Museum. + +In 1533, Correggio, then residing in his native town, was one of the +witnesses to the marriage of his sovereign, the Lord of Correggio. In +the following year the painter had engaged to paint an altar-piece for +an employer, who paid Correggio in advance twenty-five gold crowns, but +the latter dying very soon afterwards, in the forty-first year of his +age, 1534, his father, who was still alive, was in circumstances to +repay the advance on the picture, which had not been painted. + +Correggio is said to have been modest and retiring in disposition, and +this, together with the fact that, like Giorgione, he did not have a +school, has been suggested as the source of the traditions which +prevailed so long in Italy. These traditions described the painter as a +man born in indigent circumstances, living obscurely in spite of his +genius (there is a picture of Correggio's in England, which was said to +have been given in payment for his entertainment at an inn), and leading +to the end a life of such ill-requited labour, that having been paid for +his last picture in copper money, and being under the necessity of +carrying it home in order to relieve the destitution of his family, he +broke down under the burden, and overcome by heat and weariness, drank a +rash draught of water, which caused fever and death. + +The story, disproven as it is, is often alluded to still, and remains as +a foil to those flattering and courtly anecdotes which I have been +repeating of royal and imperial homage paid to Duerer, Titian, and +Holbein. I fancy the last-mentioned stories may have grown from small +beginnings, and circulated purely in the artist world; but that the +former is an utterance of the engrained persuasion of the great world +without, that art as a means of livelihood is essentially +non-remunerative in the sense of money-getting. + +Modest as Correggio may have been, he was not without pride in his art. +After looking for the first time on the St Cecilia of Raphael, Correggio +is reported to have exclaimed with exultation, 'And I too am a painter.' + +He left behind him on his death a son and a daughter, the former living +to be a painter of no great name. In the picture of Correggio in the +attitude of painting, painted by himself, we see him a handsome spare +man with something of a romantic cavalier air, engaged in his chosen +art. + +Correggio's pictures go to prove that under his seemingly quiet exterior +he was a man of the liveliest sensibilities and the keenest perceptions, +His pictures, unlike Titian's in their repose, are full of motion and +excitement. Correggio is spoken of as a painter who delighted 'in the +buoyance of childish glee, the bliss of earthly, the fervour of heavenly +love,' whose radiant sphere of art sorrow rarely clouded; but when +sorrow did enter, it borrowed from the painter's own quivering heart the +very sharpness of anguish. The same authority tells us of Correggio, +that he has painted 'the very heart-throbs of humanity.' But it seems as +if such a nature, with its self-conscious veil of forced stillness, must +have had a tendency to vehemence and excess; and so we hear that +Correggio's fore-shortening was sometimes violent, and the energy of his +actors spasmodic; thus the cruelly smart contemporary criticism was +pronounced on his frescoes of the 'Assumption of the Virgin,' in which +legs and arms in wild play are chiefly conspicuous from below, that +Correggio had prepared for the Parmese 'a fricassee of frogs.' In +addition, the great modern critic, Mr Ruskin, has boldly accused +Correggio 'both of weakness and meretriciousness,' and there is this to +be said of a nature so highly strung as Correggio's was strung, that it +was not a healthily balanced nature. + +But if the painter were really inferior in his sense of form and +expression to his great predecessors, he was so great in one department, +that in it he was held worthy, not only to found the school of Parma, +but to be classed with the first four painters of Italy. + +That chiarascuro, or treatment of light and shade, in which Lionardo and +Andrea Mantegna were no mean proficients, was brought to such perfection +by Correggio, that, as Mrs Jameson has sought to illustrate technical +expressions, 'you seem to look through. Correggio's shadows, and to see +beyond them the genuine texture of the flesh.' In undulating grace of +motion, in melting softness of outline, fixed on a canvas, he surpassed +all rivals, including Raphael; and this widely attractive quality +('luscious refinement,' Mr Ruskin terms it) in connection with +Correggio's ardent, if undisciplined sensibility, has rendered him one +of the most valued of painters; his best paintings being highly prized +and costly as the easel pictures attributed to Raphael. Sir W. Stirling +Maxwell writes that an old Duke of Modena was suspected of having caused +Correggio's 'Notte' to be stolen from a church at Reggio, and that the +princes of Este were wont to carry 'The Magdalene Reading' with them on +their journeys, while the king of Poland kept it under lock and key in a +frame of jewelled silver. + +Among Correggio's masterpieces, besides his frescoes, there is at Parma +his picture called 'Day,' from the broad flood of daylight in the +picture (and doubtless in contrast to his famous 'Notte' or 'Night,' in +the Dresden Gallery). Here is a Virgin and Child, with St Jerome +presenting to them his translation of the Scriptures, and the Magdalene +bending to kiss in adoration the feet of the infant Saviour. + +In the Dresden Gallery in addition to the 'Notte' are five pictures, one +of the marriage of St Catherine as the Church--the bride, espoused with +a ring to the infant Saviour, a favourite subject of Italian painters, +and a specially favourite subject with Correggio; and another, the +Magdalene reading, half shrouded with her flowing hair, so well known +by engravings. I must say a few more words of the 'Notte,'--it is a +nativity illuminated entirely by the unearthly glory shining from the +Child Christ. Virgin and Child are bathed and half lost in the fair +radiance, which falls softly on a shepherd and maiden, leaving the rest +of the figures, the stalled beasts, and the surroundings of the stable, +in dim shadow. + +In our National Gallery there are fine specimens of Correggio. There is +an 'Ecce Homo': Christ crowned with thorns, holding out his bound hands, +with a Roman soldier softening into pity, Pilate hardening in +indifference, and the Virgin fainting with sorrow. There are also 'the +Virgin with the Basket,' so named from the little basket in front of the +picture; and 'a Holy Family;' and there is a highly-esteemed picture +from a mythological subject, 'Mercury teaching Cupid to read in the +presence of Venus.' + +We must return to the Venice of Titian, and see how his successors, with +much more of the true painter in them than the fast degenerating +scholars of other Italian schools, were mere men, if great men, matched +with Titian. + +Tintoretto is only Tintoretto or Tintoret because his father was a dyer, +and 'Il Tintoretto' is in Italian, 'the little dyer.' Tintoretto's real +name was one more in keeping with his pretensions, Jacopo Robusti. He +was born in Venice, in 1512, and early fore-shadowed his future career +by drawing all kinds of objects on the walls of his father's dye-house, +an exercise which did not offend or dismay the elder Robusti, but, on +the contrary, induced him to put the boy into the school of Titian, +where Tintoretto only remained a short time. Titian did not choose to +impart what could be imparted of his art to his scholars, and, in all +probability, Tintoretto was no deferential and submissive scholar. There +is a tradition that Titian expelled this scholar from his academy, +saying of the dyer's son, that 'he would never be anything but a +dauber.' + +Tintoret was not to be daunted. He lived to be a bold-tempered, dashing +man, and he must have been defiant, even in his boyhood, as he was +swaggering in his youth, when he set up an academy of his own, and +inscribed above the door, 'The drawing of Michael Angelo and the +colouring of Titian.' He had studied and taught himself from casts and +theories since he left the school of Titian, and then, with worldly +wisdom equal to his daring, he commenced his artistic career by +accepting every commission, good or bad, and taking what pay he could +get for his work; but, unfortunately for him and for the world, he +executed his work, as might have been expected, in the same headlong, +indiscriminate spirit, acquiring the name of 'Il Furioso' from the +rapidity and recklessness of his manner of painting. Often he did not +even give himself the trouble of making any sketch or design of his +pictures beforehand, but composed as he painted. + +Self-confident to presumption, he took for his inspirations the merest +impulses, and considerably marred the effect of his unquestionably grand +genius by gross haste and carelessness. He was a successful man in his +day, as so energetic and unscrupulous a man was likely enough to be, and +his fellow-citizens, who saw principally on the surface,[20] were +charmed beyond measure by his tremendous capacity for invention, his +dramatic vigour, his gorgeous, rampant richness and glare; or, by +contrast, his dead dulness of ornament and colouring; and were not too +greatly offended by his occasional untruthfulness in drawing and +colouring, and the inequality of his careless, slovenly, powerful +achievements. Yet even Tintoret's fascinated contemporaries said of him +that he 'used three pencils: one gold, one silver, one lead.' + +Naturally Tintoretto painted an immense number of pictures, to only +three of which, however, he appended his name. These were, 'The +Crucifixion,' and 'The Miracle of the Slave,' two of fifty-seven +pictures which he painted for the school of St Roch alone, in Venice; +the other was the 'Marriage at Cana,' in the church of Santa Maria +della Saluto, Venice. + +There is an authentic story told of Tintoretto in his age, which is in +touching contrast to what is otherwise known of the man. Dominico, who +was a painter, Tintoret had a daughter, Marietta, very dear to him, who +was also a painter--indeed, so gifted a portrait painter, as to have +been repeatedly invited to foreign courts to practise her art, +invitations which she declined, because she would not be parted from her +father. To Tintoret's great grief, this daughter died as she was thirty +years of age, and her father was in his seventy-eighth year. When her +end was unmistakably near, the old man took brush and canvas and +struggled desperately to preserve a last impression of the beloved +child's face, over which death was casting its shadow. + +Tintoretto died four years later, in 1594. His portrait is that of a man +who holds his head high and resolutely; he has, strange to say, a +somewhat commonplace face, with its massive nose, full eye, short curly +beard and hail. The forehead is not very broad, but the head is 'long,' +as Scotch people say, and they count long-headedness not only an +indication of self-esteem, but of practical shrewdness. Tintoret's power +was native, and had received little training; it is a proof of the +strength of that power that he could not quench it. His faults, as a +painter, I have already had to chronicle in the sketch of the man. He +was greatest on large canvases, where his recklessness was lost in his +strength; and in portraits, where his quickness in seizing striking +traits more than equalled that rapidity of conclusion in realizing, and +still more notably in classifying, character, which, to say the least, +is liable to error. + +Even before Tintoretto lived sacred subjects and art had entirely +changed places. In the days of Fra Angelico and the Van Eycks, art was +the means by which painters brought before men sacred subjects, to whose +design painters looked with more or less of conviction and feeling. By +the time that Tintoret painted, sacred subjects were the means by which +painters showed their art; means, the design of which was largely lost +sight of, and which might be freely tortured and twisted, falsified, +well-nigh burlesqued, if, by so doing, painters could better display +their originality, skill, and mastery of technicalities. Sacred subjects +had become more and more human in the lower sense, and less and less +divine. A man who had so little reverence as Tintoret showed for his own +higher self, his fellow-men, and his art, would scarcely seem well +qualified to take up sacred subjects. But criticism is entirely and +hopelessly divided on the question, for while some authorities hold that +he made of the awful scene of the Crucifixion a merely historical and +decidedly theatrical procession, other authorities maintain that he +preserved in that 'great composition' 'repose and dignity, solemnity and +reverence.' + +Here is M. Charles Blanc, the French art critic's opinion of Tintoret's +largest work, seventy-four feet in length and thirty feet in height: The +Glory of Paradise, in the great hall or throne-room of the Doge's +Palace:-- + +'If the shadows had not become so black, such a picture would have had +something of sublimity; but that sky, without transparency, the lights +of which, even, are of a burnt and baked colour, has rather the air of a +lit-up Erebus than of a Paradise. Four hundred figures are in motion in +this vast enclosure, some naked, others draped, but draped uniformly in +a staring red or a hard blue, which form as many spots, in some sort +symmetrical. The manner is quick; a little loose, but confident. The +models are neither taken from nature nor from the ideal, they are drawn +from practice, and are in general only turns of the head, without beauty +and without delicacy. The angels are agitated like demons; and the +whole--coarse enough in execution as in thought, is imposing +nevertheless by mass, movement, and number. It is the striking image of +a multitude in the air, a rout in the heavens, or rather in purgatory.' + +Here, again, is Mr Ruskin's unequalled estimate of Tintoret's works: 'I +should exhaust the patience of the reader if Ion the various stupendous +developments of the imagination of Tintoret in the Scuola di San Rocco +alone. I would fain join awhile in that solemn pause of the journey into +Egypt, where the silver boughs of the shadowy trees lace with their +tremulous lines the alternate folds of fair cloud, flushed by faint +crimson light, and lie across the streams of blue between those rosy +islands like the white wakes of wandering ships; or watch beside the +sleep of the disciples among those mossy leaves that lie so heavily on +the dead of the night beneath the descent of the angel of the agony, and +toss fearfully above the motion of the torches as the troop of the +betrayer emerges out of the hollows of the olives; or wait through the +hour of accusing beside the judgment-seat of Pilate, where all is +unseen, unfelt, except the one figure that stands with its head bowed +down, pale like the pillar of moonlight, half bathed in the glory of the +Godhead, half wrapt in the whiteness of the shroud. Of these and all +other thoughts of indescribable power that are now fading from the walls +of those neglected chambers, I may perhaps endeavour at a future time to +preserve some image and shadow more faithfully than by words; but I +shall at present terminate our series of illustrations by reference to a +work of less touching, but more tremendous appeal; the Last Judgment in +the church of Santa Maria dell' Orto.' + +'By Tintoret only has this unimaginable event been grappled with in its +verity; not typically, nor symbolically, but as they may see it who +shall not sleep, but be changed. Only one traditional circumstance he +has received with Dante and Michael Angelo, the Boat of the Condemned; +but the impetuosity of his mind bursts out even in the adoption of this +image; he has not stopped at the scowling ferryman of the one, nor at +the sweeping blow and demon-dragging of the other; but, seized +Hylas-like by the limbs, and tearing up the earth in his agony, the +victim is dashed into his destruction; nor is it the sluggish Lethe, nor +the fiery lake, that bears the cursed vessel, but the oceans of the +earth and the waters of the firmament gathered into one white, ghastly +cataract; the river of the wrath of God, roaring down into the gulf +where the world has melted with its fervent heat, choked with the ruin +of nations, and the limbs of its corpses tossed out of its whirling like +water-wheels. Bat-like, out of the holes, and caverns, and shadows of +the earth, the bones gather, and the clay-heaps heave, rattling and +adhering into half-kneaded anatomies, that crawl, and startle, and +struggle up among the putrid weeds, with the clay clinging to their +clotted hair, and their heavy eyes sealed by the earth darkness yet, +like his of old who went his way unseeing to the Siloam pool; shaking +off one by one the dreams of the prison-house, hardly hearing the +clangour of the trumpets of the armies of God; blinded yet more, as they +awake, by the white light of the new heaven, until the great vortex of +the four winds bears up their bodies to the judgment-seat; the Firmament +is all full of them, a very dust of human souls, that drifts, and +floats, and falls in the interminable, inevitable light; the bright +clouds are darkened with them as with thick snow; currents of atom life +in the arteries of heaven, now soaring up slowly, and higher and higher +still, till the eye and thought can follow no farther, borne up, +wingless, by their inward faith, and by the angel powers invisible, now +hurled in countless drifts of horror before the breath of their +condemnation.' + +There is only one little work, of small consequence, by Tintoretto in +the National Gallery, but there are nearly a dozen in the Royal +Galleries, as Charles I. was an admirer and buyer of 'Tintorettos.' Two +Tintorettos which belonged to King Charles I, are at Hampton Court; the +one is 'Esther fainting before Ahasuerus,' and the other the 'Nine +Muses.' With another 'Esther' I have been familiar from childhood by an +old engraving. In the congenial to Tintoret, and he has certainly +revelled in the sumptuousness of the mighty Eastern tyrant, in royal +mantle and ermine tippet, seated on his throne, and stretching his +jewelled sceptre to Esther, who is in the rich costume of a Venetian +lady of the period, and sinking into the arms of her watchful maids, +with a fair baby face, and little helpless hands, having dainty frills +round the wrists, which scarcely answer to our notion of the attributes +of the magnanimous, if meek, Jewish heroine. + +Paul Cagliari of Verona is far better known as Paul Veronese. He was +born in Verona in 1530, and was the son of a sculptor. He was taught by +his father to draw and model, but abandoned sculpture for the sister art +of painting, which was more akin to his tastes, and which he followed in +the studio of an uncle who was a fair painter. + +Quitting Verona, Paul Veronese repaired to Venice, studying the works of +Titian and Tintoret, and settling in their city, finding no want of +patronage even in a field so fully appropriated before he came to take +his place there. His first great work was the painting of the church of +St Sebastian, with scenes from the history of Esther. Whether he chose +the subject or whether it was assigned to him, it belonged even more to +him than to Tintoret, for Veronese was the most magnificent of the +magnificent Venetian painters. From that date he was kept in constant +employment by the wealthy and luxurious Venetians. He visited Rome in +the suite of the Venetian ambassador in 1563, when he was in his +thirty-fourth year, and he was invited to Spain to assist in the +decoration of the Escurial by Philip II., but refused the invitation. + +Veronese is said to have been a man of kindly spirit, generous and +devout. In painting for churches and convents, he would consent to +receive the smallest remuneration, sometimes not more than the price of +his colours and canvas. For his fine picture now in the Louvre, the +'Marriage of Cana,' he is believed not to have had more than forty +pounds in our money. He died when he was but fifty-eight years of age, +in 1588. He had married and left sons who were painters, and worked with +their father. He had a brother, Benedotto, who was also a painter, and +who is thought to have painted many of the architectural backgrounds to +Veronese's pictures. + +Veronese's portrait, which he has left us, gives the idea of a more +earnest and impressionable man than Tintoret. A man in middle age, +bald-headed, with a furrowed brow, cheeks a little hollowed, head +slightly thrown back, and a somewhat anxious as well as intent +expression of face; what of the dress is seen, being a plain doublet +with turned-over collar, and a cloak arranged in a fold across the +breast, and hanging over the right shoulder like a shepherd's 'maud' or +plaid. Looking at the engraving, and hearing of Paul Veronese's +amiability and piety, one has little difficulty in thinking of the +magnificent painter, as a single-hearted, simple-minded man, neither +vain nor boastful, nor masterful save by the gift of genius. + +I have called Paul Veronese a magnificent painter, and magnificence is +the great attribute of his style; but before going farther into his +merits and defects, I should like to quote to you a passage from Mr +Ruskin, the most eloquent and dogmatic of art critics, prefacing the +passage with the statement that the true lesson which it teaches is +particularly needful for women, who, if they love art at all, are apt to +regard it chiefly for its sentiment, and to undervalue such proper +painter's work, such breadth and affluence and glory of handling, as are +to be met with on the canvases of painters like Veronese and Rubens. +'But I perceive a tendency among some of the more thoughtful critics of +the day to forget the business of a painter is _to paint_, and so +altogether to despise those men, Veronese and Rubens for instance, who +were painters, _par excellence_, and in whom the expressional qualities +are subordinate. Now it is well, when we have strong moral or poetical +feeling manifested in painting, to mark this as the best part of the +work; but it is not well to consider as a thing of small account the +painter's language in which that feeling is conveyed; for if that +language be not good and lovely, the man may indeed be a just moralist +or a great poet, but he is not a _painter_, and it was wrong of him to +paint.' + +It was said of Paul Veronese, that while he had not 'the brilliance and +depth of Titian' or the 'prodigious facility' of Tintoret, yet, in some +respects, Veronese surpassed both. But he was certainly deficient in a +sense of suitability and probability. He, of all painters, carried to an +outrageous extent the practice, which I have defended in some degree, of +painting sacred and historical subjects as if they had happened in his +own day and city. He violated taste and even reason in painting every +scene, lofty or humble, sacred or profane, alike, with the pomp of +splendour and richness of ornament which were the fashion of the time; +but he had a vivid perception of character, and a certain greatness of +mind which redeemed his plethora of gorgeousness from monotony or +vulgarity. + +Veronese is reported to have been far more correct and careful in +drawing than was Tintoret, while Veronese's prodigality of colour was a +mellowed version of Tintoret's glare or deadness. One of Veronese's best +pictures is the 'Marriage of Cana,' painted originally for the refectory +of the convent of San Giorgio, Venice, and now in the Louvre. 'It is not +less than thirty feet long and twenty feet high, and contains about one +hundred and thirty figures, life size. The Marriage Feast of the +Galilean citizen is represented with a pomp worthy of "Ormuz or of Ind." +A sumptuous hall of the richest architecture; lofty columns, long lines +of marble balustrades rising against the sky; a crowd of guests +splendidly attired, some wearing orders of knighthood, are seated at +tables covered with gorgeous vases of gold and silver, attended by +slaves, jesters, pages, and musicians. In the midst of all this dazzling +pomp, this display of festive enjoyment, these moving figures, these +lavish colours in glowing approximation, we begin after a while to +distinguish the principal personages, our Saviour, the Virgin Mary, the +twelve Apostles, mingled with Venetian senators and ladies, clothed in +the rich costume of the sixteenth century; monks, friars, poets, +artists, all portraits of personages existing in his own time; while in +a group of musicians he has introduced himself and Tintoretto playing +the violoncello, while Titian plays the bass. The bride in this picture +is said to be the portrait of Eleanor of Austria, the sister of Charles +V, and second wife of Francis I.'[21] + +Though Veronese is not greatly esteemed as a portrait painter, it so +happens that the highly-prized picture of his in our National Gallery, +called 'The Family of Darius before Alexander,' is understood to be +family portraits of the Pisani family in the characters of Alexander, +the Persian queen, etc., etc. Another of Veronese's pictures in the +National Gallery is 'The Consecration of St Nicholas, Bishop of Myra.' + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +CARRACCI, 1555-1609--GUIDO RENI, 1575-1642--DOMENICHINO, +1581-1641--SALVATOR ROSA, 1615-1673. + + +In the falling away of the schools of Italy, and especially of the +followers of Michael Angelo and Raphael, into mannerism and +exaggeration, fitly expressed in delineation of heathen gods and +goddesses, there arose a cluster of painters in the North of Italy who +had considerable influence on art. + +The Carracci included a group of painters, the founders of the later +Bolognese School. Lodovico, the elder of the three, was born at Bologna, +1555. He was educated as a painter, and was so slow in his education, +that he received from his fellow-scholars the nickname of 'Il Bue' (the +ox). But his perseverance surmounted every obstacle. He visited the +different Italian towns, and studied the works of art which contained, +arriving at the conclusion that he might acquire and combine the +excellences of each. This combination, which could only be a splendid +patch-work without unity, was the great aim of his life, and was the +origin of the term _eclectic_ applied to his school. Its whole tendency +was to technical excellence, and in this tendency, however it might +achieve its end, painting showed a marked decline. As an example of the +motives and objects supplied by the school, I must borrow some lines +from a sonnet of the period written by Agostino Carracci: + + 'Let him, who a good painter would be, + Acquire the drawing of Rome, + Venetian action, and Venetian shadow, + And the dignified colouring of Lombardy, + The terrible manner of Michael Angelo, + Titian's truth and nature, + The sovereign purity of Correggio's style, + And the true symmetry of Raphael; + + * * * * * + + And a little of Parmegiano'a grace, + But without so much study and toil, + Let him only apply himself to imitate the works + Which our Niccolino has left us here.' + +Lodovico opened a school of painting at Bologna, in which he was for a +time largely assisted by his cousins. He died 1619. + +Agostino Carracci, cousin of Lodovico, was born at Bologna in 1559. His +father was a tailor, and Agostino himself began life as a jeweller. He +became a painter and an engraver in turn, devoting himself chiefly to +engraving. Towards the beginning of the seventeenth century he was with +his more famous brother, Annibale, at Rome, where he assisted in +painting the Farnese Gallery, designing and executing the two frescoes +of Galatea and Aurora with such success, according to his +contemporaries, that it was popularly said that 'the engraver had +surpassed the painter in the Farnese.' Jealousy arose between the +brothers in consequence, and they separated, not before Annibale had +perpetrated upon Agostino a small, but malicious, practical joke, which +has been handed down to us. Agostino was fond of the society of people +of rank, and Annibale, aware of his brother's weakness, took the +opportunity, when Agostino was surrounded by some of his aristocratic +friends, to present him with a caricature of the two brothers' father +and mother, engaged in their tailoring work. + +Agostino died at Parma when he was a little over forty, and was buried +in the cathedral there, in 1602. + +Annibale, Agostino's younger brother, was born in 1560. It was intended +by his parents that he should follow their trade and be a tailor, but he +was persuaded by his cousin Lodovico to become a painter. After visiting +Parma, Venice, and Bologna, he worked with his cousin and teacher for +ten years. Annibale was invited to Rome by the Cardinal Odoardo Farnese, +to decorate the great hall of his palace in the Piazza Farnese, with +scenes from the heathen mythology, for which work he received a monthly +salary of ten scudi, about two guineas, with maintenance for himself and +two servants, and a farther gift of five hundred scudi. It was a +parsimonious payment, and the parsimony is said to have preyed on the +mind and affected the health of Annibale, and a visit to Naples, where +he, in common with not a few artists, suffered from the jealous +persecutions of the Neapolitan painters, completed the breaking up of +his constitution. He painted, with the assistance of Albani, the +frescoes in the chapel of San Diego in San Giacomo degli Spagnole, and +pressed upon his assistant more than half of his pay. Annibale's health +had already given way, and after a long illness he died, when forty-nine +years of age, at Rome, 1609, and was buried near Raphael in the +Pantheon. + +The merit of the Carracci lay in their power of execution, and in a +certain 'bold naturalism, or rather animalism,' which they added to +their able imitations, for their pictures are not so much their own, as +'After Titian,' 'After Correggio,' etc. In this intent regard to style, +and this perfecting of means to an end, thought and in a manner +neglected. Yet to the Carracci, and their school, is owing a certain +studied air of solemnity and sadness in 'Ecce Homos,' and 'Pietas,' +which, in proportion to its art, has a powerful effect on many +beholders, who prefer conventionality to freedom; or rather, who fail to +distinguish conventionality in its traces. Annibale was the most +original while the least learned of the Carracci; yet, even of Annibale, +it could be said that he lacked enthusiasm in his subjects. His best +productions are his mythological subjects in the Farnese Palace. A +celebrated picture of his, that of the 'Three Marys' (a dead Christ, the +Madonna, and the two other Marys), is at Castle Howard, and has been +exhibited at Manchester, and I think also at Leeds. At Manchester it +attracted the greatest attention and admiration. I believe this was not +only because Annibale Carracci in the 'Three Marys' does attain to a +most piteous mournfulness of sentiment, but because such work as that of +the Carracci finds readiest acceptance from a general public, which +delights in striking, superficial effects. The same reason, in +conjunction with the decline of Italian art, may account for the great +number of the Carracci school and followers. + +Annibale Carracci