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diff --git a/42163-0.txt b/42163-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4f38750 --- /dev/null +++ b/42163-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,927 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 42163 *** + +MASTERPIECES IN COLOUR + +EDITED BY--T. LEMAN HARE + + +BERNARDINO LUINI + + + + +IN THE SAME SERIES + + ARTIST. AUTHOR. + VELAZQUEZ. S. L. BENSUSAN. + REYNOLDS. S. L. BENSUSAN. + TURNER. C. LEWIS HIND. + ROMNEY. C. LEWIS HIND. + GREUZE. ALYS EYRE MACKLIN. + BOTTICELLI. HENRY B. BINNS. + ROSSETTI. LUCIEN PISSARRO. + BELLINI. GEORGE HAY. + FRA ANGELICO. JAMES MASON. + REMBRANDT. JOSEF ISRAELS. + LEIGHTON. A. LYS BALDRY. + RAPHAEL. PAUL G. KONODY. + HOLMAN HUNT. MARY E. COLERIDGE. + TITIAN. S. L. BENSUSAN. + MILLAIS. A. LYS BALDRY. + CARLO DOLCI. GEORGE HAY. + GAINSBOROUGH. MAX ROTHSCHILD. + TINTORETTO. S. L. BENSUSAN. + LUINI. JAMES MASON. + FRANZ HALS. EDGCUMBE STALEY. + +_In Preparation_ + + VAN DYCK. PERCY M. TURNER. + WHISTLER. T. MARTIN WOOD. + LEONARDO DA VINCI. M. W. BROCKWELL. + RUBENS. S. L. BENSUSAN. + BURNE-JONES. A. LYS BALDRY. + J. F. MILLET. PERCY M. TURNER. + CHARDIN. PAUL G. KONODY. + FRAGONARD. C. HALDANE MACFALL. + HOLBEIN. S. L. BENSUSAN. + BOUCHER. C. HALDANE MACFALL. + VIGÉE LE BRUN. C. HALDANE MACFALL. + WATTEAU. C. LEWIS HIND. + MURILLO. S. L. BENSUSAN. + +AND OTHERS. + + + + +[Illustration: PLATE I.--MADONNA AND CHILD. Frontispiece + +(In the Wallace Collection) + +This is another admirably painted study of the artist's favourite +subject. The attitude of the child is most engaging, the painting of +the limbs is full of skill, and the background adds considerably to +the picture's attractions. It will be noted that Luini appears to have +employed the same model for most of his studies of the Madonna.] + + + + +Bernardino LUINI + +BY JAMES MASON + +ILLUSTRATED WITH EIGHT REPRODUCTIONS IN COLOUR + + +[Illustration] + + +LONDON: T. C. & E. C. JACK + +NEW YORK: FREDERICK A. STOKES CO. + + + + +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + + + Plate + I. Madonna and Child Frontispiece + In the Wallace Collection + Page + II. Il Salvatore 14 + In the Ambrosiana, Milan + + III. Salomé and the Head of St. John the Baptist 24 + In the Uffizi Gallery, Florence + + IV. The Mystic Marriage of St. Catherine 34 + In the Brera, Milan + + V. The Madonna of the Rose 40 + In the Brera, Milan + + VI. Detail of Fresco 50 + In the Brera, Milan + + VII. Head of Virgin 60 + In the Ambrosiana, Milan + + VIII. Burial of St. Catherine 70 + In the Brera, Milan + + + + +[Illustration] + +I + +A RETROSPECT + + +In the beginning of the long and fascinating history of Italian Art we +see that the spirit of the Renaissance first fluttered over the minds +of men much as the spirit of life is said have moved over the face of +the waters before the first chapter of creation's marvellous story was +written. Beginnings were small, progress was slow, and the lives of +the great artists moved very unevenly to their appointed end. + +There were some who rose to fame and fortune during their life, and +then died so completely that no biography can hope to rouse any +interest in their work among succeeding generations. + +There were others who worked in silence and without _réclame_ of any +sort, content with the respect and esteem of those with whom they came +into immediate contact, indifferent to the plaudits of the crowd or +the noisy praises of those who are not qualified to judge. True +servants of the western world's religion, they translated work into +terms of moral life, and moral life into terms of work. Merit like +truth will out, and when time has sifted good work from bad and +spurious reputations from genuine ones, many men who fluttered the +dovecotes of their own generation disappear from sight altogether; +some others who wrought unseen, never striving to gain the popular ear +or eye, rise on a sudden to heights that might have made them giddy +had they lived to be conscious of their own elevation. They were +lowly, but their fame inherits the earth. + +Bernardino Luini, the subject of this little study, calls us away from +the great art centres--from Venice and Florence and Rome; his record +was made and is to be found to-day amid the plains of Lombardy. Milan +is not always regarded as one of the great art centres of Italy in +spite of the Brera, the Ambrosiana, and the Poldi Pezzoli Palace +collections, but no lover of pictures ever went for the first time to +the galleries of Milan in a reverent spirit and with a patient eye +without feeling that he had discovered a painter of genius. He may not +even have heard his name before, but he will come away quite +determined to learn all he may about the man who painted the wonderful +frescoes that seem destined to retain their spiritual beauty till the +last faint trace of the design passes beyond the reach of the eye, the +man who painted the panel picture of the "Virgin of the Rose Trees," +reproduced with other of his master-works in these pages. + +[Illustration: PLATE II.--IL SALVATORE + +(In the Ambrosiana, Milan) + +This picture, one of the treasures of the beautiful collection in the +Pinacoteca of Ambrosiana in the Piazza della Rosa, hangs by the same +artist's picture of "John the Baptist as a Child." The right hand of +Christ is raised in the attitude of benediction, and the head has a +curiously genuine beauty. The preservation of this picture is +wonderful, the colouring retains much of its early glow. The head is +almost feminine in its tenderness and bears a likeness to Luini's +favourite model.] + +To go to the Brera is to feel something akin to hunger for the history +of Bernardino Luini or Luino or Luvino as he is called by the few +who have found occasion to mention him, although perhaps Luini is the +generally accepted and best known spelling of the name. Unfortunately +the hungry feeling cannot be fully satisfied. Catalogues or guide +books date the year of Luini's birth at or about 1470, and tell us +that he died in 1533, and as this is a period that Giorgio Vasari +covers, we turn eagerly to the well-remembered volumes of the old +gossip hoping to find some stories of the Lombard painter's life and +work. We are eager to know what manner of man Luini was, what forces +influenced him, how he appeared to his contemporaries, whether he had +a fair measure of the large success that attended the leading artists +of his day. Were