was one of the first who practised landscape painting +and genre pictures, such as 'The Greedy Eater,' as separate branches of +art. Two of Annibale's landscapes are in the National Gallery. + +Guido Reni, commonly called 'Guido,' was born at Bologna, 1575. His +father was a musician, and Guido was intended for the same calling, but +finally became a painter and student in the school of the Carracci. He +followed Annibale Carracci to Rome, and dwelt there for twenty years. He +obtained great repute and favour, but taking offence at some supposed +injustice, he left Rome, and settled at last in Bologna, where he +established a large school. Though he made great sums of money, which +might have enabled him to live in the splendour which he coveted, on +account of his addiction to gambling and his grossly extravagant habits, +he was constantly in debt, and driven to tax his genius to the utmost, +and to sell its fruits for what they would bring, irrespective of what +he owed to himself, his art, and to the giver of all good gifts. He died +at Bologna, and was buried with much pomp in the church of San Dominico, +1642. + +Of Guido we hear that he had three styles: the first, after the vigorous +manner of Michael Angelo; the second, in the prevailing ornamental taste +of the Rome of his day and the Carracci. This is considered Guido's best +style, and is distinguished by its subtle management of light and shade. +His third, which is called his 'silvery style,' from its greys, +degenerated into insipidity, with little wonder, seeing that at this +stage he sold his time at so much per hour to picture-dealers, who stood +over him, watch in hand, to see that he fulfilled his bargain, and +carried away the saints he manufactured wet from the easel. Such +manufactory took him only three hours, sometimes less. His charges had +risen from five guineas for a head, and twenty guineas for a whole +figure, to twenty times that amount. He painted few portraits, but many +'fancy' heads of saints. Nearly three hundred pictures by Guido are +believed to be in existence. Guido's individual distinction was his +refined sense of beauty, but it was over-ruled by 'cold calculation,' +and developed into a mere abstract conception of 'empty grace' without +heart or soul. + +His finest work is the large painting of 'Phoebus and Aurora' in a +pavilion of the Rospigliosi Palace at Rome. In our National Gallery +there are nine specimens of Guido's works, including one of his best +'Ecce Homos,' which belonged to the collection of Samuel Rogers. + +Domenico Zampieri, commonly called Domenichino, was another Bolognese +painter, and another eminent scholar of the Carracci. He was born in +1581, and, after studying under a Flemish painter, passed into the +school of the Carracci. While yet a very young man, Domenichino was +invited to Rome, where he soon earned a high reputation, competing +successfully with his former fellow-scholar, Guido. Domenichino's +'Flagellation of St Andrew,' and 'Communion of St Jerome,' in payment of +which he only received about five guineas; his 'Martyrdom of St +Sebastian,' and his 'Four Evangelists,' which are among his +masterpieces, were all painted in Rome, and remain in Rome. + +Domenichino is said to have excited the extreme hostility of rival +painters, and to have suffered especially from the malice of the +Neapolitans, when he was invited to work among them. After a cruel +struggle Domenichino died in Naples, not without a horrible suspicion of +having being poisoned, at the age of sixty, in 1641. One of his +enemies--a Roman on this occasion--destroyed what was left of +Domenichino's work in Naples. + +The painter's fate was a miserable one, and by a coincidence between his +fortune and his taste in subjects, he has identified his name with +terrible representations of martyrdoms. Kugler writes that martyrdom as +a subject for painting, which had been sparingly used by Raphael and his +scholars, had come into fashion in Domenichino's time, for 'painters and +poets sought for passionate emotion, and these subjects (martyrdoms) +supplied them with plentiful food.' Sensationalism is the florid hectic +of art's decay, whether in painting or in literature. + +Domenichino is accredited with more taste than fancy. He made free use +of the compositions of even contemporary artists, while he +individualized these compositions. His good and bad qualities are those +of his school, already quoted, and perhaps it is in keeping with these +qualities that the excellence of Domenichino's works lies in subordinate +parts and subordinate characters. There are examples of Domenichino in +the National Gallery. + +I shall close my long list of the great Italian painters of the past +with one who was quite apart from and opposed to the Carracci school, +and whose triumphs and failures were essentially his own. Salvator Rosa, +born in 1615 near Naples, was the son of an architect. In opposition to +his father Salvator Rosa became a painter. Having succeeded in selling +his sketches to a celebrated buyer, the bold young Neapolitan started +for Rome at the age of twenty years; and Rome, 'the Jerusalem of +Painters,' became thenceforth Salvator Rosa's head-quarters, though the +character of the man was such as to force him to change his quarters not +once or twice only in his life, and thus he stayed some time, in turn, +at Naples, Viterbo, Volterra, and Florence. At Volterra the aggressive +nature of the painter broke forth in a series of written satires on a +medley of subjects--music, poetry (both of which Salvator himself +cultivated), painting, war, Babylon, and envy. These incongruous satires +excited the violent indignation of the individuals against whom +Salvator's wit was aimed, and their efforts at revenge, together with +his own turbulent spirit, drove him from place to place. + +Salvator Rosa was at Naples 1647, and took part in the riots, so famous +in song and story, which made Masaniello, the young fisherman, for a +time Captain-General and Master of Naples, when it was, according to +law, a Spanish dependency governed by a viceroy. Salvator was in the +Compagnia della Morte commanded by Falcone, a battle painter, during the +troubles, a wild enough post to please the wild painter, even had he not +been in addition a personal adherent of the ruling spirit Masaniello, +whom Salvator Rosa painted more than once. After so eventful a life, +the painter died peaceably enough in his fifty-ninth year, of dropsy, at +Rome, and left a considerable fortune to his only son. + +Salvator Rosa was the incarnation of the arrogant, fickle, fierce +Neapolitan spirit, and he carried it out sufficiently in an +undisciplined, stormy life, without the addition of the popular legend +that he had at one time joined a troop of banditti, and indulged in +their excesses. The legend seems to have a familiarity with mountain +passes, and his love of peopling them appropriately with banditti in +action. Salvator Rosa was a dashing battle painter, a mediocre +historical painter, and an excellent portrait painter as well as +landscape painter. But it is chiefly by the savage grandeur of his +mountain or forest landscapes, with their fitting _dramatis personae_, +that he has won his renown. Mr Ruskin, while he allows Salvator's gift +of imagination, denounces him for the reckless carelessness and +untruthfulness to nature of his painting. Many of Salvator Rosa's +pictures are in the Pitti Palace in Florence, and many are in England. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +RUBENS, 1577-1640--REMBRANDT, 1606 OR 1608-1669--TENIERS, FATHER AND +SON, 1582-1694--WOUVERMAN, 1620-1668--CUYP, 1605; STILL LIVING, +1638--PAUL POTTER, 1625-1654--CORNELIUS DE HEEM, 1630. + + +A long interval elapsed between the Van Eycks and Quintin Matsys, and +Rubens; but if Flemish art was slow of growth and was only developed +after long pauses, it made up for its slowness and delays by the burst +of triumph into which Flemish and Dutch art broke forth in Rubens and +his school, in Rembrandt and Cuyp and Ruysdael. + +Peter Paul Rubens was born at Siegen in Westphalia, on the day of St +Peter and St Paul, 1577. But though Rubens was born out of Antwerp, he +was a citizen of Antwerp by descent as well as by so many later +associations. His father, John Rubens, a lawyer, an imprudent, +thriftless man in character and habits, had been compelled to leave +Antwerp in consequence of religious disturbances which broke out there +about the time that the northern provinces, more at one and more decided +in their union than the southern provinces, established their +independence. Rubens spent his early boyhood at Cologne, but on the +death of his father when he was ten years of age, his mother, a good and +'discreet' woman, to whom the painter owed much, and confessed his debt, +returned with her family to Antwerp. His mother had destined him for his +father's profession, but did not oppose her son's preference for art. + +After studying under two different artists, and becoming a master in the +guild of St Luke, Rubens went to Italy in 1600, when he was a young man +of three-and-twenty years of age. He was eight years absent, entering +the service of the ducal sovereign of Mantua, being sent by him on a +diplomatic mission to Madrid to Philip III, of Spain, visiting on his +own account Rome, where he found the Carracci and Guido[22] at the +height of their fame, Venice and Genoa, 'leaving portraits where he +went.' + +With Genoa, its architecture, and its situation, Rubens was specially +charmed, but he quitted it in haste, being summoned home to attend the +death-bed of his mother, from whom he had parted eight years before; and +arriving too late to see her in life. A man of strong feelings in sorrow +as in joy, he withdrew into retirement, and resided for his season of +mourning in a religious house. + +Loving Italy with a painter's enthusiasm, so that to the latest day of +his life he generally wrote in Italian, and loved to sign his name +'Pietro Paolo Rubens,' he had intended to return and settle in Mantua, +but having been named court painter to the Governess of the Netherlands, +Clara Eugenia, and her husband Albert, Rubens had sufficient patriotism +and sufficient worldly foresight to induce him to relinquish his idea, +and establish himself in his native Antwerp. He was already a man of +eminence in his profession, and a man of mark out of it. Go where he +would he made friends, and he so recommended himself to his royal +patrons by his natural suavity, tact, and sagacity, that he was not only +in the utmost favour with them as a right courtly painter, but was +employed by them, once and again, on delicate, difficult, private +embassies. But it was not only to his patrons that Rubens was endeared, +he was emphatically what men call 'a good fellow,' alike to superiors, +equals, and inferiors; a frank, honest, bountiful, and generous man. His +love of courts and their splendour was the chivalrous homage which a man +of his cast of mind paid to the dignity and picturesqueness of high +estate. + +He married a year after his mother's death, when he was in his +thirty-third year. His first wife, Isabella Brant, was a connection of +his own (and so was his second wife). He built and painted, in fresco, a +fine house in Antwerp, and laid out a pleasant garden, which contained a +rotunda, filled with his collection of pictures by the Italian masters, +antique gems, etc. etc., already gathered abroad. He set himself to keep +house in a liberal fashion, to dispense benefits, and to entertain +friends--above all, to paint with might and main in company with his +great school, the members of which, like those of Raphael's school where +Raphael was concerned, were, for the most part, Rubens' devoted +comrades. Counting his work not only as the great object, but the great +zest of his life, never did painter receive such sweeping and +accumulating commissions, and never, even by Tintoret, were commissions +executed with such undaunted, unhesitating expedition. + +Withal Rubens frequently left his studio and went abroad, either to act +as an unofficial ambassador, or to paint at the special request of some +foreign sovereign. Thus he was residing in Paris in 1620, planning for +Marie de Medici the series of remarkable pictures which commemorated her +marriage with Henry IV. (When I was a little girl, I went occasionally +to a country house, the show place of the neighbourhood, where there +were copies of this series of Rubens' pictures. I can remember yet +looking at them with utter bewilderment, caused by the dubious taste +that impelled Rubens to indulge in the oddest mixture of royal +personages, high church dignitaries, patron saints, and gods and +goddesses.) In 1628 Rubens was in Spain on a mission from his sovereign +to her kinsman, Philip IV.; in the following year he was in England, on +a service of a similar description to Charles I., from whom, even as +Rubens had already received it from King Philip, the painter had the +honour of knighthood. + +In the mean time Rubens' first wife died, after a union of seventeen +years, in 1626; and four years later, in 1630, the painter, when he was +a man of fifty years, re-married another connection of his own, Helena +Fourment, a girl only in her sixteenth year. Both of his wives were +handsome, fair, full-formed Flemish beauties. Elizabeth (in Spanish, +Isabella) Brant's beauty was of a finer order than that of her +successor, expressing larger capacity of affection and intellect. But on +Helena Fourment Rubens doted, while to both women he seems to have been +affectionately attached. He has painted them so often, that the face of +no painter's wife is so familiar to the art world, and even to the +greater world without, as are the faces of these two women, and above +all, that of Helena Fourment. He had seven children, who frequently +figure in their mothers' portraits. He has left notable portraits of his +two sons by his first wife, of his eldest daughter, Clara Eugenia, when +eight years of age, and of his daughter Elizabeth, a buxom baby, dressed +in velvet and point lace, playing with toys. + +After a life of unbroken success and the highest honours, the last +distinction conferred on Rubens was, that he was chosen to arrange the +gala, and to be the right-hand man who should conduct the Cardinal +Infant, the successor of Clara Eugenia, on his first entrance into +Antwerp. But the hand of premature disease and death, which not even he +could resist, was already on the great painter; his constitution had +been undermined by repeated attacks of gout, and he died at the age of +sixty years, in 1640. He was the possessor of great wealth at the time +of his death, and only a part of his collection, which was then sold, +brought so large a sum in those days, as twenty thousand pounds. Rubens' +second wife, Helena Fourment, to whom he had been married ten years, +survived him, a widow at twenty-six years of age Rubens' portrait is +even better known than those of his wives, for, as I have said of +Raphael in his popularity, Rubens in his life is the beau-ideal of a +painter to the many. The portrait is worthy of the man, with something +gallant in the manliness, and with thought tempering what might have +been too much of bravado and too much of debonnairete in the traits. His +features are handsome in their Flemish fulness, and match well with +hazel eyes, chestnut hair, and a ruddy complexion; his long moustache is +turned up, and he wears the pointed beard which we see so often in the +portraits by Rubens' scholar, Van Dyck. The great flapping hat, worn +alike by men and women, slightly cocked to one side, is the perfection +of picturesque head gear. Equally picturesque, and not in the slightest +degree effeminate on a man like Rubens, is the falling collar of pointed +mechlin, just seen above the cloak draped in large folds. + +In his own day Rubens was without a rival as a painter. In a much later +day Sir Joshua Reynolds pronounced Rubens 'perhaps the greatest master +in the mechanical part of the art, _the best workman with his tools_ +that ever exercised a pencil.' His consummate excellence lay in his +execution and colouring. It is brought as a reproach against his +painting, that his noblest characters, even his sacred characters, were +but big, brawny, red and white Flemings. His imagination only reached a +certain height, and yet, if it were a very earthly Flemish imagination, +it could be grandly, as it was always vigorously, earthly and Flemish. +At the same time he could be deficient where proportion, and even where +all the laws of art, are concerned. + +It is right that I should, with regret and shame, say this of Rubens, +whose geniality bordered on joviality, and whose age was a grosser age +than our own, that he debased his genius by some foul and revolting +pictures. + +Of the general distinction between Rubens and some of his predecessors I +should like to quote Mr Ruskin's passage in his defence: + + 'A man long trained to love the monk's vision of Fra Angelico, + turns in proud and ineffable disgust from the first work of + Rubens, which he encounters on his return across the Alps. But + is he right in his indignation? He has forgotten that, while + Angelico prayed and wept in his _olive shade_, there was + different work doing in the dank fields of Flanders:--wild seas + to be banked out; endless canals to be dug, and boundless + marshes to be drained; hard ploughing and harrowing of the + frosty clay; careful breeding of the stout horses and cattle; + close setting of brick-walls against cold winds and snow; much + hardening of hands, and gross stoutening of bodies in all this; + gross jovialities of harvest homes, and Christmas feasts, which + were to be the reward of it; rough affections, and sluggish + imaginations; fleshy, substantial, iron-shod humanities, but + humanities still,--humanities which God had his eye upon, and + which won perhaps, here and there, as much favour in His sight + as the wasted aspects of the whispering monks of Florence + (Heaven forbid that it should not be so, since the most of us + cannot be monks, but must be ploughmen and reapers still). And + are we to suppose there is no nobility in Rubens' masculine and + universal sympathy with all this, and with his large human + rendering of it, gentleman though he was by birth, and feeling, + and education, and place, and, when he chose, lordly in + conception also? He had his faults--perhaps great and lamentable + faults,--though more those of his time and his country than his + own; he has neither cloister-breeding nor boudoir-breeding, and + is very unfit to paint either in missals or annuals; but he has + an open sky and wide-world breeding in him that we may not be + offended with, fit alike for king's court, knight's camp, or + peasants cottage.' + +Rubens' works are very many, nearly four thousand pictures and sketches +being attributed to him and his scholars. Many are still at Antwerp, +many at Madrid, but most are at Munich, where, in one great saloon and +cabinet, there are ninety-five pictures by Rubens. In England, at +Blenheim, there are fifteen pictures by Rubens, as the great Duchess of +Marlborough would give any price for his works. I can only indicate a +very few examples in the different branches of art which he made his +own. + +First, of his 'Descent from the Cross:' it is a single large group, +distinguished by luminous colouring and correct drawing, and with regard +to which the mass of white sheet against which the body of Christ is in +relief in the picture, has been regarded as a bold artistic venture. An +enthusiastic admirer has called it 'a most wonderful monument of the +daring genius of the painter. The grandest picture in the world for +composition, drawing, and colouring.' Its defects are held to be 'the +bustle of the incidents and the dreadfully true delineation of merely +physical agony--too terrible, real, picturesque, but not sublime--- an +earthly tragedy, not a divine mystery.' + + 'Remit the anguish of that lighted stare; + Close those wan lips! let that thorn-wounded brow + Stream not with blood.' + +There is a tradition that an accident happened to the picture while +Rubens was painting it, and that Van Dyck remedied the accident by +re-painting the cheek and chin of the Virgin and the arm of the +Magdalene. + +With regard to another picture of Rubens at Antwerp, 'The Assumption of +the Virgin,' it is said that he painted it in sixteen days, for sixteen +hundred florins, his usual terms being a hundred florins a-day. + +'The Virgin and Serpent' (from the 12th chapter of Revelation) in the +Munich gallery is very splendid. The Virgin with the new-born Saviour in +her arms is mounting on the wings of an eagle, surrounded by a flood of +light. The serpent, encircling the moon on which she stands, is writhing +beneath her feet. God the Father is extending his protecting sceptre +over her from above. The archangel, clothed in armour, is in fearful +combat with the seven-headed dragon, which is endeavouring to devour the +child. Although struck by lightning, the dragon is striving to twist his +tail round the legs of the angel, and seizes the cloak of the Virgin +with one of his hands. Other infernal monsters are writhing with +impotent rage, and falling with the dragon into the abyss.' + +'Nothing was more characteristic of Rubens than his choice of subjects +from the mythology of the Greeks and the works of the ancient poets; and +in nothing did he display more freedom, originality, and poetry.' Among +his most famous mythological pictures is the 'Battle of the Amazons,' +now at Munich. 'The women are driven back by the Greeks over the river +Thermodon; two horses are in savage combat on the bridge; one Amazon is +torn from her horse; a second is dragged along by a sable steed, and +falling headlong into the river, where others are swimming and +struggling. No other battle-piece, save that of the Amazons, can compare +with Raphael's "Battle of Constantine."' + +Another great picture is The 'Carrying off of Proserpine.' 'Pluto in his +car is driven by fiery brown steeds, and is bearing away the goddess, +resisting and struggling. The picture absolutely glows with genial fire. +The forms in it are more slender than is general with Rubens. Among the +companions of Proserpine the figure of Diana is conspicuous for grace +and beauty. The victorious god of love hovers before the chariot, and +the blue ocean, warmly tinted with the sunbeams, forms a splendid +back-ground.'[23] + +Rubens was famous for the loveliness and grace of his paintings of +children. Perhaps the most beautiful is that of 'The Infant Jesus and +John playing with a Lamb.' + +Rubens was a great animal painter. One of his celebrated animal pictures +is 'Daniel in the Lions' Den,' now at Hamilton Palace, in which each +lion is a king of beasts checked in his fiercest have been painted by +Rubens in a fit of pique at a false report which had been circulated +that he could not paint animals, and that those in his pictures were +supplied by the animal-painter, his friend and scholar, Schneyders. + +Rubens' landscapes are not the least renowned of his pictures. He gave +to his own rich but prosaic Flanders, all the breadth and breeziness and +matchless aerial effects of a master of painting, and a true lover of +nature under every aspect, who can indeed distinguish, under the most +ordinary aspect, those hidden treasures which all but a lover and a man +of genius would pass by. His 'Prairie of Laacken,' 'with the sun of +Flanders piercing the dense yellow clouds with the force of fire,' is of +great repute. + +Among his famous portraits I shall mention that called 'The Four +Philosophers' (Justus Lepsius, Hugo Grotius, Rubens, and his brother), +with peaked beards and moustaches, in turned-over collars, ruffs and +fur-trimmed robes, having books and pens, a dog, and a classic bust as +accessories. The open pillared door is wreathed with a spray from +without, and there is a landscape in the background. This portrait is +full of power, freedom, and splendid painting. + +Another portrait contains that sweetest of Rubens' not often sweet +faces, called 'the Lady in the Straw Hat.' Rubens himself did not name +the picture otherwise in his catalogue. Tradition says the original was +Mdlle Lundens, the beauty of the seventeen provinces, and that she died +young and unmarried. Connoisseurs value the picture because of the +triumph of skill by which Rubens has painted brilliantly a face so much +in the shade; to those who are not connoisseurs I imagine the picture +must speak for itself, in its graceful, tender beauty. Forming part of +the collection of the late Sir Robert Peel (I think he gave three +thousand pounds for 'the Lady in the Straw Hat'), which has been bought +for the country, this beautiful portrait is now in the National Gallery. + +And now I must speak of the picture of the Arundel Family. But first, a +word about Thomas, Earl of Arundel. It is impossible to write an English +work on art and omit a brief account of one of England's greatest art +benefactors. Thomas, Earl of Arundel, representing in his day the great +house of Howard, had a love of art which approached to a mania; and +without being so outrageously vain as Sir Kenelm Digby, there is no +doubt that the Earl counted on his art collection as a source of +personal distinction. James I., himself an art collector, so far +humoured the Earl in his taste as to present him with Lord Somerset's +forfeited collection, valued at a thousand pounds. But Charles I, and +the Earl became rival collectors, and little love was lost between them. +The Earl of Arundel impairing even his great revenues in the pursuit, +employed agents and ambassadors--notably Petty and Evelyn--all over +Europe, to obtain for him drawings, pictures, ancient marbles, gems, +etc., etc. When the civil wars broke out, Lord Arundel conveyed his +priceless collection for safety to Antwerp and Padua. Eventually it was +divided among his sons and scattered far and wide. The only portion of +it which fell to the nation, in the course of another generation, was +the Greek Marbles, known as the Arundel Marbles, which were finally +presented to the University of Oxford. But in Rubens' day all this grand +collection was intact, and displayed in galleries at Arundel House, +which the mob thought fit to nickname 'Tart Hall;' and through these +galleries Rubens was conducted by the Earl. + +Lord Arundel desired to have an Arundel family portrait painted for him +by Rubens. The Earl was rather given to having Arundel family portraits, +for there are no less than three in which he figures. One by Van Somer, +in which the hero is pointing somewhat comically with his truncheon to +the statues of his collection in the background, and the last one +projected by Van Dyck, but executed by an inferior artist, in which +various family pieces of armour, swords, and shields, worn at Flodden, +or belonging to the poet Earl of Surrey, are introduced in the hands of +the sons of the family. + +But it is with Rubens' 'Arundel Family,' which, we must remember, ranks +second in English family pictures, that we have to do. Thomas, Earl of +Arundel, and the Lady Alathea,[24] are under a portico with twisted +columns, like those in Raphael's cartoons; a rich curtain, and a +landscape with a large mansion are seen beyond. The Countess is seated +in a chair of state, with one hand on the head of a white greyhound; she +wears a black satin gown, laced ruff, gold bracelets, and pearl +necklace. Her hair is light, and decked with pearls and plumes. The Earl +stands behind with a hand on her chair. His head is uncovered, the short +hair inclining to grey; the whiskers and beard pointed. His vest is +olive-coloured, and he has a brown mantle lined with crimson over the +shoulders beneath his ruff. There is a little boy--Earl Thomas's +grandson, Philip Howard, afterwards Cardinal Howard, in crimson velvet, +trimmed with gold lace, and a dwarf on the other side of the dog, with +one hand on its back. + +Among other masterpieces of Rubens, including the 'Straw Hat,' which +are in the National Gallery, there are the 'Rape of the Sabines,' and +the landscape 'Autumn,' which has a view of his country chateau, de +Stein, near Mechlin. In Dulwich Gallery there is an interesting portrait +by Rubens of an elderly lady in a great Spanish ruff, which is believed +to be the portrait of his mother. + +Rembrandt Van Rhyn is said to have been born near Leyden about 1606 or +1608, for there is a doubt as to the exact date. His father was a miller +or maltster, and there is a theory that Rembrandt acquired some of his +effects of light and shade from the impressions made upon him during his +life in the mill. He was a pupil at the Latin school of Leyden, and a +scholar in studios both at Leyden and Amsterdam. + +In 1630, when Rembrandt was a mere lad, he seems to have settled in +Amsterdam, and married there in 1634, when he was six or eight and +twenty years of age, a young Dutchwoman possessed of a considerable +fortune, which, in case of her death and of Rembrandt's re-marriage, was +to pass to her children, a provision that in the end wrought Rembrandt's +ruin. The troubles of his country in the painter's time rendered his +prices comparatively small and precarious, and Rembrandt, like Rubens, +without Rubens' wealth, was eager in making an art collection and +surrounding himself with those very forms of beauty in the great Italian +masters' works, in the appreciation of which the Dutch master--judged by +his own works--might have been reckoned deficient. + +Rembrandt's wife died after eight years of marriage, and left him with +one surviving son, Titus, and Rembrandt, having re-married, was called +upon to give up the lad's inheritance. This call, together with the +expenditure of the sums which Rembrandt had lavished on his collection, +was too heavy upon funds never very ample, and the painter, after +struggling with his difficulties, became a bankrupt in 1656. His son +took possession of Rembrandt's house, and from the sale of the +painter's art collection and other resources eventually recovered his +mother's fortune, but Rembrandt himself never rose above the misery, +degradation, and poverty of this period. He lived thirteen years longer, +but it was in obscurity--out of which the only records which reach us, +are stories of miserly habits acquired too late to serve their purpose, +a desperate resort to low company dating from his first wife's death, +and his gradual downfall. + +Rubens and Rembrandt have been sometimes contrasted as the painters of +light and of darkness; the contrast extended to their lives. + +It will read like a humorous anti-climax after so sad a history, when I +add that no other painter painted his own likeness so often as Rembrandt +painted his. In the engraving before me the face is heavy and +stolid-seeming enough to be that of a typical Dutchman. The eye-brows +are slightly knit over the broad nose; the full lips are scantily shaded +by a moustache; there is no hair on the well-fleshed cheeks and double +chin. Rembrandt wears a flat cap and ear-rings. He has two rows of a +chain across his doublet, and one hand thrust beneath the cloak hanging +across his breast. + +Rembrandt's great merits were his strong truthfulness, and his almost +equally powerful sense of a peculiar kind of picturesqueness. It seems +as if the German weirdness perceptible in Albrecht Duerer had in +Rembrandt taken a homelier, but a more comprehensible and effective +Dutch form. Kugler argues, that the long winter, with its short dark +days, of Northern Europe produces in its inhabitants instinctive delight +in hearth-warmth and light, and that the pleasure in looking at +Rembrandt's pictures is traceable to this influence. It is in scenes by +fire-light, camp-light, torch-light, that he triumphs, and his somewhat +grim but very real romance owes its origin to the endless suggestions of +the deep black shadows which belong to these artificial lights. There is +this objection to be urged to the theory, that Rembrandt was also a good +painter of his own flat Dutch landscape, painting it, however, rather +under the sombre dimness of clouds and tempests than in the brightness +of sunshine. But whatever its source, there is a charm so widely felt in +that wonderfully perfect surrounding of uncertainty, suspicion, and +alarm, with which Rembrandt has encompassed so many of his otherwise +prosaic, coarse, and sometimes vulgar Dutch men and women, that we have +coined a new word to express the charm, and speak of groups and +incidents being _Rembrandtesque_, as we speak of their being +picturesque. + +Rembrandt did not always leave the vague thrill of doubt, terror, or +even horror, which he sought to produce, to imagination working in the +mysterious depths of his shadows. A very famous picture of his is 'Dr +Deeman (an anatomist) demonstrating from a dead subject.' In another +picture a man stealing from the gloom is in the act of stabbing in the +back the unconscious man in the foreground.[25] Rembrandt's originality +is as undoubted as his ability, and he was as great in etching as in +painting. His defect as a painter was the frequent absence of any +evidence in his work of a sense of refinement, grace, or even beauty; +this can be said of him who spent means not his own on gathering +together images of beauty and grace produced by the pencils and brushes +of others. Many of Rembrandt's pictures are in the galleries of +Amsterdam and the Hague, and we have many in London. The National +Gallery has several examples, including two of Rembrandt's portraits. + +Passing over Van Dyck, whom I reserve, as I have reserved Holbein, to +class among the foreign painters resident in or closely connected with +England, I come to the Teniers--father and son. David the elder was born +at Antwerp in 1582, and David the younger also at Antwerp, in 1610. +David the younger is decidedly the more eminent painter, though the +works of the father are often mistaken for those of the son. The two +Teniers' class of subjects was the same, being ordinarily 'fairs, +markets, peasants' merry-makings, beer-houses, guard rooms.' + +David the younger had great popularity, was court painter to the +Archduke of Austria, and earned such an independence, that he bought for +himself a chateau at the village of Perck, not very far from the Chateau +de Stein of Rubens, with whom David Teniers was on terms of friendly +intimacy. There Teniers, like his great associate, lived in the utmost +state and bounty, entertaining the noblest of the land. David Teniers +married twice, his first wife being the daughter of one of a family of +Flemish painters, who were known, according to their respective +proclivities in art, by the names of Peasant Breughel, Velvet Breughel, +and Hell Breughel. Teniers had many children. + +The elder Teniers died at Antwerp in 1649; the younger died at Brussels, +and was buried at Perck, in 1694. + +The distinction of the Teniers was the extreme fidelity and cleverness +with which they copied (but did not explain) the life they knew--the +homeliest, humblest aspect of life. They brought out with marvellous +accuracy all its traits, except, indeed, the underlying strain of +poetry, which, while it redeems plainness, sordidness, and even +coarseness, is as true to life as is its veriest prose. With those who +ask a literal copy of life, whether high or low, and ask no more, the +Teniers and their school must always be in the highest favour; and to +those who are wearied and sceptical of blunders and failures in seeking +that underlying strain of life, the mere rugged genuineness of the +Teniers' work recommends itself, and is not without its own pathos; +while to very many superficial observers the simple homeliness of the +life which the Teniers chose to represent, prevents the observers from +missing what should be present in every life. Men and women are only +conscious of the defect when the painters wander, now and then, into +higher spheres and into sacred subjects, and there is the unavoidable +recoil from gross blindness. I have taken the Teniers as the +representatives of a numerous school of Flemish and Dutch artists, whose +works abound in this country. David Teniers the younger appears at his +best, several times, in Dulwich Gallery and the National Gallery. + +Philip Wouverman was born at Haarlem in 1620. He was the son of a +painter, able, but unrecognized in his own day. Philip Wouverman found +few patrons, disposed of his pictures by hard bargains to dealers, was +tempted by his want of success to abjure his art, and even went so far, +according to tradition, as to burn his studies and sketches, in order to +prevent his son pursuing the career which had been to him a career of +bitter disappointment. He died at Haarlem, 1668, when he was no more +than forty-eight years of age. Yet some nine hundred paintings bear +(many of them falsely) Wouverman's name. + +With all the truth and excellent execution of his contemporaries and +countrymen', Philip Wouverman, who had, as he thought, missed his mark, +had something which those successful men lacked--he had not only a +feeling for grace, but a touch of sentiment. His scenes are commonly +'road-side inns, hunts, fights;' but along with an inclination to adopt +a higher class of actors--knights and ladies, instead of peasants--there +is a more refined treatment and a dash of tenderness and melancholy--the +last possibly born of his own disastrous fortunes. In his love of horses +and dogs, as adjuncts to his groups, he had as great a fondness for a +special white horse, as Paul Potter had for black and white cattle. + +Albert Cuyp was born at Dort in 1605. He was a brewer by trade, and only +painted as an amateur. In spite of this, he was a great landscape +painter, and has given delight to thousands by his power of expressing +his own love of nature. Little is known of Cuyp's life, and the date of +his death is uncertain, farther than it was later than 1638. + +In affected enthusiasm, Cuyp has been called the Dutch Claude, but in +reality, Cuyp surpassed, Claude in some respects. The distinction, which +Mr Ruskin draws between them, is that, while Claude, in the sense of +beauty, is the superior to Cuyp, in the sense of truth Claude is the +inferior. Besides Cuyp's landscapes, he painted portraits, and what is +called 'still life' (dead game, fruit or flower pieces, etc.), but Cuyp's +triumph was found in his skies, with their 'clearness and coolness,' and +in 'expressions of yellow sunlight.' Mr Ruskin admits, while he is +proceeding to censure Cuyp, parts might be chosen out of the good +pictures of Cuyp which have never been equalled in art.' On another +occasion, Mr Ruskin has this passage full of dry humour in reference to +Cuyp: + +'Again, look at the large Cuyp in Dulwich Gallery, which Mr Hazlitt +considers "finest in the world," and of which he very complimentarily +says, "the tender green of the valleys, the gleaming lake, the purple +light of the hills" have an effect ought to have apologized before now +for not having studied sufficiently in Covent Garden to be provided with +terms of correct and classical criticism. One of my friends begged me to +observe, the other day, that Claude was "pulpy;" another added the yet +more gratifying information that he was "juicy;" and it is now happily +discovered that Cuyp is "downy." Now I dare say that the sky of this +first-rate Cuyp is very like an unripe nectarine: all that I have to say +about it is, that it is exceedingly unlike a sky. We may see for +ourselves Cuyp's lovely landscapes both in the National Gallery and at +Dulwich. + +Paul Potter was born at Enkhuysen, in North Holland, in 1625, and was +the son of a painter. Paul Potter settled, while still very young, at +the Hague as an animal painter, and died in his thirtieth year, in 1654. +His career, which was thus brief, had promised to be very successful, +and he had established his fame, while no more than twenty-two years of +age, by painting for Prince Maurice of Nassau that which continues his +most renowned, though probably not his best picture, his 'Young Bull,' +for some time in the Louvre, now restored to the painter's native +country, and placed in the Museum at the Hague. This picture is +considered nearly faultless as a vigorous, if somewhat coarse, +representation of animal life in the main figure; but Paul Potter's +later pictures, especially his smaller pictures of pastures with cattle +feeding, having fine colouring and fine treatment of light, are now +regarded as equally good in their essential excellences, and of wider +scope. Paul Potter etched as well as painted. There is no example of +Paul Potter in the National Gallery. + +Jan David de Heem[26] and his son Cornelius, the father born in 1603, +the son in 1630, and Maria Von Oesterwyck, the elder man's pupil, were +eminent Flemish and Dutch flower and fruit painters. The gorgeous bloom +and mellow ripeness in some of the flower and fruit pieces of Flemish +and Dutch painters, like those I have mentioned, are beyond description. +I would have you look at them for yourselves, where they are well +represented, in the Dulwich Gallery; I would have you notice also how, +as travellers declare of the splendour of tropical flowers, that they +are deficient in the tender sweetness and grace of our more sober-tinted +and less lavishly-blossoming English flowers; so these Flemish and Dutch +full blown flower pieces have not a trace of the sentiment which modern +flower painters cannot help seeking, with good result or bad result, to +introduce into every tuft of primroses or of violets, if not into every +cluster of grapes and bunch of cherries. + +From a fact which I have already mentioned, that so many Flemish and +Dutch pictures, which we may often come across, are in England, I am +sorry that my space will not suffer me to give a few special words to +other famous painters of these schools or school, for they merge into +one, to Snyders, Jan Steen, Gerard Dow, Ruysdael, Hobbema, Van de Velde, +etc., etc. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +SPANISH ART--VELASQUEZ, 1599-1660--MURILLO, 1618-1682. + + +Spanish art, from its dawn to the time of Velasquez, had been of a +'severely devotional character,' austere and formal; and although one +man did not work a revolution by his independent example, he did +something to humanize and widen art. In the rich city of Seville in +1599, Diego Rodriguez, de Silva y Velasquez,--and not, as he is +incorrectly called, Diego Velasquez de Silva, was born, and, according +to an Andalusian fashion, took his mother's name of Velasquez, while his +father was of the Portuguese house de Silva. Velasquez was gently born, +though his father was in no higher position than that of a lawyer in +Seville. + +The painter was well educated, though, according to his English +biographer (Sir W. Stirling Maxwell), 'he was still more diligent in +drawing on his grammars and copybooks than in turning them to their +legitimate use.' The lad's evident bent induced his father to painter. +He studied in two different Spanish studios, and married the daughter of +his second master, whom the talents, assiduity, and good qualities of +Velasquez had already strongly attached to the young painter. + +From the first, Velasquez struck out what was then a new line in Spanish +art. He gave himself up to the materialistic studies, to which the +Flemish and Dutch painters were prone, painting diligently 'still life' +in every form, taking his living subjects from the streets and +way-sides, and keeping a peasant lad as an apprentice, 'who served him +for a study in different actions and postures (sometimes crying, +sometimes laughing), till Velasquez had grappled with every variety of +expression.' The result of those studies was Velasquez's famous picture +of the 'Aguador,' or water-carrier of Seville, which was carried off by +Joseph Buonaparte in his flight from Spain, taken in his carriage at +Vittoria, and finally presented by Ferdinand VII, of Spain, as a +grateful offering to the Duke of Wellington, in whose gallery at Apsley +House the picture remains. 'It is a composition of three figures,' Sir +W. Stirling Maxwell writes; 'a sunburnt way-worn seller of water, +dressed in a tattered brown jerkin, with his huge earthen jars, and two +lads, one of whom receives a sparkling glass of the pure element, whilst +his companion quenches his thirst from a pipkin. The execution of the +heads and all the details is perfect; and the ragged trader dispensing a +few maravidi's worth of his simple stock, maintains, during the +transaction, a grave dignity of deportment, highly Spanish and +characteristic, and worthy of an emperor pledging a great vassal in +Tokay.' + +Just such a group may still be seen, or was to be seen till very lately, +in the quaint streets of Seville. I have read an anecdote of Velasquez +and this picture, which is quite probable, though I cannot vouch for +its accuracy. It is said that, while painting the water-carrier day +after day, when he had been engaged with his work for several hours, +Velasquez found himself vexed by perceiving, as it were, the effect of a +shadow cast by some of the drapery. Small flaw as it might have been, it +appeared to him to interfere with and spoil the picture. Again and +again, in endeavouring to do away with this 'shadow,' Velasquez undid +portions of his work, and had to repeat them next day, but always, +towards the end of his task, the invidious shadow stole upon his vision. +At last a friend, who was present and full of admiration for the +picture, heard Velasquez exclaim, 'That shadow again!' and saw him seize +a brush and prepare to dash it across the canvas. The friend +remonstrated, besought, and by main force held back the painter, and at +last induced him to leave the picture untouched till next day, when +Velasquez discovered, to his great relief, that the shadow had been in +his own wearied young eyes, and not in his admirable representation of +the 'Water-carrier.' + +Velasquez was in Madrid in 1623, when he was in his twenty-fifth year, +and having been introduced by the Prime Minister, Olivares, to the King +of Spain, Philip IV., a king who was only known to smile once or twice +in his lifetime, whose government was careless and blundering, but who +had the reputation of being a man of some intelligence and very +considerable taste,--Velasquez was received into the king's service with +a monthly salary of twenty ducats, and employed to paint the royal +portrait. + +From the time that he became court painter, Velasquez was largely +occupied in painting portraits of members of the royal family, with +special repetitions of the likeness of his most Catholic Majesty. With +Velasquez's first portrait of Philip in armour, mounted on an Andalusian +charger, the king was so pleased, that he permitted the picture to be +publicly exhibited, amidst the plaudits of the spectators, in front of +the church of San Felipe el Real in Madrid. Nor was the exhibition a +barren honour to the painter, for the king not only 'talked of +collecting and in future Velasquez should have the monopoly of the royal +countenance,' he paid three hundred ducats for the picture. + +About this time our own Charles I., then Prince of Wales, went in his +incognito of Charles Smith to Madrid on his romantic adventure of +seeking to woo and win, personally, the Infanta of Spain, and Velasquez +is said to have gained Charles's notice, and to have at least begun a +portrait of him. If it were ever completed it has been lost, a +misfortune which has caused spurious pictures, purporting to be the real +work, to be offered to the public. Sir W. Stirling Maxwell holds, with +great show of truth, that this visit of Charles to Madrid, when its +altars were 'glowing' with the pictures of Titian, confirmed the unhappy +king's taste for art. + +In 1628 Rubens came to Madrid as an envoy from the governess of the +Netherlands, and the two painters, who had many points in common, and +who had already corresponded, became fast friends. By the advice of +Rubens, Velasquez was induced to put into execution his cherished +desire of visiting Italy, the king granting his favourite painter leave +of absence, the continuance of his salary, and a special sum for his +expenses. + +Velasquez went to Venice first, and afterwards to Rome, where he was +offered, and declined, a suite of apartments in the Vatican, asking only +free access to the papal galleries. There he copied many portions of +Michael Angelo's 'Last Judgment'--not a hundred years old, and 'yet +undimmed by the morning and evening incense of centuries,' and portions +of the frescoes of Raphael. At Rome Velasquez found there before him, +Domenichino, Guido Reni, alternating 'between the excitements of the +gaming table and the sweet creations of his smooth flowing pencil;' +'Nicolas Poussin, an adventurer fresh from his Norman village; and +Claude Gelee, a pastry-cook's runaway apprentice from Lorraine.'[27] +Velasquez remained a year in Rome. Besides his studies he painted three +original pictures, one of them, 'Joseph's Coat,' well known among the +painter's comparatively rare religious works, and now in the Escurial. +In this picture his biographer acknowledges, that 'choosing rather to +display his unrivalled skill in delineating vulgar forms than to risk +his reputation in the pursuit of a more refined and idealized style,' +Velasquez's 'Hebrew patriarchs are swineherds of Estramadura or +shepherds of the Sierra Morena.' + +From Rome Velasquez proceeded to Naples, where he was enabled by his +prudence and forbearance to face without injury the disgraceful 'reign +of terror' which the Neapolitan artists had established in the south of +Italy. The Neapolitan artists more than any other Italian artists are +believed to have influenced Velasquez's style. + +In 1639 Velasquez painted his principal religious work, 'The +Crucifixion,' for the nunnery of San Placido in Madrid, a painting in +which his power has triumphed successfully over his halting imagination. + +With regard to the many court groups which Velasquez was constantly +taking, I may quote Sir W. Stirling Maxwell's amusing paragraph about a +curious variety of human beings in the Court Gallery. 'The Alcazar of +Madrid abounded with dwarfs in the days of Philip IV., who was very fond +of having them about him, and collected curious specimens of the race, +like other rarities. The Queen of Spain's gallery is, in consequence, +rich in portraits of these little monsters, executed by Velasquez. They +are, for the most part, very ugly, displaying, sometimes in an extreme +degree, the deformities peculiar to their stunted growth. Maria Barbola, +immortalized by a place in one of Velasquez's most celebrated pictures, +was a little dame about three feet and a half in height, with the head +and shoulders of a large woman, and a countenance much underjawed, and +almost ferocious in expression. Her companion, Nicolasito Pertusano, +although better proportioned than the lady, and of a more amicable +aspect, was very inferior in elegance as a royal plaything to his +contemporary, the valiant Sir Geoffrey Hudson; or his successor in the +next reign, the pretty Luisillo of Queen Louisa of Orleans. Velasquez +painted many portraits of these little creatures, generally seated on +the ground; and there is a large picture in the Louvre representing two +of them leading by a cord a great spotted hound, to which they bear the +same proportion that men of the usual size bear to a horse.' + +In 1648 Velasquez again visited Italy, sent by the king this time to +collect works of art for the royal galleries and the academy about to be +founded. Velasquez went by Genoa, Milan, Venice (buying there chiefly +the works of Tintoret), and Parma, to Rome and Naples, returning to +Rome. At Rome Velasquez painted his splendidly characteristic portrait +of the Pope Innocent X., 'a man of coarse features and surly expression, +and perhaps the ugliest of all the successors of St Peter.' + +Back at Madrid, Philip continued to load Velasquez and his family with +favours, appointing the painter Quarter-Master-General of the king's +household with a salary of three thousand ducats a year, and the right +of carrying at his girdle a key which opened every lock in the palace. + +Philip is said to have raised Velasquez to knighthood in a manner as +gracious as the manner of Charles V, when he lifted up Titian's pencil. +In painting one of his most renowned pictures, to which I shall refer +again, 'The Maids of Honour,' Velasquez included himself at work on a +large picture of the royal family. The painter represented himself with +the key of his office at his girdle, and on his breast the red cross of +the Order of Santiago. Philip, who came every day to see the progress of +this picture, remarked in reference to the figure of the artist, that +'one thing was yet wanting, and taking up the brush painted the knightly +insignia with his own royal fingers, thus conferring the accolade with a +weapon not recognized in chivalry.' + +As it is believed, Velasquez's court office, with all its prestige and +influence, helped in causing his death. King Philip went in June, 1660, +to the Isle of Pheasants in the river Bidassa, where, on ground which +was neither Spanish nor French, the Spanish and French courts were to +meet and celebrate with the greatest magnificence the marriage of the +Grand Monarque and the Infanta Maria Teresa. One of Velasquez's +official duties was to prepare lodgings for the king on his journeys, +and in this instance the lodging included not only the decoration of the +castle of Fuenterrabia, but the erection of a sumptuous pavilion in +which the interviews of the assembled kings and queens and their +revelries were to be held. Velasquez did his part of the preparations, +and doubtless shared in the royal festivities, but returned to Madrid so +worn out by his undertaking, and by constant attendance on his master, +that he was seized with tertian fever, of which he died a few days +later, while but in his sixty-first year, to the great grief of his +countrymen, and above all of his king. Velasquez's wife, Dona Juana, +died eight days after her husband, and was buried in his grave. The +couple left one surviving child, a daughter, married to a painter. + +In one picture, now at Vienna, Velasquez gives a glimpse of his family +life at a time when it would seem that he had four sons and two +daughters, so that the fortunate painter's home had not been free from +one shadow--that of death, which must have robbed him of five of his +children. In this pleasant picture, 'his wife dressed in a brown tunic +over a red petticoat, sits in the foreground of a large room, with a +pretty little girl leaning on her knees, and the rest of her children +grouped around her; behind are the men in deep shadow, one of them, +perhaps, being Mazo, the lover or the husband of the eldest daughter, +and a nurse with a child; and in an alcove Velasquez himself appears, +standing before his easel, at work on a portrait of Philip IV. This is +one of the most important works of the master out of the Peninsula; the +faces of the family sparkle on the sober background like gems. As a +piece of easy actual life, the composition has never been surpassed, and +perhaps it excels even "The Meninas," inasmuch as the hoops and dwarfs +of the palace have not intruded upon the domestic privacy of the +painter's home, in the northern gallery.'[28] + +Velasquez seems to have been a man of honour and amiability. He filled +a difficult office at the most jealous court in Europe with credit. He +was true to his friends, and helpful to his brother artists. His +biographer writes of Velasquez as handsome in person, and describes his +costume when he appeared for the last time with his king in the galas at +Pheasants' Isle:--'over a dress richly laced with silver he wore the +usual Castilian ruff, and a short cloak embroidered with the red cross +of Santiago; the badge of the order, sparkling with brilliants, was +suspended from his neck by a gold chain; and the scabbard and hilt of +his sword were of silver, exquisitely chased, and of Italian +workmanship.' In the likeness of Velasquez, which is the frontispiece of +Sir W. Stirling Maxwell's 'Life,' the painter appears as a man of +swarthy complexion, with a long compressed upper lip, unconcealed by his +long, elaborately trimmed moustache; his hair, or wig, is arranged in +two large frizzed bunches on each side of a face which is inclined to be +lantern-jawed. He wears a dark doublet with a 'standing white collar.' + +Velasquez's excellence as a painter was to be found, like that of +Rembrandt, in his truth to nature; but the field of truth presented to +the stately Spaniard, while it had its own ample share of humour, was a +widely different field from that which offered itself to the Dutch +burgher. Together with absolute truth, Velasquez had the ease and +facility in expressing truth which are only acquired by a great master. +Like Rubens, Velasquez made essays in many branches of painting. In +sacred art, if we except his 'Crucifixion,' he did not attain a high +place. With regard to his landscapes, Sir David Wilkie bore +witness:--'Titian seems his model, but he has also the breadth and +picturesque effect for which Claude and Salvator Rosa are remarkable;' +and Sir David added of those landscapes, 'they have the very same sun we +see, and the air we breathe, the very soul and spirit of nature.' + +Velasquez's _genre_ pictures, to which I shall refer by and by, are +excellent, but the fate was kind which confined him largely to portrait +painting. It was brought as a reproach against Velasquez in his +lifetime, that he could paint a head and nothing else, to which he +replied with mingled spirit, sense, and good nature, that his detractors +flattered him, 'for he knew nobody of whom it could be said that he +painted a head thoroughly well.' + +Sir W. Stirling Maxwell asserts of Velasquez's portrait painting, that +no artist 'ever followed nature with more catholic fidelity; his +cavaliers are as natural as his boors; he neither refined the vulgar, +nor vulgarized the refined,' and goes on to quote this among other +criticism:--'his portraits baffle description and praise; he drew the +minds of men; they live, breathe, and are ready to walk out of the +frames.' Sir William winds up with the enthusiastic declaration, 'Such +pictures as these are real history; we know the persons of Philip IV, +and Olivares, as familiarly as if we had paced the avenues of the Pardo +with Digby and Howell, and perhaps we think more favourably of their +characters.' + +I shall borrow still further from Sir W. Stirling Maxwell's graphic and +entertaining book, descriptions of two of Velasquez's _genre_ pictures, +'The Maids of Honour,' and the more celebrated 'Spinners,' both at +Madrid. 'The scene (of the first) is a long room in a quarter of the old +palace which was called the prince's quarter, and the subject, Velasquez +at work on a large picture of the royal family. To the extreme right of +the composition is seen the back of the easel and the canvas on which he +is engaged; and beyond it spalette, pausing to converse, and to observe +the effect of his performance. In the centre stands the little Infanta +Maria Margarita, taking a cup of water from a salver which Dona Maria +Augustina Sarmiento, maid of honour to the queen, presents kneeling. To +the left, Dona Isabel de Velasco, another menina, seems to be dropping a +courtesy; and the dwarfs, Maria Barbolo and Nicolas Pertusano, stand in +the foreground, the little man putting his foot on the quarters of a +great tawny hound, which despises the aggression, and continues in a +state of solemn repose. Some paces behind these figures, Dona Marcela de +Ulloa, a lady of honour in nun-like weeds, and a _guardadimas,_ are seen +in conversation; at the far end of the room an open door gives a view of +a staircase, up which Don Josef Nieto, queen's apasentador, is retiring; +and near this door there hangs on the wall a mirror, which, reflecting +the countenance of the king and queen, shows that they form part of the +principal group, although placed beyond the bounds of the picture. The +room is hung with paintings which Palomino assures us are works of +Rubens; and it is lighted by three windows in the left wall, and by the +open door at the end, an arrangement of which an artist will at once +comprehend the difficulties. The perfection of art which conceals art, +was never better attained than in this picture. Velasquez seems to have +anticipated the discovery of Daguerre, and taking a real room, and real +chance grouped people, to have fixed them, as it were by magic, for all +time on his canvas. The little fair-haired Infanta is a pleasing study +of childhood; with the hanging-lip and full cheek of the Austrian +family, she has a fresh complexion and lovely blue eyes, and gives a +promise of beauty which as empress she never fulfilled. Her young +attendants, girls of thirteen or fourteen, contrast agreeably with the +ill-favoured dwarf beside them; they are very pretty, especially Dona +Isabel de Velasco, who died a reigning beauty, and their hands are +painted with peculiar delicacy. Their dresses are highly absurd, their +figures being concealed by long stiff corsets and prodigious hoops; for +these were the days when the mode was-- + + "Supporters, pooters, fardingales, above the loynes to weare;" + +and the _guardainfante_, the oval hoop peculiar to Spain, was in full +blow; and the robes of a dowager might have curtained the tun of +Heidelberg, and the powers of Velasquez were baffled by the perverse +fancy of "Fribble, the woman's tailor." The gentle and majestic hound, +stretching himself and winking drowsily, is admirably painted, and seems +a descendant of the royal breed immortalized by Titian in portraits of +the Emperor Charles and his son.' + +'The Spinners:' 'The scene is a large weaving-room, in which an old +woman and young one sit, the first at her spinning-wheel, and the +second winding yarn, with three girls beside them, one of whom plays +with a cat. In the background, standing within an alcove filled with the +light from an unseen window, are two other women displaying a large +piece of tapestry to a lady customer, whose graceful figure recalls that +which has given its name to Terburg's picture of "The Satin Gown." Of +the composition, the painter Mengs observed, "it seemed as if the hand +had no part in it, and it had been the work of pure thought."' +Velasquez, who must have seen many a bull fight, has left the world a +fine example of field sports in 'The Boar Hunt,' in our National +Gallery, a picture which was bought for two thousand two hundred pounds +from Lord Cowley. When ambassador at the Court of Spain, it was given to +him by Ferdinand VII. In a circular pen in the Pardo, 'Philip IV. and a +party of cavaliers display their skill in slaying boars, to a few +ladies, who sit secure in heavy old-fashioned blue coaches,' while +motley groups of courtiers and peasants, huntsmen and hounds, postilions +and their mules fill the foreground. Sir Edwin Landseer remarked of +this picture that he had never before seen 'so much large art on so +small a scale.' + +Bartolome Estevan Murillo was born at Seville in 1618, and was therefore +nearly twenty years younger than his great countryman Velasquez. Murillo +seems to have been of obscure origin, and to have begun his life in +humble circumstances. There are traditions of his being self-taught, of +his studying ragged boys, himself little more than a boy, in the gypsy +quarter of Triana in Seville; of his painting in the marketplace, where +he probably found the originals of the heads of saints and Madonnas (by +which he made a little money in selling them for South America) in the +peasants who came to Seville with their fruit and vegetables. In 1642, +Murillo, then twenty-four years of age, visited Madrid, and was kindly +received, and aided in his art by his senior and fellow artist, the +court painter, Velasquez. It had been Murillo's intention to proceed to +England to study under Van Dyck, but the death of the latter put a stop +to the project. Murillo was prevented from making the painter's +pilgrimage to Italy by want of means, but the loss of culture was so far +supplied by the instructions given to him by Velasquez. + +In 1645, when Murillo was twenty-seven years of age, he returned to +Seville, and settled there, becoming as successful as he deserved; and +being acknowledged as the head of the school of Seville, where he +established the Academy of Art, and was its first president. Murillo +married, in 1648, a lady of some fortune, and was accustomed to +entertain at his house the most exclusive society of Seville. + +In 1682, Murillo was at Cadiz painting a picture of the marriage of St +Catherine in the church of the Capuchins there, when, in consequence of +the accidental fall of the scaffolding, he received so severe an injury, +that he was forced to leave his work incomplete, and to return to +Seville, where he died within a few weeks, aged sixty-four years. He had +two sons, and an only daughter, who was a nun, having taken the veil +eight years before her father's death. + +Murillo appears to have been in character a gentle, enthusiastic man, +not without a touch of fun and frolic. He would remain for hours in the +sacristy of the cathedral of Seville before 'the solemn awful picture of +the 'Deposition from the Cross,' by Pedro de Campana. When Murillo was +asked by the sacristan why he stood thus gazing there, the painter +answered, 'I am waiting till these holy men have finished their work.' +By his own desire, Murillo was buried before this picture. Before +another 'too truthful picture of Las dos Cadaveres' in the small church +of the hospital of the Caridad, Murillo used to hold his nose. One of +Murillo's pictures has the odd name of 'La Virgen Sarvilleta,' or the +Virgin of the Napkin. Murillo was working at the Convento de la Merced, +which is almost filled with his works, when the cook of the convent +begged a memorial of him, offering as the canvas a napkin, on which +Murillo at once painted a 'brilliant glowing Madonna,' with a child, +'which seems quite to bound forward out of the picture.'