his patrons great men who rewarded him as he +deserved--how did he fare when the evening came wherein no man may +work? Surely there is ample scope for the score of quaint comments and +amusing if unreliable anecdotes with which Vasari livens his pages. We +are confident that there will be much to reward the search, because +Bernardino Luini and Giorgio Vasari were contemporaries after a +fashion. Vasari would have been twenty-one years old when Luini died, +the writer of the "Lives" would have seen frescoes and panel pictures +in all the glory of their first creation. He could not have failed to +be impressed by the extraordinary beauty of the artist's conceptions, +the skill of his treatment of single figures, the wealth of the +curious and elusive charm that we call atmosphere--a charm to which +all the world's masterpieces are indebted in varying degrees--the +all-pervading sense of a delightful and refined personality, leaves +us eager for the facts that must have been well within the grasp of +the painter's contemporaries. + +Alas for these expectations! Vasari dismisses Bernardino del Lupino, +as he calls him, in six or eight sentences, and what he says has no +biographical value at all. The reference reads suspiciously like what +is known in the world of journalism as padding. Indeed, as Vasari was +a fair judge, and Bernardino Luini was not one of those Venetians whom +Vasari held more or less in contempt, there seems to be some reason +for the silence. Perhaps it was an intimate and personal one, some +unrecorded bitterness between the painter and one of Vasari's friends, +or between Vasari himself and Luini or one of his brothers or +children. Whatever the cause there is no mistake about the result. We +grumble at Vasari, we ridicule his inaccuracies, we regret his +limitations, we scoff at his prejudices, but when he withholds the +light of his investigation from contemporary painters who did not +enjoy the favour of popes and emperors, we wander in a desert land +without a guide, and search with little or no success for the details +that would serve to set the painter before us. + +Many men have taken up the work of investigation, for Luini grows +steadily in favour and esteem, but what Vasari might have done in a +week nobody has achieved in a decade. + +A few unimportant church documents relating to commissions given to +the painter are still extant. He wrote a few words on his frescoes; +here and there a stray reference appears in the works of Italian +writers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, but our knowledge +when it has been sifted and arranged is remarkably small and +deplorably incomplete. Dr. J. C. Williamson, a painstaking critic and +a competent scholar, has written an interesting volume dealing with +the painter, and in the making of it he has consulted nearly fifty +authorities--Italian, French, English, and German--only to find it is +impossible to gather a short chapter of reliable and consecutive +biography from them all. Our only hope lies in the discovery of some +rich store of information in the public or private libraries of Milan +among the manuscripts that are the delight of the scholars. Countless +documents lie unread, many famous libraries are uncatalogued, the +archives of several noble Italian houses that played an important part +in fifteenth and sixteenth century Italy have still to be given to the +world. It is not unreasonable to suppose that records of Luini's life +exist, and in these days when scholarship is ever extending its +boundaries there is hope that some scholar will lay the ever growing +circle of the painter's admirers under lasting obligations. Until that +time comes we must be content to know the man through the work that he +has left behind him, through the medium of fading frescoes, stray +altarpieces, and a few panel pictures. Happily they have a definite +and pleasant story to tell. + +We must go to Milan for Luini just as we must go to Rome for Raphael +and to Madrid for Velazquez and Titian and to Venice for Jacopo +Robusti whom men still call the Little Dyer (Tintoretto). In London we +have one painting on wood, "Christ and the Pharisees," brought from +the Borghese Palace in Rome. The head of Christ is strangely feminine, +the four Pharisees round him are finely painted, and the picture has +probably been attributed to Leonardo da Vinci at some period of its +career. There are three frescoes in South Kensington and a few panel +pictures in private collections. The Louvre is more fortunate than our +National Gallery, it has several frescoes and two or three panels. In +Switzerland, in the Church of St. Mary and the Angels in Lugano, is a +wonderful screen picture of the "Passion of Christ" with some hundreds +of figures in it, and the rest of Luini's work seems to be in Italy. +The greater part is to be found in Milan, some important frescoes +having been brought to the Brera from the house of the Pelucca family +in Monza, while there are some important works in Florence in the +Pitti and Uffizi Galleries. In the Church of St. Peter at Luino on the +shores of Lake Maggiore, the little town where Benardino was born and +from which he took his name, there are some frescoes but they are in a +very faded condition. The people of the lake side town have much to +say about the master who has made Luino a place of pilgrimage but +their stories are quite unreliable. + +[Illustration: PLATE III.--SALOMÉ AND THE HEAD OF ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST + +(In the Uffizi Gallery, Florence) + +In this striking and finely preserved picture Bernardino Luini has +contrived to avoid all sense of horror. The head of the dead John the +Baptist is full of beauty, and even Herodias is handled without any +attempt to make her repulsive. Sufficient contrast is supplied by the +executioner on the right.] + +It might be held, seeing that the artist's work is scanty, and often +in the last stages of decay, while his life story has faded quite from +the recovered records of his contemporaries, that Luini is hardly fit +subject for discussion here. In a series of little books that +seeks to introduce great artists to new friends through the medium of +reproductions that show the work as it is, and a brief concise +description that aims at helping those who are interested to study the +master for themselves, there is a temptation to deal only with popular +men. These give no trouble to their biographer or his