[29] + +Murillo's portrait by himself represents him in a dark doublet having +wide sleeves and a square collar closed in front. His thumb is in his +pallet, and the other hand, with fingers taper and delicate as those of +a hand by Van Dyck, holds one of his brushes. The smooth face, with +regular features, is pale and thoughtful, and with the womanliness of +the aspect increased from the dark hair, which is divided slightly to +one side, being allowed to fall down in long wavy curls on the +shoulders. + +In spite of the naturalistic studies of his early youth, and even of the +naturalistic treatment which he gave to his first religious work, +Murillo was possessed of greater and higher imagination than Velasquez +could claim, and the longer Murillo lived and worked the more refined +and exalted his ideas became. Unlike Velasquez, Murillo was a great +religious painter, and during the last years of his life he painted +sacred subjects almost exclusively. But, like Velasquez, Murillo was +eminently a Spanish painter--his virgins are dark-eyed, +olive-complexioned maidens, and even his Holy Child is a Spanish babe. + +Without the elevation and the training of the best Italian painters, +Murillo has left abundant proofs of great original genius. The painter's +works are widely circulated, but the chief are still in Seville. Six are +in the church of the Caridad, and these six include his famous 'Moses +striking the Rock,' and his 'Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes;' seven +'Murillos' are in the Convento de la Merced, among them Murillo's own +favourite picture, which he called 'Mi Cicadro' of 'St Thomas of +Villaneuva.' 'St Thomas was the favourite preacher of Charles V., and +was created Archbishop of Valencia, where he seemed to spend the whole +of his revenues in charity, yet never contracted any debt, so that his +people used to believe that angels must minister to his temporal wants. +He is represented at his cathedral door, distributing alms, robed in +black, with a white mitre. A poor cripple kneels at his feet, and other +mendicants are grouped around.' + +In the cathedral, Seville, is Murillo's 'Angel de la Guarda,' 'in which +a glorious seraph, with spreading wings, leads a little trustful child +by the hand, and directs him to look beyond earth into the heavenly +light;' and his 'St Antonio.' 'The saint is represented kneeling in a +cell, of which all the poor details are faithfully given, while the long +arcade of the cloister can be seen through the half-open door. Above, in +a transparent light, which grows from himself, the Child Jesus appears, +and descends, floating through wreaths of angels, drawn down by the +power of prayer.'[30] + +Another of Murillo's renowned pictures is that of the patron saints of +Seville, 'Santa Rufina and Santa Justina,' who were stoned to death for +refusing to bow down to the image of Venus. + +With regard to Murillo's pictures of flower-girls and beggar-boys, I +think my readers are sure to have seen an engraving of one of the +former, '_The_ Flower-Girl,' as it is called, with a face as fresh and +radiant as her flowers. In the National Gallery there is a large Holy +Family of Murillo's, and in Dulwich Gallery there is a laughing boy, an +irresistible specimen of brown-cheeked, white-teethed drollery. + + + + +CHAPTER X. + +ART--NICOLAS POUSSIN, 1594-1665--CLAUDE[31] LORRAINE, 1600-1682--CHARLES +LE BRUN, 1619-1690--WATTEAU, 1684-1721--GREUZE, 1726-1805. + + +Nicolas Poussin was born at Andely in Normandy in 1594. Of his parentage +little seems to have been ascertained, but it is believed that he was +well educated, and his classical learning in after life was reckoned +great. He was regularly trained to be a painter under a master in his +native town, and afterwards in Paris. + +Dissatisfied with the patronage which he received in Paris, Poussin went +to Rome when he was about thirty years of age. In Rome he is said to +have lived on familiar terms with a sculptor whose devotion to antique +art influenced his taste, and lent it the strong classical bent which it +retained. Poussin studied regularly in the school of Domenichino. After +some delay in attracting public notice, 'The Death of Germanicus,' and +'The Capture of Jerusalem,' which Poussin painted for Cardinal +Barberini, won general approval. In 1629, when Nicolas Poussin was in +his thirty-fifth year, he married the sister of his pupil, Gaspar +Dughet, who took Poussin's name, and is known as a painter, inferior to +his master, by the name of Gaspar Poussin. + +Nicolas Poussin returned to Paris when he was a middle-aged man, was +presented to the king, Louis XIII., by Cardinal Richelieu, and offered +apartments in the Tuileries, with the title of painter in ordinary, and +a salary of a hundred and twenty pounds a year. Poussin agreed to settle +in Paris, but on his going back to Rome to fetch his wife, and on the +King of France's dying, the attractions of the Eternal City proved too +great for the painter, and in place of removing his home to his native +country, he lived for the rest of his years in Rome, and died there in +1665, when he was seventy-one years of age. Except what can be judged of +him from his work, I do not know that much has been gathered of the +private character and life of Nicolas Poussin, notwithstanding that +there was a biography written of him fifty years ago by Lady Calcott, +and that his letters have been published in Paris. In the absence of +conclusive testimony one may conclude with some probability that he was +'quiet,' like his best paintings; a man who minded his own business, and +did not trouble the world by astonishing actions, good or bad.[32] + +In painting his own picture, from which an engraving has been taken, +Poussin's classical preferences seem to have passed into the likeness, +for in the dress of the seventeenth century, the cloak (not unlike a +toga), the massive hand with the heavy signet-ring resting on what looks +like a closed portfolio, the painter has something of the severe air and +haughty expression of an old Roman; still more, perhaps, of the +French-Romans, if I may call them so, of whom revolutionary times +nearly two centuries later, afforded so many examples. This is a +handsome, dignified face, with austerity in its pride. The slightly +curled hair is thrown back with a certain consciousness from the knit +brow, and from the shoulders. There is only the faintest shadow of a +moustache over the cleanly cut, firmly closed mouth. + +Poussin painted largely, and his pictures have been often engraved. With +harmonious composition, good drawing and colouring, his pictures alike +profited and suffered from the classical atmosphere in which they had +their being. They gained in that correctness which in its highest form +becomes noble truthfulness, but they lost in freedom. The figures in the +pictures had frequently the statuesqueness which in sculpture suits the +material, but in painting is stiffness. + +Nicolas Poussin had an exceptional reputation for a historical painter +in his day. As a landscape painter, Mr Ruskin, while waging war with +Nicolas Poussin's brother-in-law and assumed namesake, Gaspar, notably +excepts Nicolas from his severest strictures, and treats his efforts in +landscape painting with marked respect. At the same time, however, the +critic censures the painter for a want of thorough acquaintance with +nature, and the laws of nature, ignorance not uncommon in any day, and +nearly universal in Nicolas Poussin's day. 'The great master of elevated +ideal landscape,' Mr Ruskin calls Nicolas Poussin, and illustrates his +excellence in one respect, after contrasting it with the slovenliness of +Sir Joshua Reynolds, by describing the vine in Poussin's 'Nursing of +Jupiter,' in the Dulwich Gallery, thus:-- + +'Every vine-leaf, drawn with consummate skill and untiring diligence, +produces not only a true group of the most perfect grace and beauty, but +one which in its pure and simple truth belongs to every age of nature, +and adapts itself to the history of all time.' 'One of the finest +landscapes that ancient art has produced, the work of a really great +mind,' Mr Ruskin distinguishes the 'Phocian' of Nicolas Poussin in the +National Gallery, before proceeding to point out its faults. + +Again, Mr Ruskin, writing of the street in the centre of another +landscape by Nicolas Poussin, indicates it with emphasis:--'the street +in the centre of the really great landscape of Poussin (great in +feeling, at least) marked 260 in the Dulwich Gallery,' The criticism +with which Mr Ruskin follows up this praise is so perfect a bit of +word-painting, that I cannot refrain from writing it down here. 'The +houses are dead square masses, with a light side and a dark side, and +black touches for windows. There is no suggestion of anything in any of +the spaces, the light wall is dead grey, the dark wall dead grey, and +the windows dead black. How differently would nature have treated us. +She would have let us see the Indian corn hanging on the walls, and the +image of the Virgin of the tiled eaves, and the deep ribbed tiles with +the doves upon them, and the carved Roman capital built into the wall, +and the white and blue stripes of the mattresses stuffed out of the +windows, and the flapping corners of the neat blinds. All would have +been there; not as such, not like the corn, nor blinds, nor tiles, not +to be comprehended nor understood, but a confusion of yellow and black +spots and strokes, carried far too fine for the eye to follow; +microscopic in its minuteness, and filling every atom and space with +mystery, out of which would have arranged itself the general impression +of truth and life.' Once more, Mr Ruskin freely admits that 'all the +landscape of Nicolas Poussin is imagination.' + +Mr Ruskin's first definition of ideal landscape is in this manner. Every +different tree and leaf, every bud, has a perfect form, which, were it +not for disease or accident, it would have attained; just as every +individual human face has an ideal form, which but for sin and suffering +it would present: and the ideal landscape-painter has realized the +perfect form, and offers it to the world, and that in a sense quite +distinct from the fallacy of improving nature. + +But I wish to take my readers further into imaginative landscape, and to +show it to them, if possible, under additional lights. I despair of +succeeding if I cannot do it by one or two simple examples. In passing +through a gallery we may stop before a picture to be struck, almost +startled, by the exact copy which it presents of some scene in nature; +how like the clouds in the sky, the leaves on the trees, the very +plumage of the birds! But pass on to another picture which may or may +not have the same exact likeness, and we are possessed with quite +another feeling; instead of being merely surprised by the cleverness of +the imitation, we feel a thrill of delight at a reproduction of nature. +In this picture there are not only the clouds we remember, but we can +almost feel the shadows which they cast, and the air which stirs them. +These tree-leaves are not only green, or yellow, or russet, they are +tender, or crisp living leaves. One half expects to see the birds' +throats swell, and hear the sweetness or the shrillness of their songs. + +The first picture, with all its correctness, brightness, richness, or +delicacy it may be, remains bare, hard, and barren, compared to the +second. I cannot explain to my readers the cause of the difference, I +can Only show it to them as they may see it for themselves, and say +that I suppose it proceeds from this--that the second painter has seen +farther into the heart of nature than the first, and has been able by +subtler touches to make us see with his eyes. + +But imaginative landscape is much more than this vivid feeling and +expression of nature; there is not a cloud, or leaf, or bird too many or +out of keeping with the place and the hour. The clouds are the very +clouds of sunset, or sunrise, or high noon--clouds differing widely from +each other, as you have no doubt observed. The trees are the beeches, or +chestnuts, or pines, which would grow on the conformation of rocks, in +the sheltered nook, or on the breezy upland; the birds are the linnets +or the larks, the thrushes or the lapwings, which frequent these special +trees, and may be seen and heard at this particular hour. + +Again, landscape often tells a story, and tells it inimitably. My +readers have heard of the ballad of the 'Two Corbies,' which the writer +of the ballad has made to meet and tell gruesomely where and on what +carrion their feast has been. Suppose the writer of the ballad had been +a painter, he might have painted the story as intelligibly by the lone +hill-side, the bleaching bones of the faithful hound and gallant grey, +the two loathly blue-black birds satiated with their prey. There is a +significant old Scotch song with a ballad ring, by Lady Nairne, two +verses of which form each a complete picture not only of different +seasons, but of different phases of feeling--happiness and misery. + + 'Bonnie ran the burnie down, + Wandering and winding; + Sweetly sang the birds aboon, + Care never minding. + + 'But now the burn comes down apace, + Roaring and reaming, + And for the wee birdies' sang + Wild howlets screaming.' + +Imagine these two verses painted, and the painter, from a lack of +comprehension, introducing the 'wild howlets screaming' _beside the +burnie_, 'wandering and winding,' and the 'wee birdies' foolishly and +inconsequently singing with their feeble song drowned in the rush of the +burn (no longer a burnie), 'roaring and reaming,' when the 'spate' is +spreading desolation on every side. Don't you see how the picture would +be spoilt, and the story of complete contrast left untold? I have taken +advisedly an extreme and, therefore an unlikely case of halting +imagination. But in imaginative landscape every 'white flower with its +purple stain,' every crushed butterfly, is made to play its part in the +whole, and at the same time due proportion is never lost sight of, and +the less is always kept subordinate to the greater. + +I have already had occasion to mention examples of Nicolas Poussin in +the National Gallery and in Dulwich Gallery. + +Claude Gelee, better known as Claude Lorraine, was a native of Lorraine, +and was born at Chateau de Chamagne in the Vosges, in 1600. His parents +were in humble life, and apprenticed Claude to a baker and pastry-cook. +According to some biographers the cooks of Lorraine were in such request +that they occasionally repaired to Rome with their apprentices in their +train to serve the successor of St Peter, and Claude was thus carried, +in the way of trade, to the city which might well have been the goal of +his ambition. According to other writers of art histories, Claude +abandoned the kneading-trough and the oven; and it was as a runaway +apprentice that by some occult means he reached Rome. And when he had +arrived he entered into the service of a landscape painter of good +repute, to whom he was colour-boy as well as cook. The last is the +account, so far, which Claude gave of himself to a friend, and it is +hardly likely either that he misrepresented his history, or that his +friend invented such details, though lately French authorities have +questioned the authenticity of the narrative. Claude remained for nearly +the entire remainder of a long life in Rome. He only once re-visited +France, while he was yet a young man, under thirty years of age, in 1625 +or 1627. He is supposed to have painted his earliest pictures and +executed his etchings about this time, 1630 and to have painted his best +pictures fifteen years later, when he was in the maturity of his life +and powers. He was counted successful during his life time, as a +landscape painter, but did not amass a larger fortune than about two +thousand pounds.[33] He was a slow and careful painter (working a +fortnight at a picture with little apparent progress); his painstaking +work, and his custom of keeping a book, in which he verified his +pictures, are about the most that I can tell you of the habits of one of +the foreign painters, who has been most fully represented in England, +and was long in the highest favour with English lovers of art. Claude +Lorraine died at Rome in the eighty-third year of his age, in 1682. + +Claude Lorraine's name has become a very vexed name with art critics. +There was a time when he had an unsurpassed reputation as a landscape +painter. The possession of a Claude was enough to confer art glory on a +country-house, and possibly for this reason England, in public and +private collections, has more 'Claudes' than are held by any other +country. But Claude's admirers, among whom Sir George Beaumont, the +great art critic of his generation, took the lead, have had their day, +and, if they have not by any means passed away, are on the wane. + +The wrathful indignation of the English landscape painter, Turner, at +the praise which was so glibly lavished on Claude--an indignation that +caused Turner to bequeath two of his own landscape paintings to the +trustees of the National Gallery, on the caustic condition that they +should always be placed between the two celebrated 'Claudes,' known as +'The Marriage of Isaac and Rebecca' and 'The Embarkation of the Queen of +Sheba'--helped to shake the English art world's faith in its former +idol. Mr Ruskin's adoption and proclamation of Turner's opinion shook +the old faith still further. This reversal of a verdict with regard to +Claude is peculiar; it is by no means uncommon for the decision of +contemporaries to be set aside, and we shall hear of an instance +presently, in the case of the painter Le Brun. In fact, it is often +ominous with regard to a man's future fame, when he is 'cried up to the +skies' in his own day. The probability may be that his easy success has +been won by something superficial and fleeting. But Claude's great +popularity has been in another generation, and with another nation. +English taste may have been in fault; or another explanation seems +preferable--that Claude's sense of beauty was great, with all its faults +of expression, and he gave such glimpses of a beautiful world as the +gazers on his pictures were capable of receiving, which to them proved +irresistible. + +While Claude adopted an original style as a landscape painter, so far as +his contemporaries were concerned, he was to such a degree self taught, +and only partially taught, that it is said he never learnt to paint +figures--those in his pictures were painted by other painters, and that +Claude even painted animals badly. + +Mr Ruskin has been hard on Claude, whether justly or unjustly, I cannot +pretend to say. + +The critic denies the painter not only a sense of truth in art, but all +imagination as a landscape painter 'Of men of name,' Mr Ruskin writes, +'Perhaps Claude is the best instance of a want of imagination, nearly +total, borne out by painful but untaught study of nature, and much +feeling for abstract beauty of form, with none whatever for harmony of +expression.' Mr Ruskin condemns in the strongest terms 'the mourning and +murky olive browns and verdigris greens, in which Claude, with the +industry and intelligence of a Sevres china painter, drags the laborious +bramble leaves over his childish foreground.' But Mr Ruskin himself +acknowledges, with a reservation, Claude's charm in foliage, and +pronounces more conditionally his power, when it was at its best, in +skies--a region in which the greater, as well as the less, Poussin was +declared to fail signally; 'a perfectly genuine and untouched sky of +Claude,' Mr Ruskin writes, 'is indeed most perfect, and beyond praise, +in all qualities of air; though even with him I often feel rather that +there is a great deal of pleasant air between me and the firmament, than +that the firmament itself is only air.' + +When all has been said that can be said, let us look at a mellow or a +sunny Claude on any wall where it may hang, and judge for ourselves of +the satisfaction it is calculated to give. + +Claude was fond of painting scenes on the Tiber and in the Roman +Campagna, but while he tried to reproduce the hills and woodlands of +Italy, he did not seek to paint the mountain landscapes of the +Apennines. + +Besides Claude's numerous works in England and scattered through other +countries, some of his finest paintings are in the Doria and Sciarra +palaces in Rome. He rarely put his name to his works; when he did so he +signed it frequently 'Claudio,' sometimes 'Claudius.' I have spoken of +his book of sketches, in which he had been wont to note on the back of +the sketch the date of the completed picture, and to whom sold. This +book he called the 'Libro di Verita,' or, Book of Truth, and its +apparent use was to check the sale of spurious paintings in Claude's +name, even during his lifetime. The 'Book of Truth' is in possession of +the Duke of Devonshire, and has been employed in recent years with +reference to the end for which it seemed designed, so woe to that +country-house which has long pride that 'Claude' does not happen to have +a place in the 'Book of Truth,' though I do not know that it is at all +certain that Claude took the precaution of inscribing _every_ painting +which he painted after a certain date in the 'Book of Truth.' + +Claude Lorraine is well represented in the National Gallery. Engravings +of his pictures are common. + +Charles le Brun was born in Paris, in 1619. He was trained to be a +painter, and went young to Rome, studying there for six years under the +guidance of Nicolas Poussin. Le Brun returned to Paris, and, through the +patronage of the Chancellor Segnier, was introduced to the court, and +got the most favourable opportunities of practising his profession with +worldly success. He speedily acquired a great name, and was appointed +painter to the King, Louis XIV. Le Brun had enough influence with his +royal master, and with the great minister Colbert, to succeed in +establishing, while the painter was yet a young man, the Royal Academy +of Art, of which he was the first member, and virtually the head, +holding, in his own person, the directorship of the Gobelin tapestry +works, which was to be the privilege of a member of the Academy. Le Brun +continued in the utmost favour with the King, who, not content with +employing the painter largely at Fontainebleau and in Versailles, +invested him with the order of St Michael, bestowed on him letters of +nobility, and visited him frequently at his work, occasions when there +were not wanting adroit courtiers to liken the Grand Monarque to the +Emperor Charles V., and Le Brun to Titian. + +Le Brun seems to have been a man of energy, confidence, and industry, +neither mentally before nor after his time, and by no means too +retiring, meditative, or original, to fail to profit by his outward good +fortune. He wrote, as well as painted, artistic treatises, which were +received as oracular utterances, and entirely deferred to in the schools +of his day. He died at Paris in 1690, when he was in his seventieth +year. + +Le Brun's real merits as a painter were limited to respectable abilities +and acquirements, together with florid quickness and ease, and such an +eye to what was splendid and scenic as suited admirably a decorator of +palaces in an age which prized sumptuousness, and an exaggeration of +dramatic effect, over every other quality. Nicolas Poussin's quiet +refinement of style became in Le Brun what is called academic +(conventionally learned), pompous, and grandiose, and men decidedly +preferred the degeneration. But later critics, who have not the natural +partiality of the French to the old master, return to their first loves, +and condemn Le Brun's swelling violence, both in the tints and poses of +his figures. Among his most famous works, which have been magnificently +engraved, are his 'Battles of Alexander.' + +Antoine Watteau was born at Valenciennes in 1684. A very different +painter from Le Brun, he was yet as characteristic of French art in the +reign of Louis XIV. I think my readers must be familiar with his name, +and I dare say they associate it, as I do, not only with the fans which +were painted largely after his designs, but with mock pastorals and +Sevres china. I don't know if his birth-place at Valenciennes, with its +chief product of dainty lace, had anything to do with it, but the other +items of poor Watteau's history are considerably removed from the very +artificial grace which one connects with his name. He was the son of a +carpenter, and struggled up, by the hard instrumentality of third-rate +masters and of picture-dealers, to the rank which he attained among +artists, taking his stand from the first, however, as the painter of +well-bred, well-apparelled people--the frequenters of _bals masques,_ +and _fetes champetres,_ who were only playing at shepherds and +shepherdesses. + +Watteau was elected an Academician in 1717, when he was thirty-three +years of age, and he afterwards came to England, but did not remain +there. He died of consumption at Nogent-sur-Marne in 1721, when he was +thirty-six years of age.[34] Watteau's gifts were his grace and +brilliance on a small scale. He did not draw well; as to design, his +composition may be said to be suited to such a work as the collection of +'fashionable figures,' which he engraved and left behind him. Yet, if we +were to see at this moment some of his exquisite groups of ladies in +sacques and Watteau hats, and cavaliers in flowing wigs and lace, +cravats, I have no doubt that the most of us would admire them much, for +they are exceedingly pretty, and exceeding prettiness is attractive, +particularly to women. But I would have my readers to remember that this +art is a finical and soulless art, after all. I would fain have them +take this as their maxim, 'That the art is greatest which conveys to the +mind of the spectator, by any means whatsoever, the greatest number of +the greatest ideas.' + +Jean Baptiste Greuze was born at Tournus in Burgundy in 1726. He studied +painting from his youth in the studios of artists at Lyons, Paris, and +Rome, and his studies resulted in his being a celebrated genre painter. +He only painted one historical picture, but, with the touchy vanity +which seemed natural to the man, he ranked his genre pictures as high +art; and when he was placed in the ordinary list of genre painters on +his election as a member of the French Academy of Painting, Greuze +resented the imputation, and withdrew from the Academy. He died in 1805, +aged seventy-nine years. Greuze was a showy, clever, but neither earnest +nor truthful painter of domestic subjects and family pictures. His +pictures of women and heads of girls, the expression in some of which +has been severely condemned, are among his best known works, and by +these he is represented in the National Gallery.