readers, but +after all it is not the number of pictures that an artist paints or +the wealth of detail that his admirers have collected that establishes +his claim to be placed among the immortals. His claim rests upon the +quality of the work done, its relation to the times in which it was +painted, the mood or spirit it reveals, the light it throws upon the +mind that conceived and the hand that executed it. + +We know enough and to spare of the more flamboyant personalities of +the Venetian and Florentine schools. Long periods of study will not +exhaust all there is to learn about men like Titian, Michelangelo, +Raphael of Urbino, and the rest, but Luini, though he left no written +record, will not be denied. We dare not pass him by, seeing that we +may introduce him to some admirers who will, in days to come, seek and +find what remains beyond our reach at present. His appeal is so +irresistible, the beauty of his work is so rare and so enduring that +we must endeavour to the best of our ability, however small it be, to +declare his praise, to stimulate inquiry, enlarge his circle, and give +him the place that belongs to him of right. There are painters in +plenty whose work is admired and praised, whose claims we acknowledge +instantly while admitting to ourselves that we should not care to live +with their pictures hanging on round us. The qualities of cleverness +and brilliance pall after a little time, the mere conquest of +technical difficulties of the kind that have been self-inflicted +rouses admiration for a while and then leaves us cold. But the man who +is the happy possessor of a fresco or a panel picture by Luini is to +be envied. Even he who lives in the neighbourhood of some gallery or +church and only sees the rare master's works where, "blackening in the +daily candle smoke, they moulder on the damp wall's travertine," will +never tire of Luini's company. He will always find inspiration, +encouragement, or consolation in the reflection of the serene and +beautiful outlook upon life that gave the work so much of its +enduring merit. Luini, whatever manner of man he may have been, was so +clearly enamoured of beauty, so clearly intolerant of what is ugly and +unrefined, that he shrank from all that was coarse and revolting +either in the life around him or in certain aspects of the Bible +stories that gave him subjects for his brush. Beauty and simplicity +were the objects of his unceasing search, his most exquisite +expression. + +Like all other great painters he had his marked periods of +development, his best work was done in the last years of his life, but +there is nothing mean or trivial in any picture that he painted and +this is the more to his credit because we know from the documents +existing to-day that he lived in the world and not in the cloister. +We admire the perennial serenity of Beato Angelico, we rejoice with +him in his exquisite religious visions. The peaceful quality of his +painting and the happy certainty of his faith move us to the deepest +admiration, but we may not forget that Angelico lived from the time +when he was little more than a boy to the years when he was an old man +in the untroubled atmosphere of the monastery of San Marco in +Florence, that whether he was at home in that most favoured city or +working in the Vatican at Rome, he had no worldly troubles. Honour, +peace, and a mind at peace with the world were with him always. + +Bernardino Luini on the other hand travelled from one town in Italy to +another, employed by religious houses from time to time, but always as +an artist who could be relied upon to do good work cheaply. He could +not have been rich, he could hardly have been famous, it is even +reasonable to suppose that his circumstances were straitened, and on +this account the unbroken serenity of his work and his faithful +devotion to beauty are the more worthy of our praise. What was +beautiful in his life and work came from within, not from without, and +perhaps because he was a stranger to the cloistered seclusion that +made Fra Angelico's life so pleasantly uneventful his work shows +certain elements of strength that are lacking from the frescoes that +adorn the walls of San Marco to this day. To his contemporaries he was +no more than a little planet wandering at will round those fixed stars +of the first magnitude that lighted all the world of art. Now some of +those great stars have lost their light and the little planet shines +as clear as Hesperus. + + + + +II + + +As we have said already nothing is known of Luini's early life, +although the fact that he was born at Luino on the Lago Maggiore seems +to be beyond dispute. The people of that little lake side town have no +doubt at all about the matter, and they say that the family was one of +some distinction, that Giacomo of Luino who founded a monastery in his +native place was the painter's uncle. Perhaps the wish was father to +the thought, and because every man who sets out to study the life and +work of an artist is as anxious to know as was Miss Rosa Dartle +herself, there are always facts of a sort at his service. He who +seeks the truth can always be supplied with something as much like it +as paste is to diamonds, and can supplement the written word with the +aid of tradition. The early life of the artist is a blank, and the +authorities are by no means in agreement about the year of his birth. +1470 would seem to be a reasonable date, with a little latitude on +either side. Many men writing long years after the painter's death, +have held that he was a pupil of Leonardo da Vinci, indeed several +pictures that were attributed to da Vinci by the authorities of +different European galleries are now recognised as Luini's work, but +the mistake is not at all difficult to explain. If we turn to "La +Joconda," a portrait by da Vinci that hangs in the Louvre to-day, and +is apparently beyond dispute in the eyes of the present generation +of critics, and then go through the Brera in Milan with a photograph +of "La Joconda's" portrait in our hand, it will be impossible to +overlook the striking resemblance between Luini's types and da Vinci's +smiling model. Leonardo had an academy in Milan, and it is reasonable +to suppose that Luini worked in it, although at the time when he is +supposed to have come for the first time to the capital of Lombardy, +Leonardo da Vinci had left, apparently because Louis XII. of France, +cousin and successor of that Charles VIII. who had troubled the peace +of Italy for so long, was thundering at the city gates, and at such a +time great artists were apt to remember that they had good patrons +elsewhere. The school may, however, have remained open because no +great rulers made war on artists, and Luini would have learned +something of the spirit that animated Leonardo's pictures. For other +masters and influence he seems to have gone to Bramantino and Foppa. +Bramantino was a painter of Milan and Ambrosio Foppa known as +Caradosso was a native of Pavia and should not be reckoned among +Milanese artists as he has so often been. He was renowned for the +beauty of his medals and his goldsmith's work; and he was one of the +men employed by the great family of Bentivoglio. + +[Illustration: PLATE IV.