[35] + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + +HOLBEIN, 1494-1543--VAN DYCK, 1599-1641--LELY, 1618-1680--CANALETTO, +1697-1768--KNELLER, 1646-1723. + + +Hans Holbein, sometimes entitled Hans the Younger, was born at Augsburg +about 1494 or 1495. He was the son of a painter, and belonged to a +family of painters, one or more of whom had preceded Hans Holbein in +leaving Augsburg, and taking up his residence at Basle. There Holbein +was under the patronage of, and on terms of friendly intercourse with, +the great scholar Erasmus. One bad result proceeded from this friendly +familiarity, that of establishing or originating the charge that +Holbein, as a young man, at least, was coarse and dissipated in his +habits. The evidence is sufficiently curious. There is still in +existence the copy of a Latin book, called the 'Praise of Folly,' +written by Erasmus, which Holbein, not being a scholar, could not have +read for himself, but which, according to tradition, Erasmus himself, +or some other friend, read to him, while Holbein was so delighted with +the satire that he covered the margin of the book with illustrative +sketches. (The sketches remain, and are unmistakably Holbein's.) +Opposite a passage, recording the want of common sense and energy in +many learned men, Holbein had drawn the figure of a student, and written +below, '_Erasmus_.' The book coming again into the hands of Erasmus, he +was offended with the liberty taken by the painter., and sought to +retaliate in kind by writing below the sketch of a rude boor drinking, +'_Holbein_.' In spite of the rough jesting, the friendship between +scholar and painter was not interrupted. + +In these early days Holbein sometimes practised painting on glass, after +the example of some of his kinsmen. At Basle, Holbein painted what is +considered his finest work, the 'Meier Madonna,' now at Darmstadt, with +a copy in the Dresden Gallery, and there he executed the designs for his +series of woodcuts of the 'Dance of Death.' + +At Basle Holbein married, while still a young man. The presumption that +the painter's marriage, like that of his countryman, Albert Duerer, was +unhappy, has rested on the foundation that he left his wife and her +children behind when he repaired to England, and that although he +re-visited Basle, and saw his wife and family, they did not return with +him to England. A fancied confirmation to the unhappiness of the +marriage is found in the expression of the wife in a portrait which +Holbein painted of her and his children when he was at Basle. +'Cross-looking and red-eyed,' one critic calls the unlucky woman; +another describes her as 'a plain, coarse-looking, middle-aged woman,' +with an expression 'certainly mysterious and unpleasant.' Holbein's +latest biographer[36] has proved that the forsaken wife, Elssbeth +Schmid, was a widow with one son when Holbein married her, and has +conjectured that she was probably not only older than Holbein, but in +circumstances which rendered her independent of her husband. So far the +critic has done something to clear Hans Holbein from the miserable +accusation often brought against him, that he abandoned his wife and +children to starve at Basle, while he sunned himself in such court +favour as could be found in England. But, indeed, while Hans Holbein may +have been honest and humane enough to have been above such base +suspicions, there is no trace of him which survives that goes to +disprove the probability that he was a self-willed, not over-scrupulous +man, if he was also a vigorous and thorough worker. + +Holbein came to England about 1526 or 1527, when he must have been +thirty-one or thirty-two years of age, and repaired to Chelsea to the +house of Sir Thomas More, to whom the painter brought a letter of +introduction, and still better credentials in the present, from Erasmus +to More, of the portrait of Erasmus, painted by Hans Holbein. There are +so many portraits and copies of portraits of Erasmus, not only by +Holbein, but by other painters--for Erasmus was painted by Albert Duerer +and Quintin Matsys,--that this special portrait, like the true Holbein +family portrait of the More family, remains very much a subject of +speculation. Most of us must be well acquainted with the delightful +account which Erasmus gave of Sir Thomas More's country-house at +Chelsea, and the life of its occupants. It has been cited hundreds of +times as an example of what an English family has been, and what it may +be in dutiful discipline, simple industry, and high cultivation, when +Sir Thomas's young daughters repeated psalms in Latin to beguile the +time in the drudging process of churning the butter. During Holbein's +residence in or visits to the Mores' house at Chelsea, he sketched or +painted the original of the More family picture. + +Holbein was introduced to Henry VIII, by Sir Thomas More, and was +immediately taken into favour by the king, and received into his +service, with a lodging in the palace, a general salary of thirty pounds +a year, and separate payment for his paintings. According to Horace +Walpole, Holbein's palace lodging was probably 'the little study called +the new library' of square glazed bricks of different colours, designed +by the painter at Whitehall. (This gateway, with the porch at Wilton, +were the painter's chief architectural achievements.) By another +statement, Holbein's house was on London Bridge, where it was destroyed +in the great fire. + +I have already alluded to the anecdote of the value which Henry VIII, +put on Holbein. It was to this effect: that when an aggrieved courtier +complained to the king that the painter had taken precedence of him--a +nobleman, the king replied, 'I have many noblemen, but I have only one +Hans Holbein.' In fact, Holbein received nothing save kindness from +Henry VIII.; and for that matter, there seemed to be something in common +between bluff King Hal and the equally bluff German Hans. But on one +occasion Hans Holbein was said to have run the risk of forfeiting his +imperious master's favour by the too favourable miniature which the +painter was accused of painting of Anne of Cleves. + +At Henry's court Holbein painted many a member of the royal family, +noble and knight, and English gentleman and lady. His fortune had made +him a portrait painter, but he was fully equal to other branches of art, +as shown by his 'Meier Madonna,' and still more by the designs which +have been preserved of his famous allegory of 'the Triumphs of Riches +and Poverty,' painted for the hall of the Easterling Steelyard, the +quarters of the merchants of Allemagne, then traders in London. In +addition to painting portraits Holbein designed dagger hilts, clasps, +cups, as some say after a study of the goldsmith's work of Cellini. + +For a long time it was believed that Hans Holbein died after Mary Tudor +succeeded to the English throne; indeed, some said that his death had +been occasioned or hastened by that change in the affairs of men, which +compelled him to quit his lodgings in the palace to make room for 'the +new painter,' Sir Antony More, who came in the suite of Mary's +well-beloved husband, Philip of Spain. There was even a theory, +creditable to Hans Holbein, drawn from this conclusion, that he might +have adopted the Protestant views of his late gracious master, and have +stood by them stoutly, and so far forfeited all recognition from the +bitter Catholic Mary. But, unfortunately for the tradition and theory, +and for the later pictures attributed to Hans Holbein, his will has been +discovered, and that quite recently, proving, from the date of its +administration, his death of the plague (so far only the tradition had +been right), when yet only in his forty-eighth year, as early as 1543, +four years before the death of Henry VIII. In spite of court patronage +Holbein did not die a rich man, and there is an impression that he was +recklessly improvident in his habits. + +Holbein had re-visited Basle several times, and the council had settled +on him a pension of fifty florins a year, provided he would return and +reside in Basle within two years, while his wife was to receive a +pension of forty florins a year during Holbein's two years' absence. +Holbein did not comply with the terms of the settlement. About the time +of his death his son Philip, then a lad of eighteen, was a goldsmith in +Paris. Of Hans Holbein's portraits I have two to draw from; one, +painted in his youth at Basle, shows the painter in an open doublet, and +curious stomacher-like shirt, and having on his head a great flapping +hat. His face is broad and smooth-skinned, with little hair seen, and +the features, the eyes especially, rather small for such an expanse of +cheek and chin. The other picture of Holbein to which I have referred +belongs certainly to a considerably later period of his life, and +represents him with short but bushy hair, and short bushy beard and +moustache, a man having a broad stout person with a mixture of +dauntlessness and _bonhommie_ in his massive face. + +Mr Ruskin says of Holbein, as a painter, that he was complete in +intellect; what he saw he saw with his whole soul, and what he painted +he painted with his whole might. + +In deep and reverential feeling Holbein was far behind his countryman +Albert Duerer, but Holbein was far more fully furnished than Duerer +(unless indeed as Albrecht Duerer showed himself in that last picture of +'the Apostles') in the means of his art; he was a better draughtsman in +the maturity of his powers, and a far better colourist. For Hans Holbein +was not more famous for the living truthfulness of his likenesses ('a +man very excellent in making physiognomies'), than for the 'inimitable +bloom' that he imparted to his pictures, which 'he touched, till not a +touch became discernible.' Yet beneath this bloom, along with his +truthfulness, there was a dryness and hardness in Holbein's treatment of +his subjects, and he is far below Titian, Rubens, and even Rembrandt as +a portrait painter. + +Holbein was in the habit of painting his larger portraits on a peculiar +green, and his miniatures on a blue background. He drew his portrait +sketches with black and red chalk on a paper tinted flesh-colour. It is +said, that with the exception, of Philip Wouwermann, no painter has been +so unfortunate in having the works of other painters attributed to him +as Hans Holbein has been, and 'that three out of every four pictures +ascribed to him are misnamed.'[37] + +The 'Meier, or Meyer Madonna,' is otherwise called 'the Meier Family +adoring the infant Christ in the arms of the Virgin.' The subject is +understood to prove that it must have been painted in Holbein's youth, +before Protestantism was triumphant at Basle. The figures are the +Burgomaster Meier and his wife, whom Holbein painted twice; their son, +with a little boy _nude_ beside him; another woman, elderly, conjectured +to be a grandmother of the family, and beside her the young daughter of +the house. In the centre on a turkey carpet stands the Madonna, holding +in her arms an infant stretching out its left hand to the group of +worshippers. In course of time, and in its transfer from hand to hand, a +doubt has arisen with regard to the subject of this picture. Some +critics have regarded it as a votive picture dedicated in a private +chapel to commemorate the recovery from sickness or the death of a +child. This conjecture seems to rest mainly on the fact, that the child +in the Dresden copy (it is said to be otherwise in the Darmstadt +picture) is of an aspect so sickly, as to have given rise to the +impression that it represented an ailing, or even a dead child, and no +glorious child Christ. Critics have gone still farther, and imagined +that the child is a figure of the soul of a dead child (souls were +sometimes painted by the old painters as new-born children), or of the +soul of the elder and somewhat muffled-up woman who might have been +recently dead. Mr Ruskin regards the picture as an offering for the +recovery of a sick child, and thus illustrates it: + + 'The received tradition respecting the Holbein Madonna is + beautiful, and I believe the interpretation to be true. A father + and a mother have prayed to her for the life of their sick child. + She appears to them, her own child Christ in her arms; she puts + down her child beside them, takes their child into her arms + instead; it lies down upon her bosom, and stretches its hand to + its father and mother, saying farewell.' + +Yet another much more prosaic and less attractive interpretation of the +picture has been suggested by Holbein's biographer, that the two +children may represent the same child. The child standing by his brother +may be the boy restored to health, the feeble child in the arms of the +Virgin may indicate the same child in its sickness, while the extended +arm may point to the seat of the disease in an arm broken or injured. +After all, the child may simply be a child Christ, marred in execution. +I have given this dispute at length, because I think it is interesting, +and, so far as I know, unique in reference to such a picture. By an odd +enough mistake this very picture was once said to be the famous More +Family picture. + +The idea of the 'Dance of Death' did not originate with Holbein, neither +is he supposed to have done more than touch, if he did touch, the +paintings called the 'Dance of Death,' on the wall of the Dominican +burial-ground, Basle, painted long before Holbein's day, by the order of +the council after the plague visited Basle, and considered to have for +its meaning simply a warning of the universality of death. But Holbein +certainly availed himself of the older painting, to draw from it the +grim satire of his woodcuts. Of these there are thirty-seven designs, +the first, 'The Creation;' the second, 'Adam and Eve in Paradise;' the +third, 'The Expulsion from Paradise;' the fourth, 'Adam Tilling the +Earth;' the fifth, 'The Bones of all People;' till the dance really +begins in the sixth. Death, a skeleton, as seen through the rest of the +designs, sometimes playing on a guitar or lute, sometimes carrying a +drum, bagpipes, a dulcimer, or a fiddle, now appearing with mitre on +head and crozier in hand to summon the Abbot; then marching before the +parson with bell, book, and candle; again crowned with ivy, when he +seizes the Duke, claims his partners, beginning with the Pope, going +down impartially through Emperor of Francis I., nobleman, advocate, +physician, ploughman, countess, old woman, little child, etc., etc., and +leading each unwilling or willing victim in turn to the terrible dance. +One woman meets her doom by Death in the character of a robber in a +wood. Another, the Duchess, sits up in bed fully dressed, roused from +her sleep by two skeletons, one of them playing a fiddle. + +Granting the grotesqueness, freedom, variety, and wonderful precision of +these woodcuts, I beg my readers to contrast their spirit with that of +Albrecht Duerer's 'The Knight, Death, and the Devil,' or Orcagna's +'Triumph of Death.' In Holbein's designs there is no noble consoling +faith; there is but a fierce defiance and wild mockery of inevitable +fate, such as goes beyond the levity with which the Venetians in the +time of the plague retired to their country-houses and danced, sung, and +told tales, till the pestilence was upon them. It has a closer +resemblance to the piteous madness with which the condemned prisoners +during the French Reign of Terror rehearsed the falling of the +guillotine, or the terrible pageant with which the same French, as +represented by their Parisian brethren, professed to hail the arrival of +the cholera. + +Of the 'More Family' there are so many duplicates or versions, that, as +in the case of Erasmus's picture, it is hard to say which is the +original picture, or whether Holbein did more than sketch the original, +or merely sketch the various heads to be afterwards put together by an +inferior artist. A singular distribution of the light in the best +authenticated picture has been supposed to favour this conjecture. But +under any supposition, this, the second of the three noted English +family pictures, is of the greatest interest. I shall record a minute +and curious description given of this 'More Family,' which is still in +the possession of a descendant of the Mores and Ropers. + +'The room which is here represented seemed to be a large dining-room. At +the upper end of it stands a chamber-organ on a cupboard, with a curtain +drawn before it. On each end of the cupboard, which is covered with a +carpet of tapestry, stands a flower-pot of flowers, and on the cupboard +are laid a lute, a base-viol, a pint pot or ewer covered in part with a +cloth folded several times, and _Boetius de Consolatione Philosophiae_, +with two other books upon it. By this cupboard stands a daughter of Sir +Thomas More's, putting on her right-hand glove, and having under her arm +a book bound in red Turkey leather and gilt, with this inscription round +the outside of the cover--_Epistolica Senecae_. Over her head is written +in Latin, _Elizabeth Dancy_, daughter of Sir Thomas More, aged 21. + +'Behind her stands a woman holding a book open with both her hands, over +whose head is written _Spouse of John Clements_.[38] + +'Next to Mrs Dancy is Sir John More in his robes as one of the justices +of the King's Bench, and by him Sir Thomas in his chancellor's robes, +and collar of SS, with a rose pendant before. They are both sitting on a +sort of tressel or armed bench, one of the arms and legs and one of the +tassels of the cushion appear on the left side of Sir Thomas. At the +feet of Sir John lies a cur-dog, and at Sir Thomas's a Bologna shock. +Over Sir John's head is written, _John More, father, aged_ 76. Over Sir +Thomas's, _Thomas More, aged_ 50. Between them, behind, stands the wife +of John More, Sir Thomas's son, over whose head is written _Anne +Cresacre, wife of John More, aged_ 15. Behind Sir Thomas, on his left +hand stands his only son, John More, pictured with a very foolish +aspect, and looking earnestly in a book which he holds open with both +his hands. Over his head is written, _John, son of Thomas More, aged_ +19.' (The only and witless son of the family, on whom Sir Thomas made +the comment to his wife:--'You long wished for a boy, and you have got +one--for all his life.') + +'A little to the left of Sir Thomas are sitting on low stools his two +daughters, Cecilia and Margaret. Next him is Cecilia, who has a boot in +her lap, clasped. By her side sits her sister Margaret, who has likewise +a book on her lap, but wide open, in which is written, _L. An. +Senecae--Oedipus--Fata si liceat mihi fingere arbitrio meo, temperem +zephyro levi_. On Cecilia's petticoat is written, _Cecilia Heron, +daughter of Thomas More, aged_ 20, and on Margaret's, _Margaret Roper_, +_daughter of Thomas More, aged_ 22.' (The best beloved, most +amiable, and most learned of Sir Thomas's daughters, who visited +him in the Tower and encouraged him to remain true to his +convictions, while her step-mother urged him to abjure his faith. +Margaret Roper intercepted her father on his return to the Tower +after his trial, and penetrating the circle of the Guards, hung on +his neck and bade him farewell. There is a tradition that she +caused her father's head to be stolen from the spike of the bridge +on which it was exposed, and, getting it preserved, kept it in a +casket. She and her husband, William Roper, wrote together the +biography of her father, Sir Thomas More.) + +'Just by Mrs Roper sits Sir Thomas's lady in an elbow-chair (?), holding +a book open in her hands. About her neck she has a gold chain, with a +cross hanging to it before. On her left hand is a monkey chained, and +holding part of it with one paw and part of it with the other. Over her +head is written '_spouse of Thomas More, aged_ 57.' + +(Dame Alice More, the second wife of Sir Thomas More, a foolish and +mean-spirited woman.) + +'Behind her is a large arched window, in which is placed a flower-pot (a +vase) of flowers, and a couple of oranges. Behind the two ladies stands +Sir Thomas's fool, who, it seems, was bereft of his judgment by +distraction. He has his cap on, and in it are stuck a red and white +rose, and on the brim of it is a shield with a red cross on it, and a +sort of seal pendant. About his neck he wears a black string with a +cross hanging before him, and his left thumb is stuck in a broad +leathern girdle clasp'd about him. Over his head is written _Henry +Pattison, servant_ of Thomas More. At the entrance of the room where Sir +Thomas and his family are, stands a man in the portal who has in his +left hand a roll of papers or parchments with two seals appendant, as if +he was some way belonging to Sir Thomas as Lord Chancellor. Over his +head is written _Joannes Heresius, Thomae Mori famulus_. In another room +at some distance is seen through the door-case a man standing at a large +sleeved gown of a sea-green colour, and under it a garment of a +blossom-colour, holding a book open in his hands written or printed +in the black letter, and reading very earnestly in it. About the +middle of the room, over against Sir Thomas, hangs a clock with +strings and leaden weights without any case.'[39] + +It is notable that not one of Sir Thomas's sons-in-law is in this +picture, neither is there a grandchild, though one or more is known to +have been born at the date. + +The miniature of Anne of Cleves, if it ever existed, is lost; it is +probable that what was really referred to was the portrait of Anne by +Holbein in the Louvre, where she appears 'as a kindly and comely woman +in spite of her broad nose and swarthy complexion, but by no means such +a painted Venus as might have deceived King Hal.'[40] + +A well-known portrait by Holbein is that of a 'Cornish Gentleman,' with +reddish hair and beard. I saw this portrait not long ago, as it was +exhibited among the works of the Old Masters, and so much did it look +as though the figure would step from the frame, that it was hard to +believe that more than three hundred years had passed since the original +walked the earth.[41] + +Doubtless the last of Holbein's portrait pieces, which it is reported he +left uncompleted when he died, is that of the 'Barber Surgeons,' painted +on the occasion of the united company receiving their charter from the +king, and including the king's portrait. This picture still hangs in the +old company's hall. + +I have only to say a few more words of those sketches which survive the +destruction of the picture--Holbein's allegory of the 'Triumph of +Riches,' and the 'Triumph of Poverty,' and of his portrait sketches. In +the 'Triumph of Riches,' Plutus, an old man bent double, drives in a +car, drawn by four white horses; before him, Fortune, blind, scatters +money. The car is followed by Croesus, Midas, and other noted misers and +spendthrifts--for Cleopatra, the only woman present, is included in the +group. In the 'Triumph of Poverty,' Poverty is an old woman in squalor +and rags, who is seated in a shattered vehicle, drawn by asses and oxen, +and guided by Hope and Diligence. The designs are large and bold. In the +first, a resemblance to Henry VIII, is found in Croesus. If the +resemblance were intentional on Holbein's part, it showed the same want +of tact and feeling which the painter early betrayed in his caricature +of Erasmus. + +But the best of Holbein's drawings are his portrait sketches with +chalks, on flesh-tinted paper. These sketches have a history of their +own, subsequent to their execution by Holbein. After being in the +possession of the art-loving Earl of Arundel, and carried to France, +they were lost sight of altogether for the space of a century, until +they were discovered by Queen Caroline, wife of George II., in a bureau +at Kensington. You will hear a little later that the finest collection +of miniatures in England went through the same process of disappearance +and recovery.[42] These original sketches, in addition to their great +artistic merit, form a wonderful collection of speaking likenesses, +belonging to the court of Henry VIII.,--likenesses which had been +happily identified in time by Sir John Cheke (in the reign of +Elizabeth), since the names of the originals have been inscribed on the +back of each drawing, as it is believed, by Sir John Cheke's hand. The +collection is now in the Queen's library, Windsor, with photographs at +Kensington Museum. There are one or two of Holbein's reputed portraits +at Hampton Court. + +I must pass over some painters as not being sufficiently represented for +my purpose. Among these is Sir Antony More, Philip II, of Spain's +friend. It is recorded that Philip having rested his hand on the +shoulder of More while at work, the bold painter turned round, and +daubed the royal hand with vermilion. This gave rise to the +courtier-saying that Philip 'made slaves of his friends, and friends of +his painters.' Another is Zucchero, one of the painters who was +requested by Queen Elizabeth to paint her picture without shade, the +result being 'a woman with a Roman nose, a huge ruff and farthingale, +and a bushel of pearls.' There are also Van Somer,--Janssens, who +painted Lady Bowyer, named for her exquisite beauty, 'The star of the +East,' and Susanna Lister, the most beautiful woman at court, when +presented in marriage to Sir Geoffrey Thornhurst by James I, in +person,[43]--and Daniel Myttens, all foreigners, Flemish or Dutch, whom +we must thus briefly dismiss. And now we come to Van Dyck. + +Antony Van Dyck was born at Antwerp, in 1599. His father was a merchant; +his mother was famous for painting flowers in small, and for needlework +in silk. The fashion of painting 'in small' had prevailed for some time. +Horace Walpole mentions that the mother of Lucas de Heere, a Flemish +painter, born in 1534, could paint with such 'diminutive neatness' that +she had executed 'a landscape with a windmill, miller, a cart and horse, +and passengers,' which half a grain of corn could cover. At ten years of +age, Van Dyck began to study as a painter, and he soon became a pupil, +and afterwards a favourite pupil, of Rubens. In 1618, when Van Dyck was +but a lad of seventeen years, he was admitted as a master into the +painters' guild of St Luke. Two years later, he was still working with +Rubens, who, seeing his lameness of invention, counselled him to abide +by portrait painting, and to visit Italy. A year later, in 1621, when +Van Dyck was twenty years of age, he came to London, already becoming a +resort of Flemish painters, and lodging with a countryman of his own, +worked for a short time in the service of James I. + +On Van Dyck's return to Flanders, and on the death of his father, he was +able to take Rubens' advice, and in 1623, when Van Dyck was still only +twenty-two years of age, he set out for Venice, the Rome of the Flemish +painters. Before quitting Antwerp, Van Dyck, in proof of the friendship +which existed between the painters, presented Rubens with several of the +former's pictures, among them his famous portrait of 'Rubens' wife.' As +a pendant to this generosity, when Van Dyck came back to Antwerp, and +complained to Rubens that he--Van Dyck--could not live on the profits of +his painting, Rubens went next day and bought every picture of Van +Dyck's which was for sale. + +Van Dyck spent five years in Italy, visiting Venice, Florence, Rome, and +Palermo, but residing principally at Genoa. In Italy, he began to +indulge in his love of splendid extravagance, and in the fastidious +fickleness which belonged to the evil side of his character. At Rome he +was called 'the cavalier painter,' yet his first complaint on his return +to Antwerp was, that he could not live on the profits of his painting! +He avoided the society of his homelier countrymen. + +At Palermo, Van Dyck knew, and according to some accounts, painted the +portrait of Sophonisba Anguisciola, who claimed to be the most eminent +portrait painter among women. She was then about ninety years of age, +and blind, but she still delighted in having in her house a kind of +academy of painting, to which all the painters visiting Palermo +resorted. Van Dyck asserted that he owed more to her conversation than +to the teaching of all the schools. A book of his sketches, which was +recovered, showed many drawings 'after Sophonisba Anguisciola.' She is +said to have been born at Cremona, was invited at the age of twenty-six +by Philip II, to Spain, and was presented by him with a Spanish don for +a husband, and a pension of a thousand crowns a-year from the customs of +Palermo. + +The plague drove Van Dyck from Italy back to Flanders, where he painted +for a time, and presented his picture of the 'Crucifixion' to the +Dominicans as a memorial gift in honour of his father, but in Flanders +Rubens' fame overshadowed that of every other painter, and Van Dyck, +recalling an invitation which he had received from the Countess of +Arundel while still in Italy, came a second time to England, in 1630, +when he was about thirty years of age, and lodged again with a +fellow-countryman and painter named Gildorp. But his sensitive vanity +was wounded by his not at once receiving an introduction to the king, or +the countenance which the painter considered his due, and the +restlessness, which was a prominent feature in his character, being +re-awakened, he withdrew once more from England, and returned to the Low +Countries in 1631. At last, a year later, in 1632, Van Dyck's pride was +propitiated by receiving a formal invitation from Charles I., through +Sir Kenelm Digby, to visit England, and this time the painter had no +cause to complain of an unworthy reception. He was lodged by the king +among his artists at Blackfriars, having no intercourse with the city, +save by water. He had the king, with his wife and children, to sit to +him, and was granted a pension of two hundred a-year, with the +distinction of being named painter to his Majesty. + +A year later Van Dyck was knighted. Royal and noble commissions flowed +upon him, and the king, who had a hereditary love of art, visited the +painter continually, and spent some of the happiest and most innocent +hours of his brief and clouded life in Van Dyck's company. Thus began +Van Dyck's success in England. + +To give you an example of how often, and in how many different manners, +Van Dyck painted the king and royal family, I shall quote from a list of +his pictures-- + + 'King Charles in coronation robes.' + + 'King Charles in armour' (twice). + + 'King Charles in white satin, with his hat on, just + descended from his horse; in the distance, view of the + Isle of Wight.' + + 'King Charles in armour, on a white horse; Monsieur + de St Antoine, his equerry, holding the king's + helmet.' + + 'The King and Queen sitting; Prince Charles, + very young, standing at the King's side; the Duke of + York, an infant, on the Queen's knee.' + + 'The King and Queen holding a crown of laurel + between them.' + + 'The Queen in white.' + + 'Prince Charles in armour' (two or three times). + + 'King, Queen, Prince Charles, and Princess Mary.' + + 'Queen with her five children.' + + 'Queen with dwarfs,[44] Sir Geoffrey Hudson having + a monkey on his shoulder.' + +Van Dyck had several great patrons, after the king. For the Earl of +Arundel, in addition to portraits of the Earl and Countess, the painter +designed a second Arundel family picture, which was painted by +Fruitiers. For George, Duke of Buckingham, Van Dyck painted one of his +finest double portraits of the Duke's two sons, when children. For the +Northumberland family Van Dyck painted, besides portraits of Henry and +Algernon, Earls of Northumberland, another famous picture, that of the +two beautiful sisters, Lady Dorothy Percy, afterwards Countess of +Leicester, and her sister, Lady Lucy Percy, afterwards Countess of +Carlisle, whose charms figure frequently in the memoirs of her time. +William and Philip, Earls of Pembroke, were also among his patrons, and +for the second he painted his great family picture, 'The Wilton +Family.' Sir Kenelm Digby, too, whose wife Venitia was more frequently +painted than any woman of her day, and was not more distinguished for +her beauty than for her lack of nobler qualities. Van Dyck alone painted +her several times, the last after her sudden death, for her vain and +eccentric, if gallant, husband, who in the end was no friend to Van +Dyck. + +But these high names by no means exhaust the list of patrons of a +painter who, among various contradictory qualities, was indefatigably +industrious. His work is widely distributed among the Scotch as well as +the English descendants of the nobility whom he painted, so that the +possession of at least one ancestral 'Van Dyck' accompanies very many +patents of nobility, and is equivalent to a warrant of gentle birth. + +The Earl of Clarendon, in the next reign, had a great partiality for Van +Dyck's pictures, and was said to be courted by gifts of them until his +apartments at Cornbury were furnished with full-length 'Van Dycks.' A +third of his collection went to Kitty Hyde, Duchess of Queensberry, one +of the Earl's three co-heiresses. Through the Rich family many of these +'Van Dycks' passed to Taymouth Castle, where by a coincidence they were +lodged in the company of numerous works of George Jamieson of Aberdeen, +who is said to have been for a short time a fellow-pupil of Van Dyck's +under Rubens, who has been called 'the Scotch Van Dyck,' and who is +certainly the first native painter who deserves honourable mention. +Since the death of the last Marquis of Breadalbane these travelled 'Van +Dycks' have gone back to the English representative of the Rich family. + +Van Dyck had forty pounds for a half, and sixty pounds for a +whole-length picture;--for a large piece of the King, Queen, and their +children, he had a hundred pounds. For the Wilton family picture he had +five hundred and twenty-five pounds. But Van Dyck soon impaired his +fortune. He was not content with having a country-house at Eltham in +Kent, where he spent a portion of each summer; he would emulate in his +expenditure the most spendthrift noble of that reign. 