--THE MYSTIC MARRIAGE OF ST. CATHERINE + +(In the Brera, Milan) + +This is a singularly attractive picture in which the child Christ may +be seen placing the ring upon the finger of St. Catherine. The little +open background, although free from the slightest suggestion of +Palestine, is very charming, and the head of the Virgin and St. +Catherine help to prove that Luini used few models.] + +It may be mentioned in this place that many Italian artists, +particularly those of the Florentine schools, suffered very greatly +from their unceasing devotion to the art of the miniaturist. They +sought to achieve his detail, his fine but cramped handling, and this +endeavour was fatal to them when they came to paint large pictures +that demanded skilled composition, and the subordination of detail to +a large general effect. The influence of the miniature painter and the +maker of medals kept many a fifteenth-century painter in the second +grade and Luini never quite survived his early devotion to their +methods, often making the fatal mistake of covering a large canvas +with many figures of varying size but equal value. It may be remarked +that Tintoretto was the first great painter of the Renaissance who +learned to subordinate parts to the whole, and he had to face a great +deal of unpopularity because he saw with his own eyes instead of using +those of his predecessors. + +[Illustration: PLATE V.--THE MADONNA OF THE ROSE + +(In the Brera, Milan) + +Modern criticism proclaims this picture of the Virgin in a Bower of +Roses to be the finest of the master's paintings. Not only is it +delightfully composed and thought out but the background is painted +with rare skill, and the colour is rich and pleasing to this day.] + +It may be suggested, with all possible respect to those who hold +different opinions, that Luini, though he responded to certain +influences, had no master in the generally accepted sense of the term. +One cannot trace the definite relation between him and any older +painter that we find between Titian and Gian Bellini, for example. He +took a certain type from Leonardo, his handling from time to time +recalls the other masters--we have already referred to the most +important of these--but had he studied in the school of one man, had +he served an apprenticeship after the fashion of his contemporaries, +his pictures would surely have been free from those faults of +composition and perspective that detract so much from the value of the +big works. He seems to have been self-taught rather than to have been +a schoolman. While his single figures are wholly admirable whether +on fresco or on panel, his grouping is nearly always ineffective, +one might say childish, and his sense of perspective is by no means +equal to that of his greatest contemporaries. As a draughtsman and a +colourist Luini had little to learn from anybody, and the poetry of +his conceptions is best understood when it is remembered that he was a +poet as well as a painter. He is said to have written poems and +essays, though we are not in a position to say where they are to be +found, and it is clear that he had a singularly detached spirit and +that the hand of a skilled painter was associated with the mind of a +little child. In some aspects he is as simple as those primitive +painters of Umbria whose backgrounds are all of gold. Like so many +other painters of the Renaissance Luini's saints and angels are +peasant folk, the people he saw around him. He may have idealised +them, but they remain as they were made. + +A few records of the prices paid for Luini's work exist among the +documents belonging to churches and religious houses, and while they +justify a belief that at the time he came to Milan Luini had achieved +some measure of distinction in his calling, they seem to prove that he +was hardly regarded as a great painter. The prices paid to him are +ridiculously small, no more than a living wage, but he had the +reputation of being a reliable and painstaking artist and he would +seem to have been content with a small reward for work that appealed +to him. His early commissions executed in and around Milan when he +first came from Luini were numerous and consisted very largely of +frescoes which are the work of a young man who has not yet freed his +own individuality from the influence of his elders. One of the most +charming works associated with this period is the "Burial of St. +Catherine," which is reproduced in these pages. The composition is +simple enough, the handling does not touch the summit of the painter's +later achievements, but the sentiment of the picture is quite +delightful. St. Catherine is conceived in a spirit of deepest +reverence and devotion, but the angels are just Lombardy peasant girls +born to labour in the fields and now decorated with wings in honour of +a great occasion. And yet the man who could paint this fresco and +could show so unmistakably his own simple faith in the story it sets +out, was a poet as well as a painter even though he had never written +a line, while the treatment of his other contemporary frescoes and +the fine feeling for appropriate colour suggest a great future for the +artist who had not yet reached middle age. We see that Luini devoted +his brush to mythological and sacred subjects, touching sacred history +with a reverent hand, shutting his eyes to all that was painful, +expressing all that was pitiful or calculated to strengthen the hold +of religion upon the mass in fashion destined to appeal though in +changing fashion for at least four centuries. Where the works have +failed to triumph as expressions of a living faith they have charmed +agnostics as an expression of enduring beauty. + +From Milan Luini seems to have gone to Monza, a city a few miles away +from the capital of Lombardy where the rulers of united Italy come +after their coronation to receive the iron crown that has been worn by +the kings of Lombardy for nearly a thousand years. This is the city in +which the late King Umberto, that brave and good man, was foully +murdered by an anarchist. To-day one reaches Monza by the help of a +steam-tram that blunders heavily enough over the wide flat Lombardy +plain. The Milanese go to Monza for the sake of an outing, but most of +the tourists who throng the city stay away, and it is possible to +spend a few pleasant hours in the cathedral and churches with never a +flutter of red-covered guide book to distract one's attention from the +matters to which the hasty tourist is blind. Here Luini painted +frescoes, and it is known that he stayed for a long time at the house +of one of the strong men of Monza and painted a large number of +frescoes there. To-day the fortress, if it was one, has become a +farmhouse, and the frescoes, more than a dozen in all, have been taken +away to the Royal Palace in Milan. Dr. Williamson in his interesting +volume to which the student of Luini must be deeply indebted, says +that there is one left at the Casa Pelucca. The writer in the course +of two days spent in Monza was unfortunate enough to overlook it. + +It has been stated that the facts relating to Luini's life are few and +far between. Fiction on the other hand is plentiful, and there is a +story that Luini, shortly after his arrival in Milan, was held +responsible by the populace for the death of a priest who fell from a +hastily erected scaffolding in the church of San Giorgio where the +artist was working. The rest of the legend follows familiar lines that +would serve the life story of any leading artist of the time, seeing +that they all painted altar-pieces and used scaffolding. He is said to +have fled to Monza, to have been received by the chief of the Pelucca +family, to have paid for his protection with the frescoes that have +now been brought from Monza to the Brera, to have fallen violently in +love with the beautiful daughter of the house, to have engaged in +heroic contests against great odds on her behalf, and so on, _ad +absurdum_. If we look at the portraits the painter is said to have +made of himself and to have placed in pictures at Saronna and +elsewhere we shall see that Luini was hardly the type of man to have +engaged in the idle pursuits of chivalry in the intervals of the work +to which his life was given. We have the head of a man of thought not +that of a man of action, and all the character of the face gives the +lie to the suggestions of the storytellers. It is clear, however, that +the painter made a long stay in Monza and when he came back to Milan +he worked for the churches of St. Maurizio, Santa Maria della Pace, +Santa Maria di Brera, and St. Ambrosia. + +[Illustration: PLATE VI.--DETAIL OF FRESCO + +(In the Brera, Milan) + +This prettily posed figure is at the base of a fresco of the Virgin +with Saints in the Brera. Part of the artist's signature (Bernardinus +Louinus) may be seen below. It will be remembered that Carpaccio +painted a very similar subject. The fresco is not too well preserved.] + +In Milan he found a great patron, no less a man than Giovanni +Bentivoglio who had been driven from his rule over Bologna by the +"Terrible Pontiff" Julius II., that life-long opponent and bitter +enemy of the Borgia Pope Alexander VI. Alessandro Bentivoglio, the son +of the ruined Giovanni, married Ippolita Sforza, daughter of one +of the house that had done so much to rule Rome until Pope +Alexander VI. broke its power. Alessandro Bentivoglio commissioned +Luini to paint altar-pieces in St. Maurizio where his father was +buried, and the painter included in his work a portrait of Ippolita +Sforza with three female saints. He did much other work in this +church; some of it has faded almost beyond recognition. + +At the same time there is no need to think that we have recovered the +last work of Luini or indeed of the great masters even in the churches +of Italy. Only a few months ago the writer was in a small Italian +church that had suffered a few years ago from disastrous floods. The +water unable to find no outlet had risen for a time almost to the top +of the supporting columns. The smooth wall above was plastered, and +when the waters had subsided it was found that the plaster had become +so damaged that it was necessary to remove it. Happily the work was +done carefully, for under the whitewash some excellent frescoes were +discovered. They would seem to have profited by their covering for as +much as has been uncovered is rich and well preserved. It may be that +in days when the State of Italy was seriously disturbed, and Napoleon, +greatest of highwaymen and conquerors, after being crowned in Milan +with the famous Monza crown, was laying his hand on all that seemed +worth carrying away, some one in authority thought of this simple +method of concealment, and obtained expert advice that enabled the +frescoes to be covered without serious damage. Under similar +conditions we may yet discover some of the earlier work of Luini, +because it is clear that the years in which his reputation was in the +making must have been full of achievement of which the greater part +has now been lost. He could hardly have been less than thirty years of +age when he came to Milan with a reputation sufficient to gain +commissions for work in churches; that reputation must have taken +years to acquire, and must have been associated with very definite +accomplishment. The lack of all record was essentially the misfortune +that beset men who were not very high in the esteem of their +contemporaries. A painter like Luini would have executed a great many +pictures for people who could not pay very well, and had no great +gallery or well-built church to harbour the work, and in the course +of time the work would tend inevitably to disappear before the +devouring candle-smoke, or to be carried away by unscrupulous +purchasers who chanced to be better equipped with taste than +conscience. On the other hand, painters who led the various movements +of their time would be honoured by successive generations and their +work would be stored in the best and safest places. To be sure, fire +was never a respecter of palaces or persons, and the flames have +consumed more work than a