'He always went +magnific so good a table in his apartment that few princes were more +visited and better served.' His marriage was not calculated to teach him +moderation. In his thirty-ninth year the King gave him the hand of Marie +Ruthven, who was nearly related to the unhappy Earl of Gowrie. She was +his niece, her father having been the scarcely less unhappy younger +brother Patrick, a physician, who, apprehended when a young man on the +charge of being concerned in the treason of his elder brothers, spent +his manhood in the Tower. He was kept a prisoner there from 1584 to +1619, nearly forty years, and was only released in his age and infirmity +when his mind was giving way. Patrick Ruthven's infant daughter had been +adopted, either through charity or perversity, by Anne of Denmark, and +brought up first at the court of Anne, and afterwards at that of +Henrietta Maria. The assertion that Marie Ruthven was a very beautiful +woman has been contradicted. It was said that 'she was bestowed in +marriage on Sir Antony Van Dyck as much to humble further the already +humbled and still detested family of Ruthven, as to honour the painter; +but this does not seem consistent with King Charles's known favour for +Van Dyck. Yet such a view might have been entertained by Marie Ruthven +herself, who, according to tradition, held herself degraded by the +marriage, and never forgave the degradation. She was not a loving wife +to a man who could hardly have been a very loving or loyal husband. And +certainly the marriage did not unite the painter closer to the king. + +With his professional industry, Van Dyck combined an equally +unquenchable love of pleasure, which, with his luxurious and sedentary +habits, induced paroxysms of gout, from which Rubens also suffered +severely. This must have ultimately disqualified him for good work, and +when his debts accumulated in greater proportion even than his receipts, +in place of having recourse, like Rubens, to his painting-room, Van Dyck +tried a shorter road to get rich, by following the idle example of Sir +Kenelm Digby in his pursuit of alchemy and the philosopher's stone. + +In the year of his marriage, Van Dyck re-visited Flanders, in company +with his wife, and then repaired to France, it is understood with the +intention of settling there. He was instigated to the step by his wife, +and his own ambition of rivalling Rubens' triumphs at the Luxembourg; +but the preference which the French gave to the works of their +countryman, Nicolas Poussin, roused his latent jealousy, and so +mortified him as to induce him to renounce his intention. He determined +to return to England, and was, to his credit, confirmed in his +resolution by the threatening civil war which was to shake his royal +master's throne to the foundation, rather than deterred from it. + +Again in England, Van Dyck employed Sir Kenelm Digby to make an offer on +the painter's part that for eight hundred pounds he would paint the +history, and a procession of the Knights of the Garter on the walls of +the Knights' banqueting-room at Whitehall--that palace which was to +have surpassed the Louvre, the Tuileries, and the Escurial, and from one +of the windows of which Charles stepped out on his scaffold. But the +proposal was rejected, and immediately afterwards the civil war broke +out, and was speedily followed by the death of Van Dyck, about a year +after his marriage, when he was a little over forty years old, at +Blackfriars, in 1641. He was buried in old St Paul's, near the tomb of +John of Gaunt. His daughter, Justiniana, was born a short time--some say +only eight days--before her father died, and was baptized on the day of +his death. Van Dyck left effects and sums due to him to the amount of +twenty thousand pounds; but the greater part of the debts were found +beyond recovery at the close of the civil war. His daughter grew up, and +married a Mr Stepney, 'who rode in King Charles's life guards.' His +widow re-married; her second husband was a Welsh knight. + +Van Dyck's contradictory elements. He was actuated by opposite motives +which are hard to analyze, and which in their instability have within +themselves, whatever their outward advantages, the doom of failure in +the highest excellence. He was a proud man, dissatisfied both with +himself and his calling, resenting, with less reason than Hans Holbein +showed, that he should be condemned to portrait painting, yet by no +means undervaluing or slurring over his work. He 'would detain the +persons who sat to him to dinner for an opportunity of studying their +countenances and re-touching their pictures,' 'would have a sitter, +sitting to him seven entire days, mornings and evenings, and would not +once let the man see the picture till it pleased the painter.' Van Dyck +appears to have been a man with the possibilities in him of greater +things than he attained, possibilities which were baffled by his +weakness and self-indulgence, leaving him with such a sense of this as +spoiled his greatest successes. + +I have the varying indications of two pictures of Van Dyck from which to +get an impression of his personal appearance. The first picture is that +of a youthful face, soft, smiling, with dark eyes, finely-formed nose, +a slightly open mouth, having a full-cleft under lip, the hair profuse +and slightly curled, but short, and no beard or moustache. The dress is +an open doublet, without a collar, a lace cravat, and one arm half bare. +The second is the picture of Van Dyck in the Louvre, which is judged the +best likeness of the painter. In this his person is slender, his +complexion fair, his eyes grey, his hair chestnut brown, his beard and +whiskers red. He wears a vest of green velvet, with a plain collar. + +In his art, Van Dyck, with something of the glow of Rubens, and with a +delicacy peculiarly his own, was decidedly inferior to his great master, +both in power and in fertility of genius. In the superficial refinement +which was so essential a part of Van Dyck, he had the capacity of +conferring on his sitters a reflection of his own outward stateliness +and grace. When he painted at his best his portraits were solid, true, +and masterly, but he has been reproached with sacrificing truth to the +refining process which he practised. Even in the case of Charles I., +whose portraits are our most familiar examples of Van Dyck, and who thus +lives in the imagination of most people as the very personification of a +noble and handsome cavalier, there have not been wanting critics who +have maintained that Charles,--the son of a plain uncouth father, and of +a mother rather floridly buxom than delicately handsome, and who was in +his childhood a sickly rickety child,--was by no means so well endowed +in the matter of manly beauty as we have supposed. These students of old +gossip and close investigation, have alleged that Charles was long and +lanky, after he had ceased to be Baby Charles; that his nose was too +large, and, alas! apt to redden; that his eyes were vacillating; and his +mouth, the loosely hung mouth of a man who begins by being irresolute, +and ends by being obstinate.[45] Again, in the hands of a sitter, which +Van Dyck was supposed to paint with special care and elegance, it has +been argued that he copied always the same hand, probably his own, in +ignorance, or in defiance of the fact that hands have nearly as much and +as varying character as a painter can discover in faces. Though Van Dyck +painted many beautiful women, he did not excel in rendering them +beautiful on canvas, so that succeeding generations, in gazing on Van +Dyck's versions of Venitia, Lady Digby, and Dorothy Sydney--Waller's +Sacharissa,--have wondered how Sir Kenelm, Waller, and their +contemporaries, could find these ladies so beautiful. + +Van Dyck certainly owed something of the charm of his pictures to the +dress of the period, with regard to which he received this credit that +'Van Dyck was the first painter who e'er put ladies' dress into a +careless romance.' But in reality never was costume better suited for a +painter like Van Dyck. + +The hair in the men was allowed to flow to the shoulders or gathered in +a love knot, while the whiskers and beard formed a point. In the women +the hair was crisped in curls round the face. The ruff in men and women +had yielded to the broad, rich, falling collar, with deep scallops of +point lace. Vest and cloak were of the richest velvet or satin, or else, +on the breaking out of the civil war, men appeared in armour. The man's +hat was broad and flapping, usually turned up at one side, and having an +ostrich feather in the band; his long wide boots were of Spanish +leather, and he wore gauntlet gloves, and rich ruffles at his wrists. +The women wore hoods and mantles, short bodices, ample trains, and wide +sleeves terminating in loose ruffles at the elbow, which left half of +the arm bare. Pearl necklaces and bracelets, round feather fans, and +'knots of flowers,' were the almost universal ornaments of women. +Another ornament of both men and women, which belonged to the day, and +was very common in the quarters I have been referring to, was a +miniature enclosed in a small case of ivory or ebony, carved like a +rose, and worn on the left side in token of betrothal.[46] Van Dyck, +along with the appreciation of black draperies which he held in common +with Rubens, was specially fond of painting white or blue satin. He is +said to have used a brown preparation of pounded peach-stones for +glazing the hair in his pictures. + +In the end, with all the aids that critics may have given him, and all +the faults they may find in him, Van Dyck was a great, and in the main +an earnest portrait painter. Perhaps 'Charles in white satin, just +descended from his horse,' is the best of the single portraits which +were held to be Van Dyck's forte. + +I must try to give my readers some idea of Van Dyck's 'Wilton Family.' +It has been so praised, that some have said 'it might have been covered +with gold as a price to obtain it;' on the other hand, it has not +escaped censure. One critic asserts that there is no common action +uniting the figures, and that the faces are so different in +complexion--one yellow-faced boy appearing either jaundiced or burnt by +a tropical sun, that the family might have lived in different climates. + +This is the story of the picture. 'Earl Philip of Pembroke having +caused his family to meet, informs them with great emotion of the +necessity of his eldest son Charles, Lord Herbert, going into the army +of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, there to acquire military honour and +experience, notwithstanding his having just married Mary, daughter of +George, Duke of Buckingham. Lord Herbert is receiving the news with +ardour, the young bride is turning aside her fair face to hide her +tears. (Charles Lord Herbert was married Christmas, 1634, went to +Florence, and died there of small pox, January, 1636.) + +'In the Pembroke picture (or "Wilton Family") there are ten figures. The +Earl and Countess are seated on a dais, under a coat of arms. He wears a +great lace collar, an order on his breast, a key at his girdle, and has +great shoes with roses. She has flowing curls, hanging sleeves, arms +crossed, necklace on the bare neck. (The Countess of Pembroke was the +Earl's second wife, Anne Clifford, daughter of George, Earl of +Cumberland, the brave lady who defied Cromwell, and was fond of signing +her name with the long string of titles derived from her two husbands, +"Anne Dorset, Pembroke, Montgomery.") Robert Dormer, Earl of Carnarvon, +is introduced with his wife, Lady Anne Sophia Herbert, daughter of Earl +Philip; they are on the Countess's left hand. The daughter-in-law, about +to be parted from her husband, stands on the lowest step of the dais; +she is elegantly dressed, with hanging sleeves knotted with bows from +shoulder to elbow. Two young men, the bridegroom and his brother, are at +their father's right hand; they wear great falling collars and cloaks. +There are three half-grown boys in tunics without collars, and great +roses in their shoes, with a dare three daughters of the family who died +in infancy.' + +Van Dyck's finest sacred pictures were his early 'Crucifixion,' and a +Pieta, at Antwerp. In these he gave a promise of nobler and deeper +pathos than he afterwards fulfilled. His pictures are to be found +freely, as I have written, in old English mansions, such as Arundel and +Alnwick Castles, Knowsley, Knole, Petworth, etc. A head said to be by +Van Dyck is in the National Gallery. + +Van Dyck had few pupils: one, an Englishman named Dobson, earned an +honourable reputation as a painter. + +From Sir Antony More's time down to that of Leily and Kneller, the rage +for portraits was continually increasing, and took largely the form of +miniatures, which were painted chiefly by foreigners; notably by +Hilliard and two Olivers or Oliviers, a father and son of French +extraction, and by a Swiss named Petitot. A collection of miniatures by +the Oliviers, including no less than six of Venitia, Lady Digby, had a +similar fate to that of Holbein's drawings. The miniatures had been +packed in a wainscot box and conveyed to the country-house in Wales of +Mr Watkin Williams, who was a descendant of the Digby family. In course +of time the box with its contents, doubtless forgotten, had been +transferred to a garret, where it had lain undiscovered for, it has been +supposed, fully a hundred years. It was two hundred years after the +date of the painting of the miniatures, that on some turning over of the +lumber in the garret, the exquisite miniatures, fresh as on the day when +they were painted, were accidentally brought to light.[47] + +Sir Peter Lely was born in Westphalia in 1618. His real name was Vander +Facs, and his father was a 'Captain of Foot,' who, having chanced to be +born in rooms over a perfumer's shop which bore the sign of a lily, took +fantastically enough the name of Du Lys, or Lely, which he transmitted +to his son. Sir Peter Lely, after studying in a studio at Haarlem, came +to England when he was twenty-three years of age, in 1641, and set +himself to copy the pictures of Van Dyck, who died in the year of Lely's +arrival in England, and whom he succeeded as court painter. Lely was +knighted by Charles II., married an English woman, and had a son and a +daughter, who died young. He made a large fortune, dying at last of +apoplexy, with which he was seized as he was painting the Duchess of +Somerset, when he was sixty-two years of age, in 1680. + +With regard to Lely's character, we may safely judge from his works that +he was such a man as Samuel Pepys, 'of easy virtue,' a man holding a low +enough standard by which to measure himself and others. Mr Palgrave +quotes from Mr Leslie the following characteristic anecdote of Lely, +which seems to prove that he was aware of, and coolly accepted, the +decline of art in his generation and person. A nobleman said to Lely, +'How is it that you have so great a reputation, when you know, as well +as I do, that you are no painter?' 'True, but I am the best you have,' +was the answer. Lely's punishment followed him into his art, for +beginning by copying Van Dyck, it is said of Lely that he degenerated in +his work till it bore the very 'stamp of the depravity of the age.' + +Lely's sitters were mostly women. Among them was one who deserved a +fitter painter, Mistress Anne Killigrew, Dryden's-- + + 'Youngest virgin daughter of the skies.' + +In Lely's portrait of her, she is a neat, slightly prim, delicate +beauty, with very fine features, and such sleepy eyes, as were probably +the gift of Lely, since he has bestowed them generally on the women whom +he painted. Mistress Anne Killigrew's hair is in curls, piled up in +front, but hanging down loosely behind. Her bodice is gathered together +by a brooch, and she has another brooch on one shoulder. She wears a +light pearl necklace, and 'drops' shaped like shamrocks in her ears. + +Lely painted both Charles I, and Cromwell, who desired his painters to +omit 'no pimple or wart,' but to paint his face as they saw it. + +Among less notable personages Lely painted Monk, Duke of Albemarle, and +his rough Duchess, once a camp follower, according to popular rumour, +and named familiarly by the contemptuous wits of the day 'Nan Clarges.' +It is with not more honourable originals than poor 'Nan Clarges' that +Lely's name as a painter is chiefly associated. We know what an evil +time the years after the Restoration proved in England, and it was to +immortalize, as far as he could, the vain, light women of the +generation that Lely lent what skill he possessed. There their pictures +hang in what has been called 'the Beauty Room' at Hampton Court, and no +good man or woman can look at them without holding such beauty +detestable. + +At Hampton Court also there are several of the eleven portraits of +Admirals whom Lely painted for James II, when Duke of York. + +Antonio Canal, called Canaletto, incorrectly Canaletti, was born at +Venice in 1697. He was the son of a scene painter at the theatre. In his +youth he worked under his father; a little later he went to Rome, and +studied for some time there. Then he came to England, where he remained +only for two years. I have hesitated about placing his name among those +of the foreign painters resident in England, but so many of his works +are in this country that he seems to belong to it in an additional +sense. He is said to have 'made many pictures and much money.' He died +at Venice when he was seventy years of age, in 1768. As a painter he +was famous for his correctness of perspective and precision of outline +(in which it is alleged he aided himself by the use of the camera), +qualities specially valuable in the architectural subjects of which he +was fond, drawing them principally from his native Venice. But his very +excellence was mechanical, and he showed so little originality or, for +that matter, fidelity of genius, that he painted his landscapes in +invariable sunshine. + + * * * * * + +The great wood-carver Grinling Gibbons deserves mention among the +artists of this date. He was a native of Rotterdam, where he was born in +1648. He came to London with other carvers the year after the great fire +of London, and was introduced by Evelyn to Charles II., who took him +into his employment. 'Gibbons was appointed master carver in wood to +George I., with a salary of eighteen-pence a day.' He died at his house +in Bow Street in the sixty-third year of his age, in 1721. It is said +that no man before Gibbons 'gave to wood the lightness of flowers.' For +the great houses of Burghley, Petworth, and Chatsworth, Gibbons carved +exquisite work, in festoons for screens, and chimney-pieces, and panels +for pictures, of fruit, flowers, shells, and birds. + + * * * * * + +Sir Godfrey Kneller was born at Luebeck in 1646, and was the son of an +architect. He is said to have studied under Rembrandt; but if this be +true, it must have been in Kneller's early youth. It is more certain +that he travelled in Italy and returned to settle in Hamburg, but +changing his plans, he came to England, when he was about thirty years +of age, in 1675. London became his home. There he painted portraits with +great success; his prices being fifteen guineas for a head, twenty if +with one hand, thirty for a half, and sixty for a whole-length portrait. +Charles II, sat at the same time to Kneller and to Lely. Not Titian +himself painted more crowned heads than it fell to the lot of Kneller to +paint--not less than six reigning kings and queens of England, and, in +addition, Louis XIV. of France, Charles VI, of Spain, and the Czar Peter +of Russia. + +William III, created Kneller a knight, and George I, raised the +painter's rank to that of a baronet. Sir Godfrey was notorious for his +conceit, irritability, and eccentricity, and for the wit which sparkled +more in his conversation than in any originality of observation +displayed in his painting. Walpole attributes to Kneller the opposite +qualities of great negligence and great love of money. The negligence or +slovenliness, whether in the man or the artist, did not interfere with +an immense capacity for work, such as it was, but if Horace Walpole be +right, that Kneller employed many Flemish painters under him to +undertake the wigs, draperies, etc. etc., the amount of work in portrait +painting which Sir Godfrey Kneller accomplished is so far explained. He +attained the end of being a very rich man, and married an English woman, +but left no family to succeed to his wealth and his country-seat of +Whitton, when he died at his house in London in his seventy-eighth year, +in 1723. + +As a painter Sir Godfrey Kneller showed considerable talent in drawing, +and a certain cumbrous dignity of design, but he had much more industry +of a certain kind than artistic feeling or taste. When he and Lely +painted Charles II, together, Kneller's application and rapidity of +execution were so far before those of Lely, who was technically the +better painter of the two, that Kneller's picture was finished when +Lely's was dead-coloured only. Kneller was highly praised by Dryden, +Addison, Prior, and Steele. Apropos of these writers, among the most +famous works of Kneller are the forty-three portraits, painted +originally for Tonson, the bookseller, of the members of the Kit Cat +club, the social and literary club of the day, which got its name from +the chance of its holding its meetings in a house the owner of which +bore the unique name of Christopher Cat. Another series of portraits by +Kneller are what ought to be, in their designation, the Hampton Court +Beauties. These are still, like the other 'Beauties,' at Hampton. The +second series was proposed by William's Queen Mary, and included +herself, Sarah Jennings, Duchess of Marlborough, and Mary Bentinck. To +Sarah Jennings men did award the palm of beauty, but poor Queen Mary, +who had a modest, simple, comely, English face as a princess, had lost +her fresh youthful charm by the time she became Queen of England, and +was still further disfigured by the swelling of the face to which she +was liable. Her proposal to substitute the worthier women of her court +for the unworthy beauties of her uncle King Charles' court was not +relished, and helped to render Mary unpopular--among the women, at +least, of her nobility. Neither was Sir Godfrey Kneller qualified to +enhance the attractions of Mary's maids of honour and ladies in waiting, +who, to complete their disadvantages, lived at a period when it had +become the fashion for women to crown their persons by an erection on +their natural heads of artificial 'edifices of three heads.' + +To Kneller, as I have already written, we owe the preservation of +Raphael's cartoons. + + + + +CHAPTER XII.[48] + +ITALIAN MASTERS FROM THE FOURTEENTH TO THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES--TADDEO +GADDI, 1300, SUPPOSED TO HAVE DIED 1366--FRA FILIPPO, 1412-1469--BENOZZO +GOZZOLI, 1424-1496--LUCA SIGNORELLI, 1441, SUPPOSED TO HAVE DIED ABOUT +1524--BOTTICELLI, 1447-1515--PERUGINO, 1446-1522--CARPACCIO, DATE AND +PLACE OF BIRTH AND DEATH UNKNOWN--CRIVELLI--FILIPPINO LIPI, EARLIER THAN +1460--ANTONELLA DA MESSINA, BELIEVED TO HAVE DIED AT VENICE, +1496--GAROPALO, 1481-1559--LUINI, DATE OF BIRTH UNKNOWN, SUPPOSED TO +HAVE DIED ABOUT 1530--PALMA, ABOUT 1480-1528--PARDENONE, 1483-1538--LO +SPAGNA, DATE OF BIRTH UNKNOWN, 1533--GIULIO ROMANO, 1492-1546--PARIS +BORDONE, 1500-1570--IL PARMIGIANINO, 1503-1540--BAROCCIO, +1528-1612--CARAVAGGIO, 1569-1609--LO SPAGNOLETTO, 1593-1656--GUERCINO, +1592-1666--ALBANO, 1578-1660--SASSOFERRATO, 1605-1685--VASARI, +1513-1574--SOFONISBA ANGUISCIOLA, 1535, ABOUT 1620--LAVINIA FONTANA, +1552-1614. + + +Taddeo Gaddi, the most important of Giotto's scholars, was born in 1300, +and was held at the baptismal font by Giotto himself. Gaddi rather went +back on earlier traditions and faults. His excellence lay in his purity +and simplicity of feeling. His finest pictures are from the life of the +Virgin, in S. Croce, Florence. He was, like his master, a great +architect as well as painter. He furnished the plans for the Ponte +Vecchio and Campanile, Florence, after Giotto's death. He was possessed +of great activity and industry. He is supposed to have died in 1366, and +rests in the scene of his labours, since he was buried in the cloisters +of S. Croce. + +Fra Filippo, 1412-1469, a Carmelite friar. The romantic, scandalous +life, including his slavery in Barbary, attributed to him by Vasari, the +great biographer of the early Italian painters, has received no +corroboration from modern researches. It is rather refuted. He always +signed his pictures 'Frater Filippus,' and his death is entered in the +register of the Carmine convent as that of 'Frater Filippus.' In all +probability he was from first to last a monk, and not a disreputable +one. He describes himself as the poorest friar in Florence, with six +marriageable nieces dependent on him, and he is said to have been +involved in debt. + +His colouring was 'golden and broad,' in anticipation of that of Titian; +his draperies were fine. He was wanting in the ideal, but full of human +feeling, which was apt to get rude and boisterous; his angels were 'like +great high-spirited boys.' Withal, his style of composition was stately. +Among the best examples of his work are scenes from the life of St John +the Baptist in frescoes in the choir of the Duomo at Prato. His panel +pictures are rather numerous. There are two lunette[49] pictures by Fra +Filippo in the National Gallery. + +Benozzo Gozzoli, 1424-1496, a scholar of Fra Angelico, but resembling +him only in light and cheerful colouring. He is said to have been the +first Italian painter smitten with the beauty of the natural world. He +was the first to create rich landscape backgrounds, and he enlivened +his landscapes with animals. He displayed a fine fancy for architectural +effects, introducing into his pictures open porticoes, arcades, +balconies, and galleries. He liked to have subsidiary groups and circles +of spectators about his principal figures. In these groups he introduced +portraits of his contemporaries, true to nature and full of expression +and delicate feeling. His best work is in the Campo Santo, Pisa, scenes +from the history of the Old Testament, ranging from Noah to the Queen of +Sheba. The Pisans were so pleased with his work as to present him, in +1478, with a sarcophagus intended to contain his remains when they +should be deposited in the Campo Santo. He survived the gift eighteen +years, dying in 1496. His easel pictures are rare, and do not offer good +representations of the master. There is one in the National Gallery--a +Virgin and Child, with saints and angels. + +Luca d'Egidio di Ventura, called also Luca 'da Cortona,' from his +birth-place, and Luca Signorelli, 1441, supposed to have died about +1524. His is a great name in the Tuscan School. He played an important +part in the painting of the Sistine Chapel, though he is only +represented by one wall picture, the History of Moses. At his best he +anticipated Michael Angelo in power and grandeur, but he was given to +exaggeration. His fame rests principally on his frescoes at Orvieto, +where, by a strange chance, he was appointed, after an interval of time, +to continue and complete the work begun by Fra Angelico, the master most +opposed to Signorelli in style. Luca added the great dramatic scenes +which include the history of Antichrist, executed with a grandeur which +'only Lionardo among the painters sharing a realistic tendency could +have surpassed.' These scenes, which contain The Resurrection, Hell, and +Paradise, bear a strong resemblance to the work of Michael Angelo. In +his fine drawing of the human figure Signorelli may be known by 'the +squareness of his forms in joints and extremities.' A conspicuous detail +in his pictures is frequently a bright-coloured Roman scarf. His work is +rarely seen north of the Alps. + +Sandro Filipepi, called Botticelli, 1447-1515. He was an apprentice to +a goldsmith, and then became a scholar of Filippo Lipi's. Botticelli was +vehement and impetuous, full of passion and poetry, seeking to express +movement. He was the most dramatic painter of his school. Occasionally +he rises to a grandeur that allies him to Signorelli and Michael Angelo. +His circular pictures of the Madonna and Child, with angels, are +numerous. Like Fra Filippo, Botticelli's angels are noble youths, some +of them belonging to the great families of the time. They are prone to +be ecstatic with joy or frantic with grief. There is a grand Coronation +of the Virgin, by Botticelli at Hamilton Palace, and a beautiful +Nativity by the old master belongs to Mr Fuller Maitland. His Madonna +and Child are grand and tragic figures always. Botticelli's noble +frescoes in the Sistine Chapel are apt to be overlooked because of +Michael Angelo's 'sublime work' on the ceiling. There has been a revival +of Botticelli's renown within late years, partly due to the new +interest in the earlier Italian painters which Mr Browning has done +something to stimulate. + +I quote some thoughtful remarks on Botticelli by W.C. Lefroy in +_Macmillan's Magazine_: 'Mr Ruskin, we know, divides Italian art into +the art of faith, beginning with Giotto, and lasting rather more than +200 years, and the art of unbelief, or at least of cold and inoperative +faith, beginning in the middle of Raphael's life. But whatever division +we adopt, we must remember that the revival of Paganism, as a matter of +fact, affected men in different ways. Right across the schools this new +spirit draws its line, but the line is not a hard and sharp one. Some +men lie wholly on one side of it, with Giotto, Angelico, and Orcagna; +some wholly upon the other, with Titian and Correggio, but there are +some on whom it seems to fall as a rainbow falls upon a hill-side. Such, +for instance, is Botticelli. Now he tries to paint as men painted in the +old