collection of the finest Renaissance +pictures in existence could show, but even then the odds seem to be in +favour of the bigger men because special efforts would be made to save +their paintings while those of lesser men would be left with few +regrets to take their chance. + +When Luini was engaged to work in the Church of St. Maurizio there was +a fair chance that his altar-pieces and frescoes would be well looked +after, but when he worked for a small provincial family like the +Pelucca the house sank with the family fortunes till at last it became +a farm, and in the early years of the nineteenth century the frescoes +were taken from the walls with as much care as was deemed advisable. +Doubtless Luini worked for many men whose worldly position was not as +considerable as that of the Pelucca family, and that work may have +disappeared altogether. The painter, as we have seen, did not enjoy +the patronage of many great men before Alessandro Bentivoglio, and +large institutions were not numbered among his early clients. But he +was not altogether without valuable patronage in the latter days, and +in the early 'twenties of the sixteenth century the influential +Brotherhood of the Holy Crown, one of the leading charitable +institutions of Milan, would seem to have given him some official +connection with their institution; a recognised position without fixed +salary. For them he painted the magnificent frescoes now in the +Ambrosian Library. The great work there was divided by the artist into +three parts separated by pillars. In the centre Luini has depicted the +crowning with thorns, Christ being seated upon a throne while thorns +are being put upon His head; His arms are crossed; His expression one +of supreme resignation. Above Him little angels look down or point +to a cartouche on which is written "Caput Regis Gloriæ Spinis +Coranatur." In the left hand division of the fresco and on the right, +the fore-ground is filled with kneeling figures whose heads are +supposed to be portraits of the most prominent members of the Society. +Clearly they are all men who have achieved some measure of honour and +distinction. Above the kneeling figures on the left hand side St. John +is pointing out the tragedy of the central picture to the Virgin Mary, +while on the right hand side a man in armour and another who is seen +faintly behind him call the attention of a third to what is happening. +A crown of thorns hangs above the right and the left hand compartment +and there is a landscape for background. It is recorded that this work +took about six months, and was finished in March 1522 at a cost to the +Society of 115 soldi. So Luini's work looks down to-day upon a part +of the great Ambrosian Library, and it may well be that the library +itself will yield to patient investigation some record, however +simple, of the painter's life, sufficient perhaps to enable us to +readjust our mental focus and see his lovable figure more clearly. + +[Illustration: PLATE VII.--HEAD OF VIRGIN + +(In the Ambrosiana, Milan) + +Here we have another well painted and finely preserved head painted +from one of Luini's favourite models. The artist must have known most +of the secrets of colour preparation, for his work has survived much +that was painted centuries later. Unfortunately his frescoes were +exposed to the elements and have suffered accordingly.] + +It may be urged that for those of us who are content to see with the +spiritual eye Luini is expressed more eloquently by his work, and +particularly by this great picture in the Ambrosian Library, than he +could hope to be by the combined efforts of half-a-dozen critics, each +with his own special point of view and his properly profound contempt +for the views of others. The painter's low tones and subtle harmonies, +his pure but limited vision, speak to us of a gentle, refined, and +delicate nature, of an achievement that stopped short of +cleverness and consequently limited him to the quieter byways of +artistic life, while those whose inspiration was less, and whose gifts +were more, moved with much pomp and circumstance before admiring +contemporaries. The refined mind, the sensitive soul, shrank from +depicting the tragedy of the Crown of Thorns in the realistic fashion +that would have proved acceptable to so many other artists. Luini +forgets the blood and the spikes, he almost forgets the physical pain, +and gives us the Man of Sorrows who has forgiven His tormentors +because "they know not what they do." + +Continental galleries show us many treatments of the same familiar +theme, they have none to show that can vie with this in a combination +of strength and delicacy that sets out an immortal story while +avoiding the brutal realism to which so many other artists have +succumbed. We may suppose that the objects of the Society roused +Luini's sympathy to an extent that made it easy for him to accept the +somewhat paltry remuneration with which the Brotherhood of the Holy +Crown rewarded him, and so the picture makes its own appeal on the +painter's behalf, and tells a story of his claims upon our regard. A +man may lie, in fact it may be suggested on the strength of the +Psalmist's statement that most men do, but an artist's life work tells +his story in spite of himself, and if he labour with pen or brush his +truest biography will be seen in what he leaves behind him. It is not +possible to play a part throughout all the vicissitudes of a long +career, and no man could have given us the pictures that Luini has +left unless he chanced to be a choice and rare spirit. We may remember +here and now that the time was richer in violent contrasts than any of +its successors, the most deplorable excesses on the one hand, the most +rigid virtues on the other, seem to have been the special product of +the Renaissance. While there were men who practised every vice under +the sun there were others who sought to arrest Divine Retribution by +the pursuit of all the virtues, and while the progress of the years +has to a certain extent made men neutral tinted in character, the +season of the Renaissance was one of violent contrasts. On behalf of +the section that went in pursuit of righteousness let it be remembered +that heaven and the saints were not matters for speculation, they +were certainties. Every man knew that God was in heaven, and that if +the workers of iniquity flourished, it was that they might be +destroyed for ever. Every man knew that the saints still