days of unpolluted faith, and then again he breaks away and paints +like a very heathen. + +'The interest which this artist has excited in the present generation +has been exaggerated into something like a fashion, and recent criticism +has delighted to find or imagine in him the idiosyncrasies of recent +thought. To us it may be he does in truth say more than he or his +contemporaries dreamed of, but while true criticism will sternly refuse +to help us to see in his pictures that which is purely subjective, it +will, I think, recognise the fact that a day like ours is capable of +reading in the subtle suggestions of ancient art thoughts which have +only now come to be frankly defined or exquisitely analysed. To us, +moreover, Botticelli presents not only the poem of the apparition of the +young and beautiful manhood of humanism before the brooding and +entranced, yet half expectant, maidenhood of mediaevalism, but also the +poem of the painter's own peculiar relation to that crisis. For us there +is the poetry of the thing itself, and also the poetry of Botticelli's +attempt to express it. The work of Botticelli does not supply a +universal utterance for mankind like Shakespeare's plays, but when we +stand before the screen on which his "Nativity" is hung, or contemplate +in the adjoining room his two perplexed conceptions of "Aphrodite," we +are face to face with a genuine outcome of that memorable meeting, +mediaevalism, humanism, and Savonarola, which no generation can afford to +ignore, and our own especially delights to contemplate. There has been +much dispute about the date of Botticelli's "Nativity," and some +defenders of Savonarola have hoped to read 1511 in the strange character +of its inscription, so that this beautiful picture, standing forth as +the work of one for many years under the influence of "the Frate," may +refute the common calumny that that influence was unfriendly to art. Our +catalogue, indeed, unhesitatingly asserts of Botticelli, that "he became +a follower of Savonarola and no doubt suffered from it;" but though +there seems to be really little doubt that the "Nativity" was painted in +1500, the inscription, with its mystic allusion to the Apocalypse, and +the whole character of the picture, afford unmistakable evidence of the +influence of Savonarola.' + +Pietro Perugino, 1446, died of the plague at Frontignano in 1522. +Perugino is another painter who has been indebted to the last +Renaissance. His fame, in this country rested chiefly on the +circumstance that he was Raphael's master, whom the generous prince of +painters delighted to honour, till the tide of fashion in art rose +suddenly and floated old Pietro once more to the front. At his best he +had luminous colour, grace, softness, and enthusiastic earnestness, +especially in his young heads. His defects were monotony, and formality, +together with comparative ignorance of the principles of his art. His +conception of his calling in its true dignity was not high. His attempts +at expressing ardour degenerated into mannerism, and he acquired habits +and tricks of arrangement and style, among which figured his favourite +upturned heads, that in the end were ill drawn, and, like every other +affectation, became wearisome. In the process of falling off as an +artist, when mere manual dexterity took the place of earnest devotion +and honest pains, Perugino had a large studio where many pupils executed +his commissions, and where, working for gain instead of excellence in +art, he had the satisfaction, doubtless, of amassing a large fortune. +Among his finest works is the picture of an enthroned Madonna and Child +in the gallery of the Uffizi. Another fine Madonna with Saints is at +Cremona. His frescoes in the Sala del Campio at Perugia are among his +best works. The subjects of these frescoes are partly scriptural; partly +mythological. In the execution there is excellence alike in drawing, +colouring, and the disposal of drapery. A _chef d'oeuvre_ by the master +is the Madonna of the Certosa at Pavia, now in, the National Gallery. +Yet it is said to have been painted at the very period when Michael +Angelo ridiculed Perugino's work as 'absurd and antiquated.' Vittore +Carpaccio, date and place of birth unknown, though he is said to have +been a native of Istria. He was a historical painter of the early +Venetian School and a follower of the Bellini. His romantic _genre_ +pictures show the daily life of the Venice of his time, and are +furnished with landscape and architectural backgrounds. His masterly and +rich work is mostly in Venice. He introduces animals freely and well in +his designs. + +Carlo Crivelli was another master of the fifteenth century who deserves +notice. He had strong individuality, yet was influenced by the Paduan +and Venetian Schools. He displayed an old-fashioned preference for +painting in tempera. Sometimes his drawing approaches that of Mantegna, +while he has a gorgeousness of colouring all his own. His pictures +occasionally show dignity of composition in combination with grace and +daintiness; but he could be guilty of exaggerated vehemence of +expression. He frequently introduced fruit, flowers, and birds in his +work. He is fully represented in the National Gallery, his works there +ranging from 'small tender pictures of the dead Christ with angels, to a +sumptuous altar-piece in numerous compartments.' + +Filippino Lipi was an adopted son and probably a relation of Fra +Filippo's, though a scholar's use of his master's name was not uncommon. +The date of his birth is earlier than 1460. Filippino was also a pupil +of Botticelli's, while there was a higher sense of beauty and grace in +the pupil than in the teacher. Among his last works is the Vision of St +Bernard, an easel picture in the Badia at Florence. The apparition of +the Madonna in this picture is said to be 'full of charm.' In his larger +works he is one of the greatest historical painters of his country. +Roman antiquities had the same keen interest for him which they held for +the greatest of his contemporaries, and he made free use of them in the +architecture of his pictures. He has fine work in the Carmelite Church, +Florence, and in S. Maria Sopra Minerva, Rome. Much of some of his +pictures is painted over. The National Gallery has a picture of +Filippino's 'of grand execution,' though almost colourless--the Madonna +and Child, with St Jerome and St Francis. + +Antonella da Messina was the Neapolitan painter who brought the practice +of painting in oils from the Netherlands into Italy, though it is now +believed, from stubborn discrepancies in dates, that the story of his +great friendship with Jan Van Eyck, as given by Vasari, is apochryphal. +Very likely Hans Memling, called also 'John of Bruges,' was the real +friend and leader of Antonella. His best work consisted of portraits. He +is believed to have died at Venice in 1496. + +Benvenuto Tisio, surnamed from the place of his birth Garofalo, was born +in 1481, and died in 1559. He passed from the early school of Ferrara to +that of Raphael. His conception was apt to be fantastic, while his +colouring was vivid to abruptness, and he was deficient in charm of +expression. He fell into the fault of monotonous ideality. At the same +time his heads are beautiful, and his drapery is classic. His finest +work is an 'Entombment' in the Borghese Palace, Rome. There is an +altar-piece by Garofalo, a Madonna and Child with angels, in the +National Gallery. + +Bernardo Luini, who stands foremost among the scholars of Lionardo da +Vinci, was born by the Lago Maggiore, the date unknown, came to Milan in +1500, was elderly in 1525, and is supposed to have died not long after +1530. His work is chiefly found in Milan. His great merit has been only +lately acknowledged. He is not 'very powerful or original,' but for +'purity, grace, and spiritual expression,' he ranks very high. He unites +the earnestness of the older masters with the prevailing feeling for +beauty of the great masters of Italian Art. His pictures were long +mistaken for those of his master, Lionardo, though it is said that when +the difference between them is once pointed out, it is easily +recognised; indeed, the resemblance is confined to a smiling beatific +expression in the countenances, which abounds more in Luini's pictures. +His heads of women, children, and angels present every degree of +serenity, sweet cheerfulness and happiness, up to ecstatic rapture. +'Christ Disputing with the Doctors,' in the National Gallery, formerly +called a Lionardo, is now known to be a Luini. He painted much, whether +in tempera, fresco, or oil. His favourite subjects in oil were the +Madonna and Child, with St John and the Lamb, and the Marriage of St +Catherine. Probable he appears to greatest advantage in frescoes. He is +said to have reached his highest perfection in the figure of St John in +a Crucifixion in the Monasterio Maggiore, Milan. + +Jacopo Palma, called Il Palma Vecchio, was born about 1480 near Bergamo, +and died in 1528. He is believed to have studied under Giovanni Bellini, +while he is also the chief follower of Giorgione. His characteristics +are ample forms and gorgeous breadth of drapery. His female saints, with +their large rounded figures, have a soft yet commanding expression. He +had an enchanting feeling for landscape, which seems to have been the +birthright of the Venetian painters. To Palma is owing what are called +'Santa Conversazione,' where there are numerous groups round the Virgin +and Child, as if they are holding a court in a retired and beautiful +country nook. Palma rivalled Giorgione and Titian as a painter of +women's portraits. Among these is that of his daughter Violante, +believed to have been loved by Titian. 'Palma's three Daughters,' in the +Dresden Gallery, is a masterpiece of 'fair, full-blown beauty.' The hair +of the women is of the curiously bleached yellow tint affected then by +the Venetian ladies. Palma painted many pictures, leaving at his death +forty-our unfinished. + +Giovanni Antonio da Pardenone, born 1483, died 1538. He had many names, +'Pardenone' from his birth-place, 'Corticellis' from that of his father, +and he is believed to have assumed the name 'Regillo' after he received +knighthood from the King of Hungary. He was Venetian in his artistic +qualities. Many of his works are in his native Pardetowns near. All have +suffered and some are now hidden by whitewash. His chief strength lay in +fresco. His scenes from the Passion in the cathedral, Cremona, are +greatly damaged and wretchedly restored, but they still reveal the +painter as a great master. They have 'fine drawing, action, excellent +colouring, grand management of light and shade, with freedom of hand and +dignity of conception.' In the prophets and sibyls around the cupola of +the Madonna di Campagna, Piacenza, Pardenone's power is fully proven. +His immense works in fresco account for the rarity of his oil pictures +and their comparative inferiority. There is only one picture, and that a +portrait, indisputably assigned to Pardenone in England, in the Baring +Collection. + +Giovanni di Pietro, known as Lo Spagna (the Spaniard), was a +contemporary of Raphael's, a fellow-pupil of his under Perugino. There +is no record of the time and place of Lo Spagna's birth. He died in +1533. He was a careful, conscientious follower of Perugino and Raphael, +doing finished and delicate work; an 'Assumption' in a church at Trevi +is a fine example of his qualities. His best picture was painted in +1516, and is at Assisi. It represents the Madonna enthroned with three +saints on each side. In his later works he betrayed feebleness. Pictures +by Lo Spagna are often attributed to Raphael. + +Giulio Pippi, surnamed Romano, born in 1492, died in 1546, was a very +different painter, while he was the most celebrated of Raphael's +scholars. He had a vigorous, daring spirit, with a free hand and a bold +fancy. So long as he painted under Raphael, Giulio followed his master +closely, especially in his study of the antique, but he lacked the +purity and grace of his teacher, on whose death, the pupil leaving Rome, +pursued his own coarser, more vehement impulses. The frescoes in the +Villa Modama, Rome, are good examples of his style, so is the +altar-piece of the Martyrdom of St Stephen in S. Stefano, Genoa. Giulio +Romano was the architect who designed the rebuilding of half Mantua. +His best easel picture in England is the 'Education of Jupiter by Nymphs +and Corybantes,' in the National Gallery. In Raphael's lifetime his +principal scholar was accustomed to work on the master's pictures, and +on his death Giulio, together with another pupil, Gianfrancesco Penni, +were left executors of Raphael's will and heirs of his designs. + +Paris Bordone was born at Treviso in 1500 and died in 1570. He was +educated in the Venetian School, and remained remarkable for delicate +rosy colour in his flesh tints and for purple, crimson, and shot hues in +his draperies, which were usually small and in crumpled folds. His _chef +d'oeuvre_ is in the Venetian Academy. It is a fisherman presenting a ring +to the Doge, and is a large and fine picture with many figures. He dealt +frequently in mythological or poetic subjects. There is an example of +the first in the National Gallery. He was great in single female +subjects and women's portraits. There is a portrait by Bordone of a +lovely woman of nineteen belonging to the Brignole family, in the +National Gallery. He had often fine landscape and grand architecture in +his pictures. + +Il Parmigianino, born 1503, died 1540, was a follower of Correggio's. In +Parmigianino's case the danger of the master's peculiarities became +apparent by the lapse into affectation and frivolity. 'His Madonnas are +empty and condescending, his female saints like ladies in waiting.' +Still there were certain indestructible beauties of the master which yet +clung to the scholar. He had clear warm colouring, decision, and good +conception of human life. He was highly successful in portraits. There +is a splendid portrait by Parmigianino, said to be Columbus, in Naples. +Among his celebrated pictures is 'The Madonna with the Long Neck,' in +the Pitti Palace. An altar-piece in the National Gallery, which +represents a Madonna in the clouds with St John the Baptist appearing +to St Jerome, is a good example of Parmigianino. It is said that he was +engrossed with this picture during the siege of Rome in 1527. The +soldiers entered the studio intent on pillage, but surprising the +master at his work, respected his enthusiasm and protected him. + +Federigo Baroccio, of Urbino, born in 1528, died in 1612, was also a +follower of Correggio's, and made a stand against the decline of art in +his day. He was tender and idyllic, though apt in his turn to be +affected and sentimental. When painting in the Vatican, Rome, his rivals +sought to take his life by poison. The attempt caused Baroccio to return +to Urbino, where he established himself and executed his commissions. + +Amirighi da Caravaggio was born at Caravaggio in 1569, and died at Porto +Ercole in 1609. He was chief of the naturalistic school, the members of +which painted common nature and violent passions in bitter opposition to +the eclectics, especially the Caracci. The feud was sometimes carried on +appositely enough on the side of the naturalistic painters by poison and +dagger. Caravaggio was distinguished by his wild temper and stormy life, +in keeping with his pictures. He resided principally in Rome, but dwelt +also in Naples. He is vulgar but striking, even pathetic in some of his +pictures. The 'Beheading of John the Baptist,' in the Cathedral, Malta, +is one of his masterpieces. His Holy Families now and then resemble +gipsy _menages_. + +Guiseppe Ribiera, a Spaniard, and so called Lo Spagnoletto, was born +1593 and died 1656. He followed Caravaggio, while he retained +reminiscences of the Spanish School and of the Venetian masters. Some of +his best pictures, such as 'the Pieta with the Marys and the Disciples,' +and his 'Last Supper,' are in Naples. He had a wild fancy with a +preference for horrible subjects--executions, tortures--in this respect +resembling Domenichino. Lo Spagnoletto is said to be particularly +unpleasant in his mythological scenes. Many of his pictures have +blackened with time. His 'Mary of Egypt standing by her open Grave' is a +remarkable picture in the Dresden Gallery. + +Giovanni Francesco Barbiera, surnamed Guercino da Cinto, approached the +school of the Caracci. In his art he resembled Guido Reni, with the same +sweetness, greater liveliness, and fine chiaroscuro. 'Dido's Last +Moments' and 'St Peter raising Tabitha' in Rome and in the Pitti Palace +are fine examples of Guercino's work. His later pictures, like Guido's, +are fascinating in softness, delicate colouring and tender sentiment, +degenerating, however, into mannerism and insipidity, while his +colouring becomes at last pale and washy. + +Albano, born 1578, died 1660. He had elegance and cheerfulness which +hardly rose to grace. He painted mostly scenes from ancient mythology, +such as 'Venus and her Companions.' Religious subjects were +comparatively rare with him; one, however, often repeated was the +'Infant Christ sleeping on the Cross.' + +Giovanni Battista Salvi, surnamed from his birth-place Sassoferrato, was +born in 1605 and died in 1685. He followed the scholars of the Caracci, +but with some independence, returning to older and greater masters. His +art was distinguished by a peculiar but slightly affected gentleness of +conception, pleasing and sweet--with the sweetness verging on weakness. +He finished with minute care. He gave constant representations of the +Madonna and Child and Holy Families in a domestic character. In one of +his pictures in Naples the Madonna is engaged in sewing. His most +celebrated, 'Madonna del Rosario,' is in S. Sabina, Rome. The Madonna +bending in ecstatic worship over an infant Christ lying on a cushion is +in the Dresden Gallery. + +Giorgio Vasari was born at Arezzo in 1512 and died at Florence in 1574. +He was an architect, or jeweller, and a historical painter of heavy +crowded pictures. His lives of the early Italian painters and sculptors +up to his own time, the sixteenth century, though full of traditional +gossip, are invaluable as graphic chronicles of much interesting +information which would otherwise have been lost. + +Sofonisba Anguisciola, born 1535, died about 1620, was a pupil of +Bernardino Campi about the close of the sixteenth century at Cremona. +She is justly praised by Vasari. Though her works are rare there are a +few in England and Scotland. Three of her pictures which are mentioned +with high commendation by Dr. Waagen are, 'a nun in the white robes of +her order, nobly conceived and delicately coloured,' in Lord +Yarborough's collection; in Mr Harcourt's collection, 'her own +portrait, still very youthful, delicate, charming, and clear;' and in +the collection of the late Sir W. Stirling Maxwell, 'another portrait of +herself at an easel painting the Virgin and Child on wood, delicately +conceived, clear in colour, and very careful.' + +Lavinia Fontana, born in 1552, died 1614, was a daughter of Prospero +Fontana, who belonged to the fast degenerating Bolognese artists at the +close of the sixteenth and beginning of the seventeenth century. She was +a better artist than her fellow painters, worked cleverly and boldly, +and showed truth to nature. She has left excellent portraits. In the +late Sir W. Stirling Maxwell's collection there is a picture by her, +'Two girls in a boat with a youth rowing,' on wood, 'of very graceful +motive and careful treatment.' + + + + +CHAPTER XIII.[50] + +GERMAN, FLEMISH, AND DUTCH ARTISTS FROM THE FIFTEENTH TO THE EIGHTEENTH +CENTURY--VAN DER WEYDEN, A CONTEMPORARY OF THE VAN EYCKS, 1366-1442--VAN +LEYDEN, 1494-1533--VAN SOMER, 1570-1624--SNYDERS, 1579-1657--G. +HONTHORST, 1592-1662--JAN STEEN, 1626-1679--GERARD DOW, 1613-1680--DE +HOOCH, DATES OF BIRTH AND DEATH UNKNOWN--VAN OSTADE, 1610-1685--MAAS, +1632-1693--METZU, 1615, STILL ALIVE IN 1667--TERBURG, +1608-1681--NETCHER, 1639-1684--BOL, 1611-1680--VAN DER HELST, +1613-1670--RUYSDAEL, 1625 (?)-1682--HOBBEMA, 1638-1709--BERCHEM, +1620-1683--BOTH, 1610 (?)-1650 (?)--DU JARDIN, 1625-1678--ADRIAN VAN DE +VELDE, 1639-1672--VAN DER HEYDEN, 1637-1712--DE WITTE, 1607-1692--VAN +DER NEER, 1619(?)-1683--WILLIAM VAN DE VELDE THE YOUNGER, +1633-1707--BACKHUYSEN, 1631-1708--VAN DE CAPELLA, ABOUT +1653--HONDECOETER, 1636-1695--JAN WEENIX, 1644-1719--PATER SEGERS, +1590-1661--VAN HUYSUM, 1682-1749--VAN DER WERFF, 1659-1722--MENGS, +1728-1774. + + +Roger van der Weyden was a contemporary of the Van Eycks, born at +Tournai. His early pictures in Brussels are lost. He visited Italy in +1439, and was treated with distinction at Ferrara. His Flemish realistic +cast of mind and artistic power remained utterly unaffected by the grand +Italian pictures with which he came in contact; so did his profound +earnestness, which must have been great indeed, since its effects are +felt through all impediments down to the present day. His expressive +realism chose subjects in which the sentiments of grief and pity could +be most fitly shown. He sternly rejected any suggestion to idealise the +human form, and paint heads, hands, or feet different from those in +ordinary life. 'It is the simplicity with which he gives expression by +large and melancholy eyes, thought by projections of the forehead, grief +by contracted muscles, and suffering by attenuation of the flesh which +touches us.' The deadly earnestness of the man impresses the spectator +at this distant date. 'There is no smile in any of his faces, but there +is many a face wrung with agony, and there is many a tear.' He objected +to shadow in every form, and filled his pictures with an invariable +atmosphere and light--those which belong to dawn before sunrise. Among +his finer works are a triptych[51] belonging to the Duke of Westminster, +a 'Last Judgment' in the Hospital at Bearne, and a large 'Descent from +the Cross' in Madrid. In the triptych in the centre is Christ with black +hair, which is unusual, in his left hand the globe. On his right is the +Virgin Mary, on his left St John the Evangelist; on the right wing is +St John the Baptist, on his left the Magdalene. + +Lucas Van Leyden was born in 1494 and died in 1533. He painted both +scriptural subjects and everyday scenes, being a man of varied powers. +He worked admirably for his time, and added to his art that of an +engraver. He followed the Van Eycks, but lowered their treatment of +sacred subjects. In incidents taken from common life he showed himself +full of observation, and possessed of some humour. His pictures are +rare. A 'Last Judgment,' in the Town House, Leyden, is a striking but +unpleasant example of Lucas Van Leyden's work. + +Paul Van Somer was born at Antwerp in 1570, and died in 1624. He worked +for many years in England, where his best works--portraits--remain. He +was truthful, a good colourist, and finished carefully. His portraits of +Lord Bacon at Panshanger and of the Earl and Countess of Arundel at +Arundel Castle are well known. + +Frans Snyders was born in 1579, and died, at Antwerp in 1657. After +Rubens, Snyders was the greatest Flemish animal painter. He painted +along with Rubens often, Snyders supplying the animals and Rubens the +figures. Frans Snyders paid a visit to Italy and Rome, from which he +seems to have profited, judging by his skill in arrangement. This skill +he displayed also in his kitchen-pieces (magnificent shows of fruit, +vegetables, game, fish, etc.), which, like his animal pictures, are +numerous. In one of these kitchen-pieces in the Dresden Gallery, Rubens +and his second wife are said to figure as the cooks. Princes and nobles +bade for Snyders' pictures. There is a famous 'Boar Hunt' in the Louvre, +in Munich 'Lionesses Pursuing a Roebuck,' in Vienna 'Boar attacked by +Nine Dogs.' Snyders' animal pictures are full of energetic action and +fierce passion. To these qualities is frequently added hideous realism +in detail. There are many Snyders in English galleries. + +Gerard Honthorst was born at Utrecht in 1592, and died in 1662. He was a +follower of Caravaggio. He visited Italy and found favour in Rome, where +he got from his night-pieces Correggio's name, 'Della Notte.' Honthorst +was summoned to England by Charles I., for whom he painted several +pictures. He entered the service of Prince Frederick Henry of Orange, +and painted also for the King of Denmark. He left an extraordinary +number of works, sacred, mythological, historical, and latterly many +portraits. He drew well and painted powerfully, but was coarsely +realistic in his treatment. At Hampton Court there are two of his best +portraits, those of the unfortunate Queen of Bohemia and the Duke of +Buckingham and his family. Gerard Honthorst's younger brother, William, +was a portrait painter not unlike the elder brother in style. + +Jan Steen was born at Leyden in 1626, and died in 1679. He was great as +a _genre_ painter. He is said to have been, after Rembrandt, the most +humorous of Dutch painters, full of animal spirits and fun. At his best, +composition, colouring, and execution were all in excellent keeping. At +his worst, he was vulgar and repulsive in his heads, and careless and +faulty in his work. He was very rarely either kindly or reverent in his +subjects, though, in spite of what is known to have been his riotous +life, he is comparatively free from the grossness which is often the +shame of Flemish and Dutch art. Jan Steen succeeded his father as a +brewer and tavern-keeper at Delft. He renounced the brewery, in which he +did not succeed, and joined the Painters' Guild, Haarlem; but his +position as a tavern-keeper is reflected in his pictures, of which +eating and drinking, card-playing, etc., are frequently the _motifs_. +His family relations were not conducive to higher principles and tastes. +He is said to have been so lost to common feeling as to have painted his +first wife when she was in a state of intoxication.[52] His second wife +may have been a worthier woman, but she was drawn from the lowest class, +and had been accustomed to sell sheeps' heads and trotters in the +butchers' market. Without doubt Jan Steen had extraordinary genius +coexisting with his coarse, careless nature and jovial habits, and he +must have worked with great facility, since, in spite of his idleness +and comparatively early death, he left as many as two hundred pictures, +rendered him extremely popular. Besides his favourite subjects, such as +'The Family Jollification,' 'The Feast of the Bean King,' 'Game of +Skittles,' he has pictures in a slightly higher atmosphere, such as 'A +Pastor Visiting a Young Girl,' 'The Parrot,' 'Schoolmaster with +Unmanageable Boys,' 'The Pursuit of Alchemy.' Among the latter a good +example is 'The Music Master' in the National Gallery. + +Gerard Dow was born in 1613 and died in 1680. He was a _genre_ painter +of great merit. He belonged to Leyden, and was a pupil of Rembrandt. He +began with portraiture, often painting his own face, and went on to +scenes from low and middle-class life, but rarely attempted to represent +high society. Compared to Jan Steen, however, he is refined. He had a +curious fondness for painting hermits. The lighting of his pictures is +frequently by lantern or candle. They are mostly small, and without +animated action, but are full of picturesqueness. He was a good +colourist, 'with a rare truth to nature and a marvellous distinctness of +eye and precision of hand.' Minute as his execution was, his touch was +'free and soft.' His best pictures are 'like nature's self seen through +the camera obscura.' An instance often given of his exquisite finish is +that of a broom in the corner of one of his pictures. Some contemporary +had remarked how careful and elaborate was the labour bestowed on it, +when the painter answered that he was still to give it several hours' +work. He must have been exceedingly industrious as well as painstaking, +since he left two hundred pictures as his contribution to Dutch art. +Among his finer pictures are 'An Old Woman reading the Bible to her +Husband,' in the Louvre; 'The Poulterer's Shop,' in the National +Gallery. His _chef d'oeuvre_, 'The Woman Sick of the Dropsy,' is in the +Louvre. His candlelight is the finest rendered by any master. There is a +good example of it in 'The Evening School,' in the Amsterdam Gallery. + +Peter de Hooch--spelt often, De Hooge--was the _genre_ painter of full, +clear sunlight. The dates of his birth and death can only be guessed by +those of his pictures, which extend from 1656 to 1670. His groups are +generally playing cards, smoking, drinking, or engaged in domestic +occupations--almost always in the open air. No other _genre_ painter can +compare with him in reproducing the effects of sunlight. His prevailing +colour is red, varied and repeated with great delicacy. English lovers +of art brought De Hooch into favour, and many of his pictures are in +England. There are fine examples--'The Court of a Dutch House' and 'A +Courtyard'--in the National Gallery. + +Adrian van Ostade was born at Haarlem in 1610 and died in his native +town in 1685. He has been called 'the Rembrandt of _genre_ painters,' +and, like Rembrandt, he was without the sense of human beauty and grace, +for even his children are ugly; yet it is the purer, happier side of +national life which he constantly represents, and he had great feeling +for nature, with picturesqueness and harmony of design and colouring, as +well as mastery of the technique of his art. He suffered many hardships +in his youth, and grew up a quiet, industrious, family man. He left a +very large number of pictures, nearly four hundred, many of them good, +and not a few in England. 'The Alchemist'[53] is in the National +Gallery. + +Maas, born in 1632, died in 1693, is a much-prized _genre_ painter, +whose pictures are rare. He was a pupil of Rembrandt. He is said to have +treated 'very simple subjects with naive homeliness and kindly humour.' +His pictures are 'well lit, with deep warm harmony, and a vigorous +touch.' 'The Idle Servant-maid,' in the National Gallery, is a +masterpiece. + +Metzu, like Terburg, is _par excellence_ one of the two painters of +Dutch high life. Metzu was born in 1615, and is known to have been alive +in 1667. He painted both on a large and a small scale, and occasionally +departed from his peculiar province to represent market-scenes, etc. He +is the most refined and picturesque of _genre_ painters on a small +scale. Among his _chefs d'oeuvre_ are a 'Lady holding a Glass of Wine and +receiving an Officer,' in the Louvre; and a 'Girl writing, a Gentleman +leaning on her chair and another girl opposite playing the Lute,' in the +Hague Gallery. The fine 'Duet,' and the 'Music Lesson' are both in the +National Gallery. + +Gerard Terburg was born at Zwol, in 1608, and died in 1681. He visited +Germany and Italy in his youth. His small groups and single figures, +taken from the wealthier classes, with their luxurious surroundings, are +'given with exquisite delicacy and refinement.' Included in his +masterpieces are a 'Girl in white satin (a texture which he rendered +marvellously) washing her hands in a basin held before her by a +maid-servant,' in the Dresden Gallery; an 'Officer in confidential talk +with a Young Girl, and a Trumpeter who has brought him a Letter,' in the +Hague Gallery; a 'Young Lady in white satin sitting playing the Lute,' +in the Chateau of Wilhelmshoee, at Cassell. There are twenty-three +Terburgs in England and Scotland. + +Caspar Netcher, born in 1639, died in 1684. He formed himself upon Metzu +and Terburg. He is the great Dutch painter of childhood. His finest +works are in the Dresden Gallery. In the National Gallery is his +'Children blowing Bubbles.' + +Ferdinand Bol was born at Dordrecht in 1611, and died at Amsterdam in +1680. He was a student of Rembrandt's, and distinguished himself in +sacred and historical pictures, and especially in portraits. He followed +his master in his youth, fell off in his art in middle life, but became +again excellent in his later years. Among his fine pictures are 'David's +Charge to Solomon,' in the Dublin National Gallery; and 'Joseph +presenting his father Jacob to Pharaoh,' in the Dresden Gallery. His +last portraits are considered very fine. They are taken in the fullest +light, and have a surprising amount of animation. Such a portrait, +called 'The Astronomer,' is in the National Gallery.