exerted their +supernatural powers and would come down to earth if need be to protect +a devotee. Satan, on the other hand, went armed about the earth +seeking whom he might devour, and hell was as firmly fixed as heaven. +In order to understand Luini, his life and times, these facts must be +borne in mind. The greater the unrest in the cities the more the +public attention would be turned to statesmen and warriors, and when +the personalities of artists began to be considered, those who lived +and thrived in the entourage of popes and rulers monopolised the +attention. Hundreds of men were at work earning a fair living and +some local repute, it was left to foreign favour to set a seal upon +success. Had Luini chanced to be invited to Venice or to Rome he would +have been honoured throughout Lombardy; but a painter like a prophet +is often without honour in his own country. Luini's gifts were of a +more quiet and domestic order than those of his great contemporaries +Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, for example, were more than +painters, and perhaps it was only in Venice that painting stood by +itself and managed to thrive alone. Luini would have come into his +kingdom while he lived had Venice been his birthplace. The genius of +the Florentine school sought to express itself in half-a-dozen +different ways, no triumph in one department of work could satisfy men +whose longing for self-expression was insatiable. In those days it +was possible for a man to make himself master of all knowledge, +literally he could discourse _de omnibus rebus et quibusdam aliis_. +And this diffusion of interests was fatal to many a genius that might +have moved to amazing triumph along one road. + +It is clear that Bernardino Luini never travelled very far from his +native country either physically or mentally. In the eyes of his +contemporaries he was not a man of sufficient importance to receive +commissions from the great art centres of Italy. This, of course, may +be because he did not have the good fortune to attract the attention +of the connoisseurs of his day, for we find that outside Milan, and +the little town of Luino where he was born and whence he took his +name, his work was done in comparatively small towns like Como, +Legnano, Lugano, Ponte, and Saronno. Milan and Monza may be +disregarded because we have already dealt with the work there. +Saronno, which lies some fourteen miles north-west of Milan, is little +more than a village to-day, and its chief claim upon the attention of +the traveller is its excellent gingerbread for which it is famous +throughout Lombardy. It has a celebrated church known as the Sanctuary +of the Blessed Virgin and here one finds some very fine examples of +our painter's frescoes. Some of the frescoes in the church are painted +by Cesare del Magno others by Lanini, and the rest are from the hand +of Bernardino Luini. Round these frescoes, which are of abiding +beauty, and include fine studies of the great plague saint, St. Roque, +and that very popular martyr St. Sebastian, many legends congregate. +It is said that Luini having killed a man in a brawl fled from Milan +to the Church of the Blessed Virgin in Monza to claim sanctuary at the +hand of the monks. They gave him the refuge he demanded, and, says the +legend, he paid for it with frescoes. This is little more than a +variant of the story that he went to Monza under similar circumstances +and obtained the protection of the Pelucca family on the same terms. +In the absence of anything in the nature of reliable record this story +has been able to pass, but against it one likes to put the tradition +that one of the heads in the frescoes is that of Luini himself. We +find that head so simple, so refined, and so old--the beard is long +and the hair is scanty--and so serene in its expression that it is +exceedingly difficult to believe that brawling could have entered into +the artist's life. + +[Illustration: PLATE VIII.--BURIAL OF ST. CATHERINE + +(In the Brera, Milan) + +This is one of the frescoes painted by Luini for the Casa Pelucca and +transferred to Milan in the beginning of the nineteenth century. It +will be seen that although the three angels bearing the Saint to her +grave are obviously peasant girls from the plains of Lombardy winged +for the occasion, the artist has handled his subject with faith and +reverence. The fresco is better preserved than others from the same +house.] + +The subjects of the pictures in Saronno's Sanctuary are all biblical. +We have an Adoration of the Magi, showing the same muddled composition +that detracts from the other merits of the artist's work; a beautiful +Presentation in the Temple in which the composition is a great deal +better; and a perfectly delightful Nativity. There is a Christ is +Disputing with the Doctors, and this is the picture in which we find +the head that is said to be a portrait of the painter himself. Two +female saints figure in another picture, and Luini's favourites St. +Roque and St. Sebastian are not forgotten. Certainly if the monks +obtained all that work at the price of the painter's safety they were +very fortunate in his choice of sanctuary. + +Como is, of course, a more important town with large industries and +important factories, and one of the finest cathedrals in northern +Italy. For the interior Luini painted another Adoration of the Magi +and another of his favourite Nativities. It is not easy to speak about +the conditions under which this work was done, and the inhabitants +have so many more profitable matters to attend to that they do not +seem to trouble themselves about the history of the painter who helped +to make their beautiful cathedral still more beautiful. + +Legnano, with its memories of Frederick Barbarossa, is within twenty +miles of Milan, and for the Church of San Magno Luini painted one of +his finest altar-pieces. It is in seven divisions and has earned as +much critical admiration as any work from the master's brush. + +Lugano is of course in Switzerland, well across the Italian border. It +is a popular place enough to-day, and so far as we can tell, it was +the city in which Luini painted his last pictures. He must have left +Milan about 1528 or 1529, and he would seem to have gone there to +execute commissions, for in the Church of Santa Maria degli Angioli we +find some of his latest and finest work. The Crucifixion and the +Passion, on the wall of the screen, contains several hundred