[54] + +Jacob Ruysdael was born in 1625(?) at Haarlem. In 1668 he was in +Amsterdam, and acted as witness to the marriage of Hobbema, whose lack +of worldly prosperity Ruysdael shared. He himself was unmarried, and +maintained his father in his old age. In the prime of life Jacob +Ruysdael in turn fell into extreme poverty, and died an inmate of the +Haarlem Almshouse in 1682--a sad record of Holland's greatest landscape +painter, for 'beyond dispute' Ruysdael is the first of the famous Dutch +landscape painters. + +'In no other is there the feeling for the poetry of Northern nature +united with perfect execution, admirable drawing, great knowledge of +chiaroscuro, powerful colouring, and a mastery of the brush which ranged +from the minutest touch to broad, free execution.' His prevailing tone +of colour is a full, decided green, though age has given many of his +pictures a brown tone. A considerable number of his pictures are in a +greyish, clear, cool tone (good examples of the last are to be seen in +the Dresden Gallery). He generally painted the flat Dutch country in +tranquil repose. He dealt usually in heavy clouded skies which told of +showers past and coming, and dark sheets of water overshadowed by +trees, lending a melancholy sentiment to the picture. He was fond of +wide expanses of land and water, fond also of introducing the spires of +his native Haarlem, touching the horizon line. He has left a few +sea-pieces, always with cloudy heavens and heaving or raging seas;[55] +where he has given sketches of sea, and shore, the aerial perspective is +rendered in tender gradations 'full of pathos.' He has other pictures +representing hilly, even mountainous, landscapes. In these foaming +waterfalls form a prominent feature. Ruysdael was weak in his drawing of +men and animals, in which he was occasionally assisted by +fellow-artists, such as Berchem and Van de Velde. Among his finest +pictures are 'A View of the Country round Haarlem,' in the Museum of the +Hague; 'A flat country, with a road leading to a village and fields with +wheat sheaves,' in the Dresden Gallery; 'A hilly bare country through +which a river runs; the horseman and beggar on a bridge, by +Wouvermans,' in the Louvre. His most remarkable waterfall is in the +Hague Museum. In the Dresden Gallery there is 'A Jewish Cemetery,' 'full +of melancholy.' Three of Ruysdael's fine waterfalls are in the National +Gallery. Of two very grand storms which he painted one is in the Louvre, +the other in the collection of the Marquis of Lansdowne at Bowood. There +are many of Ruysdael's pictures in England. In the great landscape +painter, as in the other renowned Dutch artists of the seventeenth +century, the influence of Rembrandt is marked. + +Meindert Hobbema was born in 1638, married in 1638, and died in poverty +at Amsterdam in 1709. His works, which were neglected in his lifetime, +now fetch much more than their weight in gold. Sums as large as four +thousand pounds have been paid more than once for a Hobbema, yet his +name was not found in any dictionary of art or artists for more than a +century after his death. The English were the first to acknowledge +Hobbema's merit, and nine-tenths of his works are in England, where he +is the most popular Dutch landscape painter. But he is said by judges to +have less invention and less poetic sensibility than his contemporary +and friend Ruysdael. Hobbema's subjects are usually villages surrounded +by trees like those in Guelderland, water-mills, a slightly broken +country, with groups of trees, wheatfields, meadows, and small pools, +more rarely portions of towns, and still more seldom old castles and +stately mansions.[56] He has all the lifelike truthfulness of the Dutch +artists. In tone he is as warm and golden as Ruysdael is cool in his +greens. In the National Gallery there are excellent specimens of +Hobbema, such as 'The Avenue Middelharnis' and 'A Landscape in Showery +Weather.' + +Nicolas Berchem, often spelt Berghem, was born at Haarlem in 1620, and +died at Amsterdam in 1683. He was an excellent Dutch landscape painter. +He had evidently visited Italy, and displayed great fondness for +Italian subjects. His pictures show 'varied composition, good drawing, +fine aerial effects, freedom, playfulness, and spirit.' As a colourist he +was unequal, being often warm and harmonious, but at other times heavy +and cold. It is clear that he was no student of life, from the monotony +of his shepherds and shepherdesses and the sameness of his animals. He +was naturally industrious, and was spurred on, as a still greater artist +is said to have been, by the greed of his wife. He painted upwards of +four hundred pictures, besides doing figures and animals for other +painters. The great northern European galleries are rich in his works. +One of his best pictures, 'A Shepherdess driving her cattle through a +ford in a rocky landscape,' where the cool tone of the landscape is +contrasted with the golden tone of the cattle, is in the Louvre. Another +fine picture, 'Crossing the Ford,' is in the National Gallery. + +Jan Both, born in 1610 (?), died in 1650 (?), was another Dutch +landscape painter still more spellbound by Italy,[57] which he visited, +and where he fell under the influence of Claude Lorraine. Both devoted +himself thenceforth to Italian landscape to a greater degree than was +practised by any other Dutch painter. He was excellent in drawing and +skilful in rendering the golden glories of Italian sunsets. He painted +freely and with solidity. The figures of men and animals in his pictures +were often introduced by his brother Andreas. Jan Both excelled both in +large and small pictures, but he was most uninterestingly uniform in +design. He had generally a foreground of lofty trees, and for a +background a range of mountains rising step by step, with a wide plain +at their feet. Sometimes he introduced a waterfall or a lake. He rarely +painted particular points in a landscape. His life was not a long one, +so that his pictures do not number more than a hundred and fifty. +Occasionally his warm tone of colouring degenerates to a foxy red. One +of Both's best pictures--a landscape in which the fresh light of +morning is apparent--is in the National Gallery. + +Karil du Jardin, born in 1625, died in 1678, is a third great Dutch +landscape painter, whose fancy Italy laid hold of, so that he settled in +the country, dying at Venice. He was, it is said, a pupil of Berchem's, +from whom he may have first drawn his Italian proclivities. He has more +truth and feeling for animated nature than Berchem. Indeed, in this +respect Du Jardin followed Paul Potter. According to contemporary +accounts, Du Jardin, who had his share of the national humour, wasted +his time in the pursuit of pleasure, and did not leave more pictures +behind him than Both left. Du Jardin's best works are in the Louvre, but +there are also many of his pictures in England. Among his masterpieces, +'Cattle of all kinds in a meadow surrounded by rocks, and watered by a +cascade; a horseman giving alms to a peasant boy;' and his celebrated +'Charlatan,' full of observation and humour, are in the Louvre. A fine +picture, 'Figures of Animals under the shade of a Tree,' is in the +National Gallery. + +Adrian Van de Velde, born in 1639, died in 1672, the younger brother of +a great marine painter, ranks almost as high as Paul Potter in cattle +painting. If 'inferior in modelling and solidity' to his rival, Adrian +Van de Velde is superior in variety, taste, and feeling. Like the great +English animal painter, Landseer, Van de Velde was a distinguished +artist when a mere boy of fourteen. Like his compatriot, Paul Potter, +Van de Velde died young, at the age of thirty-two. He generally disposed +of his cattle among broken ground with trees and pools of water. +Sometimes he has a herdsman or a shepherdess, sometimes there is a +hunting party passing. His scenery is reckoned masterly. It is mostly +taken from the coast of Scheveningen. He often painted in men, horses, +and dogs for other painters. He must have been very industrious, with +great facility in his work, since, in spite of his premature death, he +had painted nearly two hundred pictures. 'A brown cow grazing and a +grey cow resting,' which is in the Berlin Museum, was done at the age of +sixteen, yet it is full of observation, delicacy, and execution. 'Cattle +grazing before a peasant's cottage,' which is in the Dresden Gallery, is +considered very fine. A fine 'Winter Landscape,' and a 'Farm Cottage,' +are in the National Gallery. Some of Adrian Van de Velde's best work, as +well as his brother's, is in England. + +Jan Van der Heyden, 'the Gerard Dow of architectural painters,' was born +in 1637 and died in 1712. He combined an unspeakable minuteness of +detail with the closest observation of nature. His subjects, which he +selected with great taste, were chiefly well-known buildings, palaces, +churches, and canal banks in Holland and Belgium. He painted in a warm +transparent tone, with close application of the laws of perspective. The +figures in his pictures, in excellent keeping, were often introduced by +Adrian Van de Velde. Van der Heyden's productiveness as a painter was +lessened by the circumstance that his mechanical talent led him to make +an invention by which the construction of the fire-engines of his day +was greatly improved. In consequence he was placed by the magistrates of +Amsterdam at the head of their fire-engine establishment, which had thus +many claims on his time. A beautiful 'Street in Cologne' is in the +National Gallery. + +Emanuel De Witte, born in 1607, died in 1692, was great in architectural +interiors, especially in churches of Italian architecture. He stood to +this branch of Dutch art in the same relation that Ruysdael did to +landscape and William Van de Velde to seascape. + +Aart Van der Neer was born in 1619(?), died in 1683. He is famous for +his canal banks by moonlight, and fine disposal of broad masses of +shadow. After his moonlights come his sunsets, conflagrations, and +winter scenes. He rarely painted full daylight. He sometimes painted on +the same Van der Neer in the National Gallery. Many of his works are in +England. + +William Van de Velde the younger, the elder brother of Adrian Van de +Velde, the cattle painter, was born at Amsterdam in 1633, and died at +Greenwich in 1707. His early life was spent in Holland. He followed his +father, William Van de Velde, a painter also, to England, where, under +the patronage of Charles II, and James II., William the younger painted +the naval victories of the English over the Dutch, just as in Holland he +had already painted the naval victories of the Dutch over the English. +He was a greater and more consistent artist than he was a patriot. +Without question he is the first marine painter of the Dutch School. He +was untiring in his study of nature, so that his perfect knowledge of +perspective and the incomparable mastery of technical qualities which he +inherited from his school, enabled him to render sea and sky under every +aspect. His vessels 'were drawn with a knowledge which extended to every +rope.' He has been an exceedingly popular painter both with the Dutch +and the English. Of upwards of three hundred pictures left by him many +are in Holland and still more in England, where in his lifetime he was +largely employed by the English nobility and gentry. William Van de +Velde has a great picture in the Amsterdam Museum, where the English +flag-ship, the _Princess Royal_, is represented as striking her colours +to the Dutch fleet in 1666. In the companion picture, also by Van de +Velde, 'Four English men-of-war brought in as prizes,' the painter +introduces himself in the small boat from which he witnessed the fight. +William Van de Velde's triumphs in calm seas are seen especially in his +pictures at the Hague and in Munich. Some of Van de Velde's best works +are in the National Gallery. + +Backhuysen born in 1631, died at Amsterdam in 1708, was another +admirable marine painter. He did not study painting till he had followed +a trade up to the age of eighteen years; he then gave himself with +ardour to art, making many studies of skies, coasts, and vessels. He was +inferior to William Van de Velde in his colouring, which was heavy, with +a cold effect. But he had in full a Dutch painter's truthfulness, while +his 'stormy waves and rent clouds' are given with poetic feeling. He was +an industrious and successful man, painting nearly two hundred pictures, +and receiving many commissions from the King of Prussia, Grand Duke of +Tuscany, etc. One of his finest works, 'A View of the River from the +Landing-place called the Mosselsteiger,' is in Amsterdam Museum. In the +Louvre is 'A view of the Mouth of the Texel, with ten Men-of-war Sailing +before a Fresh Wind.' 'Dutch Shipping' is in the National Gallery. + +Van de Capella is another capital marine painter, though little is known +of him. He was a native of Amsterdam about 1653. His favourite subject +is a quiet sea in sunny weather. His work bears some resemblance to that +of Cuyp. His best pictures are in England. 'A Calm at Low Water' is in +the National Gallery. + +Melchior de Hondecoeter, born in 1636, died in 1695, chose the feathered +tribe for his subjects. He has been called 'the Raphael of bird +painters.' He painted especially poultry, peacocks, turkeys, and +pigeons, which he usually represented alive, and treated with great +truthfulness and picturesque feeling. Among his best pictures are 'The +Floating Feather,' a feather given with singular lightness drifting in a +pool, with different birds on the water and the shore--a pelican +prominent--in Amsterdam Museum, and 'A Hen defending her Chickens +against the attacks of a Pea-hen, with a Peacock, a Pigeon, a Cassowary, +and a Crane,' also in Amsterdam. + +Jan Weenix, born in 1644, died in 1719. He was a painter of 'still +life,' and was especially famous for his dead hares, 'which in form and +colour, down to the rendering of every hair, are marvels of execution.' +He painted sometimes, though rarely, a living dog in his pieces. A fine +Weenix sometimes painted flower pieces.[58] + +Pater Segers, so called because he was a Father in a Jesuit convent, +which he entered at twenty-four years of age. He was born in 1590, and +died in the Jesuit convent, Antwerp, 1661. He was a famous flower +painter, but did not paint flowers by themselves; he painted them in +conjunction with the historical and sacred subjects of other painters. +He added many a wreath to the Virgin and Child. He worked in this +fashion with Rubens, but painted more frequently along with painters of +a lower rank in art. Pater Segers' flowers are finely drawn and +tastefully arranged. The red of his roses has remained unchanged by +years, while the roses of other painters have become violet or faded +altogether. He had endless royal commissions. There are six of his +pictures of much merit in the Dresden Gallery. + +Besides the elder and younger De Heem and Maria Von Oesterwyck mentioned +at page 258, Jan Van Huysum, 1682-1749, was great in flower painting, +choosing flowers rather than fruit for his brush. If De Heem has been +called the Titian, Van Huysum has been defined as the Correggio, of +flowers and fruit. He reversed the ordinary course of artists by +beginning in a broad style, and progressing into an execution of the +finest details. In masterly drawing and truthfulness he was not inferior +to De Heem, though hardly reckoned his equal in other respects. Even in +Van Huysum's lifetime there was an eager demand for his pictures, of +which he left more than a hundred. There is an excellent fruit and +flower piece by him in Dulwich Gallery, and a masterpiece, 'A Vase with +Flowers,' is in the National Gallery. + +Andrian Van der Werff was born in 1659, and died in 1722. He is +honourably distinguished for his pursuit of the ideal, in which he stood +alone among the Dutch artists of his day. He showed much sense of beauty +and elegance of form with great finish, but he had more than +counterbalancing faults. His grouping was artificial, his heads +monotonous, his colouring 'cold and heavy,' with 'a frosty feeling' in +his pictures. His flesh tints resembled ivory, yet his elegance was so +highly prized that he had many royal and noble patrons, for whom he +executed sculptural and mythological pieces. Many of his pictures are in +the Munich Gallery. + +Anton Raphael Mengs was born in Bohemia 1728, and died in Rome 1774. His +father was a distinguished miniature painter, and gave his son a careful +education, training him to copy the masterpieces of Michael Angelo and +Raphael from his twelfth year. Unfortunately he remained a copyist and +an eclectic. He drew well, learnt chiaroscuro from studying Correggio, +and colouring from analysing Titian. He was acquainted with the best +technical processes in oil and fresco. All that teaching could do for a +man was done, and to a great extent in vain. For though he worked with +great conscientiousness, fancy and feeling were either originally +lacking, or they were overlaid and stifled by his excess of culture and +severe education. The most successful of his works are portraits, in +which masterly treatment makes up to some extent for the absence of +originality and subtle sympathy. But in his day, and with some reason, +Raphael Mengs was greatly prized, since he figured among a host of +ignorant, careless, and conceited painters. At the age of seventeen he +was appointed court painter to King Augustus of Saxony. He was summoned +to Spain by Charles III., who gave him a high salary. Among his good +works is an 'Assumption' on the high altar of the Catholic Church, +Dresden. An allegorical subject in fresco on the ceiling of the Camera +de Papini in the Vatican has 'beauty of form, delicate observation, and +masterly modelling.' Mengs wrote well on art, though in his writing also +his eclecticism comes out. + + + + +NOTE TO PAGE 96. + + + 'I have been told that I have not done justice to Lionardo in + this short sketch. I give in an abridged form the accurate + appreciative analysis of the man and his work in Sir C, and Lady + Eastlake.'--KUGLER. It is stated that the versatility of + Lionardo was against him. He attempted too much for one man and + one life. An additional impediment was produced by his + temperament, 'dreamy, perfidious, procrastinating,' withal + desirous of shining in society. His ideal of the Lord's head is + the highest that art has realised. The apostles' heads are among + the truest and noblest. The countenances of his Madonnas are full + of ineffable sweetness and pathos. 'At the same time he analysed + the monstrous and misshapen, and has left us caricatures in which + he seems to have gloated over hideousness half human, half + brute. He altered and retouched without ceasing, always deferring + the conclusion of the task which he executed with untiring labour + and ceaseless dissatisfaction.' The wonder is not that he should + have left so little, but that he left enough to prove the + transcendent nature of his art. 'There is nothing stranger in + history than the fact that his great fame rests on one single + picture--long reduced to a shadow--on half-a-dozen pictures for + which his hand is alternately claimed and denied, and on + unfinished fragments which he himself condemned.' Lionardo was + too universal to be of any school. + + + + +INDEX. + + PAGE + + Albino 387 + Angelico, Fra 36 + Anguisciola 388 + Backhuysen 415 + Baroccio 385 + Bartolommeo, Fra 77 + Bellini, The 54 + Berchem 407 + Bol 402 + Bordone 393 + Both 418 + Botticelli 369 + Canaletto 358 + Capella, Van de 416 + Caravaggio 385 + Carpaccio 375 + Carracci, The 212 + Cellini 69 + Claude Loraine 296 + Correggio 185 + Crivelli 375 + Cuyp 255 + Domenichino 220 + Dow 398 + Du Jardin 410 + Duerer 169 + Eycks, The Van 41 + Filippo, Fra 365 + Fontana 389 + Francia, Il 73 + Gaddi 374 + Garofalo 377 + Ghiberti 31 + Ghirlandajo 69 + Gibbons, Grinling 359 + Giorgione 181 + Giotto 8 + Gozzoli 366 + Greuze 307 + Guercino 386 + Guido 218 + Heem, De 258 + Helst, Van der 403 + Heyden, Van der 412 + Hobbema 406 + Holbein 309 + Hondecoeter 416 + Honthorst 395 + Hooch 399 + Huysum, Van 418 + Kneller 359 + Le Brun 303 + Lely 355 + Leyden, Van 393 + Lionardo da Vinci 83 + Lipi 376 + Luini 378 + Maas 401 + Mabuse 48 + Mantegna 64 + Masaccio 34 + Matsys 50 + Memling 48 + Mengs 420 + Messina, Da 377 + Metzu 259, 401 + Michael Angelo 96 + Murillo 280 + Netcher 402 + Orcagna 24 + Ostade, Van 400 + Palma 379 + Pardenone 380 + Parmigianino 384 + Perugino 373 + Pisano 23 + Potter 257 + Poussin 286 + Raphael 125 + Rembrandt 245 + Romano 382 + Rubens 225 + Ruysdael 403 + Salvator Rosa 222 + Sarto, Del 81 + Sassa errato 387 + Segers 418 + Signorelli 367 + Snyders 394 + Somer, Van 394 + Spagna 381 + Spagnoletto 386 + Steen 396 + Teniers, Father and Son 251 + Terburg 259, 402 + Tintoretto 194 + Titian 157 + Van Dyck 333 + Vasari 388 + Velasquez 360 + Velde, Van de 411 + Velde, Van de, The Younger 414 + Veronese 205 + Watteau 305 + Wouvermans 253 + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] It is in their unconsciousness and earnestness that a parallel is +drawn between the first Italian painters and the Elizabethean poets. In +other respects the comparison may be reversed, for the early Italian +painters, from their restriction to religious painting, with even that +treated according to tradition, were as destitute of the breadth of +scope and fancy attained by their successors, as the Elizabethean poets +were distinguished by the exuberant freedom which failed in the more +formal scholars of Anne's reign. + +[2] Kugler's Handbook of Art. + +[3] While writing of goldsmiths that became painters, I may say a word +of a goldsmith who, without quitting his trade, was an unrivalled artist +in his line. I mean Benvenuto Cellini, 1500--1571, a man of violent +passions and little principle, who led a wild troubled life, of which he +has left an account as shameless as his character, in an autobiography. +Cellini was the most distinguished worker in gold and silver of his day, +and his richly chased dishes, goblets, and salt cellars, are still in +great repute. + +[4] Kugler's _Handbook of Painting_. + +[5] Kugler's _Handbook of Painting_. + +[6] See note, page 422. + +[7] Mrs Roscoe's _Life of Vittoria Colonna_ + +[8] Michael Angelo's will was very simple. 'I bequeath my soul to God, +my body to the earth, and my possessions to my nearest relations.' + +[9] Lady Eastlake, _History of Our Lord_. + +[10] Hare, _Walks in Rome_. + +[11] Lanzi, in Hare's _Walks in Rome_. + +[12] Rio. _Poetry of Christian Art_, in Hare's _Walks in Rome._ + +[13] Mrs Jameson. + +[14] Dean Alford. + +[15] _Imperial Biographical Dictionary_. + +[16] Titian's age is variously given; some authorities make it +ninety-nine years, placing the date of his death in 1570 or 7. + +[17] Kugler. + +[18] The term originated in the French expression, '_du genre bas_.' + +[19] He had a peculiar fondness for blue and bronze hues. + +[20] It is due to Tintoret to say, that there are modern critics, who +look below the surface, and are at this date deeply enamoured of his +pictures. Tintoret's name now stands very high in art. + +[21] Mrs Jameson. + +[22] Guido said of Rubens: 'Does this painter mix blood with his +colours?' + +[23] _Life of Rubens_. + +[24] If I mistake not, this is the same Countess of Arundel who, in her +widowhood, resided in Italy in order to be near her young sons then at +Padua. Having provoked the suspicion of the Doge and Council of Venice, +she was arrested by them on a charge of treason, and brought before the +tribunal, where she successfully pled her own cause, and obtained her +release, the only woman who ever braved triumphantly the terrible 'ten.' + +[25] Here is the description of a very different Rembrandt which appears +in this year's Exhibition of the Works by Old Masters: 'There is no +portrait here which equals Rembrandt's picture, from Windsor, "A Lady +Opening a Casement;" a not particularly appropriate name, because the +picture represents no such action. The lady is simply looking from an +open window, her left hand raised and resting at the side of the +opening. We believe there is nothing left to tell who this lady was, +with the grave, sad eyes, and lips that seem to quiver with a trouble +hardly yet assuaged collar, almost a tippet, for it falls below her +shoulders, together with lace cuffs. A triple band of large pearls goes +about her neck, and she has similar ornaments round each wrist. She +wears a mourning robe and black jewellery.... This picture, which +resembles in most of its qualities a pair, of somewhat larger size, +which were here last year, and also came from the Royal collection, is +signed and dated "Rembrandt, F. 1671." It is, therefore, a late work of +his. What wonderful harmony is here, of light, of colour, of tone. How +nearly perfect is the keeping of the whole picture; as a whole, and also +in respect of part to part. Could anything be truer than the breadth of +the chiaroscuro? Notice how beautifully, and with what subtle +gradations, the light reflected from her white collar strikes on her +slightly faded cheek; how tenderly it seems to play among the soft +tangles of the hair that time has thinned.'--_Athenaeum_. + +[26] He had been called the Titian of flower and fruit painters. He +preferred fruit for his subject. His works are not common in England. +His masterpiece, 'The Chalice of the Sacrament,' crowned with a stately +wreath, and sheaves of corn and bunches of grapes among the flowers, is +at Vienna. + +[27] Sir W. Stirling Maxwell. + +[28] Sir W. Stirling Maxwell. + +[29] Hare, _Wanderings in Spain_. + +[30] Hare's _Wanderings in Spain_. + +[31] The spelling is an English corruption of the French Claude. + +[32] Poussin had a villa near Ponte Molle, and the road by which he used +to go to it is still called in Rome 'Poussin's walk.' + +[33] Claude's summer villa is still pointed out near Rome. + +[34] _Imperial Biographical Dictionary_. + +[35] Madame Le Brun, whose maiden name was Vigee, born 1755, died 1842, +was an excellent portrait painter. + +[36] Wornum. + +[37] Wornum. + +[38] Supposed to be a niece of Sir Thomas More's. + +[39] Rev. J. Lewis, 1731. + +[40] Wornum. + +[41] A still more famous picture by Holbein is that called 'The Two +Ambassadors,' and believed to represent Sir Thomas Wyatt and his +secretary. + +[42] Walpole. + +[43] Walpole. + +[44] Dwarfs figured at Charles's court, as at the court of Philip IV. of +Spain. + +[45] The notion that Van Dyck sacrificed truth to grace is absolutely +contradicted by certain critics, who bring forward as a proof of their +contradiction what they consider the 'over-true' picture of the Queen +Henrietta Maria, shown at the last exhibition of the works of Old +Masters. The picture seems hardly to warrant the strong opinion of the +critics. + +[46] Walpole. + +[47] Walpole. + +[48] Lady Eastlake and Dr. Waagen's works on Italian, Flemish, and Dutch +Art, modelled on Kugler. + +[49] A lunette is a small picture, generally semicircular, surmounting +the main picture in an altar-piece. + +[50] The Dutch still more than the Italian artists belonged largely to +families of artists bearing the same surnames. + +[51] A picture with one door of two panels is called a diptych, with two +doors of three panels a triptych, with many doors and panels a +polyptych. + +[52] Fairholt's 'Homes and Haunts of Foreign Artists.' + +[53] Alchemists, like hermits, still existed in the seventeenth century. + +[54] Bartholomew Van der Helst, 1613-1670, was another great Dutch +portrait painter. His portrait pieces with many figures are famous. An +'Archery Festival,' commemorating the Peace of Westphalia, includes +twenty-four figures full of individuality and finely drawn and coloured. +One of his best works is 'In the Workhouse,' at Amsterdam. Two women and +two men are conversing together in the foreground. There is a man with a +book, and a preacher delivering a sermon in the background. + +[55] It may be that Ruysdael's straggling life was reflected in his +lowering skies and stormy seas. + +[56] Other eminent painters, such as Van de Velde, Wouvermans, and +Berchem often supplied cattle and figures to Hobbema's landscapes. + +[57] Was the apparently greater success of these partly denaturalised +Dutch landscape painters, as contrasted with the adversity of Ruysdael +and Hobbema, due to the classic mania? + +[58] Peter Gysels was another painter of 'still life.' His butterflies +are said to have been rendered with 'exquisite finish.' + + + * * * * * + +ISBISTERS' PRIZE AND GIFT BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS. + + * * * * * + +"_Charming prize books. If anything can make the children of the present +day take kindly to useful information, it will be such books as these, +full of excellent illustrations, and in easy as well as interesting +language."_--GUARDIAN. + + * * * * * + +_ONE SHILLING VOLUMES._ + + * * * * * + +ANIMAL STORIES FOR THE YOUNG. + +In Three handsome little Volumes full of Illustrations.' + + 1. HEADS WITHOUT HANDS; + Or, Stories of Animal Wisdom. + + 2. HEARTS WITHOUT HANDS; + Or, Fine Feeling among Brutes; + + 3. SENSE WITHOUT SPEECH; + Or, Animal Notions of Right and Wrong. + +MOU-SETSE. + + A Negro Hero. By L.T. MEADE. + With Illustrations. Small 8vo. + + * * * * * + +_HALF-CROWN VOLUMES._ + +Profusely Illustrated. Crown 8vo, cloth extra. + + * * * * * + +AMONG THE BUTTERFLIES. + + A Book for Young Collectors. + By B.G. 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It is well illustrated and + thoroughly reliable."--_Morning Post_. + + "Really a complete course of natural history."--_Times_. + +FROM THE EQUATOR TO THE POLE. + + IN THE HEART OF AFRICA. By JOSEPH THOMSON. + CLIMBING THE HIMALAYAS. By W.W. GRAHAM. + ON THE ROAD TO THE POLE. By Captain A.H. MARKHAM. + With Forty-five Illustrations. + "A more delightful prize or present for boys than this it would be + hard to find." + _Record_. + +FAITHFUL FRIENDS. + + Stories of Struggle and Victory. + By L.T. MEADE and others. + With Twenty Illustrations by French, Barnes, etc. + "A carefully illustrated little book.... With truth and + pathos."--_Daily News_. + "Capital reading for young folks.... All brisk and + wholesome."--_Scotsman_. + +HEROES AND MARTYRS OF SCIENCE. + + By HENRY C. EWART. 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