figures +arranged in lines in most archaic fashion. At first sight the work +appears as a mere mass of figures without any central point in the +composition, and with very little relief for the eye of the spectator +who may come to the church surfeited with the bewildering riches of +many Italian galleries. But for those who will take the trouble to +study the details of this fine work there is very much to admire. In +the scene of the picture Christ is seen on the cross surrounded by +angels. On his right hand the penitent thief on the cross is guarded +by an angel, while on the left the impenitent one is watched by a +devil with a curly tail and spiked wings. Below in perfectly +bewildering fashion are many figures that may be recognised with +little effort--Mary Magdalen, the Madonna, Joseph of Arimathæa, Roman +soldiers, some of the general public--a confused crowd. The whole +picture is supported by figures of San Sebastian and St. Roque seen on +either side of the arch. Stories from the life of Christ are depicted +in the upper parts of the picture, all are painted with the skill of a +great artist and the fervour of a devotee, but the arrangement is +hopelessly confused. Luini also painted a "Last Supper" for this +church and a "Madonna with the Infant Christ and St. John." This is +signed "Bernardino Luini, anno 1530." From 1530 until 1533 the career +of the artist cannot be traced, but in 1533 he was in Lugano again, +and after that year he passes altogether from our sight. Stray writers +mention his name, some venture to carry the date of his life into the +'forties, but we have no proof save their word, no work to record the +later years, and all our conjecture is vain. It must suffice for us +that Luini's life as far as his art was concerned ends for us with the +year 1533. If he lived and worked after that date the facts relating +to the following years and the work done in the latter days are left +for future students to discover. It is well to remember that the +Saronno portrait makes the painter look much older than he is supposed +to have been. + +To his contemporaries it is clear that Luini was a man of small +importance. His best work is seen outside the radius of the great Art +centres of Italy, and it was only when he attracted the attention of +great critics and sound judges like Morelli, John Ruskin, and John +Addington Symonds that the lovers of beautiful pictures began to go +out of their way to find his best work in the little towns whose +churchmen were his patrons. So many of the lesser men had all his +faults--that is to say, lack of perspective and inability to compose a +big picture--that he was classed with them by those critics whose +special gift lies in the discovery of faults. The qualities that make +the most enduring appeal to us to-day were those that were least +likely to make a strong impression upon the strenuous age of physical +force in which he lived. When great conquerors and men who had +accomplished all that force could achieve felt themselves at liberty +to turn to prolonged consideration of the other sides of life they +employed other masters. Then as now there were fashions in painters. +The men for whom Luini strove were of comparatively small importance. +A conqueror could have gathered up in the hollow of his hand all the +cities, Milan excepted, in which Luini worked throughout his +well-spent life, and in the stress and strife of the later years when +great pictures did change hands from time to time by conquest, Luini's +panel pictures in the little cities of his labours passed quite +unnoticed, while even if the frescoes were admired it was not easy to +move them. When at last his undoubted merits began to attract +attention of connoisseurs, these connoisseurs were wondering why +Leonardo da Vinci had left such a small number of pictures. They +found work that bore a great resemblance to Leonardo and they promptly +claimed that they had discovered the lost masterpieces. Consequently +Leonardo received the credit that was due to the man who may have +worked in his Milanese school and was undoubtedly under his influence +for a time. And many of the beautiful panel pictures that show Luini +at his best were attributed to Leonardo until nineteenth-century +criticism proved competent enough to render praise where it was due, +and to say definitely and with firm conviction that the unknown +painter from Luino, who lived sometime between 1470 and 1540, was the +true author. + +If, in dealing with the life of Bernardino Luini, we are forced to +content ourselves with meagre scraps of biography and little details +that would have no importance at all in dealing with a life that was +traceable from early days to its conclusion, it is well to remember +that the most important part of the great artist is his work. +Beethoven's nine symphonies, Milton's "Paradise Lost," the landscapes +of Corot, the portraits of Velazquez, and the carving of Grinling +Gibbons are not more precious to us because we know something of the +life of the men who did the work. Nor are the "Iliad" and the +fragments that remain of the works of the great Greek sculptors less +to us because a shadowy tradition is all that surrounds the lives of +the men who gave immortal work to the world. We must remember that it +is as difficult to deal with art in terms of literature as it is to +express the subtle charm of music in words. Had Luini's years boasted +or regretted a series of gossiping newspapers we should have gathered +a rich harvest of fact, but the facts would have left the painter +where he is. There is enough of Luini left in Milan and the smaller +places we have named to tell us what the man was and the spirit in +which he worked, and while we will welcome the new-comer who can add +to our scanty store of authenticated facts we can hardly expect that +they will deepen our admiration of work that for all its shortcomings +must be remembered when we turn to ponder the greatest achievements of +Italian Art. It forms "a magic speculum, much gone to rust, indeed, +yet in fragments still clear; wherein the marvellous image of his +existence does still shadow itself, though fitfully, and as with an +intermittent light." + + +The plates are printed by BEMROSE DALZIEL, LTD., Watford + +The text at the BALLANTYNE PRESS, Edinburgh + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Bernardino Luini, by James Mason + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 42163 *** |